Facing Our Fears

Homily St. Patrick/Mothering Sunday Lent 4 Yr. B

In our reading from the Book of Numbers today we heard the story of God sending poisonous snakes among the grumbling Hebrew people.

The people ask Moses to pray to God for relief and God tells him to set a snake on top of a pole, and anyone who is bitten and looks on the pole will live.

Snakes have always been an object of fear, ever since the role of the snake as tempter in the Garden of Eden.

One of St. Patrick’s legendary claims to fame---and I had to mention this the day after St. Patrick’s day—is that he banished the snakes from Ireland by chasing them into the sea after they interrupted him taking a forty day fast on top of a hill.

This legend probably draws from the Old Testament mention of snakes in Exodus when Moses and Aaron use their staffs in battles against the Egyptian sorcerers, and both sides’ staffs turn into snakes.

The reason I say legend is not to diminish St. Patrick’s accomplishments but to report that there is no scientific evidence Ireland ever had snakes. “So there was nothing for St. Patrick to banish,” says naturalist Nigel Monaghan, keeper of natural history at the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin.

The story from Numbers is equally hard to fathom, if taken literally. It is hard for me to conceive of God deliberately sending poisonous snakes to hurt or kill the Hebrew people who have survived the Exodus from Egypt.

So what’s behind this story, which is also mentioned in our Gospel reading, with Jesus being raised up on a Cross, just as a the serpent is raised on a pole, for the people of God to look on.

The time in the wilderness was a difficult time for the Hebrew. They had escaped slavery and degradation in Egypt. But they were not in the promised land.

Instead they were in the desert. And they are very unhappy about the conditions. So they start to angry. Moses, their leader, and God, who helped them get this far, are their targets.

Why, they wonder, are they struggling to exist in this desolate land—with no food, no water, and what food they do get is miserable.

So God sends poisonous snakes to punish them….or did he?

Maybe this story is a second or third hand account based on a memory of one of the ancient Hebrews finding their camp infested with snakes, and someone had died of a bite.

Maybe they had tried an old Egyptian magical remedy, capturing a snake and putting its head on a pole to try and forestall panic.

Or maybe the people were infected with parasitic worms, know as fiery snakes, which could cause infection or death.

In any case, as humans we have a built in fear of snakes. This crosses all cultural boundaries.

Perhaps this story is teaching us that we have to face our fears, and conquer them, rather than giving in to them.

The story of the Hebrews grumbling in the desert reminds me of how negativity, dissatisfaction, and disgruntlement seem to creep through our lives—in our local communities, in our nation, in our world, and even in our church.

Things aren’t what they used to be. Remember the 50’s and the 60’s when the church was full, and we had lots of young people, and the hall echoes to the sounds of the Sunday school, and the scouts and guides.

Remember when we sang the old songs. Used the old books all the time. We were the hub of the community.

The trouble is we end up like the ancient Hebrews who complained to Moses and God that they were eating better in Egypt.

We get stuck by those fiery snakes---negativity, doubt, anger, fear of the future.

And change becomes more difficult. We are stuck thinking about what was good in the past, and not allowing ourselves to think about something new and exciting in the future.

We don’t confront our collective fears, but rather hope they will go away.

What is the cure? The Gospel of John identifies the snake on the pole with the crucified Christ.

By looking at the Cross we are confronted with the suffering of Jesus, with our own suffering and the sin and suffering of the world.

During Lent we as Christians need to examine ourselves, and put things into perspective.

We need to learn from our sin, our pain, our suffering, our inadequacies, and those of the world, and then, and only then turn towards the Easter message that in death, Jesus overcomes death, and that Easter is the beginning of new life, of transformation, of renewal.

May this coming Easter be a time of renewal and new life for all of us.