Snakes!

A sermon preached with the people of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Oakland, California.

The 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.”

There is no food … and we detest this food!. So … there is food. It’s just … not your favorite.

And suddenly God is the parent who has somehow managed to cook a healthy meal on a Wednesday night for the kids, and they cry and beg for pizza. And you know what? God has HAD. IT.

And unlike the Exodus accounts of this moment in the journey from slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land, where God makes water flow from the Rock in Horeb and sends down manna from heaven, in this account:

God sends snakes. A bunch of biting snakes. 

NOW God does, in the end, provide for the Israelites in this telling from Numbers as well, but first: snakes.

God tells Moses to make a bronze image of a snake put it up on a pole, and tell the people that if they are bitten, they should look upon it, and be healed. And God’s bronze antidote works.

What a weird story. And, okay, it gets even better. 

Because in this morning’s Gospel account from John, of alllll the choices from Hebrew scripture he could have made to illustrate his point, our great storyteller Jesus uses this one! The one with the snake on a stake!

He’s speaking to Nicodemus, the wise Jewish leader – who has come to him with a spirit of holy curiosity; to try to understand what exactly is going on here. And Jesus says:

“Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”

And then he continues:

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.”

I kind of wish all those signs and t-shirts and billboards with “John 3:16,” and the “For God so loved the world” bit also included the part about the serpent – just so people would say “huh?” and look into the passage and its context a little bit more.

Because I have come to understand in my ministry that the dominant interpretation of this famous passage — John 3:15 — is something like: “those of us who are Christian, and can recite certain beliefs a certain way and believe every word we are saying every time we say them are going to be okay forevermore. And those who are not Christian and cannot say those things are doomed to some kind of imagined hellfire.” And I am so sorry that this interpretation has hurt and excluded so many people. I am so sorry if you are one of those people. That is not the interpretation I have come to.

Let’s dig a little deeper. Jesus says:

“For God so loved the world” The world. Kosmos in the Greek. Everyone. Not a subset. Not a certain type. The world. So, that’s pretty clear. And then he says:

“that he gave his only Son.” Gave. A gift. The gift of God’s self. The gift of presence. The gift of love. And then, he continues:

“so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life” The Greek word for believes here is pisteuō. It’s not the same as “assent” or “agreement.” It’s not intellectual –  not doctrinal or credal – that understanding of “belief” is a relatively new invention. Pisteuō is more like faith or, trust.

So let’s try this: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who trusts in that gift of love may not perish but have eternal life.”

When we do not accept the gift of love; when we do not trust in a Divine presence – I do believe we experience something like being “condemned.” I do believe this is at the heart of the profound evil and sadness in this world. Not “wrong belief” in the intellectual sense, but a rejection of love. A lack of trust that walking in the way of love will lead to the promised land, however counterintuitive it may seem.

For example, storing up far more treasure for ourselves than we need (as individuals, as families, but also, notably, as a nation) seems like the right, responsible thing to do, if we are in a position do so; seems like the thing that will lead to our salvation. But as the rich store up that treasure, and only get richer and the poor, who could use it to survive, get poorer, it breaks this world apart. It leads – it has led -- to suffering, for everyone.

We are quite capable of bringing down dens of vipers on ourselves. We are quite capable of producing our very own hellfire, if we must lean on such language. On a global scale, but also in our own interior world.

When I turn on the news and see the faces of innocent people – innocent children suffering and dying in Palestine; when I see reports about the closing window to make a difference for the future of this earth and its climate; when I drive through my city and see human beings living in encampments without access to basic human rights; when I wonder what’s the next step in legislation over the bodies of people who can bear children; When I read about the latest example of violence against people of color in this country; when I see the creep of authoritarianism here and around the world. I am tempted to lose my faith. My trust. I am so very tempted to ask God to go back to Egypt, to some time things were supposedly bettter. But salvation is never found behind us. Salvation is always at hand, and just in front of us, even when it seems unimaginable.

This is at the heart of the Good News. At the heart of the Gospel. When we allow ourselves to look upon the cross, as shocking a symbol as a bronze serpent – found right in the center of human suffering, we will find there God’s boundless love for the whole world.

And if we allow ourselves to accept that love, we will find within us a belief, by which I mean trust. Faith.

And if we live out that trust and that faith founded in love, we will live it out every day in the world. Listening, helping, showing up, being patient, noticing God in ourselves and one another. Taking risks. Rejecting the violent forces in the world that reject love.

And if we live in the world that way, we will see glimpses of the promised land. We will see glimpses of the Kingdom of Heaven. Which is very close at hand indeed. Right here. And just ahead.