And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each human being, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of another human being. – Genesis 9:5

Today’s Scripture Reading (April 14, 2015): Genesis 9

I love the description we are given for sin in the Russell Crowe movie “Noah.” The concept of sin is placed very early in the movie. The sons of Cain, who are evil and live in a state of sin and evil, had used the resources of the earth indiscriminately. As a result, the world was broken and increasingly unable to support life. But the sons of Seth, which basically amounted to Noah and his family, used the resources of the world only as they needed. Even a flower was sacred and could not be picked unless there was an overwhelming need. The children of Seth were the guardians of the world; the protectors of creation. And for them, life was all about balance.

There is an argument that what God views as sin is really simply the condition of being out of balanced. We need money to live, but too much money can lead us to depend more on the material things in our lives than God, and that imbalance leads us into sin. The argument about whether or not alcohol is the tool of the devil is an old fight in the church. But the bible does not condemn alcohol, what it condemns is getting drunk. And again it is alcohol out of balance that seems to be the real problem. The Bible does not condemn sex, although listening to some people you could arrive at that conclusion, but it does condemn sex outside of marriage. Sexual immorality, which is condemned in the scriptures, is essentially sex out of balance.

So the flood ends and Noah emerges from the ark, and God reminds him that he is to rule over the world. God reminds Noah that the animals of creation were made for food, but there was not many of them. They were extremely valuable, so care needed to be exercised and balance needed to be maintained. And if the animals were valuable, then the ones made in the image of God were even more so.

I love the translation of this complex Hebrew idea into the English word “accounting.” Because at the heart of the idea that God is trying to communicate to Noah is the idea of balance. Accounting seems to be the right idea. This verse is about the pluses and minuses working together to produce life. It is about using the resources of the world carefully – and only as needed.

It is about a concept that we are failing at in our culture. We are not living in balance and, therefore, we are living in a state of sin. Our ecological footprint is much larger than it needs to be. The reality is that when all of life is contained in one small area, it is easy to see the value and importance of life – all life. But we have been fruitful and multiplied. And somehow in the population explosion, what was once so obvious to us has been lost – the immense value of life and the balance in which we have been commanded to live.    

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Genesis 10