The Story of Noah's Ark

Question:

I'm working with the youth at Unity of Livonia, and we are doing a project based on Noah's Ark and we are not sure how to explain to our youth that God chose to kill off everyone except Noah and his family. I would really appreciate it if you have any suggestions on how to explain this to kids.

Comment:

Well, it's not easy, is it? (On the other hand, I've found that kids are a lot more sensitive to nuance than we might expect them to be.)   I think I'd start by emphasizing that this is a story that people told around campfires for hundreds and hundreds of years, at a time when their understanding of God was very limited. They believed in an angry and punishing God, and so whenever anything bad happened, they assumed that God was deliberately doing it—and so the people who suffered must have deserved it. Today we still recognize the power of God in natural events like hurricanes and floods and earthquakes. But we don't believe the people affected are being deliberately punished. Jesus taught us that God is a power of Love and that what happens in the world is an expression of our collective consciousness—not a specific punishment directed against specific people.   We're told that the people had forgotten their relationship to God and were making ignorant choices; "every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually" (Genesis 6:5 NRSV). When the power of God comes up against such expressions of evil, it seeks to cleanse the evil. It's not punishment. It's that the One Presence and One Power seeks to dissolve all expressions of fear and ignorance that are not like Itself. The people who died were simply experiencing the consequences of their own negative beliefs and choices. And they were still spiritual beings, so “death” was not equivalent to being destroyed forever. Their spiritual beings were lifted out of the human morass they had allowed through ignorance and sensual distraction, so that they could try again in other lives and experiences.   So the spiritual message is clearly, I think, that choices have consequences. And sometimes the most loving thing the power of God can do is to clear away the mess we've made so we can try again.   Does that help? I hope so. Many blessings on your work!

Rev. Ed