Lent 4B + Of what are you afraid? + 3.10.24
M. Campbell-Langdell
All Santos, Oxnard
Of what are you afraid? Snakes have scared humans since
before time. In the Harry Potter series, some of the scariest moments
have a huge snake slithering through walls, its eerie hissing voice resonating
through the stone walls.
Some places have to be literally afraid of snakes. At
the Lakota Sioux congregation of Christ Episcopal Church in Red Shirt, on the
Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, they need to make snake guards to cover
the steps since the rattlesnakes will curl under the stairs up to the church
and could strike a person entering to worship. When I visited, I was
petrified of visiting the graveyard, where they said rattlesnakes loomed.
And every year until recently, the youth of our diocese clean
out that same graveyard and help with such projects, after knowledgeable adults
scare off any loitering critters.
The Israelites traveling with Moses in the desert sure had a
genuine reason to fear snakes—here they had them come, seemingly out of
nowhere, to strike their fellow travelers. And when they pray for God’s
help, God tells Moses to make a bronze snake and put it on a pole, so that
those who have been bitten can look at it and be healed.
Now, if you are like me and remember last week’s reading, one
of the Ten Commandments was about not having any idols, and yet here we have
something that sounds a lot like an idol.
Don’t make any graven images, but look on a bronze snake and
be healed? Whaaat?
Well somehow this worked at the moment. They were able to look to this
bronze snake and see God’s healing power.
We do know that ultimately this image did become not an
instrument of God’s healing, but an idol in itself, and about 500 years later
in the time of King Hezekiah, it was destroyed in order to help the people
refocus on the one true G-d. [1]
Sometimes, things that are edifying in one moment hold us
back in the next—be they relationships or graven images.
But in the moment, this much feared object was lifted up, and
looking to it somehow helped the people focus on God and they were
healed.
Now, except for if we go hiking with some frequency, we, like St. Patrick,
don’t actually have too many snakes in our lives in Oxnard—at least I
don’t. I don’t literally have to be afraid of these critters very
often. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have slithery things slide into my
consciousness sometimes, speaking parseltongue fears and distrust.
The hissing voice may speak in the fear-mongering words of a
person saying others can’t be trusted. Or it may whisper cunningly in the
worries that visit at night, or the false guilt that keeps coming back refusing
to be laid to rest. These things can be like snakes curling around our
hearts.
If you have done the Stations of the Cross any time recently, you may have had
shivers go up your spine of a similar sort. When I truly enter into this
rite, I find myself recoiling in horror at times at the fearful aspect of human
cruelty we see—how Jesus suffered at the hands of humanity. He was so
loving and good as God, but he was killed on a cross.
Pastor Alene recently included in a reflection for the Gospel
Justice Commission that we often fear those who are different and find them to
be frightening. We often seek assurance of authorities in interacting with
those who are acting in a manner we deem to be stranger. But she contends that
we must truly engage with the individuals who cross our path and help them to
find the help they need. This will lead to a better community and culture of
mutual support. Truly seeing others, with certain good boundaries, can bring
healing.
And indeed, here in John, we are told to look to Christ, lifted up, as a sign
of salvation, just like so many years ago we looked to the serpent on the stick
and were healed. That ancient symbol became the symbol for the medical
field—God’s healing from something so frightful—life from a death-dealing
object.[2] And Christ, lifted on a cross
becomes for us the symbol that even the fearful things inside of each of us,
the hissing that speaks through the walls of our own hearts, can, no, has been
conquered by Christ. Looking up to Jesus, we see the healing we
need.
We can look to the cross not only to be reminded of our sin
and where we are still striving, but we can be reminded that we are saved
already, that we already have God’s healing. Just like the medical
profession has become separate from the church in many cases, healing and cure
can look different, depending on whether you use a religious or scientific
lens. But we have God’s healing that works in tandem with the wonderful
people working in the medical arts.
What comes up when I talk about this hissing voice? Can
you put the fearful things of your heart up on the boughs of the cross—place
them in Jesus’ loving arms that stretched out to embrace humankind?
Can you remember that no matter how big these things may
seem, we have the God who conquered death, and all that deals death it in this
world. Who turns hissing voices into angel’s tongue and turns fear into
love?
Let us bind unto ourselves today the strong name of the
Trinity and remain in hope that nothing—not death, snakes, fear, or any other
tribulation can separate us from the love of God, from the embrace of Jesus,
and from the free gift of salvation we have in Christ.
[1] W. Sibley Towner, “Numbers 21:4-9:
Exegetical Perspective,” FOTW Year B, Vol. 2, 101.
[2] Barbara Brown Taylor, “Numbers 21:4-9:
Homiletical Perspective,” FOTW Year B, Vol. 2, 103.
.jpg)
Comments
Post a Comment