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They say a picture is worth a thousand words. A thousand words cannot describe the horror of some pictures. “Crossing the River Gillo” is a painting. This image conveys the memories of a 17-year-old Sudanese boy, Mac Anyat. | have reproduced his picture in black and white in the bulletin today. | cannot comprehend what the experience of this 17- year-old could possibly have been - except to see it in this painting.

If this were an isolated incident, a one-time human event, a moment in history, | would probably be able to take it in, do something with it or about it.

The tragedy is that this is not an isolated incident; it is not a one-time human event; itis not a moment in history. The enormous human tragedies leave me to wonder if I can do anything.

There is a constant theme of isolated incidents throughout the human story. The vicissitudes of storm, earthquake, fire and flood are compounded by the infliction of the human evils of war and terror and genocide. The ability of people to condemn the neighbour to inhumane conditions and death is, for me, appalling.

History continuously repeats itself.

The Season of Pentecost began with the beginning .... In the Book of Genesis there is the wonder of the Creation narrative. How beautiful it is to hear the days of God’s work unfold. To realize that this good is a gift -- a gift from God for the human spirit to seek out and assimilate — seems lost to many.

The tragedy comes quickly as the human creature separates from God. The taming of the chaos - out of which God ordered all things - seems undone. Good and Evil, personified, depicted in the image of human language, brings the impact of the Sudanese Mac Anyat’s painting to our present senses.

Before there was a Hebrew people, before there was an understanding of a God who desires our partnership, our love, our response, there is the cosmic realization depicted in the word picture, the thousand words of Noah’s story.

“Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw that the earth was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth.”

So God makes an adjustment. Noah is the deliverer. Dutifully Noah builds the Ark. Carefully Noah collects the creatures two by two, male and female, he collecteth them. “In the 600th year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. The rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights... And the waters swelled on the earth for one hundred and fifty days.”

The tsunamis came. The Katrinas came. The cyclones of Burma came. The earthquakes to China and the fires and the pestilence came to Africa, to Europe, to the Americas and to the Arctic and to Antarctica. The ice melted and the oceans rose upon the land.

Somehow we western Christians have tamed the story. Perhaps we rather enjoy the comedy of Bill Cosby, hearing Noah and God talking until it is time to hear: “Everyone, out of the pool!”

Children love to hear the story. They create pictures and puzzles and sandbox displays of all the animals and old Noah. They are careful to depict Mrs Noah and the boys as well. Children love to hear of baby Jesus and the Easter Bunny.

The Bible, however, does not tell children’s stories. The story of Noah is not a child’s fable, it is not entertainment, it is not just an ancient tale told to bridge a gap.

The story of Noah, of the Ark, of the animals and the Dove and the coming of dry land and the Rainbow - it is all about us and the real world we live in, this place we speak of at worship as “our island home”.

Within the complex word picture of Noah is the reality of the global situation of climate warning; it touches upon the feared nuclear holocaust; it touches upon the shrinking rain forests and the depletion of oxygen and the poisoning of oceans. 

This story confronts us humans - all humans, not just Christian or Jewish, but Muslims and Hindus, Buddhists and the Aboriginal and the New Agers and the Atheists — it touches all of us with God’s promise, God’s covenant drawn and painted in the colours of the Rainbow. “Never again,” says God.

And do we, like Sarah, laugh when Abraham is told of a child to be born of his seed by Sarah? We humans are quite good at ignoring, putting off, being self-centred and greedy to ourselves. To hear God’s message can make us laugh nervously with Sarah.

God comes to us as the Saviour, Jesus Christ the Lord. This Jesus tells us humans how we can live better, how we can live different, how we can live lovingly -as members accepted into the Kingdom of God, RIGHT NOW, RIGHT TODAY!

Paul says, “While we were weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly... God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.”

Jesus has chosen us, commissioned us, to share the Good News, to go out to our neighbours, “to cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.”

The message of God’s love must go out to this island home and all that is upon it. That good news gives life with purpose, with spirit and joy. Those children crossing the river found new life, a life of hope and promise. In 1994 they escaped the horrors of humankind. May the children of Gaza and Sudan, and Ukraine and the Congo, and all over the world, find new life in 2026.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. What picture are you drawing?

Fr. Art