Look Up! Sermon for Lent 4b, March 26, 2007

A website dedicated to safe bicycling includes a list of “top tips” for bike riders. The first of these tips is this: “Raise your vision higher and further. As far as you can see there is information to help you judge what's going to happen next.” (http://www.bikesafe-london.co.uk/toptips.htm) This is what the story of the Brazen Serpent is all about: raising our vision higher, above the immediate problems of the day, so that we can see where we are going. The Episcopal religion writer Phyllis Tickle has paraphrased today’s reading from the Book of Numbers this way:

The Children of Israel had fled Egypt to the accompaniment of mighty signs and wonders and had come to the borders of the Promised Land. Twelve spies were sent across the river into this lush and fertile land, but the reports with which the spies returned were not as promising as the land itself. The country across the Jordan was indeed rich and fecund, they said, but it was also filled with mighty warriors—giants almost in their size and strength. Ten of the scouts said there was no way that the Children, a rag-tag band of exhausted migrants, could conquer, much less evict, such warriors.

But two of the spies filed a different report. Joshua and Caleb said the Children must cross over and enter, for Yahweh had pledged them this land would be the strength of their hands and the defense of their lives. Ten almost always takes precedence over two, however, and the Children of Israel, freshly come from the glory of a parting sea and a Passover angel, decided to follow the advice of the ten fearful scouts. They broke camp and returned to the desert across which they had just come.

Yahweh was angry at this faithlessness and decreed that the Children of Israel were to wander for forty years in that desert they had chosen for themselves, until every single one of the Children, save only Joshua and Caleb, was dead. So they wandered and tested God and one by one they died, until indeed only their children survived.

It was those Children's children, then, whom near to the end of the forty years, Moses, along with Joshua and Caleb, began to lead back toward the Promised Land. But like their progenitors, the men and women of this second generation began also to doubt and complain. They said things like, "Let us go back to Egypt. At least there we were fed, had homes we could live in one place." They said also, "Who of us has seen God? To which of us has he spoken? Who among us can say he or she believes all the tales our fathers and mothers left us? Who?"

And the wrath of Yahweh lashed out against them again. This time, the story says, Yahweh sent snakes into the camps to kill his apostate people. There were droves of snakes moving through the camp of the Children's children…snakes in the tents, snakes in the breadbaskets and the cooking pots, snakes in the bedrolls and snakes in the cribs. Then Moses, falling on his knees, petitioned God's mercy on the Children. God told Moses then to take a consecrated brass vessel at the door of the Tent of Meeting and hammer it quickly into the image of the serpents that were attacking the Children's children. Moses did and he wound the brass snake around the crosspiece of his staff and then he ran through the camp, holding the staff aloft and calling out to the people in the throes of their agony, "Look up! Look up and be saved! Look up! Look up and be saved!"

In our Gospel lesson, Jesus says that this is what his ministry, his life, death, and resurrection are all about. We are all, I’m sure, familiar with at least on verse from today’s Gospel reading. It’s the one some guy with a rainbow wig displays written on a piece of cardboard at, it sometimes seems, every televised sporting event. John 3:16: “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.” These are good reassuring religious words. But we all too often forget that they were spoken to Nicodemus in the context of a much larger conversation and that there were some words spoken before them: “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”

Writing about one hundred years after the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, John understands these words to be Jesus’ foreshadowing of his death on the cross, and certainly they can be so understood. But would Nicodemus have understood this before the crucifixion? Probably not.

Nicodemus, rather, would have remembered the story of Moses from the Book of Numbers, the story of how the Children of Israel were saved by raising their vision higher and further, so that as far as they could see there was information to help them judge and understand what was going to happen next. Nicodemus might also have remember the advice set out in the Book of Proverbs: “Where there is no vision, the people perish....” (Proverbs 29:18a [KJV]) This would seem to be where Jesus was headed in his conversation with Nicodemus, for he goes on to draw the distinction between those who walk in darkness and thus do evil, and those who walk in light and can see clearly, doing the work of God. Like Moses with the Brazen Serpent, Jesus is telling Nicodemus (and John, by including this story in his Gospel, is telling us) to look up! Stop focusing on the petty problems at our feet and start seeing the vision God has for us.

What is a “vision?” A vision is an idea or an image of a more desirable future for an individual or a group. Ideally, it is so compelling an idea that it, in effect, jump-starts the future by calling forth the skills, talents, and resources to make it happen. Vision always deals with the future. Vision is where tomorrow begins.

Bob Logan, a Baptist church developer with whom I once studied, has a pretty good definition of a "vision" for a religious group. Such a vision, he says, has "the capacity to create a compelling picture of a desired state of affairs that inspires the people to respond." A good vision, says Logan, portrays that "which is desirable, which could be, which should be, and which is attainable." But, he warns, a vision for a religious people must be a "Godly vision."

A Godly vision [he says] is right for the times, right for the church, and right for the people.
A Godly vision promotes faith rather than fear.
A Godly vision motivates people to action.
A Godly vision requires risk-taking.
A Godly vision glorifies God, not people.

Anyone who has driven a car or ridden a bike knows that there is a basic rule which must always be followed; it is the basic rule churchgoers must follow, too. That indisputable rule is the one set forth on the bicycle safety website. Another way to put it is this: “Look where you are going.” All other objects of our attention may be interesting, but they are never to become the preoccupation of the person driving the vehicle or riding the bike or attending church. However beautiful or interesting the scenery or the ambiance of the trip may be, the driver or bike rider or churchgoer, if the journey is to be successful, must watch where he or she is going. Not to keep this rule in mind could well produce some very unsatisfactory results.

Unfortunately, much of our time in the church is spent looking back. We may call this “remembering our heritage,” “reexamining our roots,” “remembering the faith of our forebears,” or even “learning the lessons of history.” This may sound like great fun or an exercise with much value. The memories undoubtedly create for many a wonderful, languid nostalgia. But the past should not unduly influence the future. Hope is a thousand timesbetter than heritage! Try as we will, we cannot chang the past, but with very little effort we cab dramatically alter or effect the presumed future.

Another way of diverting our gaze to listen to those who say, “We must look about us.” It is true that the passing scene through which we are moving is a fascinating thing indeed, especially in our present, amazing world. In these very days and weeks, a tidal wave of things, concepts, events, transpirings has come upon us with attendant, spectacular fascinations. What’s more, interesting events are multiplied by millions via international radio and television and the internet.

But Moses with the Brazen Serpent and Jesus talking to Nicodemus are no more calling us to gaze around at the passing countryside than they are calling us to look down at our feet or to look backward. Rather, that story and this conversation alludes to it are calling us to look up, to look ahead, to get our vision trained on where it belongs – where we are going!

We have a vision for St. Paul’s – a vision to bring people to Jesus Christ through this parish, to add to our “goodly fellowship of the saints” by inviting others to join us in worship, fellowship, study and service. I think this meets Bob Logan’s criteria and is a Godly vision which promotes faith; I hope it is a vision which motivates people to action; I know it is a vision which will require us to take some risks, but which nonetheless is right for the times, right for the church, and right for the people of this parish and of this community.

There is a Japanese proverb which says, “If you look up, there are no limits.” This is why the Son of Man was lifted up, so that we might look up and in him see the vision of what God has in store for us, so that whoever believes in him may have eternal life, life without limits. If we look up, there are no limits. Amen.