For the last several months we have been following the lectionary. The lectionary is used by several denominations. By giving four scripture passages a week it works its way through the Bible in a three-year cycle. It is helpful because you are sure to get a well-rounded look at scripture and there are various worship helps which go along with it. It helps challenge the pastor not to just pick those passages the he or she likes. Often study of a passage which is not a first pleasing can yield a worthy message.
Upon my first reading of today's passage in Numbers I thought, wow, this sounds like primitive religion. Moses looks a lot like a witch doctor putting a snake on a pole to save people from snakebites. Archaeology tells us from ancient seals and talismans that the veneration of snakes in Palestine predates the writing of scripture and was probably adopted by the Hebrews from the surrounding cultures of Egypt and Babylon where it was connected with wisdom and a long life. David and Solomon had bronze serpents erected in the temple. Scripture tells us that in the eighth century Hezekiah threw out the snakes on poles as part of his hard line monotheistic reform. In early Israel Yahweh is the local tribal god, the best among many gods, which are found in many different forms and locations. Only later do the Hebrew prophets like Jeremiah begin to think of these idols as empty of any real divine spirit and "delusions of the mind."
As those who live in the post Christian monotheism of science it is hard to give much credence to the belief that a bronze snake on a pole will save one from a snakebite any more than drinking the chicken blood of a voodoo sacrifice will do anything other than get you the bird flu.
It is not just the snake on the pole that is troubling about this passage. We like to refrain from blaming God, or from assuming God is punishing us every time we contract a disease or fall prey to a car accident, a volcanic eruption, a bird flu or a snakebite. I am not averse to the idea that God communicates with us when we get out of line. I do believe that God is trying to tell us something about our level of consumption and relationship with creation through changes in the environment. Indiscriminate sex is a threat not only to the stability of family, but also to human health. Excessive abuse of alcohol more often that not will result in consequences that seem like punishment.
But such communication has a direct correlation. To take such a thing as a snakebite or a hurricane, al la Pat Robertson, and say that God is punishing Florida for homosexuality is absurd. Why do the hurricanes hit the Bible belt where Pat Robertson gets most of his audience? Maybe God is punishing them for watching Pat Robertson instead of paying attention to destruction of the environment? It makes just as much sense. Maybe more. Such things are too random and the faithful fall prey at least as often as the unfaithful. I don't pretend that we can fully know the reasons and purpose of God's action, but this kind of god doesn't seem to be a very good aim with his punishment. It is as if he were shooting a shotgun into a crowd to stop one person. It doesn't make sense from a theological perspective. Who wants to follow a god who seems to be such a bad aim? Personally sensing that indiscriminant suffering is unjustified, but knowing we are guilty of sin nonetheless, in a world with an angry, punishing god, we run the danger of justifying ourselves by finding scapegoats. So Jews were blamed for the plague in Europe and recently a few have blamed gays for the death of soldiers in Iraq.
On the other hand, we may be reminded by one event to refocus on another. A close brush with death in a car accident or a heart attack may remind us of the value of relationships we have been sinfully neglecting. We may see from a hurricane that God would not yet have us get complacent about racial prejudice. We would say that God may not have caused the accident but instead that God used the accident. God does not cause the event but uses the event to bring good, or to remind us change is in order. We claim there is a spirit in life that is not isolated individual sentiment but a force in all creation, the creative force itself that work for the good.
The Israelites escaped slavery in Egypt and had been wandering the wilderness for nearly forty years. Then, nearly to the Promised Land, their route had to be revised once again as they were rejected by the Edomites. Not surprisingly the congregations "Back to Egypt Committee" started to complain again.
Every parent who has taken a family vacation know something about how Moses and God must feel when the Israelites start fighting in the back seat, complain about the food, and whine about how they would have been better off staying in Egypt. It is from moments like this that we get such brilliant sayings from dad as, "Stop your crying or I'll give you something to really cry about." Whether due to Murphy's Law or God's law, when the family does finally take a break at a rest stop, one of the kids gets stung by a bee. Hopefully dad doesn't say, "See, that is what you get for complaining!" But even the more benign "it is just a little bee sting and will not kill you" or "boys don't cry" doesn't do much to stop the pain or make the trip more endurable.
Typically it is mom who plays Moses and grabs the stuffed toy honey bee and flies it around the car, distracting the child from the wound, and giving faith to all that you may not die before you reach the Promised Land or Oasis #6, whichever comes first. Sometimes a little primitive distraction goes a long way. Both in Yoga and childcare I have found that is often the very act of focus on our pain that gives it the power to consume us.
While my analogy may be partially accurate, I don't think I want to break the significance of this story down to a stuffed animal on a family vacation. I confess with some embarrassment that the first time I faced real sickness in someone close to me I was scared to death. My first real girlfriend in high school was hospitalized and I was afraid to visit her. Frankly, I was playing at relationship and wanted nothing to do with the reality of disease. I think I was afraid of being bitten. It took a while, but as I faced my fear of illness, I found I grew stronger, and I became more determined not to allow my fear of sickness and death keep me from living and loving.
Even if we avoid snakes and hospitals, it is pretty hard to avoid being bitten in live. On our journey through life we will experience material and spiritual hardship, hunger, dehydrating deserts and defeat. With sinful obstinacy we will get lost and wander through wilderness. We will encounter poisonous snakes. The question is not if we will get bitten, but how we will we respond? Will we be consumed by the fear and immobilized from moving on toward deeper, bountiful relationship, or will we look up in faith to God and go through the valley of the shadow of death into the Promised Land?
Staring at a symbol of the danger we face calls forth defiance and determination, a faith that God will see us through. American Cancer Society is not for cancer but against it. AA members say to one another, "I am an alcoholic," not because they want to return to the illusionary comfort of slavery to the bottle, but because they are determined not to.
For Rome the symbol of the cross reminded subjects that tortuous death awaited those who dared hope for freedom. We hold up the cross, not because we want to crucify others, not to worship the cross, but to constantly remind ourselves that through faith in Jesus Christ, the power of the cross to kill hope has been overcome. Through Christ on the cross our sin and our sickness has given way to freedom. For God did not send his son to condemn the world but to save it through him. We take our hatred and prejudice, our fear of illness and intimacy, our slavery to the bottle or body, our tendency to worship a brutal god who demands scapegoats and we proclaim, "It all ends here, on this cross!" A symbol of torture becomes a symbol of peace. A symbol of slavery becomes a symbol of liberation. A symbol of law becomes a symbol of grace and freedom. A symbol of death becomes a symbol of resurrection and eternal life.
Are you condemned by the snakes at your feet? Look up to God, who is rich in mercy. Dead in transgressions, by grace you are saved. For you are created by God and empowered by Christ Jesus to do good works. Repent and believe the Good News. This is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Moses the Witch Doctor and the Evolution of Faith March 26, 2006 Page 4