Text: Numbers 21:4-9
Introduction
Every self-help book and motivational speaker would tell you never to fall into the passive. Always stay in the active sense. Make yourself the subject of your own stories verbs. You have agency over your own life. Claim it.
And this is good advice for the most part. The more you are able to see yourself in the active, the more success is likely to build. And the while it is never a guarantee, success tends to bring happiness. There is an old sports saying that winning solves everything. The ’70s Yankees could be a complete basketcase case of clubhouse, but as long as Mr. October was hitting home-run and Billy Martin managing to World Series wins, it didn’t matter. It was only when the wins stopped that it all fell apart. And that is largely true outside of the hothouse of sports. When the career is going well, budgets are flesh, the kids are getting A’s & B’s, the spouse is appreciative, all kinds of things become “small stuff” that you don’t sweat.
But it is not always possible to think in the active voice. We are not always the subjects. Sometimes we are the objects. Sometimes the passive voice is necessary. What do we do when life happen to us? How do we respond when the fallen world acts on us? It might not even be in those troubling senses. How might it affect us when random things change our plans or disrupt our deepest desires?
Text
The Old Testament story is one of the those crazy and complex texts that probably cause many people just to put the book down. Let me attempt to put it in the narrative.
Israel has been in the desert for quite a while at this point. They have served their 40 years and are on the way back to the promised land, glimpsed and ran from in fear all those years ago. Aaron, Moses’ brother and the high priest for all those years had passed away and they had buried him on Mt.Hor. They rededicated themselves to YHWH and immediately some of the Canaanites who were on the edges of the promised land in the Negev were handed over to them. They were moving North East, fast. They could taste the milk and honey.
But in Israel’s way was Edom. Edom was the kingdom of the descendants of Esau – so all distant cousins. But Edom would not let Israel pass through their land. And God had told Israel no, you don’t get to conquer and kill Edom like the Canaanites. Leave Edom to me, but you have to go around. And so after heading North East, they must turn around and head South West, retracing steps, back toward the desert, away from the promised of milk and honey.
There is nothing Israel can do about this. It just is. How do they respond? Is the response one of faith, God has lead us for 40 years, he will lead us for a few months more? Is the response to set out in faith and hope supposedly built up over the years in the desert? Or is it a pity party? Is it to lash out in bitterness and anger? Have the 40 years in the desert made Israel resilient to the chaos of the world, or are they still the same Israel, just dustier?
We read the story so we know it is more that latter, but it is worth examining Israel’s exact response closely.
“Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?” The levels of this complaint are staggering. The majority of those who would remember leaving Egypt have perished over the years in the desert. The Israel that is there now has very little living memory of Egypt, and it should be the memory of slavery, but here it is with wistful longing. God has kept them alive for 40 years in the desert, yet they are still afraid they as a people are going to be left to die. He has fed them and not allowed their clothes and sandals to wear out. And after all that proof of His steadfast love, at the first obstacle they turn on God, for something unknown.
What ancient half remembered thing are we holding onto? What fear is living in our hearts? What is standing in the way of faith? Christ has freed us from our bondage to sin. He has demonstrated his steadfast love in many and various ways that continue today. Ways that start with word and sacrament, but continue in all of our lives. Are we old Israel fearful and grumbling, or do we take fresh courage?
“For there is no food and no water”. This is an outright lie, a slander against God. Daily they are provided with the manna. Weekly the quail. The rock that follows them has given them water. All of this is provided by Fatherly divine goodness and mercy.
That is part of Luther’s explanation to the first article of the creed. God not only provided for Israel in the desert he has provided for us. “…Body and soul, eyes, ears and all my members, my reason and all my senses… He richly and daily provides me with all that I need to support this body and life, protects me from all danger, and guards me and preserves me from all evil; and all this out of pure, fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me; for all which I owe it to Him to thank, praise, serve, and obey Him.”
Do we follow through with the thanks and praise? Or do we slander providence? Are we fearful of not having enough, that we withhold what is proper from the work of God? Or do have faith that he will lead us in green pastures, that the milk and honey of the kingdom are already ours?
“We loathe this worthless food”. Israel flips from the slander to the venom of hatred. The daily bread that has preserved them all these years, is disdained. The heavenly feast for which all they have to do is walk out to collect it is tossed aside as worthless.
Beyond the gifts of providence, do we despise our daily bread? As Luther would say about the 3rd commandment on the sabbath, do we despise preaching and the word, or do we gladly hear and learn it? Do we make a place for our daily bread, well, daily, or do we think prayer and bible reading is worthless compared to a extra 15 minutes of Netflix? Do we recognize the body and blood of Christ when we kneel at the rail, or is it just an extra 10 mins on the service?
Moral
The choice Israel faced, the choice we all face, when confronted by a situation we can’t control, is to continue to walk in faith, or to give ourselves over to the venom of victimology, and envy and despair.
I think that is largely what those snakes represent. We’ve all been in environments full of that venom. It slithers in and whispers in our ear. It sinks us down and separates us from each other’s love and care. Fiery words get said. Deep divisions are created. We bite each other and spread the venom where ever we can. And in the most advanced cases we see no way out. Our victimhood becomes our very identity.
It is only when we recognize the snakes among us, that we might see the way out.
“The people came to Moses and said, ‘we have sinned , we have spoken against the Lord…pray to the Lord that he take the serpents away from us.”
Removing them ourselves is impossible. And the punishment of sin is simply living with it. But God is steadfast in his love. And grants us repentance.
Christology
To Moses he said hang an image of the serpent. Everyone who looked would live.
It was a shadow of what was to come. That symbol of unfaithfulness, and fear and envy and despair that spread its venom among ancient Israel, would be made full.
The unfaithfulness, and fear and envy and despair of all mankind, would look at the sinless and beloved Son of God, and nail him to a cross. Lifting him up.
That is the power of the cross. We can look there and see the venom inside us, the venom we are capable of. We can look there and see the depth of our degradation.
And we can look there and see the depth that God was willing to descend toto free us. We cansee the full love of God for us. That he would not leave us to our venom without a sign.
Eschatology
Looking at that cross we are given the same choice as Israel.
We can leave all our venom at the foot of the cross. We can understand that God has not come into the world to condemn the world. To starve us. To lead us on hopeless desert walks. God came into the world such that we might be saved through him. That we might come into the light. That we might live in his love. That we might have eternal life.
We can leave all ofour venom at the foot of the cross, and when we do we have already entered life, by grace through faith.
Or we can hold onto the venom. We can refuse to see the cross. We can reject what Christ has done. People love darkness. The venom can taste sweet.
If it is bitter. If you have seen it. Look there…and live.
God has been faithful to us. We will make the promised land. Don’t perish in the desert. Amen.