No No Noah

I went to see the movie Noah last night.  What can I say? Well, British film critic Mark Kermode described it as: "It is what it is", and that's the best thing we can say about it. No doubt you have read many or at least some of the reviews, which have not been favourable. My review can be summed up in one word: excruciating. 

As we know, it bears little relation to the Biblical texts, quite apart from the ark and the animals and the names of Biblical figures given to the characters. On the positive side there is some good cinematography, and a tableau of creation at the centre of the movie is very good.  But after that, wow.  

The portrayal of Noah is nowhere near the Scriptural exploration of his character.  Crowe's Noah is a looney eco-warrior who is so convinced that the earth and the animals can only be saved by the destruction of humanity, he is determined to kill off his unborn grandchildren and refuses to find wives for his sons for fear they would procreate. He wants to ensure that they will all die so earth will be paradise again (we have heard that proposition before and not only from mad ecologists, but also from respected media naturalists). Aronofsky's Noah is a man absolutely saturated in despair and hatred of humanity: he is a nihilist. 

What is really disturbing for me is that God gets the blame: Noah is convinced that it is God who does not want humanity to survive at all and he is only following God's command. This is not just a departure from the Biblical text which concerns God's enacting a new creation, but almost an attack on God who is portrayed as a tyrant and misanthrope. 

And as for the fallen angels who become rock monsters and then are redeemed and readmitted to heaven in the end....well, we'll say no more. 

If you see it, do not take it as a version of the Biblical story, but watch it as a stand alone movie, a fantasy movie about another dystopian world, and come to your own conclusions....if you choose to go.

That said, I think should Russell Crowe and companions ever meet the real Noah in the afterlife, I sense that it will be a very awkward encounter.

Crowe's Ark

 

Well, I didn't see this one coming.  Russell Crowe will be appearing on the big screen next year playing Noah, him of the Biblical ark fame.  It seems Hollywood is still interested in Biblical subjects, and looking at the cast list it's obvious they are certainly taking this one seriously: Russell, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Jennifer Connolly, Emma Watson.  It looks interesting and seems to present the Bible story in a realistic way.  It is due to be released in March. 

 

I notice the caption on the poster "The end of the world...is just the beginning". Is this movie another in the style of 2012 or the various zombie apocalypse offerings?  Culture, or popular culture at least, seems fascinated with apocalypse disasters, is this a sign that some have realised that our civilisation has reached an end point and they are trying to work out what will happen?  Now that the Millennium has passed, one wonders why such millenarianism should be part of the zeitgeist?

 

As a Christian, observing the nature of the changes taking place in western civilisation and culture I can see this civilisation cannot continue indefinitely, too many of its foundations: moral, cultural and spiritual have been hacked away by ideologues: our civilisation is no longer stable.  The redefinition of marriage and the family could probably be the last straw and may well be the ticking time bomb which in a generation or two brings down the edifice of western civilisation again.  I say "again" because it has happened before, and back then only the Catholic Church was left standing; she played an important part in the reconstruction of the west morally, culturally and spiritually. Perhaps this is what Blessed John Paul II saw when he initiated the New Evangelisation and spoke of a new springtime for the Gospel: is this what the Holy Spirit is preparing the Church for?  Or, perhaps the end is near after all.  

 

If it is, well then: "Maranatha: Come Lord Jesus".  In the meantime, here is the trailer.  I think I will go to see this, if we're still around....

 

Are We Agreed?

God makes a covenant with Noah and his family.  As we read today's reading from Genesis we hear God repeat the blessing he first uttered at creation: "Be fruitful, multiple and fill the earth".  He re-establishes man as the preeminent creature on earth, but also as one which must be the most responsible.  He outlaws the murder of other human beings because they are created in the image and likeness of God.

The covenant God makes here is with all the earth, all creation, and the sign of this covenant is the rainbow.  This covenant prepares for the one the Lord will make with Moses and then the New Covenant in Christ.  God is making peace with the earth and humanity as the first step towards redemption.  In this covenant God promises to sustain creation and the natural order - he will not send another flood.  As God makes this promise, his side of the covenant, Noah and his descendents must fulfil theirs, and this is symbolised by the ban on consuming blood.  This is of course a looking towards the kosher laws of the Mosaic covenant, but here I think we can see another meaning. 

Blood, for the Jews and other ancient peoples was seen as the principle of life, as God points out in verse 4, so it has to be respected.  Here God is telling humanity to respect life and the natural order, and the law which will govern this is the natural law: that which is written in our very humanity.  The natural law is that which is the most basic of laws and it provides the foundation for the divine law when it is revealed to Moses and then by Jesus.  When that law is heeded that peace which existed between God and the earth following the flood is maintained, order is maintained. 

Some examples: natural law tells us murder is wrong (and so abortion is wrong since it is murder - the killing of the innocent).  Stealing is wrong.  Adultery is wrong since it is the betrayal of an intimate relationship.  These are basic transgressions that we know are wrong by instinct.  But natural law also tells us that certain relations are wrong - between people of the same sex, between humans and animals, since such relations contradict the natural order of our bodies and the process of reproduction.

We live in an age when natural law is denied and fought against.  Goverments and legislatures have abandoned this most basic and sound rule of life, and as they do so society begins to suffer.  People may ask, why is society in melt down mode in so many places? Perhaps it is because we no longer want to adhere to what is most human and natural, but seek to manipulate it and when we do find we create problems for ourselves. 

Turning Over A New Leaf

When Adam and Eve were trying to hide their nakedness they desperately made a desperate suit of clothes for themselves from leaves - the fig leaf has become the iconographical expression of their fall.  In our reading from Genesis today we have another leaf - that of the olive, now symbol of peace, which informs Noah that the flood has subsided - the new creation is emerging from the waters.

As I was praying this reading today I was struck, in my imagination, by the silence which must have greeted Noah and his family as they opened the doors and walked out on to earth again.  First there was probably all sorts of noises from the animals on the ark - imagine the sleepless nights there - they must have had a few tense moments during the weeks in the ark, perhaps even a few tense words were spoken.  Going outside to an empty earth must have been strange.  But then there is the silence which emerges when the cacophony of sin and chaos has gone - that silence which most equates with peace.  Perhaps at that moment, perhaps even for just that moment, there was peace on earth.  Noah then offers sacrifice, a thanksgiving, but also a desire to remain in that peace - to remain in friendship with God.

Noah and his family represented God's attempt to begin again: as Noah foreshadows Christ, his family foreshadows the Church, the silent earth and saved animals, the new creation.   Here in this mysterious event the sacrifice of Jesus and the establishing of the New Covenant is prepared for, alluded to, promised.  

Here also we see the new beginning - a second chance, hopefully to get things right.  Noah, a righteous man, in peace with God, represents the hope that human beings can finally undo the damage and rise again to what God intends us to be.  It was not to be so for some time.  Noah's descendants would fall again: humanity would have to wait for the Messiah to come, and he, God and Man would fulfil the hope the silent and peaceful earth after the flood longed for.

This reading today brings to mind the new beginning all of us may experience in the Sacrament of Confession.  In that Sacrament the waters of grace pour over us like a flood putting to death within us our sinfulness and seeking to heal the original wound of Adam's sin which manifests itself as weakness and pride.  Emerging from the Sacrament - the confession box is a worthy image for the ark, we too face the silence and peace of reconciliation, of God's presence now felt more profoundly thanks to the grace of our encounter with him in his mercy.   Like Noah, emerging from the ark, the first thing we must do in that moment is offer sacrifice, offer ourselves, so we will remain in his peace and become stronger and holier.

Noah, Row the Boat Ashore!

Well, as we follow the narrative of the Book of Genesis things turn from bad to worse!   Cain heads off and starts his own lineage and they get up to all sorts of devilment; the virtuous Enoch lives a holy life and is taken up to God, and Seth fathers a line of righteous people.  However, human beings, now marked with original sin, soon let things get out of control and before you know it things are chaotic as they live lives that would make an Amsterdam madame blush.   Time to start again, says God. 

The story of the flood is very curious.  Unfortunate for those scholars who like to dismiss a literal reading of Scripture, seeing even the miracles of Jesus, and with some his Resurrection, not as real historical events but as symbolic stories, the story of the flood defies, to a point, such an interpretation. Numerous religious traditions and legends of Mesopotemia preserve stories of a major flood which took place at some point in history.  The famous ancient poem The Epic of Gilgamesh, for example, records a flood not unlike the story we are reading here today.   So the story of Noah and the flood cannot be dismissed.    Whatever that primeval event was, the meaning is clear: God seeks to bring about a new creation. 

Noah was a righteous man, he has found favour in God's sight, and so he is to become another Adam: the human race will begin again with him; he also foreshadows Christ.  Noah, his wife, their sons and their wives will be preserved, and with them representatives of the animals of the world - seven pairs of every clean animal, two pairs of every unclean animal (anticipating the distinction of the Law of Moses).   These survivors are to find refuge in an ark - a large boat.  Note the symbolism of wood throughout the story of the fall and redemption: the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the wooden ark, the Cross of Christ.  The waters will sweep across the world, wiping out sinful humanity and an agent in the bringing about the new creation.  Here, scholars tell us, we see a foreshadowing of baptism where humanity is renewed in the holy waters of regeneration.   So humanity is saved, reborn, through wood and water - the Cross and the waters of baptism.

All of this should give us great confidence.  As we look out onto the world we might think that another flood is badly needed.  Well, not so.  The story of Noah, his ark and the flood remind us that God has the power to overcome even the greatest evil, to save the righteous and to transform all situations.  We should never lose faith in God even when his own ministers fail.   This story, understood in its symbolic significance, should also bring us back to reflect on our baptism and what it means.