If you want to make people think about danger, shudder in aversion, or get paralyzed in the very act of putting a foot forward, it doesn’t get much better than talking about snakes.
Almost everybody I know hates them, or fears them. I know I always did.
I grew up in west Texas and in Southern California, wandering in the fields and scrub desert, and I was taught—early and often—to watch out for snakes.
If I ever saw one (and I did), chances are, it was dangerous to me, poisonous, maybe even poisonous enough to kill me.
So I was always careful, in my freedom, maybe a little too much so. Maybe so much that I missed a lot in my childhood adventures, looking down and around for snakes,when I might have been seeing the world around me.
I remember a hike in the San Bernadino Mountains, when I was a girl scout away at camp. Well, I don’t actually remember the hike —or the mountains, or the girls who were hiking with me…. or really anything much about the camp at all
Except I remember that someone saw a snake, a diamondback rattler, I think it was and after that, it was all about the snakes even though I never saw another snake…not even oneit was about the snakes and me, stumbling through the woods, looking downafraid And that’s too bad.
Our ancestor story, here in the book of Numbers, is a little like that.
They had been making some progress through the wildernesswhen it happened they passed by the “Sea of Reeds” and Mt. Hor and they had a relapse.
Mount Hor was where they had buried Aaron, Moses’ brother.
The Sea of Reeds was what we call the Red Sea— the place where the Israelites hit a brick wall,And almost lost their lives, with water before them and the armies of Egypt coming up behind them.
It was a miracle, but I’m betting they remembered the terror,and the “almost” of dying.
Somehow, it seems, just passing by put the Israelites in mind of their fearsput them back in that old slave-world of terror and helplessness
And the story says, the people became impatient, and complained against God and Moses. I bet they did.
But then, the story does the snake trick I mentioned earlier:The Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people and they bit the people and many died.Just what we were afraid of.
Now, this part of the story is interesting.
First, because when the poisonous serpents came, the people, already angry and disappointed about their lot in lifeblamed Godthey believed (and so does the story)that God sent the snakes to kill the people because he was less like God to them,and more like they were: vengeful, superstitious, blaming, and a little guilty.
Of course, we’re modern people and we don’t believe God sends stuff to kill people.Do we?
The second interesting thing is this: we don’t actually know what it is the people were being killed byBecause the word translated “poisonous serpents” here is obscurein another place it is translated “fiery serpents”
But we don’t really know what it means… the word is “seraph”But it’s not clear what a seraph actually is, or does…Just that it’s something to be afraid ofsomething that can kill you.
I guess modern people can believe in seraphsSomething different for each of us, at different times, something that causes us to descend into a world of blaming and terrora world of fear and deathsomething that makes us look carefully down,And always watch where we are steppingso careful that we don’t get caughtso nothing kills us, and we miss the world, the hike, the mountain, the friends, our very life.
One “seraph” may bite and harry you into a dying way of being,Into yielding to the evil inclinationAnother one may bite me.
Alcohol for one, food for anotherThe security of wealth for one, or maybe the satisfaction of buying and having the belief that preemptive war, if carried on long enough, aggressively enough, will keep us safe….the idea that fear is what should govern our decisions and actions.
We all have motivations, values, weaknesses, experiences that, if we choose them as Ultimate, can kill us…. If you don’t want to die,the trick is, to know your seraph and to own responsibility for it: not to blame it on God or your neighbor.
Not to expect God, or your neighbor, to make a miracle and save you.But to do what you have to, to save yourself.
When we read the story in Numbers we see that the people, snakebit and scared,
prayed to God and to MosesPlease save us from these seraphs…please take them away from us.
But that’s not how it works.
Seraphs –whatever we fear or
whatever we set up as so important to us for good or ill
that it keeps us from seeing the world or living our life freely—
seraphs are a part of life
not something that God or someone else can take away from us.
We have to participate in the cure,
We have to do the work.
That’s why the oldest baptismal formula,
the one we used with Jakk and his family this morning
Asks us two things:
Do you turn away from evil?
Do you turn toward God in Jesus Christ?
From the moment of adoption into the family of God, we are taught:
The life of faith is about choices, it is about action.
The life of faith is not magic, it’s about hard work.
So I was looking at the New York Times this morning before I came to church.
And I saw this article on the front page:Dose of Tenacity Wears Down an Ancient Horror.
As luck would have it, it’s about the seraphs.
In Nigeria, in a place called Ogi, is one last part of the world infested with Guinea worms,“a plague so ancient that it is found in Egyptian mummies and is thought to be the “fiery serpent” described in the Old Testament as torturing the Israelites in the desert.”
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How about that?
Guinea worms are a parasite. You swallow the bad water, and later, 3 foot long worms burst out of your flesh, trying to get loose, and they explode your skin, and burn like fire.
And sometimes they can kill you.
They could be easily eradicated, if only people would make some simple, consistent choices about cleaning their water,
And being careful where they drink and bathe.
But people are superstitious. And they like to do things the way they always have doneAnd so it’s been hard to get the seraphs, I mean the worms, eradicated.
But President Jimmy Carter believes that people shouldn’t die from something so easy to take care of, and his foundation has spent lots of money and lots of time wearing down resistance and teaching the people to look up, and make different choices… and providing them with the tools and resources to live into those choices It’s not magic, it’s just hard work.
And Guinea Worm infestation is about 5 years away from being totally eradicated. I think that’s a nice way for a President to spend his time and influence, don’t you?
But back to the seraphs.
The people of Israel were told: God can’t take the seraphs away,
But we can do this: we can put one up where you can see it for what it is. We can put it high enough so that you have to look up and around at the rest of the world, and at everyone in it, we can get it up and away from you long enough to give you a choice:
Do you turn away from evil? Do you turn toward God?
That’s all it is, one choice at a time, all your life long
It’s what Jesus was trying to teach Nicodemus, there in the gospel of John.
Nicodemus, an influential, powerful, and affluent mancame to Jesus by night.
His life wasn’t working,but he was afraid to admit it.
Jesus told him: Looking down and hiding in the dark is killing you.
And God so loved the world… but you have to look up, be born from above. Make the choices, do the work.
It’s probably the best known verse in the bible, John 3:16
Godsolovedtheworldthathegavehisonlysonthatwhoseverbelievesinhim
shouldnotperishbuthaveeternallife….
But it’s not magic, not just a placard being waved in the stands at sporting events
It’s a choice to look up toward the light
To live within a world large enough to give you life
To love that world, and not to be afraid of the seraphs
Or to expect someone else to save you from them
To get up every day and do that… And then to do it all over again the next day, and the next.
Do you turn away from evil, and renounce its power in the world?
Do you turn toward God, following the way of Jesus Christ?
Do you?
Amen.
