000 Allen FMT (i-xxii) - The Presbyterian Leader

142 First Sunday in Lent/Year B
and then only when the blood is drained (Gen. 9:3–4; see Lev. 17:10–14;
Deut. 12:16, 23). Genesis 9:4 impresses upon the reader that the killing
of animals is not to be indiscriminate, for all killing is now under divine
scrutiny and regulation. Animals who take human life are to be killed, presumably
to prevent them from further despoiling community. God forbids
human beings from killing other human beings (Gen. 9:5), for they
are made in the image of God. To kill a human being made in the divine
image is to subvert the purposes of God for all to live together in mutuality
and support and to turn the social world into chaos.
Killing so corrupts human community that God commands that killers
be put to death, perhaps to remove the reminder of the possibility of
killing (9:6). A principle of limitation applies here: the killer may be put
to death but no further retribution is authorized to the killer’s community.
Opponents of capital punishment object that even the legal presence of
such violence defaces the image of God and subtly reinforces a culture of
violence, so they seek means other than legalized murder to deal with
killers. Peace movements note that the step is very short from capital punishment
to legalized killing through war. Simply finding authorization for
a practice in the Bible does not automatically mean that the practice is
desirable.
In 9:8–17 God articulates an explicit covenant with the descendants of
Noah and with all living creatures. God promises never again to use a
flood to return the earth to chaos. To people in the Near East where rainfall
can quickly and dangerously create flood conditions, this promise
assures that no matter how harmful future waters may be, they will not
overwhelm the possibility of regeneration. To the stated covenant of
9:8–17 must be added the unconditional promise of Genesis 8:22 (Proper
4/Year A). God promises to continue the structures of creation that make
life—and hence blessing—possible.
The sign of the covenant is a bow that God places in the heavens, presumably
the rainbow. The Hebrew word bow (keshet) elsewhere almost
always refers to a weapon. Hence, commentators often say that God uses
the rainbow as a symbol of divine disarmament. Despite the fact that the
immediate context of this bow applies only to the promise not to destroy
the world by water again, the reader naturally hears 8:22 and 9:1–7 as part
of the penumbra of the covenant. Thus when the reader of the Bible later
encounters stories of killing in God’s name (Holy War, etc.), the reader
hears them not as celebration of violence but with the deep regret that
such means were God’s last resort to accomplish the divine purposes.