Many of the folks who were part of Grace Lutheran Church in downtown Phoenix, where I formerly served, were experiencing homelessness, and each day as people streamed through the office during office hours, we would receive request after request: for water and snacks, for bus tickets and first aid supplies, for help securing a copy of someone’s birth certificate or $7 to replace their Arizona ID, for prayer and Bibles, and for many, many other things. I helped people set aside criminal charges, kitted people out for new jobs, helped people navigate various governmental agencies’ automated phone lines. People sat at the table in my office and told me stories—of prison time, of getting beaten up at their campsite, of being abused by parents or a partner, of chronic physical pain or just not being able to see and not being able to afford glasses. People described to me the labyrinth of their challenges, of how each small lack or challenge impacted the larger web of choices available—or unavailable—to them. What struck me, upon my arrival at Grace in 2010 right through my last Sunday there in October 2022 was this: The vast majority of the members of the Grace community experiencing homelessness were consistently pleasant. When these folks who slept on concrete every night in addition to unemployment and mental health concerns and broken relationships were asked: How ya doin’?, the most common response was “Blessed, pastor. I’m blessed.” By far, the most common response was “blessed.”
In the grand biblical narrative that begins in Exodus, God sends Moses to deliver the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt. After a series of plagues and mishaps, including the momentous trek through the Red Sea, the people are freed. However, once Pharoah and his army perish in the sea, the people are left in the wilderness, the desert wilderness of what is today Saudi Arabia and Jordan. The general consensus among the people is that freedom isn’t what it’s cracked up to be…for in the desert wilderness, the Israelites accuse Moses and Aaron of delivering them from slavery only to kill them with hunger. Upon their exaggerated complaint, God provides manna from heaven each morning, bread enough for each day, and quails every evening, meat enough for every day. And God directs Moses to take his staff and get water from a rock, water abundant enough to slake the thirst of the whole community plus their animals. In today’s reading from Numbers, there the people go again, complaining now not just to Moses but to God: “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.” I have to laugh because the moment after they claim there is no food, they admit they have food—though they detest it. And the chapter before this story, Moses again strikes a rock with his staff as commanded by God, and out comes water. This time, scripture tells us God sends poisonous serpents among the people, serpents that bite and kill the people. It appears that God has just “had it” with their complaining and can’t be God’s gracious self any longer, after freeing them from slavery, providing daily bread and meat, and streaming water from rocks so they don’t die of thirst. After all that, the people can’t see what God has done for them. Still, when the people admit their sin to Moses and ask him to intercede with God on their behalf, God comes up with a solution. At God’s command, Moses erects a serpent of bronze on a pole. Whenever someone is bitten by a serpent, the person looks at the serpent of bronze and lives. God does not eradicate the serpents. God does not stop the serpents from biting the people. God simply brings healing when people look up at the serpent. As people at Grace would say, today’s story compels us to “keep it real.” Sin, whether personal or systemic, whether done knowingly or unknowingly, against ourselves or others, sin has consequences. In this story of the Israelites, the poisonous serpents enter the scene when the people of Israel are grumbling and complaining, when they fail to see the grace and abundance provided them. When they fail to see that God has been walking with them all along the way. When they fail to see that God has been feeding them, literally raining bread from heaven. When they fail to see that God has come to their aid time and again. Their sin is a lack of gratitude, a stubborn resistance to acknowledging what God has provided. And their sin has consequences. The consequence is not estrangement from God, and the consequence is not death—for God quickly comes to their aid—as God always does for they are God’s people. The consequence is living in a world shaped by their lack of gratitude. A world where the bad things that happen are understood as punishment, a world where God is not to be trusted, no matter what God does. When we read this story from the book of Numbers, we can reasonably assert that the serpents enter the Israelites’ camp because the people are complaining and because God has finally said “enough.” But I do wonder about the way the Israelites assign the serpents to God’s doing. I wonder because they are in the desert wilderness, and this is where poisonous serpents live. I wonder if the serpents were already there, if in their stubborn resistance to God’s leading, the people blamed the serpents on God instead of acknowledging that a desert wilderness includes serpents. I wonder this because, for 12 years, I walked with people who had every reason to blame God for their many troubles. I walked with people who had every reason to blame God for the circumstances of their birth or the circumstances which led them to homelessness. I walked with people who had every reason to blame God when a job or an apartment fell through. But they didn’t. They didn’t blame God for a single one of their troubles. Instead, people saw the consequences of their own actions, their complex family patterns, and the broken systems of our culture as the reasons for their situation. And they praised God for all the ways God had provided. They knew they were blessed, and this way of life, too, had its consequences, consequences of joy and faith despite hardship and pain. I wonder if any of us sympathize with the Israelites. I wonder if any of us are caught in a cycle of bitterness and anger. I wonder if any of us quite reasonably question why God would allow disease or natural disaster or the death of a beloved person. If we do blame God or question God and don’t we all at some time?, we are invited to see, to see all the ways God provided for the Israelites and, in turn, all the ways God provides for us. The people God has put in our lives to support us, to help us, to make us laugh. The opportunities God has given us to serve our neighbor. The gifts of daily bread and all the necessities of life. The beauty of this planet and in particular this place of lakes and trees and rivers. The gifts and talents through which we get to bless the world. The joy of this life. Like the Israelites, our troubles are real—but so are the grace and abundance of God. For that, we can say: Thanks be to God! Amen.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorPastor Sarah Stadler shares her sermons from the previous Sunday. Archives
May 2024
Categories |