The story of Noah and his ark is probably one of the best know bible stories – best know but probably the least thought through. But it is an iconic story. Its a primary school RE and Sunday school favourite –

It is well known enough that an Insurance Company a couple of years ago could run a tv ad based on it. It shows Noah working hard day after day, getting all the animals to come into the ark. We see him struggling with elephants, trying to pick up caterpillars, running away from lions with a huge joint of meat in his hand. Finally at night on the last day he collapses exhausted on the ark surrounded by all the creature. Then we hear a mosquito buzzing past and absent mindedly Noah swats it. Then he slowly looks at his hand in horror, looks at Mrs Mosquito sadly buzzing over the corpse in little circles, takes a deep breath, gets up and heads back outside again into the rain to find another moozzie. The slogan comes up for the insurance company “For all your rainy days”.

But as well known a story as it is, I think there are many things that go unnoticed or known, perhaps because we meet it as children and rarely return to it later.

For example.

Maybe you can tell me the answer to this question “What was Noah's wife's name?”

It was Joan – Joan of Arc.

Ok not the best example – lets try another – how many sheep were there on the ark?

There were 14 - why 14 you might have thought it was 2 by 2. But if you read the story again, Noah takes 14 clean animals 7 pairs, and one pair of unclean animals, which makes sense - you're going to be getting a little peckish and only clean animals can be eaten, plus you need some to sacrifice and that's not going to work if you've only got 2 of everything.

Another thing you may not know is that this is a story told in many versions on every continent, from the old Welsh legend of the flooding of Llion, to ancient myths from Peru to Russia and aboriginal Australia. It is a truly universal story. Told and retold down the ages. Rewritten in the light of the beliefs and politics of the time. Here is a modern version, written for our time.

And the Lord spoke to Noah and said: "In six months I'm going to make it rain until the whole earth is covered with water and all the evil people are destroyed. But I want to save a few good people, and two of every kind of living thing on the planet. I am ordering you to build Me an Ark," said the Lord. And you'd better get it completed quickly “thundered the Lord “or learn how to swim for a very long time."

And six months passed and he skies began to cloud up and rain began to fall. The Lord saw that Noah was sitting in his front yard, weeping. And there was no Ark.

"Noah," shouted the Lord, "where is my Ark?" A lightning bolt crashed into the ground next to Noah, just for emphasis.

"Lord, please forgive me," begged Noah. "I did my best. But there were big problems. First I had to get a building permit for the Ark construction project, and your plans didn't meet Health and Safety. So I had to hire an engineer to redraw the plans. Then we got into a big fight over whether or not the Ark needed a fire alarm system. My neighbours objected claiming I was violating my planning permission by building the Ark in my front yard, and then I had to get a faculty from the Diocesan Advisory committee.

"Then I had a big problem getting enough wood for the Ark because there was a ban on cutting trees to save the Spotted Owl.

Then the carpenters formed a union and went out on strike. I had to negotiate a settlement with the them before anyone would pick up a saw or a hammer. Now we've got 16 carpenters going on the boat, and no owls.

"Then I started gathering up the animals, and got sued by an animal rights group. Just when I got the suit dismissed, The Dept of the Environment notified me that I couldn't complete the Ark without filing an environmental impact statement on your proposed Flood. Then the council wanted a map of the proposed new flood plain. I sent them a globe.

Now the Inland Revenue has seized all my assets claiming that I can't register an Ark as a second home. I really don't think I can finish your Ark for at least another five years," Noah wailed.

The sky began to clear. The sun began to shine. A rainbow arched across the sky. Noah looked up and smiled. "You mean you're not going to destroy the earth?" Noah asked, hopefully.

"Wrong!" thundered the Lord. "You've given me an idea. I fully intend to smite the Earth, but with something far worse than a Flood. Something Man invented for himself."

"What's that?" asked Noah.

There was a long pause, and then the Lord spoke:

"Government."

Anyway, back to the bible story. Most scholars now would think that the tale of Noah as it is in Genesis was written in Babylon while God's people were captive there, after Jerusalem had been destroyed. While they were there they were looking for an explanation for what had happened to them, and what it meant for their faith. Why God had let it happen. They wanted to understand who they were and what they believed in in the middle of this pagan superpower that held them captive. So in effect the biblical writers took famous Babylonian stories that were popular at the time and said No, let us show you how these stories should really be told.

One of the most famous of these stories was called the Epic of Gilgamesh – in this flood story, as in most Babylonian ones, the world was at the mercy of a soap opera in which rival gods fought and bickered and plotted and overthrew each other. It was like Eastenders in heaven. Nothing was under control for long and the gods were certainly not above being bribed, manipulated and played off against each other. They could also be brutal on a whim.

In that story the flood is brought about not because of any moral evil but because the gods, and particularly Apsu, god of the ocean, wanted a bit of peace and quiet to get some kip. Or to quote it more accurately “that by day I may find rest and by night I may sleep”.

So the gods plot to destroy the earth, but they are betrayed by the God Ea, who finds a human, and whispers to him through a wall, telling him to build an ark, to specific dimensions, to fill it full of animals, put his family on board and ride out the storm. As the storm ends and the ark rests on a holy mountain, the hero – sends out a dove, then a swallow, but they return to him. Then he sends a raven, who finds dry land. So they all leave the ark and make sacrifice. The smell of the sacrifice attracts the Gods who are furious that some creatures escaped, but the hero and his wife are bought off with a sort of super-injunction and sent to the sacred garden at the meeting of the rivers to live forever – where they become something like Adam and Eve and so on.

I'm sure the similarities to our Noah story are obvious, but its more important how different the stories are. They are different because of what they have to say about God and about life.

For the Babylonians, the storms of life came on a cruel whim. Human beings were seen as an inconvenience to the gods, and the only hope in the storm was to bribe, blackmail or out manoeuvre the gods, play them off against each other. There can be no trust, no promises, no covenants. It is a tremendously cynical view of life.

But in the bible story things are very different. God is not inconvenienced, he is deeply pained. In fact the bible says he 'repents' which is not what we are used to hearing about God. He repents of having made the world. It begins as a story about wanting to throw everything away and start again. Do you ever feel like that? It would be easier to scrap it all and start again, rather than try to put right the mess?

And yet it is also a story about bearing with it. God does something else unusual – something else we don't often think of, and that is change his mind. God decides to work with what he's got and not to walk away. He decides to take responsibility. This is often the much more difficult path to take but God does not give up on humanity. We should try to be like that I think. Not giving up on people and being willing to work with what we are given, and who we are given. This also the way that we can be sure that God will work with us, individually and together as a church – God will work with us as we are, with patience and perseverance and in the faith and trust he has in us and us in him.

The different endings of the story are perhaps the most significant. When God meets Noah over his sacrifice in the Bible version, he does not come to buy Noah's silence, but to give him his promise that in future however we behave, God will not give up on us. It is an insight that forms the whole basis of the way in which God comes to be seen in both the old and new testaments. This time the covenant is not conditional. It is simply a promise, a promise that will be kept whatever response it receives. A promise ultimately fulfilled in Jesus.

The Babylonian story is basically about distrust – and about being alone. In that story, if you were weak or suffering, you were left at the mercy of the storms of your experience, unless you could find a way to bribe or manipulate your way free.

But for those who wrote and believed in the Bible story, the same storms looked very different. They believed in a faithful God who had made them a promise never to give up on them. The only question for the Hebrew people, living at this time in the eye of a storm of exile was “How long O Lord” – it was a question of believing that God was with them on their ark and that the waters would go down.

I'm reminded of one of my favourite paintings. Its one that the Dean of St Asaph has on his dining room wall. It shows nothing but a raging stormy sea filling the whole canvas - but its meaning is in the title. Its called “the 38^th day” and it is saying that a storm looks just as bad at the end as it does at the beginning. We do not know when it will end and the 38^th day looks the same as all the others, even though, unknown to us, there is a rainbow about to appear on the horizon.”

We used to have our staff meetings in that room and if we were in the middle of some storm of Cathedral or Diocesan politics we would look at it and say “It's the 38^th day, there'll be rainbows soon.”

We know that Christians are no more spared from the storms than anyone else - Hebrews or Babylonians. Yet faith allows us to believe that even when we find ourselves in the grip of the storm, we may still send out doves in hope, and who knows, we may even see rainbows. For God does not plot and scheme against us, or wish any harm upon his people. Instead he bears with us, will not give up on us. He is faithful, and has given us his promise.

Amen.