Fourth Sunday of Lent (B) — Numbers 21:4–9
This Lent, we’ve been talking about living more like Jesus. We don’t need to try to be holy, because Jesus’ death and resurrection makes us holy. But we can try to show that in our lives. Through Noah and the flood, God promised to use his power to love. With Sarah and Abraham, God shows radical generosity, giving a long-desired child and much, much more. Last week, we noticed that God is all about relationships. There are lots of rules in the Bible, but it’s not about God telling us to behave; it’s about God teaching us to love.
Today’s story is the kind that makes us think the Old Testament is old, strange, and confusing, and maybe we should stick with Jesus. Especially when we have that beloved passage from John, “God so loved the world.” But I learned long ago that when hard passages come up, if I ignore them, the Holy Spirit gives me trouble.
The Israelites have left Sinai. God gave them the law, to help them become a great nation, a community of justice and peace. And immediately after they step foot away from the mountain, they forget God’s gift and do things their own way.
The book of Numbers contains wonderful stories, much like this one, odd and fantastical. The trouble starts when they get close to Cana’an. Moses sends scouts ahead, and they bring back news of the wonderful, fruitful land God promised. But they also talk about people, healthy and strong, with weapons made of metals the Hebrews haven’t seen, walled cities and fortresses. How will they ever take this land? God’s promises are impossible. Has God led them here to die?
Maybe the problem isn’t God. Maybe they’ve chosen the wrong leader. Moses’ authority is in question. A man named Korah claims leadership, and a civil war breaks out, which ends when the earth opens up and swallows them. Then the priesthood is argued, and Aaron has to plant his walking stick in the ground overnight. The next morning, it’s grown almonds. Then Moses’ brother and sister, Aaron and Miriam, decide Moses is too powerful, so God gives Miriam a skin rash, and the whole nation is stuck in one place until it heals. When she dies, the water disappears along with her. God makes water from a rock, but Moses takes the credit, and is condemned. And in today’s reading, the Israelites complain:
We’re going to die in the wilderness. We’ve been here forever. We could have entered the promised land but we were scared, but but that’s not our fault. Now it’s hot. There’s no water. There’s no food, and not only that, but the food is awful. What a bunch of whiners!
God finally has had enough. God’s generosity has overflowed beyond measure, and all they do is complain. Poisonous snakes come. If they want to die in the wilderness, well, let them.
In Egypt, the Hebrews called to God, to rescue them from slavery. He did. The Ten Commandments begin: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” That is who I am. That is how you know me. That is the foundation of everything in our relationship together. I have taken your bodies out of slavery.
But you won’t let me take your hearts out of slavery. You can’t stop thinking like slaves. You don’t want to make bricks for Pharaoh, but it’s all you’ve ever known. I want you to be free, but the only thing you know is slavery.
One of the strangest things about this story is how short it is. People start getting poisoned in verse 6, and already in verse 9, the bronze serpent is healing them. Maybe that metal snake on a stick was God’s plan all along.
In the wilderness, God’s people were afraid. No, they didn’t have to fear the slave-driver anymore, but now their worries were bigger. Food. Water. Soldiers. Power. Trust. Death either here in the desert or else in Cana’an.
And so God got inventive. He gave them a bad situation, and then gave them a tangible, physical sign that he would heal, that he would save them, that he wasn’t going anywhere. Something to look at and hang on to. A brilliant, imaginative plan.
When people first become pastors or deacons in our church, we attend continuing education retreats. For a few years, I had the pleasure of helping direct those retreats, including worship. I was, believe it or not, the “organized” one in the group; I worked with five or six brilliantly creative people. There were lots of ways they adorned our worship, but my favorite year was the simplest.
Our first day, a wooden board was wrapped in black cloth, evoking that year’s fires in Holden Village, a popular Lutheran retreat out West. That year also featured the shooting at the church in Charleston, North Carolina. For a service of remembrance them, we draped the cloth over the board to reveal the word “Race.” The next day, we lit candles and sang prayers around a cross, built on the floor with this board. And on the final day, for Holy Communion, we revealed that the word was not “Race” but “Grace,” covered with flowers to decorate the altar.
What a worship space! And all it involved was a little imagination–and a willingness to let go of what worship “should” look like. It’s hard to do, especially for those of us who have worshipped the same since we were small. But while God comforts us, he also shakes us out of our comfort zones—as a way to help us see God’s presence more clearly.
“God so loved the world that he gave his only son.” Jesus says this in the home of Nicodemus, a leader of the Pharisees, who questions Jesus’ authority and teaching. It’s an odd place for his most beautiful saying. He begs Nicodemus to use his imagination, to visualize what it might mean to be born a second time, to experience resurrection himself, right now, in Jesus. Does Nicodemus manage it? Probably not, not entirely. But when Jesus dies on the cross, Nicodemus appears in John’s Gospel again, carrying his body to the tomb. His imagination isn’t as big as God’s, but that’s okay; a little step forward is enough.
What would it be like if we could take an imaginative step forward? [Faith Lutheran/our congregation] submitted it’s call paperwork this week, and the search for a pastor has begun. It will take some time. But what will this mean? What kind of community will we become? Are our hearts enslaved to the past? Do we know what a church is, and must be, and insist it must be the same? What kind of life would that be? Or might God be setting up a signpost for us, something we can look hard at, that will help us see new life? Could we reimagine our congregation as a place that is less of a traditional church, and more of a center for young families, or a Christ-centered senior center, or a studio for special needs and typical needs communities to explore arts and spirituality together? What could we be, if we let the Holy Spirit take control of our creative side?
Whatever happens, we will pursue it in the light of Christ. For he has been lifted up, on the cross. And when we see him, our dead lives are made new. This is God’s imaginative gift, which heals all people. May it heal our church as well. Amen.