Once upon a time, a long time ago, all the people in the world were mean to one another and did violent, nasty things to each other. All except one person, a really nice man, who was kind to his neighbors and friendly to everyone. His name was Noah-vonbon-schnitzel-wackenbacker, but his friends just called him Noah. Well, one day, Noah, who was a pretty good carpenter, was in his shop, building something for the house, and he was sawing away [Voo-ba, voo-ba, voo-ba], when suddenly, he heard a voice: "Noah." "Somebody call?" [Voo-ba, voo-ba, voo-ba] "Noah!" "Who is that?" "It's the Lord, Noah." "Right.....Where are you? What do you want? I've been good." "I want you to build me an ark." "Right.....What's an ark?" "It's a big boat. Now get some wood and build it 300 cubits by 50 cubits by 30 cubits." "Right....What's a cubit?" Right then there was a big clap of thunder. [everybody claps] "Okay, I'll figure it out."

So Noah started building the ark. He sawed up the wood, [Voo-ba, voo-ba, voo-ba] then he hammered in the nails, [bang, bang, bang] then drilled the holes. [Buzzzzzzzzz] He did them all together for several days. [all the sounds] Then he rested for a couple of hours. Then he did them all for several more days. [all the sounds again] Finally he sat back and looked at this huge boat in his back yard, as tall as a ten-story building, and he smiled. It was quite a job!

God was very pleased also. "Well done, Noah." "Hey, Lord, that's okay. Anytime for you. Now, I'll just go back to the project I was working on before." "Wait a minute, Noah. There's more to be done. Go out and get two animals, male and female, of every different kind in the world, and put them into the ark. "Right! Who is this really? What's going on? How come you want me to do all these weird things?" "I'm going to destroy the world by making it rain for forty days and forty nights." "Right....You've got to be kidding, Lord." Just then there were two claps of thunder. [claps] "Okay, God, I hear you. So you're not kidding. That's two of every kind, right?"

So Noah got busy and collected two of every kind of animal in the whole world. There were lizards and frogs, giraffes, and dogs. And there were sheep, [Baaaaa, baaaaa, baaaa] and wolves, [Aroooooooooo] and pigs, [Oink, oink, oink] and elephants, [Loud roar] and snakes [Hisssssssss]. Noah made the mistake of putting the sheep right next to the vicious wolves. All night long the wolves would howl at the sheep, [Arooooooo] and the poor sheep would cry in return. [Baaa, baaa, baa]. That would wake up the elephants who would go [loud roar]. This would happen over and over again, night after night: the wolves would howl, [Aroooooo] the sheep would cry, [Baaa, baaaa, baaa] and the elephants would roar. [loud roar] Then they'd do it all together. [all the sounds] It was scary inside that ark, especially every time you'd walk past the snakes. [Hissssssssss] But it was kind of fun to watch the little pigs get excited and run around in circles going [Oink, oink, oink].

Well, finally, Noah succeeded in getting all of the animals into the ark. He was just pushing the last two, two gigantic hippopotamuses, up the ramp, no easy task for a man 600 years old. "Come, on you fat hippos, hurry up. Come on, will you please." "Noah." "What? What do you want?" "You've got to take one of those hippos out and bring in another one." "What for?" "'Cause you got two males down there and you need to bring in a female." "I'm not bringing another animal in. You change one of them!" "Come on, you know I don't work like that." "Well, I'm sick and tired of this. I've been working for weeks, first making this dumb ark, and then getting all these animals. The whole neighborhood's out there laughing at me. They're saying things like, 'There's crazy Noah' or 'How you doing, Tarzan?' I'll tell you, I'm sick and tired of all this. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to let all the animals out and just forget....." "Noah, how long can you tread water?" "Now what do you mean by that silly question?"

Just then there was a loud clap of thunder [clap] and it started to rain. [keys jingle] "It's raining! That's not a shower is it? Okay, Lord, me and you, right?" So, Noah got the female hippo on board, and Mrs. Noah and the rest of his family, and shut the big doors tight. And it rained for forty days and forty nights. [keys jingle] And during that time there were loud claps of thunder. [claps] And all the animals were scared and they all cried out at the top of their lungs. [all the sounds together, including rain and thunder] Everything on earth was drowned because the water rose even above the highest mountains. There wasn't an inch of dry land anywhere. The earth was one gigantic ocean.

Meanwhile the ark floated on the ocean rocking from side to side. [everybody sway from side to side] The animals and Noah and his family stayed on the boat several hundred days, and they began to get sick, and restless, and just plain fed up. One of the spokespersons went to Noah and said: "Come on, Noah, when do we get out of here. We're all tired and the food in this joint is terrible." And worst of all on the ark was the smell, especially the smell of the two skunks. Every time one of the skunks would walk by, all the other animals would yell, "Peeeeeeeeeeeeeee-U!!"

Finally, one day the sunshine came out and the water started to dry up. First the mountains appeared, then the tops of trees. Noah sent a dove out to check for dry land, and finally the dove came back with an olive branch in her beak. And then Noah knew it was safe to let the animals come out of the ark, and he set them free to wander all over the world. So the sheep went out, [Baaa, baaaa, baaa] and also the wolves, [Arooooooo] who continue to hunt the sheep even to this very day. And the elephants can still be heard across the jungle, [loud roar] while the snakes still slither in the grass. [Hisssssssss] And every time a pig gets excited it runs around in little circles going [Oink, oink, oink]. And whenever a skunk walks by you can hear the rest of the animal kingdom yell, "Peeeeeeee-U!"

After the flood, God had one more conversation with Noah: "Noah, I'm going to make a covenant with you. Never again will I destroy the earth. I promise. And as a sign of my promise, my covenant, look for my rainbow in the sky. That will remind you that I love you, and that I love all the animals and people in the world." And Noah was very happy, and said, "Thank you, Lord." (1) And that's the end of the story of Noah and the ark. Amen.

The Pilgrim Church of Duxbury
Rev. Kenneth C. Landall

1Thanks to Christopher Holmes, Word & Witness Special Resources, Vol. 9, No. 2D.
And apologies to Bill Cosby, "Bill Cosby is a Very Funny Fellow, Right!", Warner Bros. Records