March 26, 2006 - Fourth Sunday in Lent - Father Andrew Green

FIRST READING: Numbers 21: 4-9
PSALM: 107: 1-3, 17-22
SECOND READING: Ephesians 2: 1-10
GOSPEL: John 3: 14-21

(Audience participation will be noted in bold print and italics)

This Sunday, the readings are so packed with Good News that it is hard to pick just one area, so, as you might guess, I am not going to just pick one. I am going to talk about a couple of different things.

First of all, we have a passage that is perhaps one of the most famous passages of all. I call it the "football passage". John 3:16. How many of you grew up or were watching football when Rainbow Head was in the end-zone with the placard that read "John 3:16"? That is what I was raised with. It took me a while to realize that it was in the Bible and not in the NFL handbook! "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, to the end that all that believe in Him would not perish, but have everlasting life". It is a wonderful statement. It is, in a sense, at the heart of our Gospel, and it is one of those passages that is often very misunderstood, particularly by Christians who think of it as "our passage" - it's "ours". But, what does it say? What does it say? "For God so loved . . . .

The world

Does it say, "For God so loved St. Paul in the Desert and the 10:30 crowd?"

No!

No! Does it say, "For God so loved all those who have never messed up and have done everything right?"

No!

No! Does it say, "For God so loved the Episcopal Church, above all other churches?"

No!

No! It doesn't even talk about Church. It doesn't even talk about Christians. It says, God loved the . . . .

World!

World! That is an important thing to know. When we Christians start acting like it is all about us and not about the world that God created, and that God loves, and for which God gave His Son to be lifted up that it might be restored, we miss the point.

Now, the second really cool thing is, how often do you get up and get to preach on snakes?! Now, there are people here at the 10:30 service who have threatened to bring their boa constrictors back after the 8:00 service, so that we would have some snake props; but, to be honest, I don't work with living props, for the most part, especially snake props. Snakes are the critters that you love to hate. I think there are some studies that show that more people are afraid of snakes than just about anything else, even more than they are afraid of spiders, which I find hard to believe. For me, I don't know that I am so much afraid of snakes, as that I unwittingly end up in places where snakes might hurt me. The family remembers a trip that we made to the rim of the Rio Grande Canyon, just behind Los Alamos, and I think it was not very long after we were married, wasn't it? (directed to Susan in the choir!)

It was before the wedding, O.K.! Yes, I remember it well!

It was before the wedding, and, as we were walking up the trail to the overlook, all of a sudden I looked down, and there was a snake. So, what did I do? I reached down to grab it, and the family is going, "No! No!", because it could have been a rattler. It wasn't. I didn't grab it. It ran away. It was more afraid of me than anything else. But the family continued to think that I was something of a dunce around snakes, because I kind of had a kid's desire to just play with this really cool snake.

Well, the snakes that we read about in Numbers are not really cool, are they? The people of Israel have been whining, complaining, and murmuring. They have been receiving Manna in the wilderness. They have been receiving a food that is unlike any other. It is a food made by God just to feed God's people, and they have been eating it; and they have begun to take it for granted. So, that food that was so delightful that they couldn't believe it when they first tasted it, now they are saying - "Oh, Manna again?!" They are also annoyed because Moses has been told by God to go around Edom and not to have a fight with them, and they really were more interested in having a fight than trekking around another country. So, they murmur; they complain; they whine; and God sends fiery serpents to bite them, to let them know that their complaining is annoying God. It says that many of the Israelites died - so many of them, in fact, that they re-thought their complaining, and they said, "Oh, we have been complaining, and we have angered God. Moses, ask the Lord to take those snakes away!" And Moses goes to the Lord and says, "Take those snakes away!" And the Lord says, "No. The snakes stay. But, make a bronze snake; put it on a pole; lift it up; and, whenever the people have been bitten, they can look on that snake, and they will live".

So, there are two snakes here. In the Hebrew, the word that describes the serpents at the beginning, the fiery serpents, is "sera". Have you ever heard that before? Sera. Where else? Seraphim - the angels; just one step under the archangels - they are like really heavy-duty angels from God. They are fiery angels. In Isaiah, Chapter 6, we see them guarding God and serving God in the Temple, and those are the fiery snakes. So, in a sense, the snakes are kind of fiery messengers for God, letting people know that God is not amused with their questioning God, with their complaining, or with their taking the goodness of God for granted.

But then, there is a second snake - the bronze serpent that is placed on the pole, so that the folks can look at it and live. It is important to understand that both of those snakes were sent by God, and both of those snakes are with us today.

The fiery snakes - they have to do with our complacency, with our fears, with our anxieties. One of the folks that I read last week talks about a hiking trip that he was on in the mountains of North Carolina, and, as they were getting ready to go on the trip, he let everybody know, "Now, I hope nobody comes across a snake, but, if you do, don't tell me! Because I am deathly afraid of snakes, and I will freak out!" And one of the other hikers with him said, "You are so lucky. You are so lucky that the thing that really freaks you out is snakes. I am afraid of planes crashing into buildings. I am afraid of buildings falling down. I am afraid of my 401K collapsing. I am afraid of the bird flu. All you have to be afraid of is snakes. You are so lucky!"

But, in reality, whenever we let our anxieties and our fears get the best of us - whenever we turn over our lives to those things - we are in need of some of God's fiery serpents to bite us and let us know that we need to pay attention; and that we need to turn back.

Jesus, in the beginning of the reading today, says that, just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so will He be lifted up, that anyone who looks on Him might have life. Now, this is a wonderful message for us. In the Church, after Easter, we have Good Shepherd Sunday. I am saying that we should make today Good Serpent Sunday. Jesus is not only the Good Shepherd, but Jesus is the Good Serpent. Jesus is the Good Serpent who heals the wounds that we have received at the hands of those fiery serpents - those messengers that have reminded us how far we have strayed from what God has asked us to do. Jesus is the Good Serpent, upon whom we can look and find life and healing and hope and peace.

Now, some of you, I am sure, are sitting there saying, "Oh no! It's another one of those do-gooder, liberal sermons about how much God loves everybody and everything else. Why can't we hear St. Paul? - because St. Paul really knows how to give it to 'em!" O.K., let's look at Ephesians today. "You have been saved by Grace". Paul says that, in different ways, at least three times, and he emphasizes that it is not by anything that you did. It wasn't because you were good; it wasn't because you were right; it wasn't because you were in the right place at the right time; but it was God's gift to you. And so, those of you who have received that gift of Grace - that gift of God's love, that gift of forgiveness, that gift of God's invitation to be in relationship with God and one another - you can't earn it, but, out of it, should come good works. Do you get the message? It is not good works that get you into it; it is that, when you have received that gift, out of it should come good works; because, essentially, the gift of God that each of us has received is to be, in us, a gift for the world that God came to save. "For God so loved . . . .

The world!

For God so loved the world, that He sent us fiery serpents to remind us of our needs. He sent us 40 days of Lent to attend to all of those things, and He sent His Son, the Good Serpent, so that, if we would look upon Him as He is lifted up, we might have life; and that we might take that salvation and healing and love and gift that we have received; and we might, in turn, become a gift to others.

So, I hope this is your best Good Serpent Sunday, ever, and I hope you leave here as a gift to the world, for whom Christ died.

AMEN