" . . . and 17"

 

A Sermon on Facebook Live Broadcast

Sircach 26:10 - Lent IV B

March 14, 2021

 

The Israelites left Mt Hor (or Horeb, which scholars believe is Mt. Sinai) where Moses had received the Ten Commandments.  Mt. Sinai is a little over 500 miles from Egypt. The Israelites are getting close to home, but Moses decides not to provoke the Edomites into war by passing through their land so they take a little detour.

As you can imagine, after all they’ve been through, the people are growing impatient and started to complain among themselves about God and Moses. As they move closer to freedom - the The Promised Land - they have forgotten the worst of their captivity but they remember the sweetness of the pomegranates in Egypt.

 

They rail against Moses saying, “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 food.”

 

That line always reminds me of a story Woody Allen tells about listening to a group of Jewish women, kvetching ‘round the table at a hotel in the Poconos. One woman says, “Oh, and the food here is awful! Terrible! Miserable!” Another woman nods and says, “Yes, and the portions are so small.”

 

We laugh because we can relate, right? Maybe some of us even see and hear ourselves in those women. The misery of complaint not only begs to be shared, it is its own reward.

 

Now, according to the scriptural account in the book of Numbers, because of their complaining and moaning and kvetching, God sent poisonous serpents – snakes! – among the Israelites who were bitten and many died.

 

Or, maybe God didn’t actually send the snakes. Maybe they just came upon an area of the desert wilderness that was infested with snakes and, because they felt guilty about their complaining, they interpreted it as a punishment from God.

The methodology of ‘cause and effect’ (If this, then that) rates very high among the tools of spiritual interpretation for some people, often with dangerous consequences.

 

I’ll get back to the snakes in a minute and how they relate to this gospel but I want to tell you a story about complaining that I remember every time I hear this story from the Book of Numbers.

 

I must have been in the first or second grade when my grandfather died suddenly. Very suddenly and unexpectedly. My grandmother was in shock – as was the whole family – which intensified her grief. I remember her house being filled with mourners – family and neighbors and friends – who came by the house to pay their respects, as was the custom of the day.

 

My grandmother was sitting in her rocking chair in the parlor. In good Portuguese style, she was dressed all in black, wailing and moaning as she prayed, surrounded by other women, all dressed in black, who were also wailing and moaning as they prayed, their rosary beads rattling in rhythm in their hands.

 

At one point, my Grandmother raised her voice high over the others to where God might hear her, saying, “Oh, God, why did you take him? He was such a good man! Such a good provider for his family!” 

 

As she prayed, her voice grew louder and she rocked more vigorously in her chair.

 

“Why did you take him?” she cried. “Why didn’t you take me? I don’t deserve to live! I am a miserable sinner! Why didn’t you take me instead?”

 

And, just at that point, her vigorous rocking became too much for her old rocking chair and suddenly there was a loud THWACK! The chair gave way and my Grandmother was suddenly on the floor, sitting stunned into silence in the midst of the splintered wood that was once her chair.

 

After a moment of hushed silence, which followed the gasps and cries, my grandmother’s voice rang out in her most earnest prayer, “I didn’t mean it! Oh, God, I didn’t mean it!”

 

Now, I’m not saying that God broke the chair. I’m just sayin’ . . . Simple Cause and Effect – “If this, then that” – is not always the best or accurate methodology - especially when trying to determine the works of God.

So, back to the Israelites in the wilderness. 

 

At the instruction of God, Moses made a snake of bronze and told the people to look at it and they would not die. Notice, please, that this did not remove the source of the people's suffering; rather, it enabled them to survive it.

 

The Mishnah does not take literally the words "Every one who was bitten by a serpent would look at the serpent and live," but interprets them symbolically. The people should look up to the God of heaven, for it is not the serpent that either brings to life or puts to death, but it is God.  

 

Jesus applied this story as a foreshadowing of his own act of salvation through being lifted up on the cross, stating "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life".

 

Now, these words of John’s gospel are wonderful words – beautiful words of life as that old hymn goes – for many Christians. And, they are painful words for those of us who love people who are not Christians. Maybe those we love are Jews or Muslims or Buddhists; perhaps they don’t follow any particular religion and are agnostic. A few may even say they are atheists.

 

These words are often painful for those of us who love people who do not look at Jesus in order to see the face of God because we know that these words are sometimes weaponized and used as a cudgel to hurt people who aren’t “believers”.

 

Which always makes me scratch my head, wondering how they missed the irony of their supposed superior moral status which compels them to hurt or diminish or dismiss another child of God because that person doesn’t look and see God in the same way they do.

One of my favorite expressions from Anne Lamott is the one where she reminds us that you can be sure you have created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.

 

It seems to me that every time I’ve looked over a crowd at a football game, someone is always carrying a sign that says, “John 3:16”. I always feel compelled to run out and stand next to them with a sign that says, “ . ..  AND 17!”

Which is, of course, verse 17: “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

 

Did you hear that? God. Did. Not. Send. The. Son. Into. The. World. To . . . What? To CONDEMN the world. No condemning. Just saving. 

 

I would also like to point out that God sent a savior and that savior’s name was Jesus.

 

We already have a savior. Jesus. Not me. Not you. Jesus is the savior.

 

I believe that God has sent and is sending and will continue to send people and creatures and parts of creation to us, not to remove the suffering of the world but to provide a way for us to survive it. 

 

That way, for me, is Jesus. Indeed, I have been described by some as a ‘Jesus freak’. I wear that title as a badge of honor.

 

Jesus, for others, is not the way to survive the suffering of the world by seeing God in our midst. That said, you know and I know people who are not Christian who are kind and generous, patient and compassionate, gentle of spirit and loving and giving who put most Christians to shame. 

 

Know what I think? I think Mother Teresa and Buddha walk together in heaven. So do Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. And, when it is time comes for young Nobel Peace Prize winner, Malala Yousafzai, to leave this earth – the young Muslim girl who was shot in the head because she wanted an education and miraculously survived and now continues to put her life on the line so that young girls everywhere of every race and religion, clan and culture can be educated – I think she’ll be embraced by Jesus himself who knew a little something about sacrificial love.

 

This is the fourth Sunday in Lent, often referred to as Refreshment or Laetere Sunday – from the first few words of the traditional Latin entrance into the mass for the day. "Laetare Jerusalem" ("Rejoice, O Jerusalem") is Latin from Isaiah 66:10.

 

Our faith is not one of scarcity even in the midst of the rigors of the discipline and depravation of Lent. Our faith is one of abundance, not scarcity. 

 

Yes, God will hear your cry about how the food is miserable but I suspect even God laughs when we complain that the portions of that miserable food are too small. 

 

I suspect God never loved my Grandmother more than when she prayed so vigorously she broke her chair.

 

I know this much to be true: God loves the world which God has created. God does not to condemn the world but sends those who inspire us to save it. 

 

So, keep your eyes on what you know is abounding in unconditional love. Hold fast to that which you believe to be pure and good and true. 

 

Practice the same random acts of kindness as God and be lavish and wasteful, as God is, with the love you give to those whom God has given to you.

 

In this way we, like the ancient Israelites and the early Christians, will not eliminate suffering, but we will know the way to survive it and thrive! 

 

Abundantly.

 

Amen.