The Fourth Sunday of Lent, March 15, 2015

Complaining about snakes

         The people are complaining. They are always complaining. This is the tired old story of the people of God. The people are blessed. They grow tired, or greedy, or fall into old habits. They suffer (through their own fault or from some cause outside of them.) They call to God for help and they are saved. Repeat as necessary.

         In the wilderness, the people are complaining again. They are wandering and becoming impatient. As punishment, (or some other reason), they are bitten by poisonous snakes. They cry out to Moses to pray to God and save them. Moses crafts a snake of bronze and wraps it around his staff and carries it through the camp. Everyone who looks on it is saved.

         Phyllis Tickle writes about this passage and compares it to our gospel reading. This story in Numbers has a good psychological message. Everyone gets bit. Everyone is suffering. Those who look down and focus on their problems find no relief. Those who look up and accept the possibility of God’s intervention find life. The snakes are still there. The people are still in the wilderness and having to eat the same old manna every day. The change is in their perspective. They are looking up to God instead of looking down on a problem they cannot change.

         Jesus himself also gives an interpretation of this passage. He is speaking with Nicodemus, a Pharisee who is curious about Jesus. Jesus tells him about being born again or born from above. He speaks about the mysterious movement of the spirit like the wind. Nicodemus doesn’t know what Jesus is talking about. It is this context that Jesus says that just as the bronze serpent was lifted up, so must he be lifted up, “that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” Then Jesus says, “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.”

         Then he goes on to say how those who refuse to believe are condemned already. Now I don’t believe that this is a threat or a judgment. I think that Jesus is saying that those who do not believe get what they already have. Those who refuse to look up are stuck with looking down. They have nothing but their problems and no way to be rid of them.

         In contrast, those who look up and believe in the gift of God through Jesus on the cross, they have a way to look beyond their problems. This is not a denial of problems. It is belief in a new solution. God will cure us of more than biting snakes. God will cure us of our sin. God will cure us of our stubbornness. God will cure us of hopelessness. God will ultimately cure us of death. Instead, God gives us life.

         So today we consider our present problems. We’re worried about money. We’re worried about our future. We don’t know what the church will look like. We only know that everything will be different. Our worries beset us like so many poisonous snakes. What we choose to believe will very much affect the outcome. If we stick to what we think we know, keeping to familiar ways of doing things, we are likely to scurry around on the ground, trying to chase our many problems out the door with a broom. We are not likely to get anywhere. In fact, we may be overcome by the potential poison of our problems and become bitter and petty and argumentative.

         We have the opportunity to also look up: not to avoid our problems but to see them from God’s perspective and seek the new life God is offering. God wants to save us. God wants to heal us. It is God’s desire that we become a community of love and faith, proclaiming good news through our words and deeds. Any discussion and worry about our future should begin with God’s hope for us. Perhaps the first thing we must do, therefore, is to set aside our own solutions. God cannot help us if we fuss about with our own tired agenda.

         We should not be surprised that we have complicated problems that test our skill and our faith. God never promised us ease. God never promised us comfort – at least not in this life. God has promised us salvation. God has promised us life. But God may have to lead us through wilderness and struggles before we get to that Promised Land.

         Today, we have our wilderness struggle. Will we listen to the same old story of our stubbornness and our desperate desire for God to get us out of our mess? God has not abandoned us. God has always been with us. Perhaps in our desperation, we are only now willing to see how God is here and believe that God is listening. The future is uncertain. We also know that God desires life for us. As long as we hold onto the past and the old ways of doing things, we leave no room for what is possible.

         The cross would not be our first choice. We aren’t thrilled to accept loss as the cost of change. God isn’t calling us to change simply to upset us. God offers life that is better for us. Even as we rid ourselves of the familiar and comfortable, we are also ridding ourselves of our death-dealing habits. The future for us is life. It just may not look like what we expect.