Serpents, The Reverend David R. Williams, Lent IV--Year B--March 26, 2006

Serpents!  An odd, troubling image surfaces through the lessons this Sunday.  We might call today “Serpent Sunday.” 
 
Jesus calls our attention to this bizarre serpent story from the Book of Numbers.  “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,” Jesus says. A bronze image of a serpent is lifted up and becomes a symbol of healing, of hope, of a new start.  An amended covenant with God evolves, from all things, the raised bronze image of a snake.
 
A little over a year ago, my Sarah and I are working in the yard.  Sarah is busy with the clippers, trimming away the overgrowth of a vast row of hedges.
 
Suddenly she yells, and quickly moves back several steps.  At first I think she has hurt herself – a strain or a cut.
 
“A SNAKE in my face. It touched me!” she gasps.
 
Peering into the hedge I see the critter, its shiny black body quickly moving through the branches the middle of the shrub.  In my own excitement, I think, in that moment, that this snake is the longest thing I have ever seen – at least fifteen feet!
 
Of course, it is only four or five feet long – a simple, black snake finding a natural perch in the weavings of the hedge. 
 
Our neighbors hear the ruckus.  “You have a snake,” the young Indian mother says.  She looks alarmed.  Her husband joins her.  “Where did the snake go?”
 
“It seems to have disappeared in the shrub,” I say.
 
The next day, the Indian mother knocks on our door.  “The snake is in our yard,” she says in broken English.  “What should we do?”
 
I try to reassure them that it is a harmless and actually very helpful black snake, and that it will eventually go away. 
 
The family from India is very concerned.  The snake finds it way to the crawl space below their wooden deck. 
 
Other neighbors begin to emerge.  The Elon police soon arrive. Ridding homeowners of snakes is not in their job description, and the police go on their way.
 
More neighbors gather – children, women, men.  We all are from varied nationalities – families from India, from Pakistan, from Latin American countries, African Americans and a few of us WASPy folks. 
 
The men figure out a way to lure the snake from its hiding place.  Once the snake is exposed, regrettably there is but one thing to do.  A man with a shovel carries out the deed.  Everybody cheers.  The dead snake is carried around the crowd, its lifeless black body elevated and dangling. 
 
What an amazing sight. Our origins are from all over the world, and we all have a common fear, the threat of a serpent getting too close.  None of us had realized just how diverse our neighborhood had become until this incident with the snake. 
 
The serpent is introduced in the Creation Story as the voice of temptation.  In fact, the serpent is part of the Creation picture – good or bad, the creature is part of God’s Creation, the Garden of Eden. 
 
Very few creatures of the earth have the mystique of a snake.  It can move along at six miles an hour and has no legs.  It can climb trees and it has no arms.  It can appear and disappear in an instant.  The eyes, the snout, the darting tongue become the images of nightmares. 
 
How can Moses make a bronze image of a snake, raising it up as source of healing and hope?  Maybe Moses misunderstands. 
 
No, Moses does not misunderstand, because Jesus calls our attention to the same icon as a way of understanding the glorified image of the Christ. 
 
In the Wilderness Story, Moses encounters a restless and angry people.  “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.”
 
The nature of the serpent at its most frightening gets the attention of the people of God and they repent. God establishes a new relationship by holding up the bronze image of the snake-- not as an idol for worship, but rather an image drawing attention to the saving acts of God. 
 
For most of us, snakes do not appear in the front yard.  They basically are nocturnal creatures hiding in dark, secret places.  For most us, serpents lie deep in the recesses of our most threatening dreams. 
 
We feel attraction to the warm, furry animals--bunny rabbits. There are no bunny rabbits in the Bible stories.   We want a bunny; we are presented with a snake.  God wants us to see this snake for what it is – a part of the Creation – one very different from other creatures.  God calls us to encounter, to meet, to engage the threatening issues, the people, the images, the diseases in our lives we would prefer to avoid, to ignore, to put aside. 
 
The Creation image of the snake is rehabilitated, lifted up for the wandering Hebrew people and for the people standing before Jesus.  Using this new image of Jesus rather than the usual soft-focus images of “shepherd” and “light of the world,” we see the everyday extremes of life: the serpent in the Garden at the beginning of Creation and the serpent on the Cross in an act of new Creation.
 
One image seeks to manipulate and corrupt our human nature. The other image frees us and saves our human nature. One appeals to our selfish desires; the other, to the very highest in us.  One seduces, the other loves.  One brings about our banishment from the presence of God, the other draws us into the presence of God.
 
The symbol for physicians, the Caduceus, a staff with two intertwining snakes, reminds us of the two aspects of healing.  Any of us in the process of getting well from a disease or mending something broken knows that the “healer,” the physician, can cause more pain before the broken part feels well again.
 
Both snakes are part of God’s Creation. 
 
We know the story.  The story about Jesus.  He is feared by many.  Others are threatened by Jesus.  Still more people want him dead. 
 
Nobody seems to understand Jesus.  When the trial comes, everybody either cheers for him to die or they turn their backs on him. 
 
In the end, on that dark Friday, all that is left is a limp body hanging from a pole. 
 
Our neighborhood full of diversity has never again met as we did that odd afternoon when the black snake brought us together before dying.
 
“And 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.”
 
Amen.