Sermon by Pastor Mike Buttonnn
The Company You Keep
Text: Numbers 21:4-9; John 3:14-21
NRS Numbers 21
4From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. 5The people spoke against God and against Moses, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food." 6Then the LORD sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. 7The people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned by speaking against the LORD and against you; pray to the LORD to take away the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people. 8And the LORD said to Moses, "Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live." 9So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.
NRS John 3
14And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
16For 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.
17Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. 20For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. 21But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God."
May the blessing of the Lord rest and remain upon you always, for the sake of Jesus the Messiah. Amen.
There’s an old proverb that my parents drilled into my head, and maybe yours, too: “You are known by the company you keep.” That was their way of reminding me that a person’s name is a precious thing, and it can be easily tarnished depending on the crowd you call friends. Well, apparently, the company you keep can also have a big impact on way more than just your reputation. More and more research is indicating the deep connections between community and health, that is, how personal well-being is tied to the well-being of the people with whom you share life. For generations medical science has, we all know, advanced by leaps and bounds, mostly through investigating the microbial and, more recently, the molecular causes of disease. But more and more we are running up against major health challenges that won’t -- perhaps can’t -- be addressed with a new wonder drug. Alcohol abuse, drug addiction, and obesity are, by all accounts, modern day plagues in our society, yet none of these epidemics is ever likely to be “cured” with an out-of-the-box, over-the-counter solution, despite what the ads on TV promise. To get well and stay well, community matters. Would we, for example, have seen the last generation’s double digit decline in smoking without the combination of community medicine and public policy? I don’t think so. The same applies to the roughly 50% decline in drunk- driving fatalities over the last twenty years. Without in any way diminishing the importance of individual responsibility, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the people you hang with can make you sick, or well.
Community health is at the center of today’s startling and – some would say -- disturbing First Lesson. I say disturbing because in Numbers 21 we read that the Lord, Yahweh, has sent a plague of poisonous, in some translations fiery serpents to bite and kill the people of Israel. In an on-line discussion of our lesson, one participant wrote, “What kind of God is this who inflicts death on people for their lack of trust?”
Good question, and for some the easy answer is that the God of the Old Testament is a mean old so-and-so, which is why we believe in the forgiving, compassionate God of the New Testament. But not so fast! Jesus pitches his own brand of fire and brimstone, as when he parabolizes about those poor souls who will be “thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 8:12). No snakes, but not a pretty picture! We have to look deeper for the answer as to why the Lord would resort to such drastic measures. So let me ask you a question.
God forbid, but what if your doctor called you into his or her office and told you that, on the basis of your most recent medical tests, you had a potentially deadly cancer. And what if your doctor then told you that to cure this cancer you would have to submit to surgery, then radiation, then chemotherapy. You might say, “No, thanks, Doc,” but if you were looking at possibly another twenty years of productive life, a chance to see your kids graduate, maybe marry, maybe have their own children, well then, I suspect that you might say, “Okay.” Whereupon you would soon find yourself signing a host of documents with a lot of very scary small print giving your doctors and health-care providers permission to cut, burn, and poison you, possibly to the brink of death. Some of you, I know, have gone down that path, and I’m sure you thought about quitting, giving up treatment, and just dying before the cure killed you. But because you had people supporting you and praying for you and depending on you, you fought the good fight and you’re alive today and glad for it. Praise God!
So in this story from Numbers I think of God as Israel’s oncologist, attacking a cancer in the body politic of God’s Chosen People. Our text says that while on the journey from Mount Hor, the people became impatient, speaking against Moses and the Lord. In one sense, there’s nothing new about that. In Exodus 15 Israel was also murmuring about the lack of water and what a bum Moses was, and the Lord responded by sweetening the bitter springs of Marah. My word, if the Lord sent a plague of serpents on every church every time there was grumbling in the ranks, we’d all be hip-deep in snakes. Samuel L. Jackson would not have made the movie, “Snakes on a Plane,” but instead, “Snakes in a Church.” [I can already hear Samuel L. Jackson: “Enough is enough. I’ve had it with these …” Oops! Almost got carried away there!] But obviously, something other than just your typical grousing is going on here.
Notice how the text says that the people are turning against both God and Moses. The level of dissension has grown to such a critical mass that the grumblings and murmurings of a few is threatening the health of the whole body. You know how it only takes a couple of people in a family, home, office, school, team, or church to stir the pot, develop factions, build resentments, and before you know it the whole group is sick, as in dysfunctional, as in incapable of fulfilling its mission, as in sick maybe even to the point of completely breaking apart. So what, you say? So what if Israel goes under? What if God just shrugs off the complaints and lets Israel totally unravel? Is this sorry little nation wandering in this sorry wilderness worth sending a plague of fiery serpents? Here’s the short answer: No Israel, no Jesus. Son of David, son of Abraham, Jesus is the heir of Israel’s promise. Maybe God could have created another people to take Israel’s place, but all we know is that God placed all his eggs in that weak, fragile, basket-case of a people, and rather than see the covenant with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses fail, God pulled out the big guns to keep the community of faith and hope alive, even to our own generation.
Snakes! Ugh! I know that God created them to fulfill an important role in the whole of creation, and I know that the herpetologists in our midst will find this remark offensive and ignorant, but I hate snakes. They scare me, even the little, non-poisonous ones that are vital to the health of our ecologically sensitive wetlands. I don’t want to kill them; I just don’t want to be around them; and apparently, neither did Israel. To escape the snake bites, and more importantly, to escape perishing as a people, God gave Israel a way to disassociate themselves from what was becoming a community of death and dissolution and reconnect with the community of life and freedom that is the charter of God’s people. To make this way possible God ordered Moses to make a bronze serpent and put it on a pole, so that whoever was bit by a snake could turn to it and live. Sending snakes was obviously drastic, but if you think about it, having Moses make a snake is also pretty extreme. You may recall that in the Ten Commandments God expressly forbid Israel from making any graven image. But it seems that the situation here is so dire that God makes an exception to his own rule. Thank God, because God thereby made a way for the Chosen People to continue on their journey to the Promised Land.
When Jesus is lifted up on the cross, he becomes for us, according to John’s gospel, another kind of bronze serpent. In the same way that Israel was called out of wilderness chaos into a renewed order, Jesus becomes the focus for a new community to form, the community we call, with St. Paul, the Body of Christ. Gathered around the crucified and risen Lord, we exist as an alternative to the communities of death and destruction that surround us. Raised up on a tree of wood, Jesus raises us up to be the tree of life for the world, connected to one another in bonds of love that cannot be broken, so that no one might perish.
The community of love – that’s what you are, and to keep us that way, we keep looking to Jesus.
In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
