Read the lectionary texts here! 

The story of the bronze serpent on a pole, from Numbers chapter 21, is one of those weird stories from the Bible that generally get left out of the Sunday morning lectionary, our calendar of assigned readings. BUT Jesus refers to it, in the single most famous passage from the Gospel of John – possibly from any of the Gospels. So here we are. 

What is going on in this story? Last week we heard God give Moses the Ten Commandments that were to guide the Israelites in their way of life as God’s people. LITERALLY number two was: You shall not make for yourself an idol – that is, an object that looks like an animal, that you then worship or treat as holy. I guess if God tells you to break a commandment, you break a commandment??

This text is old, but the story behind it is much older. We can speculate a little about what experiences might underlie the story. God’s people have fled from Egypt and are in the wilderness, perhaps somewhere on what we now call the Sinai Peninsula. They have a long way to go before coming to the fertile region on the Mediterranean coast where they will eventually settle. And while they’re on this long, long journey, they have a run-in with some poisonous snakes. 

I expect many of us have been stung by a bee or wasp at some point. Maybe a few have even been bitten by a snake. Generally in these cases there’s a disagreement about who belongs where. 

I’ve watched a couple of seasons of the reality show Alone, where people who think of themselves as having good survival skills are dropped off in deep wilderness with minimal supplies, and compete for who can hang on the longest before tapping out or being pulled out for medical reasons. 

Both seasons I’ve watched, the contestants are in serious bear country. And while – spoiler! – there hasn’t been a dangerous bear encounter, if there were – you couldn’t really blame the bear. The humans are the ones out of place, in that situation. 

The wilderness is, by definition, a wild place where people don’t usually go. Inhabited by wild creatures adapted to that environment – whether that’s far northern forest or the rocky desert of the Sinai. 

Remember the triangular covenant – the relationship between humans and the land, including its creatures, is tied up with the relationship between humans and God. So: It is not surprising that during this wilderness time, God’s people stumble into an area that some local snakes reasonably regard as THEIR territory. There’s a disruption here, an ecological dislocation, and it has consequences. 

The story could have been: The wilderness was really terrible; we were hungry and thirsty and hot and cold and tired and miserable; there’s clearly a REASON nobody lives out here. And then we came into a region with a lot of poisonous snakes, and they were NOT happy to see us, and it got even worse. 

Instead, the text makes sense of this experience through the lens of punishment. Maybe because the people are so unhappy, they assume these snakebites are proof of God’s anger at them. 

Why bad things happen is not a one-sermon question. 

But this story offers an opportunity to talk about a piece of it. 

The idea that the bad things that happen are God’s punishment for things we’ve done wrong sounds pretty awful and frightening. But it has a lasting appeal. 

It’s a strong theme in big chunks of the Old Testament – although there can be some real nuance to whether the various bad things that befall God’s people are described truly as punishments, or as the natural consequences of various bad choices. 

I’m not bold enough to say that significant parts of Old Testament theology are simply wrong to understand God as deliberately sending harm to God’s people as a punishment for their misdeeds. But I do think there’s a gradual shift within the Hebrew Bible towards understanding God’s purposes for humanity as redemptive rather than retributive. 

And it’s definitely hard to square the idea of divine punishment with what Jesus has to say about God – including right here in chapter 3 of John’s Gospel: “For God so loved the world that God gave God’s only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

Of course John’s Jesus goes on to say that those who don’t believe in him are judged – but the emphasis is on human choices, not divine retribution. Some people don’t want to follow Jesus because they don’t want to face, or change, their own harmful actions.

There are several times in the Gospels when people ask Jesus right out: Is this bad thing that happened, a punishment because somebody sinned? And Jesus says: That’s not how things work. 

Still: the idea of God punishing humanity has real staying power. It has an obvious appeal when we’re talking about our enemies or those with whom we disagree. Of course they had it coming, whatever “it” is! 

But it also has an appeal even for ourselves. 

The idea of punishment gives us an explanation for bad things that happen. I brought this on myself because I did X. And it gives us a sense of agency, of control. If this happened because of what I did, maybe I can make it stop happening, or prevent it from happening again, by what I do. 

A sense that there’s a reason for why this terrible thing is happening, and of agency or control, can feel really important when we’re facing big tragedies or struggles. I can definitely see the appeal, when the alternative is: Sometimes really bad stuff just happens, and there’s no good reason for it, and nothing you can do about it. 

As spiritual writer Annie Dillard puts it, “You can live as a particle crashing about and colliding in a welter of materials with God, or you can live as a particle crashing about and colliding in a welter of materials without God. But you cannot live outside the welter of colliding materials.”

There’s no opting out of the hurts and struggles and losses of life in this beautiful, broken world. I think often about a quotation from one of Sir Terry Pratchett’s books, A Hat Full of Sky. Speaking about a particular case of human suffering, the main character, Tiffany, says, “It shouldn’t be like this.” And an older, wiser character responds: “There isn’t a way things should be. There’s just what happens, and what we do.”

There isn’t a way things should be. There’s just what happens, and what we do. It’s not that Sir Terry didn’t have a sense of the good, the right, the just. He was a deeply thoughtful and compassionate person; his ethics shine through his goofy books, which is why so many people love them.

I think what he’s calling out here, in the voice of this character, is a tendency to spend our energy on outrage at the gap between what is and what we think should be. Instead of accepting what is, and focusing our energy on how to respond in a way that edges reality towards better. 

There’s an overlap here with contemplative spirituality. I preached a few weeks ago about my learning and new practices in that realm. “There’s just what happens, and what we do” is a call to attention, to listening to what is – and then discerning our response, from a place of clarity. 

This is probably not an everybody thing, but I also don’t think it’s just me: I do notice a real difference within myself when I shift my focus from arguing with the situation, whatever it may be, to accepting the situation and reflecting on my response. What is mine to do, here. 

There’s an overlap, too, with what some of us are reading in Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg’s book On Repentance and Repair. In the framework of the great Jewish thinker Maimonides, step one in the work of repentance is to acknowledge that you have caused harm. Ruttenberg points out that there’s also a step zero: coming to understand that you have caused harm. That can be a big journey in itself. It can demand open-hearted listening, deep emotional work, learning new perspectives, and more, to arrive at a place where you’re able to hear someone’s feedback or rebuke or invitation to amend something you have said or done. 

There’s a lot more to say about this book, but for now: The path onward isn’t arguing with the situation. It’s accepting the situation, and discerning what to do next.

Given this: what now? 

It is no picnic to live in this welter of colliding materials. To gaze unflinchingly on the wonder and ache of life in this world and know that purpose and meaning are shrouded in more mystery than we might prefer. To accept that humanity’s freedom and creation’s freedom and millennia of accumulated ideas and ways of being mean that we wake up each morning to an immensely complex muddle of fault and favor, consequence and possibility, inclination and choice, loss and belonging. 

Maybe it’s no coincidence that the church’s ancient posture of prayer is also, essentially, a shrug. 

The transactional, mechanistic mindset of punishment and reward makes a lot of sense. It doesn’t fix anything, and arguably makes some things worse, but it tells you where you stand. 

Maybe that’s why the Israelites kept the bronze snake. Much later, in the second book of the Kings of Israel, we hear that King Hezekiah undertook a big renovation of the Temple in Jerusalem. He had it repaired, and hauled out a bunch of junk, and re-established regular worship there. (2 Kings 18; 2 Chron 29). 

Among the things that were hauled out was the bronze serpent: “[Hezekiah] broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it; it was called Nehushtan.” 

Nehushtan’s removal seems to have been part of a movement to  centralize religious practice at the Jerusalem temple and focus exclusively on Israel’s God, getting rid of other minor deities and cults. 

I find that interesting for its historical and anthropological aspects… but there’s also something here that makes deep sense spiritually and psychologically, if I may venture to speak outside my expertise! 

Keeping Nehushtan, worshipping Nehushtan, isn’t just worshiping a symbol of a time when God saved us. It’s holding on to a symbol of a time when we were really bad and God had to punish us. 

I can see how holding on to Nehushtan could appeal to a people trying to make sense of their history, the ups and downs, struggles and successes, in light of their understanding of themselves as God’s chosen people. 

I can also see how the things Nehushtan stands for could have an appeal for somebody at an individual level. 

There are lots of ways people may carry deep shame or a sense of deserving whatever hardship comes their way. People who’ve been scapegoated by a family system, people who’ve been treated in certain ways by a parent or partner, people who’ve been through particular kinds of suffering or struggle – may find a kind of safe haven in the idea that these things happened to them because they’re bad. The meaning and agency of the punishment paradigm can offer a kind of uncomfortable comfort. 

For folks marked by that kind of history, it can be real work to begin to take on board that you deserve grace and healing, and that a love worth having – human or holy – does not intentionally cause harm. 

I want to say one more thing about the bronze snake, our friend Nehushtan, and that’s to circle back to the analogy Jesus is making in our Gospel reading. When he talks about being lifted up like the serpent on the pole, he’s talking about his crucifixion – about the cross. 

A lot of Christianity tells the story of the cross in a way that’s actually pretty similar to the story about the snake. Humanity was and is a bunch of horrible, ungrateful wretches. So God sent the poisonous serpents of sin among us to chomp on us and make our lives even worse.

In order to appease God’s righteous anger, Jesus had to die on the cross. So we worship the cross, much like the bronze serpent. 

Christians wouldn’t say we worship the cross – rather, what it stands for – but that can be a fine line, let’s be honest! The cross is unarguably central to Christian symbolism and worship.

There are churches that really dwell on Jesus’ death on the cross as their core story, the place where they find meaning and truth.

There are churches that are really more comfortable with the empty tomb, the happy ending of Easter morning, and don’t want to think too much about the hard stuff before – or after. 

I like to think that at St. Dunstan’s, and in the Episcopal Church in general, we strike a pretty good balance of taking both Good Friday and Easter Sunday very seriously indeed. 

While the cross is perhaps less overwhelmingly central for us than for some other kinds of churches, it is central for us too. I mean – there it is. 

I would like the story of Nehushtan to lead us to reflect on what we think, what we feel, when we look at cross, or wear a cross, or sign the cross. 

Does the cross tell us that we are miserable wretches who only deserve God’s anger?

Does it remind us of moments when we have felt amazing grace? 

Does it tell us that we matter so much to God that God would pay any price to show us how beloved we are? 

Does it tell us that no matter the depths of pain, suffering, struggle, God is in it with us?

Does it tell us, in the words of Paul, that God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength?

Does it tell us, in the words of Dr. King, that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality – that right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant? 

Does it tell us that love wins?

I invite us to wonder and notice together, as we turn towards the cross in these final weeks of Lent. Amen.