Snakes and Angels (Lent 4B0

 

Michelangelo's Moses and the Brazen Serpent, Sistine Chapel Ceiling Fresco

 

Snakes and Angels

Fourth Sunday of Lent (Year B)
18th March 2012

Laetare Sunday
8 am Spoken Mass; 10 am Sung Mass
Homily Delivered at Trinity Episcopal Church, Ashland, Oregon

   The Rev. Dr. Anthony Hutchinson, homilist  

Numbers 21:4-9; Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22; Ephesians 2:1-10; John 3:14-21

From Mount Hor the Israelites set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. The people spoke against God and against Moses, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food." Then the LORD sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned by speaking against the LORD and against you; pray to the LORD to take away the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said to Moses, "Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live." So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.  (Numbers 21:4-9) 

God, Take away our hearts of stone, and give us hearts of flesh.  Amen.

When I was about 8 years old, I first heard in Sunday School the story from the book of Numbers we read today.  It was a scary story, not the least because of the snakes raining down from the sky, “fiery serpents” in the translation my teacher used.  The people of Israel had been “murmuring” against God and their religious leader, Moses, and so God punishes them.  The lesson my teacher drew from the story was clear:  don’t complain about things at Church, don’t disagree with your hierarchy, or God will rain fiery snakes down on you!   That approach to Church polity in the Church in which I was raised was one of the things that lead me into the Episcopal Church.    Of course, this was before there was any discussion about an Anglican Covenant! 

The Hebrew text here says Yahweh sent saraph snakes upon the Israelites.  This is probably a name for a type of poisonous snake.  Saraph means “burning one,” and that presumably was the effect of the snake’s venomous bite.  The word shows up in Isaiah as a name for a light-filled heavenly being hovering on six wings around the throne of God and singing Qadosh, Qadosh, Qadosh (Holy, Holy, Holy).  It is this from kind of burning one that we get the name seraphim for one of the orders of angels.

But it is not an image of a seraph angel that Moses places on the pole as a wonder-working anti-venom.  The copper figure is plainly identified as a snake in the text. 

When I heard the story as a boy, even then I knew that something was the matter in this story.  You don’t cure snakebite by looking at magic talismans.  And the angry, nasty Deity who sends flying snakes to punish you for bad-mouthing your Sunday School teacher seemed far, far away from the loving father of Jesus’s parables.  I expressed this to my teacher, but she got very upset, saying that we needed to accept God’s word without question, otherwise we’d end up like the children of Israel, buried in flying, fiery serpents.

When I told my father about this, he said that the story was indeed strange, but that the bronze snake on a pole was actually a prefiguring of Christ.  He pulled out the New Testament and read the passage from St. John we read today as the Gospel.  He added that the snake on a pole image was also known in the pagan world, and had been a symbol for the Greek god of healing, Asclepius, and that’s why it showed up on hospital and doctor offices signs.  “So not all snakes are bad,” he said, and then added, thinking of my run-in with the Sunday School teacher, “and not all so-called good things are good.”    Since the word seraph means an angel as well as a poisonous snake, I would rephrase my father’s idea a little more succinctly, “Not all snakes are bad, and not all angels are good.” 

I later ran into the story again many years later as a graduate student in Biblical Studies.  There I learned that the story had its origins in a Canaanite snake cult that was fostered in early Israel along with Yahwism until the great reforms of King Hezekiah in the eighth century B.C.E. associated with the promulgation of the Book of Deuteronomy.   There is ample archeological evidence of such a cult, associated with fertility and the cure of snake-bites.  We read in 2 Kings 18:4 that Hezekiah, “demolished local shrines, shattered the pillars” honoring Baal, “cut down the poles” honoring Asherah, and “smashed the copper serpent called Nehushtan that Moses had made, because up to that time the Israelites were burning incense to it.”    2 Kings and Numbers both have apparently taken an object of earlier Israelite snake worship, stripped it of it cultic associations, and placed it squarely in the context of the worship of Yahweh by giving it a founding myth of Moses healing the recalcitrant Hebrews with the copper snake on a pole.   

“Not all snakes are bad, and not all angels are good.”

Here was a pagan, idolatrous image that had been “baptized,” as it were, by the scriptural writers at the time of Hezekiah.  By pulling out the snake’s pagan fangs, they had made it a symbol of Yahweh’s healing power.   God approaches us where we are, and can redeem seeming bad things. 

We have seen such “baptism” of so called bad things often through the centuries.  Modern Christian hymnody started when, in the early years of the Protestant Reformation in Germany, Martin Luther and his followers created a new style of religious song, sometimes drawing on Gregorian chant tunes, but more often from folk songs and popular melodies.  These previously profane tunes were baptized and became the Lutheran chorales like "A Mighty Fortress" and Genevan psalter tunes like "Old Hundredth," still sung as hymns in churches today.  The style was so infectious that the style was adopted in part by the Catholic Reformation.

Yesterday was St. Patrick’s Day.  The historic Patrick did not drive snakes from the Emerald Isle, despite the legends.  Most scholars agree that a large part of Patrick’s success in bringing pagan Ireland into Christianity was his willingness to Christianize the old pagan Celtic religion rather than stamp it out:  carve crosses on old druidic pillars instead of pulling them down, build Christian churches and monasteries on Celtic holy places, recognized by the people as the “thin places” between this world and the spirit world.  Not all snakes are bad, and Patrick if anything probably turned them Christian instead of driving them away.  Elsewhere, even the great Christian celebrations of Easter and Christmas were originally pagan celebrations of the seasons that were baptized by Christian missionaries like Patrick as Christian feasts. 

So pagan practices can be redeemed, and snakes be turned into symbols of healing.  Not all snakes are bad.  The bronze serpent lifted up on a pole thus became a symbol of Yahweh’s healing presence.  It is this image that is taken by the Gospel of John and applied to Jesus lifted up on the cross.

If bad things can be redeemed, and turned into good things, what about good things?  If not all snakes are bad, are all angels good? 

Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer, 

author of the first Book of Common Prayer

The preface of the 1549 Book of Common Prayer begins with these words, “There was never any thing by the wit of man so well devised, or so surely established, which (in continuance of time) hath not been corrupted.”  Cranmer was referring to the corrupted liturgy of the Roman Church in his day, and the need to reform it.  But the words, I think, have a broader application and also can be seen as speaking to the corruption of good ideals by any group.  Much of Jesus’ announcement of the arrival of the Reign of God was aimed at denouncing the corruption of the religion and faith of his age. 

Not all angels are good.  Buddhist darhma teaching gives this concept a very clear form when it discusses emotions that reflect God, what we would call virtues.  Each is seen as having a polar opposite, as well as an opposite that mimics but falsifies the virtue.  The polar opposite is called a “Far Enemy” of the virtue, while the distortion that mimics the virtue is called its “Near Enemies.” 

In mainstream dharma teaching, there are four principal divine emotions:  Loving-kindness, Compassion, Joy with others, and Equanimity. Loving-kindness is selfless good will and love for others.  Its polar opposite, obviously, is hatred or ill-will.  Its near enemy looks like love, but is distorted and sick:  it is selfish attachment or the so-called “love” that seeks to control and establish dependence.  Compassion is empathy and sympathy for others.  Its far enemy is cruelty.  Its near enemy is pity.  Where compassion looks on a suffering person as an equal, pity looks down on the sufferers, sees them as inferiors.  Joy in others is opposed by resentment or envy, while its near enemy is mere exuberance in social settings.  Equanimity is the ability to see and feel about yourself as you see and feel about others, and is what I would call humility.  It polar opposite is envy or jealousy while its near enemy is simple indifference, not caring about yourself or others. 

       

 The Fall of the Rebel Angels; right hand panel of

 Hieronymus Bosch's The Haywain Triptych, c. 1500

The Book of Revelation puts this idea of distorted goods into a mythical form when it talks about a war in heaven, when rebel angels fight against St. Michael the Archangel and his host, lose, and are thrown down upon the earth to become the Devil and demons (Rev. 12:7-9).  Not all angels are good.  

We are in the season of Lent, when we talk about repentance.   Repentance too has its near enemy.  Not all angels are good.  Jesuit theologian Gerard W. Hughes, in his gem of spiritual direction, The God of Surprises, says the following:

“True repentance frees us from self-pre-occupation because our trust is in God’s goodness working in us.  In his light we see our darkness.  False repentance immerses us in self-preoccupation.  We delight in what we consider our virtue but are irritated at our vice, refuse to acknowledge it and project it on others.” 

True repentance brings joy and inner freedom.  False, anxiety and defensiveness.  True, it welcomes and learns from criticism. False, it is touchy about and learns nothing from criticism. True repentance brings understanding, tolerance, and hope.  False, … a rigidity of mind and heart, dogmatism, intolerance, and a condemnatory attitude.  True, it shares God’s laughter and frees the mind to see the humor of all situations; false, it is overly serious and cannot laugh at itself.  In true repentance, a person feels drawn to God.  In false repentance, a person feels driven from God. (adapted)

Fr. Hughes applies this to the Church and nation as well: 

A Church with the spirit of true repentance will be concerned primarily with its mission, not its maintenance.  It will encourage the critical and mystical gifts as well as the institutional gifts of its members.  A Church with a spirit of false repentance will be primarily concerned with its own maintenance, whether of its own doctrinal or moral orthodoxy, or its prestige in society, and will emphasize the institutional at the expense of the critical and mystical. 

A nation with a spirit of true repentance will pay attention to the quality of life of all its members compatible with the quality of life of other nations.  It will abhor narrow nationalism.  A nation with the spirit of false repentance will be chiefly concerned with its own wealth, power, and international status.  And it will compromise religion to confirm its national security policies.   (adapted)

Sisters and brothers of Trinity, not all snakes are bad, and not all angels are good.  We need discernment to sort out where God’s grace can apply, and where we imaginatively and joyously expand the scope of holiness and grace.  We need discernment to distinguish between the divine and its near enemies as well.   Jesus, lifted up on the cross like that snake on a pole, stands ready to help us. May we seek God’s will in how we may best show God’s grace to others, and make the common holy, creatively redeeming the various snakes we might encounter in life.  And may we seek to sort out our angels, good from bad, and follow the better angels that guide us.  

 
In the name of God, Amen.