Lent 4, Week of March 22, 2009
Numbers 21.4-9
“…everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.”
How terrifying, this plague of snakes, sent by God, who had lost all patience with this recalcitrant people. They don’t like the water, the food; they are thirsty, hungry for meat. On and on….they complain. Finally, God had enough of their complaining and sent the poisonous snakes that bite and kill.
Numbers 21.4-9
“…everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.”
How terrifying, this plague of snakes, sent by God, who had lost all patience with this recalcitrant people. They don’t like the water, the food; they are thirsty, hungry for meat. On and on….they complain. Finally, God had enough of their complaining and sent the poisonous snakes that bite and kill.
The photo is of Giovanni Fantoni's sculpture on Mt. Nebo, in Jordan, where Moses looked out over the promised land he would never enter, and where he died.
Their suffering is great; they are dying of the poison. And so the people repent, Moses intercedes and God relents. God tells Moses, Make an icon of the serpent and look on it; gaze on the bronze serpent and through it, see my mercy and promise. It will give you life. God’s remedy? Repent; face your fear, and through your greatest fear, you will see God’s promise and be healed.
What are our fears? We must know them, for, if we don’t, they will bite us and their poison will kill us.
The Women in Black have stared down their fears and they gather, all across Israel, every Friday, 1-2 pm, to silently protest their government's occupation of Palestine.
One of the greatest fears of all Israelis and the American Jews who visit Israel, is that they will get on a bus or drop their children off at the mall or even at school and a suicide bomber will attack.
When I first visited the Western Wall, the holy place of prayer for devout Jews, I prayed with the women on the smaller side, the area reserved for the women—with old women wearing headscarves and sturdy shoes, younger women in long black skirts, American tourists with colorful shawls over their bare shoulders, young women with babies in strollers, and a whole group of schoolgirls with their classmates. The girls didn’t need any instruction; they had been here many times before; they knew just how to approach the wall reverently, stand at the wall and say their prayers, walk backwards, facing the wall as they left. But once on the promenade and on their way back to the bus, they were laughing and playing, teasing one another and sharing secrets, like schoolgirls everywhere.
Like schoolgirls everywhere, except for the young man following them with the assault rifle. At first I was terrified when I saw this young man with a backpack, carrying this combat weapon; I panicked, but I looked around and noticed everyone else seemed perfectly calm. I still wasn’t sure, so I followed the group and watched as the girls got on the bus, the young man with the automatic weapon standing guard, looking around at the crowd, as they boarded the bus.
This is what fear does. It changes our behavior. It makes us hire bodyguards, buy automatic weapons, put up walls and barbed wire to keep the danger at bay, and start wars by attacking our enemies before they can attack us. According to the Women in Black, this is what Israel has done—given in to its fears. And the fears have changed the people. The fears have taught 18-year-olds to handle automatic weapons and absorb their power; taught them to disregard the suffering of the Arabs waiting at the 110-degree heat in the sun at the checkpoint; taught them to ignore the pleas of the husband with his pregnant wife who is going into labor, ignoring the desperation in his pleas to let them through to the hospital. Their fears have taught the guards to regard every Palestinian as a terrorist, so that they come to believe it is so.
Hannah, a Jewish grandmother living in Jerusalem, told me that she monitors the checkpoints and protests the occupation because she sees how the occupation is changing the people. Everything is military, she says, Military, military, military. Nothing else matters anymore. She protests so that her grandchildren will have a different future, a future not controlled by fear and submachine guns. She is not naively ignoring the danger of terrorists, but she has looked her most dreaded fears directly in the eye and seen through the fear to God’s promises of peace and wholeness and new life. She has gazed on her fears and they have healed her and she is now working to heal her country’s wounds. If we don’t look our fears in the eye, they will bite us and we will die from the poisonous venom. But if we look at the serpent of bronze, we will live.
O God, liberator of Egyptian slaves and creator of a people, look upon your terrified children with compassion. Give us courage to face our worst fears and through them to see your loving compassion and your promise….for the sake of our future, our grandchildren. Amen.
Their suffering is great; they are dying of the poison. And so the people repent, Moses intercedes and God relents. God tells Moses, Make an icon of the serpent and look on it; gaze on the bronze serpent and through it, see my mercy and promise. It will give you life. God’s remedy? Repent; face your fear, and through your greatest fear, you will see God’s promise and be healed.
What are our fears? We must know them, for, if we don’t, they will bite us and their poison will kill us.
The Women in Black have stared down their fears and they gather, all across Israel, every Friday, 1-2 pm, to silently protest their government's occupation of Palestine.
One of the greatest fears of all Israelis and the American Jews who visit Israel, is that they will get on a bus or drop their children off at the mall or even at school and a suicide bomber will attack.
When I first visited the Western Wall, the holy place of prayer for devout Jews, I prayed with the women on the smaller side, the area reserved for the women—with old women wearing headscarves and sturdy shoes, younger women in long black skirts, American tourists with colorful shawls over their bare shoulders, young women with babies in strollers, and a whole group of schoolgirls with their classmates. The girls didn’t need any instruction; they had been here many times before; they knew just how to approach the wall reverently, stand at the wall and say their prayers, walk backwards, facing the wall as they left. But once on the promenade and on their way back to the bus, they were laughing and playing, teasing one another and sharing secrets, like schoolgirls everywhere.
Like schoolgirls everywhere, except for the young man following them with the assault rifle. At first I was terrified when I saw this young man with a backpack, carrying this combat weapon; I panicked, but I looked around and noticed everyone else seemed perfectly calm. I still wasn’t sure, so I followed the group and watched as the girls got on the bus, the young man with the automatic weapon standing guard, looking around at the crowd, as they boarded the bus.
This is what fear does. It changes our behavior. It makes us hire bodyguards, buy automatic weapons, put up walls and barbed wire to keep the danger at bay, and start wars by attacking our enemies before they can attack us. According to the Women in Black, this is what Israel has done—given in to its fears. And the fears have changed the people. The fears have taught 18-year-olds to handle automatic weapons and absorb their power; taught them to disregard the suffering of the Arabs waiting at the 110-degree heat in the sun at the checkpoint; taught them to ignore the pleas of the husband with his pregnant wife who is going into labor, ignoring the desperation in his pleas to let them through to the hospital. Their fears have taught the guards to regard every Palestinian as a terrorist, so that they come to believe it is so.
Hannah, a Jewish grandmother living in Jerusalem, told me that she monitors the checkpoints and protests the occupation because she sees how the occupation is changing the people. Everything is military, she says, Military, military, military. Nothing else matters anymore. She protests so that her grandchildren will have a different future, a future not controlled by fear and submachine guns. She is not naively ignoring the danger of terrorists, but she has looked her most dreaded fears directly in the eye and seen through the fear to God’s promises of peace and wholeness and new life. She has gazed on her fears and they have healed her and she is now working to heal her country’s wounds. If we don’t look our fears in the eye, they will bite us and we will die from the poisonous venom. But if we look at the serpent of bronze, we will live.
O God, liberator of Egyptian slaves and creator of a people, look upon your terrified children with compassion. Give us courage to face our worst fears and through them to see your loving compassion and your promise….for the sake of our future, our grandchildren. Amen.
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