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One of the ways the Bible is most helpful to us, is in providing patterns for our lives. There are three patterns in today's lessons, and it seems to me that they are nestled, one inside the other, like a set of measuring cups. The first, smallest pattern, is the experience of being in the wilderness. This was a real historical event for the Israelites, whether or not they spent 40 years wandering around. Whatever length of time they were in the wilderness, they shared a profound sense of dislocation and suffering. As soon as we begin to think about groups of immigrants, we see what the pattern is: a prolonged period of hardship in the place of origin, followed by release or escape, either peaceful or violent, and a group is able to leave. But they are not able to settle down immediately, either because it takes a long time to get to a new country, or because the land, the culture and the language are so different. The first English colonists in our country certainly fit that pattern: they were persecuted Puritans in England, tried living in Holland, and then took the long journey across the ocean to Massachusetts. The Irish immigrants who came in the 19th century due to the potato famine in Ireland, went through a similar process. And today's immigrants from Mexico certainly find the United States to be a wilderness. What is even more interesting, is that individuals have times of wandering in the wilderness. Any major life event can send us out to the wilderness--that is, to strange circumstances in which we cannot figure out what to do. Both marriage, and divorce, can be wilderness experiences; both having a baby, and witnessing a death, both new employment and losing ones' employment, both getting sick, and getting well. The experience is that of not knowing how to live in these new circumstances: nothing is familiar, the old ways of doing things do not work, and life is not under our control. Naturally people who are in such a wilderness feel confused and disoriented. The way thing used to be, even if they were painful, looks better and better just because it was well-known and familiar. People in such wilderness situations often feel separated from God, and are not aware of God's guidance. They can't pray. I can identify five experiences of wilderness in my life, due to moves across the country, the loss of a job, a divorce, and the death of my father. Two of those experiences were quite upsetting: I felt lost, I had no energy, and I had no desire to build a new life. Each experience lasted many months, and I didn't even have words to describe the problem, much less a friendly ear to listen. Three of the wilderness experiences I embraced, because I recognized the pattern--and I knew it was a Biblical pattern as well as a personal one. From reading the Bible and from reflection on my first two experiences, I knew that the wilderness would be temporary; I knew that God was with me even though I could not sense God's presence. Most important of all, I knew that I would find a new life, eventually. So I was able to endure the wilderness experience in faith, and even in patience. The second pattern, which I am imagining as the medium-sized measuring cup, is the human tendency to focus only on my present needs and feelings. It is a very dificult pattern to become aware of, because we all begin life as infants who are only conscious of whether we are hungry or full, warm or cold. Gradually as we grow to adulthood, we learn to give some of our attention to the feelings of other people, and some of our attention to the larger questions of life. Sooner or later, most of us ask, why am I here? How should I live? What does God want me to do, and to be? When the Israelites complained that there was no food and no water, they were entirely focussed on their own needs and feelings. They were sick of eating manna, and they were remembering the good food they ate in Egypt. "We detest this miserable food" they said. St. Paul is addressing exactly the same condition, when he says to the Ephesians, "All of us once lived . . . following the desires of the flesh and the senses". He says that by following the course of this world, we are dead. What he meant is, that the self-centered person, living without awareness of God, has the life of an animal: the biological functions are performed, but that's all there is. Without a doubt, there are times when life forces us to give all our attention to our own needs, whether because of injury or job loss or natural disaster. The crucial question is whether we have recognized our own spiritual nature, and have gone in search of the Creator who gave us that spirit, that image of God within. The Israelites following Moses were aware of God's presence and guidance in general, but at this point in their journey, they were miserable and grumpy and tired. What they thought they needed was some good food. What they got was fiery, or poisonous snakes. According to the author of this passage, the snakes were God's punishment for sin. This is one of many places in the Bible where a terrible event is interpreted as a punishment from God, and I believe that interpretation is wrong. I don't think God ever punishes us. What seems likely to me is that snakes came, just as ants, termites and rats arrive in our homes, and when the snakes began biting people, the people recognized that only God could help them, and or deliverance. What is fascinating about the story is HOW God saved them. He told Moses to forge a bronze snake, and to attach it to a pole, so that it could be held up for everyone to see. When they were bitten by the snakes, they looked up at the bronze snake, and were saved from death. Several of the scholars I consulted said this was sympathetic magic, which means that the poison of the snakebite was cancelled out by looking at another snake. This explanation made more sense to me when I learned that in the ancient world, snakes were associated with healing, and immortality, because they shed their skins. Being saved by looking at the bronze snake made such a deep impression on the Israelites, that they carried it into the promised land, and eventually installed it in the Temple. It had a name, Nehushtan, and despite the commandment not to make or worship an image, offerings were made to it for 500 years. Finally King Hezekiah broke it in pieces as part of his religious reform (2 Kings 18:4). After another 700 years, the author of a book in the Apocrypha, The Wisdom of Solomon, wrote that in the bronze serpent, God gave the people a symbol of deliverance, to remind them of your law's command. For the one who turned toward it was saved, not by the thing that was beheld, but by You, the Savior of all (16:6-7). In other words, God was redirecting their attention away from their physical needs, and toward their spiritual relationship with their Maker. That bronze snake was the ancient equivalent of a neon sign which says, God wants you! So the pattern consists of a group, or an individual focussing completely on their own needs, experiencing a threat, and recognizing suddenly that God is demanding their attention. We even have a name for this experience: a wake-up call. I vividly remember the wake-up call I received in 1984, when God made it clear that it was time to leave Stanford Chapel and get into parish ministry. I have heard hundreds of stories from people about their wake-up calls, and they all begin with that intense focus on the job, the family, or the home, and they all end with the belief that God had called them to a new direction in life. When you think of it, you realize that the Bible is full of such stories, from Abraham to Moses, from Samuel to Amos, from Peter to Paul. We come now to the third pattern, the largest one, which holds the other two within it. This is the pattern St. John articulates in his famous verse 3:16, which is often written on posters and displayed at football games. God initiates contact with us, through creation, through revelation, and through events, always trying to draw us into his fold, and to enable us to participate in eternal life. So the pattern is about God's constant reaching out to us in many different ways, which all reveal his love, and it is about the human awareness that we have not earned, nor can we earn the Divine Love. And it is about our choice to trust that love, which is the only way we can receive it. The apostles and evangelists of the early church insisted that this pattern had been operative for the whole history of the Hebrew people, and could be clearly seen in the rescue at the Red Sea, and the giving of the covenants, and the lifting up of the Bronze snake, and the return from Exile. But they also believed that this pattern was uniquely and spectacularly embodied in one person, Jesus of Nazareth, who is God's beloved Son. The pattern was embodied in God's sending of his Son, in the Son's faith, and in the Son's lifting up, both on the cross, and in the resurrection. Because Jesus taught forgiveness, love of God and love of neighbor, the apostles and evangelists also came to see that God's love is unconditional. There is no law to be kept, there are no offerings required, there is no behavor that is necessary, there is no creed to accept, for God's saving grace to come to us. It is already here, it is waiting for us, all we need do is reach out to receive it. It is simply a matter of trusting that this love, this saving power, this everlasting life, is really meant for you and for me. "For God so loved the world, that He gave his only Son,
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