First Presbyterian Church
Looking Evil in the Eye
Sermon for March 26, 2006
by Pastor Susan Barnes

Children's time:

“Where the Wild Things Are” by Maurice Sendak.

I read the book, then asked the kids about why the little boy left the wild things. Eleanor said Because he wanted to go where he was loved. I said that last week, I saw someone who was very sick. I told her I wish I had a magic word that would make it go away. She said the magic word was love. She knew I loved her and that helped her a lot. I said to the children “I felt silly to be a pastor and have to be reminded how important love is, but I guess we all need to be reminded love is very important.”

Moses has been leading the covenant people through the wilderness. They have already complained about not having food, and God sent manna, they complained about not having meat, and God sent quails, and they complained about not having water, and God provided them a way to get water. The people are still complaining. We'll be reading from my translation. Listen for the word of God as it is found in Numbers 21:4-9.

And they set out from Mount Hor by way of the Sea of Reeds, to go around the land of Edom but the disposition of the people grew short on the way. And the people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why did you bring us up from Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is not food and there is no water and our appetites abhor this worthless food.”

And Yahweh sent poisonous snakes to the people and they bit the people and many people of Israel died. And the people came to Moses and they said, “We sinned by our speaking against Yahweh and against you. Pray to Yahweh and remove the snakes from among us.”

So Moses prayed on behalf of the people. And Yahweh said to Moses, “Make for yourself a poisonous snake and place it upon a pole, and whenever all who are bitten look at it, they will live.” And Moses made a snake of bronze and put it on a pole and whenever a snake bit someone, that one looked at the bronze snake and lived.

This ends our reading from Numbers. Some of us may find this text baffling. What kind of magical thinking is this? How can staring at a statue offer any healing at all? What sort of God sends snakes to kill the Israelites?

The chosen people have rebelled against God yet again. God has rescued them over and over, and still they complain. So God punished them with the snakes, and they repented, and God rescued them by telling Moses to put the snake on the pole. Hmm. Surely God could have disciplined them without killing them. But that's how the story goes. What can we make of it?

It helps to hear other places in the Bible that speaks of God's healing work. In our psalm reading, God heals sinners and others in trouble.

Listen for the word of God as we read it together from Psalm 107:1-3 and 17-22.

1 O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever.

2 Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, those he redeemed from trouble 3 and gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south.

17 Some were sick through their sinful ways, and because of their iniquities endured affliction; 18 they loathed any kind of food, and they drew near to the gates of death.

19 Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress; 20 he sent out his word and healed them, and delivered them from destruction.

21 Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love, for his wonderful works to humankind.

22 And let them offer thanksgiving sacrifices, and tell of his deeds with songs of joy.

This ends our reading of the psalm.

Anthem “There is a balm in Gilead”

So how do we reconcile that crazy folktale in Numbers with the steadfast love in the psalms and the balm promised in Gilead? Is there any good news in our text from Numbers?

One pastor said, “When we break a relationship with God, we are prey to all kinds of things from which we would otherwise recoil. Does God send down upon us drugs, alcoholism, dishonesty, egotism, lust for power, violence, broken relationships, shattered communities and other ills? No. Those things trouble us even when God is part of our lives. But when we separate ourselves from God their power grows greater, and their bite is venomous. They poison the whole system.”

One of the gifts the church gives us is that it helps us face the snakes. This happens in the prayer of confession. Sometimes we feel a stab of conscience, sometimes just a pinprick. Either way, we remember how ready the snake is to bite. We read the Bible and the words jump out to warn us of evil coiling its way around our souls.” 1 In church, we catch a glimpse of how life is meant to be lived.

Remember how Max tamed the wild things who stamped their terrible feet and gnashed their terrible teeth? He looks them in the eye. This story from Numbers shows us “The ability to look evil in the eye, to know it for what it is, is important to healing.”

Our gospel lesson refers back to this story. Jesus is teaching Nicodemus., the Pharisee who came to Jesus in secret at night, offering his support and wanting to learn from Jesus. Our gospel lesson is part of Jesus' instruction to this supportive Pharisee. Listen for the word of God as it is found in John 3:14-21.

14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. 17 "Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

19 And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. 20 For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. 21 But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God."

This ends our gospel reading.

The light helps us see evil. When we can recognize it, we can name it and have some power over it. The darkness no longer gives it any cover; it is exposed for what it is. When we bring it into the light other people can see it.

Throughout my ministry, I've been pastor to a number of people who suffered depression. One relative of mine revealed his illness to his family and it made all the difference. The family was kind and loving and understanding. As he got healthier, he was able to thank us for our support. Even in the darkest time, he knew we loved him and even though he didn't think he was lovable, he held on to the knowledge that we loved him.

Depression is a debilitating illness that messes with your mind, and takes away hope. It feels like darkness. J.K. Rowling, the Harry Potter author, based a creature called a dementor on her experience with depression. When a dementor gets too close to you, its darkness covers up every happy thought you've ever had, leaving you to think only on every bad thing you've ever done.

I always thought that was an excellent description of depression. Dark depression makes you despair that there is no good in you at all. People with depression like the dark because it hides them. The problem is that we think the hope lies in ourselves, in our behavior. Since we try to behave well but can't because of the depression and we think our salvation lies in our behavior, we are stuck forever. I remember thinking that when I was depressed. How could anyone think I was competent since the evidence of my failures was all around?

Those of you have never been depressed might not understand how people can think in this irrational way.

I found these rules for depression that might help explain it to you. They are supposed to be funny, but some of them hit very close to home. If you or anyone you know has suffered from depression, these behaviors will sound familiar.

Rules for Depression

1. Try to be PERFECT. 2. Be very critical of any mistakes or failures you might make. 3. Do what you SHOULD do, even if it is not what you want to do. 4. Always do what you are supposed to be doing. 5. Make other persons happy at any cost to yourself. 6. Work hard at pleasing your most severe critic. 7. Know that if you don't please, the other will reject or leave you. 8. Never make a mistake 9. Live alone and have few friends. Keep the drapes closed so the room is dark enough to grow mushrooms. 10. Keep your failures, mistakes, errors and faults to yourself. Never let anyone know of them, because you never want anyone to know how bad you really are. 11. FEAR the future, because you know it will turn out bad. 12. WORRY about how bad it will be. 13. With such an awful future, try to be in control as much as possible. Knowing you are not in self control, seek to control other and events. 14. Knowing how you really are inside, your secret self, never listen to or accept praise or compliments. They will just make you bigheaded and egotistical. 15. Recognize the true importance of a negative interpretation and be certain to always emphasize the negative, and generalize it to yourself whenever possible. 16. Avoid any awareness of how your negativeness affects others. You have an important role to fulfill for them, and they need your realistic balance.

Listing these rules in the light of day, looking at these behaviors shows us how crazy-making they are.

When I was depressed I had finished a graduate program where the professor in charge felt it was her job to undermine all of her students. It was the love of Mike and his extended family that got me through my recovery. That was almost 25 years ago, and there wasn't much public support for depression.

The people I know who have suffered depression have been in other trying circumstances. One woman was in a job where her boss made her lie to clients. One quit a job she really needed because her boss sexually harassed her. One man had nursed his wife through a long illness, relocated his business, and it lost so much money he had to sell the only business he ever had. A young man had been promiscuous and contracted HIV. He felt so worthless he didn't take care of his health because he didn't think he deserved to.

My task was to listen to them, and pray with them, or pray for them when they were unable to pray. The church's presence in their lives demonstrated they were people of value, no matter what their depression told them.

I worked with one pastor who boasted in his work, but I knew it was out of his own insecurity and fear. I don't think he recognized the gift of God's grace. He could preach about it, but he didn't feel it in his own life. If he had, I think he would have been much easier to work with.

There is a boastful character in the Harry Potter series. There's a professor named Gilderoy Lockhart, who wrote a book called Magical Me . His office at school was filled with stacks of pictures of himself. He wrote nine other books full of his magical heroic adventures, all based on the actions of other people, who were either dead or lost or too ill to complain about his plagiarizing their lives. He tested his students on knowing 54 items about himself: his favorite color, secret ambition, greatest achievements and preferred birthday gift. When Lockhart gave detention the students had to learn his signature so they could autograph all the photos he had so he could send them to his fans.

Author JK Rowling based him on someone she knew in real life. She said “He was a shocker! The lies that he told about adventures that he'd had, things he'd done and impressive acts that he had committed… He was a shocking man. I can say this quite freely because he will never in a million years dream that he is Gilderoy Lockhart.” He probably is telling people that he was inspiration for Dumbledore. (Dumbledore is the wise old headmaster.) He is the only character I based someone on. “It made up for having to endure him for two solid years.” 2

Except for that one pastor, I haven't known many Christians who boast of their works. So my rule of thumb is that if you are worried about boasting, you probably aren't in any danger of it.

So, even though our epistle reading speaks of the dangers of boasting in our godly works, it does so briefly. It gives much greater emphasis to us being given the gift of God's grace. That grace gives us courage to look evil in the eye.

Listen and rejoice in the word of God as it is found in Ephesians 2:1-10.

1 You were dead through the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient.

3 All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. 4 But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us 5 even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ -- by grace you have been saved -- 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God -- 9 not the result of works, so that no one may boast.

10 For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

This ends our reading from God's word and my sermon. Amen.

1 Pringle, Neta L. “Who Wants to Look at Snakes?” Christian Ministry, July August 1995, p. 37-8.

2 www.quick-quote-quill.org