Pentecost 16 (NL1) John B. Valentine
Genesis 6:5-22; 8:6-12; 9:8-17 September 13, 2026

“WHEN HOPE TAKES WING”

Okay, folks! Today the adventure begins anew!

Today ... once again ... we begin a journey that will last us until next Memorial Day ...

A journey that will take us through some of the most significant stories in the Bible ...

Through Genesis and Exodus ... and Kings and the prophets ... and then the Gospel according to Matthew and finally through Paul’s Letter to the Church in Rome.

Just to remind you ... at least from my perspective ... we ... in our day and age ...

• We don’t much KNOW the key stories of the Bible ... and

• We don’t have many points of connection WITH the key stories of the Bible ... and

• We don’t much LISTEN to the key stories of the Bible.

And because we don’t KNOW and CONNECT WITH and LISTEN to those stories ...

• We don’t ALLOW OUR LIVES TO BE SHAPED by the key stories of the Bible ...

• And thus we have no right to call ourselves “People of the Book.”

But rather than just throwing our hands up in surrender along with the rest of post-modernity ...

We choose to renew our journey through the Scripture ... so as to be truly ‘counter-cultural’ ...

And dare to connect with and listen to and heed and be shaped by this Word!

So let’s get on with it!

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Today’s story is ... obviously ... Noah’s Ark ... or at least part of the story of Noah and the Ark.

But Now ... as is the case any time we tackle the story of Noah’s Ark ... I need to caution you that there are at least three different versions of this story.

One of them is Noah’s Ark ... the G-rated Version ... the one that is suitable for all audiences

This is the way that Noah’s Ark USUALLY gets portrayed ... as a cheery children’s tale.

• It’s the version of the story that has given birth to Fisher Price Noah’s Ark toys and countless lines of stuffed animals.

• It’s the version of the story that has given us church preschool rooms painted with smiling animals and beautiful rainbows.

• It’s the version of the story that has spawned happy melodies that kids sing with great gusto ... like:

The Lord said to Noah, "There's gonna be a floody, floody."
Lord said to Noah, "There's gonna be a floody, floody."
"Get those children out of the muddy, muddy!" ... Children of the Lord.

So Noah, he built him, he built him an arky, arky.
Noah, he built him, he built him an arky, arky.
Made it out of hickory barky, barky ... Children of the Lord.

The animals, they came on, they came on by twosies, twosies.
The animals, they came on, they came on by twosies, twosies.
Elephants and kangaroosies, roosies ... Children of the Lord.

So rise and shine and give God the glory, glory!
Rise and shine and give God the glory, glory!
Rise and shine and give God the glory, glory! ... Children of the Lord

The G-rated version of Noah’s Ark is all about:

• The animals coming in ... two by two ...
• Noah and his family living amid a zoological menagerie ...
• God rescuing Noah and keeping Noah’s family safe-and-sound ...
• And then ... at the end of the story ... a rainbow.

Problem is ... the G-rated version of the Noah’s Ark story avoids some of the less-pleasant ... the more-problematic ... portions of that tale.

And ... specifically ... it avoids the question of WHY.

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Then there’s the PG-13 version of Noah’s Ark.

That’s the one that preachers and Bible teachers love to expound on.

That’s the one that rolls the start of the story all the way back to like Genesis 1 and 2 ... and focuses particularly on the WHY.

The PG-13 story begins with God creating a world that is described as ‘Good’ and ‘Very good’.

• And then Adam and Eve eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil ... and things start to spiral downward ...

• And then ... in chapter 4 ... Cain murders his brother Abel ...

• And ... by the beginning of chapter 6 ... God looks out on the beautiful Creation which God has made ... and sees so much violence ... that God regrets having ever introduced people into the picture in the first place!

So the ‘WHY?’ in the Noah’s Ark story has to do with God wanting to hit the ‘reset’ button on this whole ‘humanity’ thing ... except for the fact that this one fellow Noah had found favor in the sight of God ... that Noah was righteous and blameless and innocent ... and that God wouldn’t hold Noah accountable for something that Noah didn’t do.

And thus the story of Noah becomes the story of salvation ... of God saving innocent Noah and the innocent animals while at one and the same time eliminating all the ne’er-do-wells.

Then again ... there’s the R-rated version of Noah’s Ark ... the one with the scenes from the end of the story that usually get left on the cutting room floor.

But we best not even try to get into that here today.

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Anyhow ... right toward the end of the whole Noah story ... in whichever version of that account you might wish to watch ... there’s a detail that’s worth noting.

• After Noah has built the ark ...
• After the rains came down and the floods came up ...
• After all those hundred-and-fifty nights on-board that boat ...

The ark comes to rest near the top of a lofty mountain.

And Noah sends out a raven ... as a sort of a test ...

And that test comes back inconclusive.

So then Noah sends out a dove ...

But the dove finds no place to land and returns to the ark.

And so Noah waits another seven days and sends out the dove again.

And this time the dove returns ... ‘and there – in its beak – was a freshly plucked olive leaf.’

“AND THERE – IN ITS BEAK – WAS A FRESHLY PLUCKED OLIVE LEAF.”

From which Noah could thus deduce ...

• That the waters of the flood were residing ... and

• That plants were beginning to re-establish themselves in their settings ... and

• That life was beginning to be restored upon the earth.

In short ... that freshly-plucked olive leaf was a sign of hope ...

And that dove was herself a messenger OF hope.

And I can’t help but imagine that that simple message of hope changed EVERYTHING for the folks who were aboard the ark that day.

I mean ... that simple olive leaf ... in and of itself ... it must have changed the crew’s mindset from “How much longer?” to “Not much longer!” in just the twinkling of an eye.

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Messages of hope.

Have you experienced such things?

• The babysitter has been with you FAR too long.
You’re wishing that things would just get back to normal.
Mom calls to let you know she’ll be home in ten minutes.
Those words pretty well reset your perspective.
That’s a message of hope.

• You replanted your wife’s favorite rosebush in a new corner of the backyard.
You’re wondering if you killed it when you uprooted it from where it was.
A green leaf appears on the main stem of that plant.
You’ve breathe a deep sigh of relief.
That’s a message of hope.

• You’ve been in that hospital bed for far to long.
You’re pining for a night’s sleep where they’re not waking you up every two hours.
The nurse tells you the social worker is on their way up to work the discharge protocol.
That news pretty well resets your perspective.
That’s a message of hope.

• You’ve worried about your adult child who’s hit a rocky patch in their marriage.
You’re wondering if they’re on the path to a divorce.
Your child informs you know that they’ve decided to admit things could be better and go see a counselor to improve their couple-communication skills.
That news pretty well resets your perspective.
That’s a message of hope.

Messages of hope come in all different shapes and sizes.

• Some of them involve words ... like a phone call.

• Some of them involve deeds ... like a card of encouragement.

• Some of them involve items ... like a freshly-sprung leaf or a freshly-picked olive leaf delivered by a dove.

But all of them becomes ways in which hope can be restored ... encouragement offered ... a glimpse of light shined despite all of the darkness.

And I take from this text ... from that dove’s simply action ... an invitation:

That we ... like that dove ... are invited to become messengers of hope to a dark and despairing world.

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This ... folks ... is maybe our first takeaway from our journey through the Bible this year.

That ... just as that dove carried a message of hope to a despairing family there on the ark ... that we too might be bearers of hope to be people who are hurting and haunted and hope-less.

I mean ... what would it take for you ... this week ... to bear a message of hope to someone who’s having a hard time seeing any hope these days?

It doesn’t need to be some extravagant act.

It doesn’t need to be some eloquent essay.

It can be something simple ... something simply-assuring ... something that helps them see beyond the darkness in which they find themselves ... something that helps them see the light of hope.

Make like a dove ... friends ... and be a messenger of hope to a hurting world.