Online Sermons
The 4th Sunday in Lent: March 22, the Rev. Mel Schlachter
Welcome to our website. You are here: The Word --> Online SermonsEd Note: Mel, the Rector of Trinity Church, Iowa City is the husband of our Priest-in-charge, Barbara. The joke of the morning was, "It's Take Your Husband To Work Day".
The lesson from the Book of Numbers may seem like a strange piece of Old Testament mythology to you, and so it is. Snakes sent by a Creator ticked off at his subjects, and a bronze serpent on a pole, then the magical cure of snakebite—why do we have this Old Testament around anyway?
May I suggest to you that it is one of the Biblical passages that you need to hear in order to prepare for a new Rector!
The Book of Numbers is all about the Exodus, and therefore has most of the famous scenes of the Hebrew peoples’ discontent with the wilderness trek. Freedom or not, it was too hard a life to sustain. And now another detour. Where was this Promised Land anyway? Why are we always thirsty? And no food.” Centuries later Psalm 78 may call manna the “bread of angels,” but out there on the journey they call it “miserable food.” Every day the same misery.
So who wouldn’t grumble against the ones responsible for this state of affairs? Moses and Aaron and God as well take it on the chin many times in the Book of Numbers, including an incident later on that leaves Moses so frustrated with his people that God decides that Moses carries too much resentment to enter the Promised Land. Moses will die on the east side of the Jordan, looking across.
You and I have been around at times when snakes have been turned loose inside the camp, inside the assembly, inside the church, inside some other group or organization. And they are venomous and deadly. Snakes are loose when discontent and negativity are passed around secretly or at least sotto voce to anyone except the person or persons you have a problem with. I can just hear a couple of guys, Achitophel and Tephalim, whispering behind the tent about Moses:
“Hey, Achitophel, this guy Moshe is killing us. Kill me in battle but this slow death is awful. What kind of God does he think he’s listening to? He hears voices, right Achie?” “Yeah, Tephy, he’s nuts and he’s cruel. I bet we can get a few more clans together and get rid of this guy. How did we fall for him anyway? The Search Committee didn’t ask us, that’s how.”
And on it goes. If someone does say something to Moses, it is “You know, there are a lot of people who are unhappy with what you are doing, but I can’t tell you who because they told me in confidence.” So Moses can’t do anything but feel bad and build up enough frustration to gaze on the Promised Land, only from the opposite side of the river.
A lot of death happens when the snakes are loose. A rector’s enthusiasm dies. Members’ faith dies. A congregation can go into a long downward slide.What does God tell Moses to do? Make a serpent with the head bronze and put it high on a pole in the middle of the camp. If you get bitten and look at the bronze serpent, you will live. In other words, if we get bitten by that ground level negativity and can quickly see it for what it is, we won’t be poisoned by it. If we hear grumbling and raise it up to be seen by everyone, then the negativity loses its pernicious power. Issues may still need to be addressed, but now they can be. They are out in the open.
Thank you, O Book of Numbers, for describing just how we sinful human beings can wreck a community.
Now the Gospel of John interprets this story anew through words of Jesus. What is lifted up now is Christ on the cross, that everyone who gazes on him has eternal life. This is not naiveté nor glorification of suffering and pain. Rather, it is like the difference between depictions of the crucifixion in the Western Church and the Eastern Church.
In the West, Roman Catholic or Protestant, the crucifixion is gruesome and the nastier (and supposedly more real) the better. So you have Grunewald’s famous altar piece of an emaciated, almost abstract Jesus, where there is no let up from the pain; and you have Mel Gibson’s movie where the suffering goes on and on, whips and all.
By contrast, in icons from the Orthodox churches the crucifixion is real enough but the glory is coming through. It is as if the icon knows that resurrection is on the way and so goodness can already flow from Christ’s wounds. It is a very different orientation.
Why am I going on about this? Because Christian discipleship consists of witnessing and being present to the suffering of the world, but not getting stuck in it. Instead, our vocation is to see the possibilities that want to come through, the love and justice that yearn to be realized, but now are being crucified; and seeing, then to be servants of those possibilities and make them happen. Gazing at the cross can remind us that it is our job to be around the world’s suffering, and our own; and yet to see the wood of the cross as timbers of the bridge crossing over the river to the kingdom of God.
And for you, my friends, as you prepare to greet your new Rector, there will be times (take my word for it) that you feel she’s messing too much with tradition, or over the top with her ideas, or out to lunch and uncaring. And there may even be times when you do the Iowa thing, the upper Midwest thing, which is to be nice and agreeable to someone and then without saying a word go the other direction. We baffled our Bishop this way when he first came. “Yup, yes Bishop.” He mistook that for someone agreeing with him.
So no snakes, please. Work hard on leveling with your new Rector and each other, sharing what matters deeply to you. Cultivate patient understanding. Then together do what all of you at Christ Church do so well—to gaze on Christ suffering in this world and make the difference in peoples’ lives that you do. This congregation has far more impact locally and on the wide world than the numbers of your congregation would lead one to expect. You are a leader in this Diocese in servant ministry, and we at Trinity only want you to grow stronger in that vocation. Keep your gaze on our Lord lifted up, beholding God’s glory, and you won’t need anything on a pole.
Blessings to you now and in the days ahead.