The First Reading is Numbers 20:1-13.

It doesn't seem fair that Moses doesn't make it to the promised land. He was chosen by God to free the Israelites. He faces Pharaoh. He is the mediator between God and the people. And when God desires to affirm their relationship by revealing God's face to Moses, God even shields Moses so that Moses will not die. God continually protects Moses. But in our reading from Numbers today, Moses disobeys God. The people are thirsy and are complaining. Moses talks to God and God tells Moses to command a certain rock to give water to the people. Moses leads the entire people to the rock. They gather around it. And then Moses strikes it with his staff. Water comes forth and the people drink but Moses has sealed his fate. God said to speak. Instead, Moses struck with his staff. And now Moses, like the other leaders in our reading from last week, will not enter the Promised Land.

So what are we supposed to do with this text? In fact, what are we to do with all of the rebellion texts in Numbers and the rest of the first five books of the bible? One way to frame their presence is to examine what happens in many of the cases. The turning away from God is usually tied to an example of idolatry. Now, idolatry can mean many different things. For some Israelites, it meant creating a golden calf and calling it a god. For others, it meant not trusting God's promises and reverting back to their own strengths and fears. And, for still more, it mean putting something other than God at the physical (and spiritual) center of their lives. Wealth, knowledge, pride, and fear are all examples of idolatry. Anything that convinces us to put our trust in ourselves, our resources, or something other than God is just an attempt for us to try to be our own gods. And, like we saw in the Exodus story, the people didn't free themselves from slavery. God did. God brings freedom and life. Everything else, according to the earlier books, just brings us back into a type of slavery and death. 

This explanation isn't designed to excuse the violence in these texts. The violence in the bible is something I will always struggle with. But the question of what gives us life, energy, and purpose is an important one. What's at our center and does it feed our soul or devour it? 

0 comments

The Lord spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the tent of meeting, on the first day of the second month, in the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt, saying: Take a census of the whole congregation of Israelites, in their clans, by ancestral houses, according to the number of names, every male individually; from twenty years old and upward, everyone in Israel able to go to war. You and Aaron shall enroll them, company by company. A man from each tribe shall be with you, each man the head of his ancestral house. These are the names of the men who shall assist you: From Reuben, Elizur son of Shedeur. From Simeon, Shelumiel son of Zurishaddai. From Judah, Nahshon son of Amminadab. From Issachar, Nethanel son of Zuar. From Zebulun, Eliab son of Helon. From the sons of Joseph: from Ephraim, Elishama son of Ammihud; from Manasseh, Gamaliel son of Pedahzur. From Benjamin, Abidan son of Gideoni. From Dan, Ahiezer son of Ammishaddai. From Asher, Pagiel son of Ochran. From Gad, Eliasaph son of Deuel. From Naphtali, Ahira son of Enan. These were the ones chosen from the congregation, the leaders of their ancestral tribes, the heads of the divisions of Israel.

Moses and Aaron took these men who had been designated by name, and on the first day of the second month they assembled the whole congregation together. They registered themselves in their clans, by their ancestral houses, according to the number of names from twenty years old and upward, individually, as the Lord commanded Moses. So he enrolled them in the wilderness of Sinai. The descendants of Reuben, Israel’s firstborn, their lineage, in their clans, by their ancestral houses, according to the number of names, individually, every male from twenty years old and upward, everyone able to go to war: those enrolled of the tribe of Reuben were forty-six thousand five hundred. The descendants of Simeon, their lineage, in their clans, by their ancestral houses, those of them that were numbered, according to the number of names, individually, every male from twenty years old and upward, everyone able to go to war: those enrolled of the tribe of Simeon were fifty-nine thousand three hundred. The descendants of Gad, their lineage, in their clans, by their ancestral houses, according to the number of the names, from twenty years old and upward, everyone able to go to war: those enrolled of the tribe of Gad were forty-five thousand six hundred fifty. The descendants of Judah, their lineage, in their clans, by their ancestral houses, according to the number of names, from twenty years old and upward, everyone able to go to war: those enrolled of the tribe of Judah were seventy-four thousand six hundred. The descendants of Issachar, their lineage, in their clans, by their ancestral houses, according to the number of names, from twenty years old and upward, everyone able to go to war: those enrolled of the tribe of Issachar were fifty-four thousand four hundred. The descendants of Zebulun, their lineage, in their clans, by their ancestral houses, according to the number of names, from twenty years old and upward, everyone able to go to war: those enrolled of the tribe of Zebulun were fifty-seven thousand four hundred. The descendants of Joseph, namely, the descendants of Ephraim, their lineage, in their clans, by their ancestral houses, according to the number of names, from twenty years old and upward, everyone able to go to war: those enrolled of the tribe of Ephraim were forty thousand five hundred. The descendants of Manasseh, their lineage, in their clans, by their ancestral houses, according to the number of names, from twenty years old and upward, everyone able to go to war: those enrolled of the tribe of Manasseh were thirty-two thousand two hundred. The descendants of Benjamin, their lineage, in their clans, by their ancestral houses, according to the number of names, from twenty years old and upward, everyone able to go to war: those enrolled of the tribe of Benjamin were thirty-five thousand four hundred. The descendants of Dan, their lineage, in their clans, by their ancestral houses, according to the number of names, from twenty years old and upward, everyone able to go to war: those enrolled of the tribe of Dan were sixty-two thousand seven hundred. The descendants of Asher, their lineage, in their clans, by their ancestral houses, according to the number of names, from twenty years old and upward, everyone able to go to war: those enrolled of the tribe of Asher were forty-one thousand five hundred. The descendants of Naphtali, their lineage, in their clans, by their ancestral houses, according to the number of names, from twenty years old and upward, everyone able to go to war: those enrolled of the tribe of Naphtali were fifty-three thousand four hundred.

These are those who were enrolled, whom Moses and Aaron enrolled with the help of the leaders of Israel, twelve men, each representing his ancestral house. So the whole number of the Israelites, by their ancestral houses, from twenty years old and upward, everyone able to go to war in Israel— their whole number was six hundred three thousand five hundred fifty.

The Levites, however, were not numbered by their ancestral tribe along with them. The Lord had said to Moses: Only the tribe of Levi you shall not enroll, and you shall not take a census of them with the other Israelites. Rather you shall appoint the Levites over the tabernacle of the covenant, and over all its equipment, and over all that belongs to it; they are to carry the tabernacle and all its equipment, and they shall tend it, and shall camp around the tabernacle. When the tabernacle is to set out, the Levites shall take it down; and when the tabernacle is to be pitched, the Levites shall set it up. And any outsider who comes near shall be put to death. The other Israelites shall camp in their respective regimental camps, by companies; but the Levites shall camp around the tabernacle of the covenant, that there may be no wrath on the congregation of the Israelites; and the Levites shall perform the guard duty of the tabernacle of the covenant. The Israelites did so; they did just as the Lord commanded Moses.

Numbers 1

Pastor Marc's sermon on the First Sunday in Lent (February 14, 2016) on Numbers 1. Listen to the recording here or read my manuscript below. 

****************************

So today isn’t only the First Sunday in Lent. It isn’t only a day when a dozen roses all of the sudden cost 4x what they did last week and when Candy Hearts are a language all it’s own. No, today is also, according to the movie Ghost Busters 2, the end. Dr. Peter Venkman, ghostbuster, has his own tv show called World of Psychics. He’s interviewing a woman who claims that an alien told her about the end of the world while she was staying at a Holiday Inn in Paramus. She was sitting on the bar when this alien approached her, bought her a drink, and told her about the end of the world. The alien gave her the date and a detailed account of what the end of the world would look like. She spills the beans on Dr. Venkman’s show, giving everyone a foretaste of what’s to come. Now, aliens, ghosts, the End of the World, and Bill Murray:  that’s one entertaining narrative for what an unknown, for what a wilderness might actually look like. Without that unknowning, without the unexpected and the unexplained, a wilderness can’t be a wilderness. We probably know what a Holiday Inn looks like. We might even have stayed in one once or twice. And if we all carpooled for a field trip after church and headed down Route 17 - we would, in fact, find a Holiday Inn in Paramus. When we walked through its front doors and headed into the hotel lobby, I’m sure the Holiday Inn would meet our expectations of what a Holiday Inn should be. But if it just so happens that we might meet an alien there - or discover that today is the end of the world - well - that Holiday Inn starts being a wilderness. It starts being a place where the unexpected happens. In fact, that Holiday Inn becomes a place where the only thing we can expected is the unexpected. So if we did head over to the Holiday Inn in Paramus after church, maybe we should take the time to prepare ourselves for anything that could happen. Maybe we need to invite Peter Venkman and the rest of the Ghostbusters team to come along. When we’re about to face the unexpected, it makes sense to take stock of what we have and muster our strengths so that we’re as ready as we can be to face anything that comes our way. And that’s what our first reading from Numbers feels like. God orders the Israelites to take a census before they move on from their camp at the foot of Mt. Sinai. They’re going to discover just how many military fighting men they have available. The Israelites are about to take a new journey, heading into the a new wilderness, towards the land promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The people prepare themselves by counting their strengths - because they have no idea what their future might bring. 

Now, each tribe is given a general and each tribe is counted. Everyone, minus the Levites, are counted to try and figure out how large of an army they might have. Now the number counted is huge - 600,355. And that doesn’t include women, children, senior citizens, servants and slaves. If we tried to add those unknown people into this miltary number, we suddenly have millions of people marching through the wilderness. This is mind boggling since, at this time, cities were huge if they had 10,000 people or more. Even if we think this number is accurate or if it’s impossible, our take on the number doesn’t  undo the vision of what is being laid out here. An entire people are on the move. Everyone is going. This army isn’t just keeping an eye on itself. It’s guarding, protecting, and leading this mass of humanity into a new place. The numbers are large because the magnitude of what’s going on is massive. And the Israelites have no idea what’s coming up ahead. These lands were originally crossed by their ancestors but, for 400 years, Egypt is all they knew. They knew Egyptian government, ate Egyptian food, and lived as Egyptian slaves. But now they’re free, heading into a place filled with people and dangers they don’t know. They’re heading into a wilderness so they arm up - preparing themselves for whatever they might run into. 

And that whatever just might be the devil. 

But this devil might do more than just tempt them and tempt us to do an unexpected thing. The devil might do more than invite us to make an immoral choice. The devil we meets in the wilderness - in our unknowns and in places outside our comfort zone - that devil devil might try to get us to forget who we are. When a difficulty arises and our food runs short, or when an opportunity to become rich and powerful shows up on our doorstep, we just might forget who called us to enter this wilderness. We might fall back on ourselves, looking to our own own strengths to overcome our fears. We might believe that we’re here in this wilderness alone, with no need for the Ghostbusters, or anyone else’s help. The devil’s great trick, as we see in Luke 4, isn’t when the devil tries to tempt us to make an immoral choice. The devil’s great trick is trying to convince us that we’re in our wilderness alone. The devil wants us to believe that God isn’t with us in our wilderness. As we take a step into our unknowns - our new adventures, our new challenges, and even our new tragedies - when we believe that God isn’t there, we forget who we are. We forget that we were made in God’s image. We forget that we are loved. We forget that God didn’t tell Moses to bring the people to a Holiday Inn but took them straight into the wilderness, into their unknowns. God took them there because that’s where God is too - in those unknown places and our unknown journeys - because God is too big to stay confined to only what we know. We head into the wilderness, into that place where devils lie in wait, because we know that God is there too. 

When the Israelites move, God is with them, right in the center of their formation. When they end up somewhere new, God is with them. When they face a new challenge, God is with them. God is right besides them when some tragedy and loss makes them wonder just what they’re going to do next. Even when Faith is hard, God is right there because God knows that our lives are more wilderness and knowns. Jesus came to live and see our wildernesses first hand, and when the devil tempted him to stop living that human life, he said no. He knew that a God in the wilderness means that we’re never alone. 

We might not have the Ghost Busters on speed dial. We might not have access to our own alien who knows just what unknown thing will happen next. We, sadly, might not have Bill Murray hanging with us as much as we might like. But we don’t live our lives alone. Our wildernesses aren’t places where only we are allowed to go. Our God is there with us too. The way through the wilderness isn’t easy. The path might be difficult and hard. We might need to take bold new step to find out just exactly why Jesus brought us to this place. We know that the path forward isn’t always clear - but we also know that One who’s there with us - is clear. Jesus: a child of God, a child of Mary, who loved sinners enough to make us all into struggling saints - Jesus is our known. Jesus is who we belong too. Being with Jesus is part of who we are. And no matter what wilderness we find ourselves in, even if it’s in a Holiday Inn in Paramus, Jesus is there too because no matter where we are, Jesus will be there too. 

Amen. 
 

0 comments

Our first reading is Numbers 1. Our gospel reading is Luke 4:1-13.

As we read through the bible in an entire year, today we're four books in. We call this book Numbers but it's Hebrew name is Bemidbar, "In the Wilderness." And that's a good title for this book. Since the last third of Exodus, the Israelites have been camped at Mt. Sinai. They escaped Egypt, received many different teachings from God while at Mt. Sinai, and they are now about to journey to the land of Canaan (modern day Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan). We call the book Numbers because the book, as we see in our first reading, starts with a census. They want to know how many soldiers they have for war. The journey into the promised land requires moving through territory filled with people who do not want the Israelites to be there. The people are heading to war. 

I've always struggled with the war imagery that is part of Scripture's story. War is violence and that's never been part of my experience of Jesus. Wars involve struggle, loss, hardship, and the death. They involve entire nations and peoples committing themselves wholly towards a goal of victory against their enemies. There is excitement, energy, and a huge amount of resources that are devoted to a goal of victory. Soldiers, their families, civilians, and innocent bystanders are required to make, and sometimes be, a sacrifice. Even necessary wars, where evil is fought against and destroyed, are costly. So when we hear stories about God's people being an army with descriptions of God as a general ('the hosts of heaven' means 'the armies of heaven'), I struggle with what I hear. God's army is on God's side but why does God need an army in the first place? 

Our gospel reading today might help with that. The story of Jesus' temptation by Satan can be framed as a moral struggle. Satan is trying to trick Jesus into making an amoral choice when Jesus is weak from hunger and thirst. But what if Satan is trying to do something more? What if Satan wants Jesus to make a choice that denies who Jesus is and what Jesus came to do? Jesus' journey involves the Cross and Satan offers him away out. Jesus doesn't fall for it even though Calvary isn't far away. Jesus doesn't make a moral choice; he makes the only choice necessary to save the world. I don't know why God needs an army and I don't have a satisfactory answer for why this kind of violence happens. But I do know, through Jesus, God does what is necessary to love the world. Numbers has an army. Jesus will be killed by one. God, in so many ways, is a mystery and this season in the church called Lent is an invitation to ask these kinds of questions even if no satisfactory answer comes to us. 

0 comments

Our first reading is Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29.

It's easy to romanticize the past. Today's reading from Numbers starts with the people wanting to go back to Egypt. They're tired of it. They remember their time in Egypt, choosing to remember the foods they once enjoyed: meat, fish, vegetables and spices. They're tired of the mana from heaven, the desert sands, and the constant wandering. They want to return to a past they understood. They're willing to forget the violence and brutality. They're willing to forget their slavery. The past is colored positivity because the future is so unknown.  

The interesting thing about this passage is that even Moses complains. He knows that the people are upset but instead of being upset with people, Moses turns his frustrations to God. He's annoyed that God's anger keeps returning. Moses is tired of being the only person God seems to care about. Moses calls out God, reminding God that the people complaining are, and always will be, God's people. God isn't only Moses' God; God is the God of all. And God needs to start acting like that's who God is. 

God listens to Moses and orders Moses to chose 70 elders to co-lead God's people. God isn't taking leadership away from Moses. God, instead, is expanding the opportunities of leadership for all. When the 70 are gathered, the spirit of God comes, and the 70 speak and sound like Moses does. But God isn't limiting leadership to only these 70. All of the sudden, two are discovered in the camp who were not there when the 70 received the spirit. These two, Eldad and Medad, are in the camp, being prophets. Joshua asks Moses to stop them because they are not one of the 70. But Moses refuses. He recognizes what God is doing. Everyone has an opportunity to be God's people, to love like God does, and to make a difference in the ones around them. We're not called to leave God's love to the professionals, the religious, or the more faithful folks. We're called to love, to share God's story, and to care because, in our baptism, we've already been chosen. And God asks us to act like we are. 

0 comments

So does God send snakes to punish the people for complaining? 

Our title for this book, "Numbers," comes from a census that is taken at the start of the book (Chapters 1, 3, & 4), but the Hebrew title is a better description on what this book is about. The book is bemidbar, "In the Wilderness." The story is about Israel's journey from Mt. Sinai to the Promise Land, and that's where this bronze serpent appears, in the middle of the wilderness. 

The people are impatient and cranky. They're not sure if they can trust  that God knows what God is doing. They complain about having no food (even though there is plenty of 'manna' available) and that the food they have is awful. And after the complaint comes snakes. The text doesn't explicitly say that God sends the snakes because of their complaining but the people believe as much. They ask Moses to bring their prayer and sorrow to God. Moses does and God responds in a very odd way. Rather than taking the snakes away, Moses is instructed to make a bronze serpent that, when looked at, will heal and keep them safe. The snakes are in the grass and the threat of their attack is all around. Yet, by looking at an image of their problems, the people will live. 

We tend to not see God as dangerous but, in our text and throughout Scripture, God is very dangerous indeed. God is completely free to do what God wants. And, in that freedom, God is dangerous. A God that we have figured out is a God that is domesticated, comfortable, and controllable. But that isn't a God who will bring people out of slavery, lead people through the wilderness, and drag people, kicking and screaming, into the promised land. A dangerous God is a God who moves and loves. A dangerous God is willing to send Jesus into the world to die on a Cross. A dangerous God is a God who brings salvation, love, and mercy in unexpected ways. The serpents in our lives, swirling at our feet and in our souls, are never far from us. But God is with us, standing in the middle of our serpents, and, in a completely free and dangerous way, offering us a way to new life. 

0 comments