The Numbers passage is an odd and difficult passage. There are levels of interpretation and
meaning. If we stop or identify any one
of those interpretations and meanings as The
meaning, we will miss what God is saying to us in our scriptures. To hear what God is saying we must hear all
the levels of meaning in light of God’s ultimate revelation of Love, that God
so Loved the World.” But we can’t understand
that revelation without understanding how the meaning of this story in Numbers
is enfolded into that revelation of God in Jesus Christ. We’ll take some time
with various possible interpretations of our Scriptures.
At first read and most obvious read God sends deadly
poisonous snakes into the Israelite encampment because the Israelites are
questioning and complaining. Then when the Israelites admit it was wrong to
question and come groveling to Moses in order to get God to take the snakes
away. But, God doesn't remove the snakes
but invents this odd ritual object and ritual.
A bronze serpent is made and put on a pole and if an Israelite gets
bitten by a snake all they need to do is look at the Bronze snake and they will
be healed of the snake bite. Even after
the Israelites confess God doesn't remove the punishment God sent but merely
offers a way to not die from the punishment.
This interpretation isolates this episode from the larger story of the
Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and their liberation from slavery. If you string together these stories as
stories of complaint and punishment this story could be read as saying God
really, really dislikes people questioning God, and pointing out what is wrong
with the world.
n the story of the Exodus of the Israelites and travels in
the desert. This is just one moment of
what is nearly constant complaint of the Israelites even though they have seen
God’s consistent mighty acts and signs of God’s care for them as a people. The complaints begin when Moses first came to
the Israelites as slaves even after God brings plagues to convince Pharaoh that
he should let the slaves go, they first complain which is understandable that
Moses is stirring up trouble and making life more difficult than it was before
he showed up and began to demand the Israelites freedom. Then once Pharaoh Then
changes his mind and sends the Egyptian army to to prevent their leaving
Egypt. God then both provides a way of
escape and resounding defeat of the oppressors.
God Even gives a sign of God’s presence with the Israelites through an
epiphany of a cloud by day and hovering fire at night. Once in the desert without food and water
Israelites legitimately complain about lack of food and water, and God provides
water and Manna (what in our scripture text for today, the Israelites in their
complaint call “miserable food.”) In
this larger context the passage given that this is just an episode in a long
line of God does amazing and astounding things for the Israelites, gives them
food and water, is leading them to the “promised Land” where they will be able
to be free, and at every step of the way as if God has done nothing before,
they complain and accuse this God that has done truly astounding things and
freed them from slavery. From a human perspective God has some reason to be a
bit peeved and somewhat justified in sending a plague of serpents upon the
Israelites, not for questioning but seemingly assuming God really never
intended anything any good but has only intended death, so God sends them what
they think God is giving them, death in the form of poisonous serpents. The
Israelites get what they expect, imagined God giving them. This interpretation
like the first one though still leaves the same question as the first, why
doesn’t God s end the snakes away if God sent them in the first place. The
creation of a ritual object that needs to be gazed upon to be healed of a snake
bite isn’t completely accounted for here..
If however, we continue to reflect on the larger context of
this episode and see it as much about God as the Israelites, we can begin to
interpret it as a story of God’s steadfast love in the face of continual
rejection. God can’t do enough for the
Israelites. The Israelites have a
profound lack of trust. In fact the Israelites
continually expect death from God. We could interpret “God sent venomous
Serpents” as the Israelites interpretation.
It’s makes sense God sent plagues of frogs and locust upon Egypt when
Pharaoh upset God, so they say we've clear upset God so God must have sent the serpents. Yet, God’s solution calls into
question whether God actually sent the serpents. The presence of the serpents and a direct act
of God is more in line with the Israelites perception based in their complaint
that God was trying to kill them anyway.
If God sent the serpents as punishment for complaining and calling into
question, then why wouldn't have God just removed the snakes once the
Israelites have become obedient again and contrite. The plague worked, and if they get out of
line again God could just send another plague.
But God’s response shows a different concern, not obedience but trust
and being in relationship. The presence
of the poisonous snakes offers the Israelites a chance to yet again trust
God. God’s wrath, the presence of the
serpents coincides with the attitude of the Israelites about and towards their
God. They see themselves in an
adversarial relationship with God.. However, the coming of the serpents as
being the act of God, is bound up in that the coming of the serpents providing
an opportunity for God to once again show God’s patience and love and longing
for relationship with God’s people. God doesn't send the snakes away because the snakes aren’t sent like the plagues of
Egypt, rather they are sent in that their presence with a people turning to God
in their time of need, is an opportunity for God to show his love and care and
for the Israelites to show their faith and trust in the one who has liberated
them. They can begin to associate God,
not with death, but life.
We could perhaps feel pretty good about this interpretation
and leave it there, we resolved the abusive and petty tyrant charge that could
be laid at God ( and kind of was what the Israelites keep accusing God of
being.) but then Jesus seems to find in this story something that has larger
significance, and prefigures the Crucifixion , and God’s overall solution for
the separation between us and God and each other. All we need to do is look upon Christ have
faith that God is and was at work in Jesus of Nazareth and we will be
whole. We all, all humanity, have a
deadly venom running through our veins.
Paul puts it that we were dead in our trespasses and sins. We were or
are dead the way someone is dead when they have the venom of a poisonous snake
in their veins without access to an antidote.
Your heart may still be beating but with each beat the inevitable death
is drawing closer. We were dead in this
sense, in that before Christ we were we to remain in our separation form God
and each other no antidote for the human condition existed, no way out. In a sense before Christ, the Psalmist is
correct to say that the dead don’t praise god from the grave. Our physical death without Jesus Christ
renders our separation, from each other, from God’s good creation and from
God’s own self, permanent.
We can get a little hung up on Paul’s lists here and
elsewhere, about what constitutes actions that show or indicate that we have
poison coursing through our veins, the poison of distrust and self-seeking
protection of what is ours, the signs that we are dead and separated from
God. The Israelites showed they lived
with the reality of the poisonous serpents before the serpents ever came. They were convinced that death was the most
real thing there was, and no matter what sings God provided no matter what God
gave them they trusted the reality of death as more sure than the love of God.
Paul says we are all like that, we are all dead in our trespasses and
sins. We are, all of humanity are, the
Israelites grumbling in the desert unwilling and unable to trust in the reality
of love and God’s faithfulness. As Paul
says elsewhere even our good deeds apart from faith and trust, that is
relationship with God, are bound up in this logic of death. That is the lists of what we once were are
simply systems of what is true for all no matter what we do apart from
Christ. In fact being caught up in
ensuring that we aren’t doing Paul’s lists shows that we are trusting in our
ability to avoid the serpents rather than God’s solution which is faith.
The antidote is Christ hung on the cross lifted up, the
antidote is to trust God’s weakness and foolishness in becoming human and
accepting a horrible and humiliating death of a criminal, as the power and
strength of God.
Signs and wonders don’t help us trust. If they did there wouldn't be story after story of our human belief that
god wants our death, in the story of the Israelites Exodus from Egypt. That story is the story of our humanity not
just a people in a particular time. Thus, if we are honest with ourselves, we
can identify with the feelings and view point of the Israelites. But what God asked then and asks now is the
same, faith. And this is Paul’s consistent claim. God of the Torah asks the same thing of us as
the God of Jesus Christ, that we trust in God and God’s ways, so that we may be
restored to relationship with God and each other, and in that restoration be
freed from the logic of fear and death.
No comments:
Post a Comment