Snakes and God

         

            My daughter was bitten by a snake once.  She was white water rafting in Fayette County, went ashore and climbed up some rocks.  There was a large snake sleeping there and she stepped on it.  She was bitten on her leg and immediately knew that it was trouble.  Her friends got her to Uniontown hospital where she was treated and released.  She came home and told us what had happened, and we took her to Passavant hospital’s emergency room where a doctor began to care for her.  She stayed overnight; the doctor did a lot of research to find out what kind of a snake it was and what she needed to do about it.  It turned out that the snake was a cottonmouth, an old snake, which meant that the venom wasn’t as strong or as intense as a young snake’s venom would have been. Our daughter got through all of this with some pain and some difficult moments with her leg, but it all turned out all right. She is at this moment living a happy life in San Diego with her fiancé.

            I don’t think that snakes have been a large part of my life.  We saw some rattlesnakes when we were driving in Arizona, but they stayed away from us.  Snakes pay a part in the lesson from Numbers when the Hebrews become discontented with Moses and with God because they are in the desert with no food and little water.  Because of their anger, God sends poisonous snakes among them and some are killed.  I hate to criticize God, but  I thought that this was a bit of an  overreach, but nonetheless, they complain to God about this and God tells Moses to create a snake on a pole so that anyone who is bitten by a snake can look at the snake on the pole and live.  The other use of a snake in scripture is in the Garden of Eden when Eve wonders about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the snake tells her that she can eat of it without trouble.  After she eats of the fruit of the tree, the snake tells her that she can also let Adam eat of the tree.  This results in both of them getting thrown out of the garden by God and from that moment on, humanity has been cursed by not having peace, but always knowing the difference between good and evil in the world, in others and in ourselves and making our own judgements about what we think of the evil that we see. 

            Then we have the story of Cain and Abel, Adam and Eve’s two sons.  They were vastly different, Cain a wanderer, a hunter and Abel a farmer.  Cain was very jealous of Abel because he seemed to be accepted where Cain was not; so he killed him.  When God asked Cain where Abel was, Cain answered with that famous line: Am I my brother’s keeper? Cain was also exiled and lived in the land of Nod. 

            We all have moments when our selfishness leads us into sin.  Sometimes we find ourselves in dark places needing very much to find healing and hope.  This is why we all live in community, where we can take care of each other in these dark times.  In my ministry, I have seen many people in difficult situations where they needed help to get through them.  Without care from others, life could be difficult and even dangerous.   I have known young people who were addicted to drugs and who needed to be given help to get away from their addiction.  It was only by conversation and caring that they were enabled to do that.  The twelve-step process created by Alcoholics Anonymous has led many people through hard times back to a semblance of normality.  I think that programs like this are what are meant by the snake on a pole that people who are in trouble can look at and find curing.  Helping each other is the essence of religion.  Jesus told us to love one another as we are loved by God.  That is what we are asked to do in this world to help each other with the hard times and to help us to know what joy is in the middle of our lives.   

            Jesus alluded to this in John’s gospel when he says that just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so Jesus must be lifted up so that people can see him and find the way to eternal life.  That is a great use of the Old Testament lesson.  It tells us that there is the way through evil.  Evil that exists all around us and that can invade our lives easily.  Keeping our eye on our Lord Jesus, who died for all of us that we might lose our sin and be admitted to everlasting life is the essence of Lent.  It is why we are here together in these pews each week.  We are here to love one another and to take that love with us into the world where there are people being set upon by evil all over the place.  When we help them, we help our God to make this earth a more heavenly place.  That is what was in God’s mind when he sent Jesus to teach us.

           

           

God's Gifts

           

            The first gift that God gave to humanity were the Ten Commandments.  What is amazing about that is the amount of time that it took all of us to discard them and to make up our own rules.  As Moses was coming down from the summit of Mount Sinai with the tablets in his hand, the tribes of the Hebrews were worshiping a golden calf created by Aaron out of the gold that the people of the tribes had on their fingers, on their wrists or in some other place.  Here they were breaking the second commandment before they had even read it.  Keeping the commandments has never been an easy thing.  We have stumbled and fallen constantly trying to keep them. 

            What is also fascinating is that the religion that the Hebrew people devised for their people included Scribes and Pharisees who interpreted the laws, making them stronger or easier, as time went on.  It wasn’t long before many people were being ostracized and left out of the culture because they couldn’t keep the law.  This resulted in a multitude of people who were poor and alone among them.  The scripture is full of stories about the people whom Jesus encountered who needed to be saved from others.  I think of the story of the Good Samaritan who stopped and took care of the poor man at the side of the road after the priest and the Levite had passed him by; or the woman in the territory of Tyre and Sidon who asked Jesus to heal her daughter and Jesus at first told her no because she was out of his area and she convinced him that her life and her daughter’s life were important to God by telling Jesus that even the dogs licked up the crumbs that fell from the table after Jesus told her that he could not give the children’s food to the dogs.  Jesus was taught by her and led by her into an important ministry.

            We have broken all of the commandments.  Even the one that says simply, you shall not commit murder.  We do that when we racially disparage others or keep them in bondage like slavery for our own use, or when we deprive others of what they need to live.  Murder is not only killing others, it is causing death, which happens more often that we want to admit.  God knows who we are and what we do and we need always to know that we need to repent and find forgiveness for the commandments that we have broken.  But forgiveness is the second great gift that God has given to humankind.  Each Sunday we confess our sins before God and the priest pronounces absolution and forgiveness of our sins.  At that moment, we are clean again and we can go forward with our lives knowing that we have to that point kept the commandments and that we are continually loved by God.  I discovered a lot about forgiveness when I did my prison ministry.  In our group, we talked about forgiveness frequently.  Occasionally, one of the members of the group understood forgiveness applied to them for what they had done in their lives that got them into prison.  Those were eloquent moments in the group and I was honored to see it happen.  If there is anyplace where forgiveness is a gift to be not only accepted but revered, it is our prisons.  I have one convict who is in his sixties who has applied for commutation.  I hope that it is granted because he would make a fine member of any community that he was able to join.  I keep him in my prayers constantly.

            One of the prime reasons that God sent Jesus to live among us is that God knew how hard it was to be human.  God came to us in the form of Jesus of Nazareth to live human life along with us and to see the difficulties that we encounter.  He was born into poverty in a stable instead of a room in an inn.  He watched countless people in need with hope in their hearts.  I love the story of Jesus watching the woman put her tiny mite into the temple’s collection and the way that he told his disciples that she had given more than anyone else.  She gave out of her poverty while others gave of their wealth. 

            What is finally true is that, like the people whom Jesus came to heal, he was also rejected by the Scribes, the Pharisees and really everyone else and given over to the Romans for trial and for judgement.  He was crucified, died and was buried in a donated grave.  The third gift that our God gave to humankind was Jesus’ resurrection.  On the third day after his crucifixion, Jesus rose from the dead and continued to live among us.  His disciples, who ran away from the cross were amazed by this and set out to follow their Lord and to teach his ways.  All of them lost their lives also, except John who died on the Isle of Patmos in the Aegean Sea after writing the Book of Revelation.  But even with their deaths, the church continued to this day, telling all of humanity that we are loved and forgiven by the God who gave us the commandments and finally God has promised us resurrection.  We are blessed indeed.  As we continue through Lent, let’s all remember these gifts and get ready to celebrate the glorious resurrection of our Lord when at last Easter comes.