Sunday 14 March, 2021; Lent 4

I’d like to start by admitting that I rarely read the Bible without being disturbed by it. Very often, it’s not comfortable reading.

And in one sense, if one of the points of faith is to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted, that’s fair enough. It’s right that we are shaken out of our complacency, that we are stirred up to work for justice, that we prepare ourselves in Lent to get our focus back on Jesus.

However, at other times, it’s the theology that challenges and shocks. Some of it is based on a primitive, tribal sort of faith. Yet the Bible and its interpretations aren’t static. Judaism and Christianity are an evolving faith and major things have rightly changed over time. So, thankfully, we don’t believe in a God that sanctions genocide.  But how can we navigate a critical reading of the Bible. Don’t we end up with a picture of God that looks very much like ourselves?

This was the criticism levelled at liberal protestant scholars. It’s been said that they look back through nineteen centuries of Catholic darkness, and what do they find? They find the reflection of a Liberal Protestant face, seen at the bottom of a deep well.[1]

In short, liberals find a liberal Jesus; conservatives find a conservative Jesus. Well, I’m not going to settle that question today. It takes us into realm of theological methodology, which is wonderfully complicated. In short, doing theology involves four elements: listening to the Bible, the tradition of the church throughout the centuries, using skills of reason and debate, as well as including our own personal experience.

The reason for this long preamble is that our Hebrew reading today has God getting upset and punishing the Israelites for their complaining.

I won’t rehearsal the whole story – in short, it’s about complaining Israelites, who want to return to Egypt, God sends fiery serpents who bite them, and healing is found when they look at the brazen serpent on a pole.

The story is picked up in John’s Gospel, who makes this link: that those who look upon Jesus lifted up on the cross will be healed.

I’d like to make two points about this. One about the nature of God. And the other point about healing.

Firstly, God’s nature as judge. I’m rather sensitive about this because of its pastoral implications. If you think that God is like a stern school housemaster or policemen, making notes of all your misdemeanours, and at the ready to pounce and punish you, what sort of relationship with God are you going to have? I’ve had too many pastoral encounters over the years where someone’s relationship with God is based on fear rather than love. And that can’t be right.

That’s why reading certain parts of the Bible make me deeply uncomfortable. It’s easy to see within its pages a retributive notion of God’s justice that requires punishment for wrongdoing. And if we have that, we stay inside the ‘myth of redemptive violence’. This punishment model is often buried deep within most of us. The alternative perspective is to rediscover another biblical theme: one of restorative justice, which focuses on rehabilitation, healing, and reconciliation, not punishment.

There’s a movement within scripture, from a God that demands a blood sacrifice before we are acceptable in his sight, to one in which he is depicted as a loving, compassionate father. For years I’ve been inspired by the prodigal story, of a loving father welcoming back his wayward daughter or son and throwing a party. That’s the image of God to hold on to. That’s my first point.

Secondly, for the Israelites to be healed, they have to look at the brazen serpent. In order to be saved, the people have to confront the serpent — they have to look hard at what harms, poisons, breaks, and kills them.

There is something here about facing your pain in order to transcend it. To face and look at your brokenness. It’s only then that the journey of healing will begin. Those who have experienced self-analysis or therapy, or the twelve step programme of AA or NA, will know that this can be extraordinarily painful.

God’s love is one that will deliver but at the same time invite a change in perspective, a shift in apprehension, a bitter but ultimately saving ‘looking up’.

This is what Pope Francis said this week:

All of us have spiritual infirmities that we cannot heal on our own. We need Jesus’ healing, we need to present our wounds to him and say: “Jesus, I am in your presence, with my sin, with my sorrows. You can set me free. Heal my heart”. #Lent

The cross of Christ is ubiquitous in for the Christian faith. And the invitation is for us to look up, to reorient ourselves, and to depend wholly on God to bring life out of death, light out of shadow, and healing out of pain. The cross then functions as a sacrament.  A means of grace.  A path to the divine.  The invitation is to see. (Debie Thomas)

So, look up.  Don’t be afraid.  Don’t refuse the pain.  Don’t turn away.  Look up and be saved.