In the really old stories, pledging allegiance was shaped by your understanding of beginnings.

Many people know of the Genesis creation story, the one that Jews and Christians look to to shape their understanding of who the Divine is, who we are, and what we should be giving our lives to.

But before the Hebrew creation story, there were all these other creation stories floating around the ancient Near East. And they were told to legitimate their king, to substantiate His right to judge between good and evil, and to execute that judgment with the edge of a sword.

In these creation stories, a man is legitimated to reflect the image of the gods by spreading their rule through violence.

And then came Genesis. 

It is the first creation story in which a man and a woman are called to rule in the world.  But not with a sword.  They are invited to spread their rule in one particular way: “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.”

Be fruitful.  (Wink, wink.  Nudge, nudge.)

Notice that they are not invited to spread their rule through violence—as in the older creation stories—but rather to spread their rule through the fruit of their love for one another.  

Fill the earth and subdue it with love.

And then God gives this instruction to these rulers/lovers, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”

For thousands of years, people have asked, “Why would God put a tree in a good garden that the people cannot eat from?”  Remember what kind of tree this is: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Who gets to have the knowledge of good and evil, and execute punishment upon it, in the ancient Near East?

Just one person.  The king.

But in this sacred story, no woman or man gets to “rule” in that way.  It is off limits.

According to the ancient Hebrew story, we were not created to rule by executing judgment with the tip of a sword.  As the story goes, that low hanging fruit only leads to chaos.  Instead, we are asked to rule and fill the earth through the force of our love.

Leaving the sword—or any other weapon of violence—in the hands of God.

Which brings us to another story in the Hebrew Scriptures.  As the story unfolds, humanity reaches for the knowledge of good and evil, which invariably leads to the violence God anticipated: there is a murder in the family, which is followed by ever increasing cycles of violence and vengeance…which is followed by an infamous flood. Notice why God is spoken of as bringing this flood:  “God said to Noah, ‘I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them.’”

In this story, God stops people precisely because they had become so violent.  

Now this also is not the first flood story in the ancient Near East. And in the earlier flood stories, the gods wipe out humanity just because they feel like it, because they had had enough with people, wanted to show them who was really in charge, who was most powerful.  These stories all end with violence…and fear…and despair.

Which was par for the course for how people saw the gods: violent, fickle, grumpy, impatient, and over all not very good.

But in this Hebrew flood story, something different happens.  After the flood, God says, “I will establish my covenant with you: never again will all life be destroyed…This is the sign of the covenant…a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds.”

The word for “rainbow” here in the Hebrew is kesheth, which literally means bow.

As in, a weapon of war.

Notice how this Hebrew creation and flood story unfolds.  God reveals that He is not like the other gods.  He takes the weapon away from humanity and then…

…He Himself sets the weapon down.

Mic drop.  

Or bow.

This is a new idea in the history of the world.  It is a sacred proclamation that humanity should pledge allegiance to no king but God, because this God will not be a king who rules or fills the earth or subdues it with violence.

This God’s rule is different than that.