Year B
Numbers 21:4-9
Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22
Ephesians 2:1-10
John 3:14-21<\/p>\n\n\n\n
May the words of my mouth O God\u2026 speak your truth\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So we’ve got this curious little passage from Numbers\u2026 that after some more time in the wilderness\u2026 the people became impatient\u2026 and complained\u2026 and spoke against God and Moses\u2026 again\u2026 negating their release from slavery\u2026 and diminishing the promises which lay ahead for them\u2026 and apparently\u2026 God had had enough\u2026 and so God sent poisonous serpents\u2026 and they bit people\u2026 and many died\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now in Hebrew\u2026 the serpents are the Na-ha-sheem\u2026 which are winged members of an angelic order\u2026 of fiery Seraphim\u2026 and not just your garden variety of snakes\u2026 not like from the Garden of Eden\u2026 so its no surprise that their bites were fatal\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But when the people set their gaze on the bronze serpent on the wooden pole\u2026 and acknowledged their sins\u2026 and repented\u2026 they were cured and lived\u2026 so we can say that the very thing which caused death\u2026 now gave life\u2026 but it wasn’t as simple\u2026 as the physics… of light bouncing off of that bronze snake and landing on their retinas\u2026 I believe that what saved them was a shift in perspective\u2026 kind of in the way we become able to face our brokenness\u2026 instead of continuing to make excuses for it\u2026 it’s in the way we stop brushing God’s Word aside\u2026 and start living by it\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And so we might also begin to consider what things bite us\u2026 and we still remain blind to the deaths they cause\u2026 and consider the kinds of poisonous attitudes or behaviors that infect the systems in which we function\u2026 so we know more about how can we heal them\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
On February 18, 1965\u2026 in Marion, Alabama\u2026 at a voting rights rally\u2026 in which tensions boiled over\u2026 state troopers clubbed protestors\u2026 and fatally shot 26-year-old Jimmie Lee Jackson\u2026 an African American demonstrator\u2026 who was simply trying to protect his mother\u2026 who was being struck by police\u2026 ] Life magazine photographer Flip Schulke\u2026 stopped taking pictures\u2026 and started helping them\u2026 and caring for others\u2026 but Martin Luther King, Jr. admonished him\u2026 and said No!\u2026 you need to photograph this\u2026 you need take pictures of this\u2026 you need to show this<\/em>\u2026 ] and afterwards\u2026 in response to this brutality\u2026 civil rights leaders made it known that they would take their cause directly to Alabama Governor George Wallace\u2026 on a 54-mile march from Selma to the state capital in Montgomery\u2026 ] but Gov. Wallace ordered state troopers to use whatever measures were necessary\u2026 to prevent that march\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Approximately 600 voting rights advocates set out from the Brown Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church on Sunday, March 7\u2026 fifty-nine years ago\u2026 and headed across the Edmund Pettus Bridge\u2026 which was named after a Confederate general who was the Grand Dragon of the Alabama KKK\u2026 and across the bridge\u2026 counter-protestors and police waited for them\u2026 and the marchers were sprayed with tear gas\u2026 and beat with billy clubs\u2026 and rubber tubing wrapped in barbed wire\u2026 but this time\u2026 television cameras captured the entire assault\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n It took hours for the film to be flown from Alabama to network headquarters in New York\u2026 but when it aired that night\u2026 Americans were appalled at what they saw and heard\u2026 and a local protest was transformed into a national civil rights event\u2026 and helped lead to passage of the Voting Rights Act\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus said\u2026 For all who do evil hate the light\u2026 and do not come to the light\u2026 so that their deeds may not be exposed<\/em>\u2026 and part of the outrage which the news coverage brought forth\u2026 was that the violence was exposed\u2026 the light exposed what was happening\u2026 because let’s remember\u2026 injustice operates best when no one sees it\u2026 and those who hate the light\u2026 usually don’t want to talk about the sins of the present\u2026 no less the sins of the past\u2026 because it might make them feel bad\u2026 or hold us all accountable\u2026 but not talking about sin\u2026 by pretending that it just isn’t there\u2026 only exacerbates it\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus said\u2026 Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness\u2026 so must the Son of Man be lifted up\u2026 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life<\/em>\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the First Nations translation of the Gospel that we’ve been reading in our Lenten Bible study\u2026 about this being lifted up\u2026 Jesus says\u2026 this is what will happen to the True Human Being\u2026 so people will put their trust in him\u2026 and have the life of the world to come that never fades away\u2026 full of beauty and harmony\u2026 Creator did not send his Son\u2026 to decide against the people of this world\u2026 but to set them free from the worthless ways of the world<\/em>\u2026 to set us free from what is worthless in this world\u2026 to set us free from what is counter to God’s will for us and for creation\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n And again\u2026 it’s not simply the physics of looking at the Cross and at the crucified Christ\u2026 and having that reflected light land on our retinas\u2026 that sets us free\u2026 it’s when the power of Rome\u2026 or any Empire\u2026 is exposed\u2026 when the violence and the destruction and the injustice of any kind is exposed\u2026 that we can see what the power of evil can do\u2026 when we can see what sin does\u2026 and it’s not only when we see its abject violence\u2026 when we come face to face with how it opposes God’s will for all of creation\u2026 but when we’re willing to be changed\u2026 that we can be changed\u2026 that we can be redeemed through the truth of what sin does\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n And this judgement is implicit\u2026 because sin is its own judgment against us\u2026 and the basis for judgement\u2026 is whether we’re living in darkness or living in light\u2026 whether we take an honest look at systems which crucify\u2026 as the sins of the world crucify goodness\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n The mistake we make\u2026 is in not talking about the sins of the world\u2026 by deciding that it’s politically incorrect\u2026 or might necessitate making inconvenient changes\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n And it’s the sin of the world that killed Jesus\u2026 Jesus dies not to pay a bloodthirsty God\u2026 who needs recompense for our sin\u2026 but to show us the way of nonviolent love and resistance\u2026 even unto death on the cross\u2026 and looking on the cross exposes the very thing\u2026 the sin of the world\u2026 from which we want to be redeemed\u2026 redeemed from a corrupt Empire which wants to maintain its power and authority and wealth at all costs\u2026 an unscrupulous political system which resists sharing its excess food and prosperous ease with the poor and needy\u2026 which is what the prophet Ezekiel named as the sin of Sodom\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n And so the Cross\u2026 a thing which can take life\u2026 can also give life\u2026 when we’re willing to come to terms with the unspeakable violence it inflicts\u2026 when enough of us can again feel horrified by things like razor wire across the Rio Grande River\u2026 and a humanitarian crisis in Gaza\u2026 and others around the world\u2026 when collectively\u2026 we’ve had enough of it\u2026 and we can be moved enough to finally and fully reject it\u2026 when we recognize that the Son didn’t come into the world to condemn it\u2026 but instead\u2026 that he came so the world could be saved through him\u2026 be saved\u2026 when in response to the brutal ways we treat each other\u2026 we can repent\u2026 and turn back to God’s Word\u2026 and treat each other\u2026 only with love\u2026 Holy God\u2026 help us to make it so\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Year B Numbers 21:4-9 Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22 Ephesians 2:1-10 John 3:14-21 May the words of my mouth O God\u2026 speak your truth\u2026 So we’ve got this curious little passage from Numbers\u2026 that after some more time in the wilderness\u2026 the people became impatient\u2026 and complained\u2026 and spoke against God and Moses\u2026 again\u2026 negating their release from slavery\u2026 and diminishing the promises which lay ahead for them\u2026 and apparently\u2026 God had had enough\u2026 and so God sent poisonous serpents\u2026 and they bit people\u2026 and many died\u2026 Now in Hebrew\u2026 the serpents are the Na-ha-sheem\u2026 which are winged members of an angelic order\u2026 of fiery Seraphim\u2026 and not just your garden variety of snakes\u2026 not like from the Garden of Eden\u2026 so its no surprise that their bites were fatal\u2026 But when the people set their gaze on the bronze serpent on the wooden pole\u2026 and acknowledged their sins\u2026 and repented\u2026 they were cured and lived\u2026 so we can say that the very thing which caused death\u2026 now gave life\u2026 but it wasn’t as simple\u2026 as the physics… of light bouncing off of that bronze snake and landing on their retinas\u2026 I believe that what saved them was a shift in perspective\u2026 kind of in the way we become able to face our brokenness\u2026 instead of continuing to make excuses for it\u2026 it’s in the way we stop brushing God’s Word aside\u2026 and start living by it\u2026 And so we might also begin to consider what things bite us\u2026 and we still remain blind to the deaths they cause\u2026 and consider the kinds of poisonous attitudes or behaviors that infect the systems in which we function\u2026 so we know more about how can we heal them\u2026 On February 18, 1965\u2026 in Marion, Alabama\u2026 at a voting rights rally\u2026 in which tensions boiled over\u2026 state troopers clubbed protestors\u2026 and fatally shot 26-year-old Jimmie Lee Jackson\u2026 an African American demonstrator\u2026 who was simply trying to protect his mother\u2026 who was being struck by police\u2026 ] Life magazine photographer Flip Schulke\u2026 stopped taking pictures\u2026 and started helping them\u2026 and caring for others\u2026 but Martin Luther King, Jr. admonished him\u2026 and said No!\u2026 you need to photograph this\u2026 you need take pictures of this\u2026 you need to show this\u2026 ] and afterwards\u2026 in response to this brutality\u2026 civil rights leaders made it known that they would take their cause directly to Alabama Governor George Wallace\u2026 on a 54-mile march from Selma to the state capital in Montgomery\u2026 ] but Gov. Wallace ordered state troopers to use whatever measures were necessary\u2026 to prevent that march\u2026 Approximately 600 voting rights advocates set out from the Brown Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church on Sunday, March 7\u2026 fifty-nine years ago\u2026 and headed across the Edmund Pettus Bridge\u2026 which was named after a Confederate general who was the Grand Dragon of the Alabama KKK\u2026 and across the bridge\u2026 counter-protestors and police waited for them\u2026 and the marchers were sprayed with tear gas\u2026 and beat with billy clubs\u2026 and rubber tubing wrapped in barbed wire\u2026 but this time\u2026 television cameras captured the entire assault\u2026 It took hours for the film to be flown from Alabama to network headquarters in New York\u2026 but when it aired that night\u2026 Americans were appalled at what they saw and heard\u2026 and a local protest was transformed into a national civil rights event\u2026 and helped lead to passage of the Voting Rights Act\u2026 Jesus said\u2026 For all who do evil hate the light\u2026 and do not come to the light\u2026 so that their deeds may not be exposed\u2026 and part of the outrage which the news coverage brought forth\u2026 was that the violence was exposed\u2026 the light exposed what was happening\u2026 because let’s remember\u2026 injustice operates best when no one sees it\u2026 and those who hate the light\u2026 usually don’t want to talk about the sins of the present\u2026 no less the sins of the past\u2026 because it might make them feel bad\u2026 or hold us all accountable\u2026 but not talking about sin\u2026 by pretending that it just isn’t there\u2026 only exacerbates it\u2026 Jesus said\u2026 Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness\u2026 so must the Son of Man be lifted up\u2026 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life\u2026 In the First Nations translation of the Gospel that we’ve been reading in our Lenten Bible study\u2026 about this being lifted up\u2026 Jesus says\u2026 this is what will happen to the True Human Being\u2026 so people will put their trust in him\u2026 and have the life of the world to come that never fades away\u2026 full of beauty and harmony\u2026 Creator did not send his Son\u2026 to decide against the people of this world\u2026 but to set them free from the worthless ways of the world\u2026 to set us free from what is worthless in this world\u2026 to set us free from what is counter to God’s will for us and for creation\u2026 And again\u2026 it’s not simply the physics of looking at the Cross and at the crucified Christ\u2026 and having that reflected light land on our retinas\u2026 that sets us free\u2026 it’s when the power of Rome\u2026 or any Empire\u2026 is exposed\u2026 when the violence and the destruction and the injustice of any kind is exposed\u2026 that we can see what the power of evil can do\u2026 when we can see what sin does\u2026 and it’s not only when we see its abject violence\u2026 when we come face to face with how it opposes God’s will for all of creation\u2026 but when we’re willing to be changed\u2026 that we can be changed\u2026 that we can be redeemed through the truth of what sin does\u2026 And this judgement is implicit\u2026 because sin is its own judgment against us\u2026 and the basis for judgement\u2026 is whether we’re living in darkness or living in light\u2026 whether we take an honest look at systems which crucify\u2026 as the sins of the world crucify goodness\u2026 The mistake we make\u2026 is in not talking about the sins of the world\u2026 by deciding 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