Tuesday, March 31
Readings – NM 21:4-9; JN 8:21-30
In the first reading, Moses and the Israelites are in the desert, and things are getting rough again. They’re tired and sick of the food and so they complain (again). God takes this personally and sends serpents to bite them. And a lot of Israelites die.
The people realize their mistake and turn their lives around. Moses is instructed to make a serpent out of bronze and put it on a pole. God says, “whoever looks at it after being bitten will live,” and the people are healed.
I want to focus on two profound pieces of theology from this reading today. One I want to counter. One I want to affirm.
I want to counter the idea that God punishes us by sending bad things our way. While I know that this is part of the scriptural text, this is just not how God works. Bad things happen. Period. Most of us grew up with ideas of a punishing God because that’s how the adults in our lives acted and it’s generally how domination systems act.
It is just important to name that when God is attributed these characteristics, they are really human projections. We know that’s not how God is because Jesus – who read all of these same scriptures found in the Torah – came away with a VERY different view of God (and so did many others as well). This is a message we probably need to keep hearing and working to recover from. And the great scripture scholar Walter Brueggemann once commented that “God [too] is in recovery from all the violence that has been attributed to him [sic] and done in his [sic] name.”
And in this reading I want to affirm the deep connection found in Numbers between what wounds us and what has the power to heal and that only by “looking at” that which hurts us can we begin to heal from it.
Today’s reading offer us an invitation to “lean in” to the stuff of our lives that we need to heal from – the stuff that is poisoning our souls. This individual and collective process is necessary for us to live, and yet it is often what we are least likely to do without some major crisis – like the one that we are in right now.
This theme is then picked up by the gospel – where Jesus himself will be lifted up for us to look upon and be healed. The cross becomes both the source of pain and also the source of our healing.
In these days of the corona virus, the human family is seeking to develop a vaccination so that we are not susceptible to COVID-19 (and so that we do not have to risk getting it in order to develop the antibodies to it), What we’re talking about today is a form of spiritual vaccination whereby we take in a certain amount of pain so that we will no longer be as susceptible to it when it shows up in our life.
When we do the inner psychological and emotional work of leaning into our pain and the ways that we have pained others, we find a new freedom. And as we know, free people free other people.
For today, just spend some time in prayer thinking about that which has bitten you in life and that which you need to heal from. Name what poisons may have entered your life that you need to heal from. Name what poisons you may have injected into others (intentionally or not). Talk to God about it. Look at it a little further and try to discern what a next step might be so that you might live more fully.
(And if you’re wondering where the symbol for medical doctors (also known as the rod of Asclepius) comes from – the staff with two serpents on it – you may find your answer in this passage)
4 Comments
Kathryn Franz
I was so relieved that you countered the idea that God is punishing us when tragedies happen. Sadly, that continues to be the belief system that many live by…still.
Ah me. What to do with all those “poisons”? The need to practice forgiveness is what arose in me as I continued reading. At one point in my life, I was brought terribly down by a deep betrayal, and, thankfully what arose after a great deal of teeth gnashing and grieving was that I needed to forgive the one who had hurt me so. In forgiving, I also had to forgive myself for the role I played in the problem. That led me to consider how I needed to be forgiven for all the unknown hurts I, myself, may have caused to untold others. I was guided through this process by Jack Kornfield, a wonderful Buddhist teacher.
And what does Jesus say about forgiveness?
Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.”
What a purification! What a blessed healing!
Mike Boucher Author
Thanks for sharing Kathryn. Yes Jack K. has been a great helper to me and many on dealing with poisons!
Colleen Fox-Salah
I was raised in a non-religious household and as a fluke was baptized Catholic and received First Communion at the age of 10 (in my elementary school cafeteria!) with only a CCD class under my belt (I only remember loving the shiny, new books they gave us). I was confirmed a few years later with my father, and I remember little of the class we had to attend probably because it was geared for adults and over my head.
I was sent to Mercy for ninth grade, and this is where my religious education truly began. I fell in love with the gospel when Sister Joan, my freshman theology teacher, went over the Ten Commandments asking us to understand not only what each meant literally, but figuratively. By the time we got to the Beatitudes, I was entranced by Jesus (who Sister described as a rebel party animal).
I dropped out of high school after eleventh grade, but my spiritual journey continued. For years I resented the looooong and bumpy road that I felt could have been alleviated had I received a firm spiritual foundation. I loved Catholicism, but because of its antiquated social stances, I studied many religions and visited countless churches over decades trying to find the right fit. A loving home. As much as I jibed with and admired other religions, it became clear that I was Christian. Fortunately for me, as soon as a congregation revealed itself to worship an angry God, I knew immediately it wasn’t for me.
Now I understand what a gift this was. So many people, provided they’re still interested in a relationship with God after what they’ve been through, have to endure the process of unlearning and then relearning, which I can imagine must be as confusing and painful as it is revelatory and uplifting.
I’ve never known an angry God, which I can appreciate now is rare, and I am deeply thankful for the unconventional foundation I received, as well as for Spiritus, which feels meant to be and worth every stop and start that it took to get here!
Mike Boucher Author
thanks for the personal sharing, Colleen. what a beautiful testimony to the big picture story that may not always be apparent from any snapshot moment.
Commenting has been turned off.