Snakes

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

March 11, 2018

4 Lent B

If our reading from Numbers this morning was the totality of Scripture, I would have to find something else to do with my life.  The problem is not so much the snakes, although they are a bit problematic.  A long time ago in a church not so far away and in this diocese, a parishioner brought his very large pet snake, draped around his shoulders, to church on the Feast of St. Francis for the animal blessing.  The parishioner did not much care for women priests and I did not much care for snakes.  So we were even.  But while a serpent may have gotten Eve to eat the forbidden fruit and be evicted from the Garden of Eden, I was going nowhere.  I blessed the snake with all the conviction I would have blessed a lovely plate of chocolate chip cookies and moved on down the line without so much as a grimace, at least on the outside. 

This morning my problem is less with snakes and more with God.  The Hebrew people have been wandering around in the wilderness for a while now.  The bit of grumbling we hear this morning is not the first time they have grumbled against God by a long shot.  Just about as quickly as God got the people out of Egypt, they were complaining about a lack of good water to drink.  God showed Moses a piece of wood that Moses could throw into the water to make the bitter water sweeter and more drinkable.  Not many verses later, the people are longing to go back to Egypt where at least they had decent food to eat.  So, God gave the people manna, or bread from heaven, to satisfy their hunger.  Then, thirst strikes again, and the people accused Moses of bringing them out into the wilderness to kill them with thirst.  This time, Moses struck a rock with his staff and water emerged from the rock for people to drink.

But this morning, God appears to have had enough.  We are told that the people spoke against God and against Moses and said "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?  For there is no food and no water and we detest this miserable manna."  The people have just told God that they detest the very life-giving bread God has provided.  My mother always told us not to bite the hand that feeds us.  Perhaps the Hebrew people should have thought of that.  Because now God loses patience.  God sends poisonous serpents among the people.  The serpents bite the people and they die.  As a result, the people recognize the error of their ways and repent.  They ask Moses to ask God to take away the serpents.  But rather than remove the creatures, God tells Moses to make a poisonous serpent and set it on a pole, so that those who look at the snake on a stick will live.  Where Moses got the bronze, the mold, and the fire to make the bronze serpent, I have no clue.  But Moses does as he was told and anyone with a snake bite could look at the serpent and live.

The story leaves me with many questions about God.  Why is God's patience suddenly exhausted by the complaining Hebrews?  Not only do the Hebrews complain in the wilderness, but the psalms are full of complaints hurled against God.  We just call them laments instead of complaints.  I certainly do my share of complaining to God.  My guess is that I am not alone.  So, I'd like to know exactly what put God over the edge this morning, so I don't go there.  Why does God take such drastic action against the people?  Why doesn't God simply take the serpents away rather than have Moses enshrine one and require that the people look at the serpent to be healed?  Is the purpose of the bronze serpent to remind the people of their wickedness?  Isn't that a lot like kicking people when they are down? That doesn’t seem like very godly behavior.

While I don't have good answers to any of these questions, the questions are floating around in my mind when I hear Jesus say to Nicodemus "Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that whoever believes in him may have eternal life."   Somehow, Jesus calls us to use the disturbing story about Moses and the serpents to understand the cross on which Jesus will soon be lifted up.  What connections does Jesus want us to make?

Here are some ideas.  First, in the story from Numbers, rather than take away the serpents, God turns the image of this agent of death into an agent of life.  By looking at the bronze serpent that has been lifted up, the people are healed, and they live.  Likewise, God will take the cross, an instrument of death, and when Jesus is lifted up, the cross will become an agent of life.  In John's gospel, the cross and resurrection are two pieces of one action, so in the cross, John also sees resurrection.  Secondly, perhaps instead of getting rid of the serpents, God has Moses lift a bronze likeness on a pole so the people can remember both their wickedness and God's mercy.  One of my least favorite lines in the Book of Common Prayer comes in the Ash Wednesday service when the priest offers absolution with the words "Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who desires not the death of sinners, but rather that they may turn from their wickedness and live."  Wickedness is a strong word, and one I would rather avoid myself.  But the word does point to the fundamental but painful truth that we are capable of deep separation from God and that separation is of our own doing, not God's.  The good news is that our salvation is completely dependent on God's mercy not our own goodness.

Lastly, in my imagination, once Moses lifts the bronze serpent up before the people and people begin to be healed when they look at the creature, people begin to tell their friends and neighbors and soon everyone is drawn to the bronze serpent, and they all begin to be healed. They are reminded of the cause of their affliction, for sure, but they are also united in the reminder that God's healing power is even more powerful than their own wickedness.  They are not only reminded, but shown, that God is the source of healing and life.  They are reminded that God can be trusted to take the serpents of death and create life.  When Jesus is lifted up, crucified then resurrected, for all the world to see, we are drawn together and to God as we engage both our rebelliousness and God's great power and love for us, as God takes the agent of death and creates life.

John 3:16 is perhaps the most often quoted verse in all of Scripture.  "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life."  John's words from there are quite polemical, which is unfortunate but reflects the reality of the tensions in late first century Judaism and Christianity.  The deeper message of John's gospel is that God acted out of love for the whole world, and with the desire to draw the whole world together and to God, as the agent of death was transformed into the agent of life.  John calls us not to look away from the cross on Good Friday, but to engage the cross.  Only on the cross will we be able to see Jesus lifted up and to wait, trusting, as all death is transformed into new life.

Amen.