000 Allen FMT (i-xxii) - The Presbyterian Leader

Fourth Sunday in Lent/Year B
Numbers 21:4–9
Fourth Sunday in Lent/Year B 145
Today’s reading is cited in 1 Corinthians 10:9 as an example not to be emulated
and in John 3:14 where Moses’ lifting up of the bronze serpent,
which enabled those who looked upon it to live (Num. 21:9), is likened to
Christ’s being “lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal
life.” Numerous biblical stories are cautionary tales, and God’s intent is to
save all God’s people.
The Numbers story of the bronze serpent is complex. The serpent
played various symbolic roles in the religions of Israel’s neighbors as it
came to do in Israelite tradition. The serpent first appears as “crafty”
(Gen. 3:1), not to be trusted. The serpent is the first actor to commit the
sin of “evil speech,” tempting Adam and Eve not to trust in YHWH but
to put their trust in the illusory promise “you will be like God” (Gen. 3:5),
encouraging them to trust ultimately in themselves.
According to Karen Randolph Joines, the serpent was “a strange synthesis
of life and death, an object of both intense animosity and reverence.”
44 The serpent’s venom could kill but its annual shedding of its old
skin and growing a new one accounts for how it became a symbol of life;
“its penetrating eyes sparkle with unusual luster—it signifies superhuman
wisdom.” 45 Hence, it could elicit awe and, as a local idol, lure the Israelites
away from faith in the Lord and become a religious alternative to YHWH.
As YHWH came to be seen as the One who provides water (symbol of
chaos and death) for salvation and newness of life (1 Kings 18), in today’s
story, YHWH co-opts the serpent and makes it clear that the serpent is
merely a creature, a thing made of bronze, and that YHWH is the Lord
and giver of life, not the serpent. This story deals with the relation
between faith and culture; it does this by transforming what in the culture
is an idol into a servant and creature of the Lord. Israel’s theology was a
monotheizing theology, having to contend with polytheism and idolatry
in each phase of Israel’s history. So does the church ever have to contend
with the temptation to polytheism and idolatry. This way of looking at the
story gives the preacher another way of dealing with it and the opportunity
to ask how today’s idols might be transformed.
The redactors of Numbers put the serpent story in the context of a
complaint story in which the Israelites “become impatient” with the Lord
and Moses. They were being led on a detour around Edom, actually a
smart move on the order of giving sleeping dogs a wide berth (Edom