Whine, Whine, Complain

Whine, whine, complain, complain. Poor Moses was tearing out what little hair he had left. All the Israelites had done since leaving Egypt had been to whine and complain. God may have graciously rescued them from slavery in Egypt, from overwork, starvation, suffering, and death. But did they thank God for the great blessing of freedom? Not on your life! All they could focus on were the dangers and uncertainties of this new life. The long and seldom-read book of Numbers, the fourth book of the Torah, depicts their numerous complaints. In Numbers 11, the people’s bitter complaints bring down scorching fire on the edges of the camp, a fire that only died down when Moses prayed to the Lord. In Numbers 14, the people are already tired of the journey and berate Moses and Aaron for dragging them away from Egypt. Moses holds off God’s anger, but some of the men disobey Moses’ instructions, go into the hill country, and are promptly killed. In chapter 16 insurrection by some of the priests results in an earthquake in which many of the people lose their lives. In chapter 20, in the wilderness of Zin, the people accuse Moses of deliberately bringing them to a place without adequate water. “Why did you make us leave Egypt to bring us to this wretched place,” they shout,” a place with no grain or figs or vines or pomegranates? There is not even water to drink?” (Num. 20:6, JPS). Following God’s command, Moses strikes a rock, and abundant water gushes out. Are the people grateful? Although their thirst is assuaged, their penchant for complaining is not quenched. As we heard in today’s reading, having set out from Mount Hor, they again grow impatient. This time they do the unthinkable: not only do they whine about Moses’ leadership, they complain against God. What does God do now?

The book of Numbers is an unfamiliar book. We Christians seldom read it. In the Revised Common Lectionary, this is the sole lection from Numbers that occurs in our Sunday lectionary, and that is probably because Jesus alludes to this story in the Gospel according to John. The book gets its better-known name, “Numbers,” from the two censuses that are mentioned in it, one of the first generation to leave Egypt, and one of the second generation, i.e., of the people who were to enter the Promised Land. In Hebrew it is called the book of the Wilderness, as its first half depicts all the wilderness wandering. (The second half depicts preparations for entering Canaan.) Actually, it is a composite book, uniting several different strands of traditional material. In addition to the historical narrative, a little of which we heard today, among other things, the book also contains poetry, prophecy, a victory song, prayers, blessing, lampoon, and law, both civil and religious. Like much of the rest of the Hebrew Bible, it probably received its final form sometime after the return from Exile, i.e., in the fourth century B.C.

Other than understanding Jesus’ allusion, what can we Christians glean from this strange story? Does it really help us better understand God’s nature? Have we taken another step forward in God’s covenantal relationship with us? We have seen that God promised Noah never again to destroy creation, God promised Abraham and Sarah offspring as numerous as the stars in the sky, and God promised the Israelites at Sinai to be their God forever. Although God had asked virtually nothing in return from Noah and his family, God had marked God’s covenant in Abraham’s flesh. God had laid out for the Israelites at Sinai the order and structure of a holy life. But, oh! Such a life is difficult, if not impossible for humans actually to live. The Israelites were not, nor are we, cut out for holiness! When the Israelites complained against God as well as against Moses, surely that was the last straw for God. In return, God sent literally fiery serpents, reflecting God’s deep anger, to hurt and burn the people. When they fell sick, the people finally repented of their sin and sought God’s forgiveness. At God’s command, Moses erected a bronze statue of the very thing that had hurt them. For the people simply looking at the bronze serpent was enough to cure them.

Is there a covenant here? God has not made a new, formal covenant with the Israelites as God had previously done. But isn’t there an implicit covenant here, and in all the wilderness stories? God had made good on God’s promise to deliver the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. When they whined, complained, and disobeyed God, God nevertheless forgave them and healed them of the consequences of their sin – for there are always consequences of sin, aren’t there? Even in the midst of the people’s most trivial complaints, God provided the medicine they needed to be healed from their sins. The ancient rabbinic commentators on this passage were worried that it led the people into magical behavior. Consequently, they reminded later generations of hearers of the story that in looking at the serpent, the Israelites were looking at God, not an idol. However we understand the serpent – and it was a symbol of healing in the rest of the ancient world – the message here, the implicit covenant here, is that Israel cannot become so terminally ill that God cannot heal them. God had made this promise in the first wilderness story, way back in Exodus 15, when God had answered their first complaints by telling them, “If you will heed the Lord your God diligently, doing what is upright in his sight, giving ear to his commandments and keeping all his laws, then I will not bring upon you any of the diseases that I brought upon the Egyptians, for I the Lord am your healer” (Ex. 15:26, JPS).

God repeats God’s commitment to the Israelites’ salvation and well-being here again. And, of course, as Christians, we believe that Jesus repeats that same message to Nicodemus when he tells him that “God so loved the world that he gave his only son” (John 3:16). The point is – for the Israelites for Nicodemus, and for us – that our tie to God is never broken. We may grieve God, we may provoke God, but we cannot extinguish God’s endless compassion. There is nothing we can do that will break God’s relationship with us. Indeed, sinful and broken as we are, we may break the relationship, but God will always reach out to us. After even the wisp of a prayer on our part – or even before – God graciously reaches out to us, and mercifully invites us to repent. Can we accept God’s action in our lives? Can we acknowledge who we are and accept God’s forgiveness? If we can, God has promised – and demonstrated again in the bronze serpent – that God will graciously heal us.

So here’s the good news for all of us. We may not be part of a group of ancient Israelites wandering the desert, complaining all the way. Actually, having lived in Tucson for eighteen years I have some sympathy for those ancient Jews. The wilderness of Sinai was probably not a very hospitable place. Even so, this odd story from a neglected Bible book resonates with me. Perhaps it also corresponds to your experience as people of faith. Can we see in the Israelites’ struggles some glimmer of how God is present to us in our struggles and hopes? Like the Israelites, we too are on a journey, from birth to death, from youth to age. As we travel through illness, loss, divorce, and death, our journey may be difficult, or painful, or confusing. We may make things more difficult for ourselves by our sin, by being selfish or irresponsible. Sometimes we may fail to trust God. Sometimes, like the Israelites, we grow impatient and explode into grousing and complaining. Does God abandon us to the snakes in our lives? The good news is that God never condemns us, and is always ready to save us.

The Fourth Sunday in Lent has traditionally been observed as Laetere Sunday, Laughter Sunday, or, "Lighten Up” Sunday. It is a day to lighten up on our Lenten disciplines and to pause on our journey to Jerusalem. Many churches observe the day by using pink or rose-colored paraments and vestments, by including singing and dancing in the liturgy, and even by telling jokes. Of course, the Jews have known for centuries that God has a sense of humor. And so in that spirit, I think it is right to honor God with an appropriate joke.

While going through an airport during one of his many trips, President Bush encountered a man with long hair, wearing a white robe and sandals, holding a staff. President Bush went up to the man and said, "Aren't you Moses?" The man never answered but just kept staring ahead. Again the President said, "Moses!" in a loud voice. The man just kept staring ahead, never answering the president. Soon a secret service agent came along and President Bush grabbed him and said, "Doesn't this man look like Moses to you?" The secret service agent agreed with the President. "Well," said the President, "Every time I say his name, he just keeps staring ahead and refuses to speak. Watch!" Again, the President yelled, "Moses!" and again the man stared ahead. The secret service man went up to the man in the white robe and whispered, "You look just like Moses. Are you Moses?" The man leaned over and whispered, "Yes, I am Moses. But the last time I talked to a bush, I spent forty years wandering in the desert!"

God will never break God’s ties to us. Rejoice and be glad!

Surely We Are Not Blind

What an interesting drama is played out in today’s Gospel lesson! A man born blind has received his sight, and no one around him, including the man himself, can explain or accept what has happened. The unnamed man is clearly confused: he repeats what Jesus said to him, but has no idea who or where Jesus is. Shortly before this incident the disciples heard Jesus proclaim, “I am the light of the world,” yet none of them seems to realize that they have just witnessed an example of Jesus’ power to bring light. The man’s neighbors, who have presumably known him all his life, don’t seem to recognize him once he is no longer blind. His parents, who seem to have abandoned him to a life of public begging, disclaim any responsibility or even interest in what has happened to him. The religious leaders are completely at sea, as they repeatedly question the man and finally drive him out of the synagogue. What is going on here? Can’t anyone understand what has just occurred?

It’s possible that if something similar happened among us, we might also be confused and unbelieving. However, I’m particularly struck by how the evangelist has portrayed the religious leaders here, and especially their negative response to the man’s receiving of sight. Remember that the Pharisees are among the most learned of the religious leaders. They would be most likely to know the Hebrew Bible and all the commentary on it. They would be most likely to remember the many stories of God’s healing power made available to people through the prophets. The story, for example, of Elijah’s instruction to Naaman, to immerse himself seven times in the Jordan to cure his leprosy, comes especially to mind. Similarly, they would certainly know that God works through very unlikely people, seemingly almost inconsequential people. They would remember that God chose Samuel when he was just a boy serving in the temple. They would certainly remember how God instructed Samuel to anoint as the next king the least likely of Jesse’s sons, young David, who was out tending the sheep. As learned as they were, and as devoted to the law as they were, don’t you wonder why they were not able to understand the importance of what was happening right in front of them?

The Pharisees seem to be the villains of John’s gospel. Remember that by the time this gospel was written, in the early ‘90s, the lines between the followers of Jesus and those loyal to the old traditions had begun to harden. Tensions between the communities were increasing, partly because of the inclusion of Gentiles into Christian communities. The Pharisees were not especially evil men. Rather, they were probably only men who were trying to preserve what they understood to be a God-given way of life, a way of life that was anchored in the law of Moses, and that followed the law as closely as possible. However, as the evangelist portrays them here, they are confident that they know what is right, especially what it is lawful to do on the Sabbath. They are unwilling to cede control of the community’s religious life to other questionable religious communities. They know that change is difficult. They find it especially hard to change spiritually and to consider that God might indeed be doing a new thing in Jesus. Most important, they are unable to read the “signs,” the signs that demonstrate clearly that Jesus is indeed the “light that enlightens all” come among them in the flesh. Perhaps the most plaintive line in this whole drama is the question posed by some of the Pharisees, “Surely we are not blind, are we?”

Of all the actors here, if we’re being honest, we know that we are most like the Pharisees. Actually, I resonate with them. As a clerical leader, I understand how it feels to have a vested interest in religious institutions. It’s almost comforting to know that, even in the first century, folks were arguing about ecclesiastical authority! But wouldn’t most of us, maybe all, of us here be confident that we know what’s right? Fill in the blank. Wouldn’t most of be able to say, “I’ve been a lifelong……, and I’m not about to change now.” And aren’t we sure we know how to order our spiritual lives? After all, we’re Episcopalians! We have the Book of Common Prayer to tell us how to conduct worship, and we have bishops and canon law to govern ourselves. Wouldn’t most, if not all of us, like the Pharisees, be unwilling to change? Many of us are still living in the middle of the twentieth, if not the sixteenth century, still expecting the church to be what it was when we were younger. And wouldn’t most of us be just as unable to see God at work in an unlikely person? Wouldn’t we think, for example, that the people who come to Loaves and Fishes or who attend the “anonymous” meetings downstairs would have little to say to us about God? Wouldn’t Jesus pronounce the same judgment on us that he pronounced on the plaintive Pharisees: “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.”

Unquestionably Jesus will judge us. But the good news is that, by God’s grace, we don’t have to continue to be the blind, stubborn, sinful people that, in our heart of hearts, we know we are. We don’t have to remain stuck and resistant to change. We don’t have to judge and dismiss those who don’t meet our criteria of social status or political persuasion. We can change and grow. We can have our eyes opened. Because Jesus, in order demonstrate God’s great, amazing grace, continually offers us a chance to change. Ultimately, we can pray to be the blind man in this story, the one to whom Jesus offers a promise of a completely changed life. We know turning our lives around will be hard. Are we really willing to endure what the blind man endured when Jesus came by? Just picture it: there he was with mud on his eyes crawling to the pool of Siloam. Since he was born blind, when he received his sight he had to learn how to see, grow all those axons and neurons that govern sight, learn all his colors, recognize his friends and relatives, then endure the indifference and hostility of those around him. Would you choose to go there?

Going where the blind man went doesn’t take “faith.” It takes willingness, and perhaps courage. Where is our pool of Siloam? Where is God in Christ calling us to go, so that we can wash away our blindness? Where is that sacred place where we can experience God’s amazing, healing grace? The answer for each of us will be different. But for almost all of us, our “pool of Siloam” will be some person or place, or discipline that brings us in closer contact with Jesus, that deepens our belief in Jesus, that enables us to say, with the newly-sighted man, “I believe.” Did you know that the root meaning of the Greek and Latin words that we translate as “believe” really is to give one’s heart? Where is the pool of Siloam where we will truly be able to “see” Jesus and to give him our heart, fully, truly, and confidently.

Who is that person who enables you to see Jesus more clearly? Is it one of the saints? Perhaps a pool of Siloam for you might be the biography or collected writings of one of the many holy women and men who have inspired countless generations of Christians. We remember many of them in our Tuesday evening Eucharists. Perhaps it is someone like Helen Keller. Rendered both physically deaf and blind at the age of nineteen months, Keller nevertheless learned to communicate and experienced the beauties and mysteries of life so deeply that she was able to share her spiritual awakening with others. Or perhaps your pool of Siloam is someone whom you serve, someone from among “the least of these” who shows you Jesus’ face. Where is that place where your relationship with Jesus can be deepened? Have you ever been on a silent retreat? It is truly God’s amazing gift of grace that, when we turn off our cell phones and TVs, when we let go of our own chatter, when we sit in relaxed silence, we can hear Jesus more clearly. We might even hear him say to us, “You have seen him, the one speaking with you is he.” Consider a day, or even a week, away, or perhaps just a quiet morning at church.

Could your pool of Siloam be a particular discipline? Could it be reading daily morning or evening prayer, or Compline? Could it be daily reading of the Bible or another book? Could it be daily centering prayer? Could it be letting an icon lead you into deeper relationship with Jesus? Could it be reading and thinking deeply about the social issues facing us, and entertaining the possibility that God might be asking you to change some of your life-long positions and prejudices? Could it be volunteering in a place that enables you to look others in the eye and ask Jesus’ healing blessing on them? Where is your pool of Siloam? Where will Jesus enable you to see more clearly?

Where is the place where we too will be emboldened to sing Charles Wesley’s wonderful words, “Hear him, ye deaf; ye voiceless ones, your loosened tongues employ; ye blind, behold your Savior comes; and leap, ye lame, for joy”? Pray God, lead us all there.