Adventurous Lectionary – The Fourth Sunday in Lent – March 10, 2024
Numbers 21:4-9
Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22
Ephesians 2:1-10
John 3:14-21
What is God like? What is God’s character? Is God for us or against us? Is God primarily punitive or graceful in nature? Can we trust God’s love or is there a “hidden” violent side to God, inspiring fear and not companionship?
The readings for March 10 describe an ambiguity in divinity. Though they speak of divine rescue and global love, they also suggest a dark side to divinity. In the Numbers passage, God causes suffering and may be the source of punishment that far exceeds our misdeeds. These passages invite us to consider the relationship between grace, punishment, and personal responsibility.
The Numbers reading could be titled “snakes in the assembly.” It is a rather curious passage – one that I am tempted to omit altogether from today’s readings. This passage is so problematic that you must preach about it – and challenge it – if you read it in church. As the story goes, when the wilderness people continue to misbehave, God gets impatient and angry, and God sends poisonous snakes among the people, whose bites cause several fatalities. The people confess their sin and ask Moses to intercede on their behalf. God relents and has Moses fashion a bronze serpent as an antidote. Despite God’s remedy, the snakes are still running loose and people are getting bitten, but if they gaze upon the bronze serpent, they will recover, no doubt after much discomfort and fear. God hurts and heals and is somewhat arbitrary and unpredictable; such moral ambiguity whether in God, a national leader, or a parent bounds on abuse, and this should be noted. Is God as moral as you are? Is God as moral as a mediocre parent, who can be both loving and neglectful, but would never physically harm their child?
What are we to say about this divine torment or terrorism? Do finite sins deserve capital punishment? What sort of psychological aberration motivates a deity who says to the people, yes, I will continue to hurt you, but I also will provide an antidote? Surely the Hebrew parents were beside themselves in fear, trying to protect their children from divine vindictiveness. They feared God, reflective perhaps of patriarchal relationships, but could they trust or love God. Yet, God is best known by love and not fear, and this passage suggests that God is less moral than we are.
Could such an event have actually occurred? Or, was it some sort of “fictional” object lesson, aimed at keeping the community in line? In any event, taken literally, this passage is unworthy of the revelation of divine love in Jesus Christ, and unless it is critiqued, should be omitted from the worship service. Arbitrary and vindictive images of God shouldn’t be encouraged even if they come from scripture. Our failure to critique them encourages the proliferation of unexamined negative theology in our congregations. If there is any redemption of this passage, it comes in recognizing that an orderly universe can involve both pain and joy and that acts have consequences, and that our behaviors shape God’s responses to us, though not to the extent reported in these scriptures. Such a vision of God must be denounced as unworthy of the way of Jesus. (For more on an alternative vision of God, see Bruce Epperly, “Process Theology: Embracing Adventure with God,” “Process Spirituality: Practicing Holy Adventure,” and “Process Theology: A Guide for the Perplexed” or Thomas Jay Ord, “God Can’t.”)
Psalm 107 speaks of God’s steadfast love in times of trial and in the nature order of things. Yet, the Psalm also contains some problematic verses. The Psalm asserts that some persons became sick as a result of sinful ways. Obviously, our behaviors have consequences and our lifestyle can lead to illness. Still, not all illness has behavioral or ethical origins. How would this passage be heard by a parent whose child has just been diagnosed with cancer, a daughter whose parent died alone from COVID, or someone dealing with a chronic or untreatable illness, unrelated to lifestyle or behavior? It is important that we encourage personal responsibility and the importance of confession and transformation without implying that there is an exact one-to-one correspondence between acts and consequences and behaviors and outcomes. Still, we must NOT encourage such punitive understandings of God and the source of illness which lead to blaming rather than supporting the victims of life’s tragedies.
Ephesians affirms that God’s grace revives us, restores us, and inspires us to do good works. Grace does not depend on our perfection, but grace comes to us by God’s good pleasure, apart from our moral or spiritual achievements. God’s grace is prior to our efforts, and comes in spite of our imperfection, challenging us to be graceful ourselves. grace cannot be arbitrary: we may open or close to grace, but God’s grace must be universal if we are to trust in God’s abiding care. God does not exact punishment but promotes healing and wholeness.
The passage from John’s Gospel is also theologically and ethically ambiguous. On the one hand, it proclaims God’s love for the world. God’s love is overwhelming in its expansiveness. God sacrifices so that we might find healing and salvation. God’s love extends beyond humankind to embrace the whole world. “Cosmos” refers to the totality of life, non-human and human alike. Yet, beyond the good news, there is threat. God does not send the Divine One to condemn; yet those who don’t believe are already condemned. This passage suggests a number of questions: Is God the source of condemnation or does condemnation occur in the nature course of events in response to our actions? Can our love of darkness thwart God’s grace? What is the nature of this condemnation – is it a matter of inability to experience the fullness of God’s love or is it eternal in impact? Is there a limit to divine love and, if so, does it come from our side or our ability to say “no” to God? Is it possible to have moral responsibility without condemnation and accountability without destruction?
Ultimately we must trust that God loves the whole world and is doing all God can do to heal not hurt, save not abandon, and redeem not condemn. Otherwise, God’s love is eclipsed by divine violence, and we worship God not from love but fear of retribution.
Today’s passages require more than superficial treatment. The preacher can “cut and paste,” omitting offending or ambiguous passages, and focusing on the good news from Ephesians and John 3:16-17. This is an appropriate response. Another response is to preach scripture in all its ambiguity, exploring these problematic passages and trying to discern where they fit in our understanding of God and the world.
In so doing, we encourage our congregants to ponder the impact of our images of God and discern which images of God reflect the spirit of Jesus. Given the connection of punitive and authoritarian images of God with punitive and violent, and authoritarian, political policies and behaviors, reflection on God’s nature and attitude toward human imperfection and diversity, human fallibility and sickness, is an essential aspect of Christian maturity and ethics.
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Rev. Bruce Epperly Ph.D. has served as a professor, seminary administrator, university chaplain, and congregational pastor at Georgetown University, Wesley Theological Seminary, Lancaster Theological Seminary, and South Congregational Church United Church of Christ on Cape Cod. “Retired,” he continues to teach in the Doctoral of Ministry program at Wesley Theological Seminary, give seminars, write, and rejoice in grandparenting and marriage with Rev. Dr. Kate Epperly. An ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), he is the author of over eighty books, “The Elephant is Running: Process and Open and Relational Theology and Religious Pluralism,” “Jesus: Mystic, Healer, and Prophet,” “Walking with Francis of Assisi: From Privilege to Activism,” “Simplicity, Spirituality, and Service: The Eternal Wisdom of Francis, Clare, and Bonaventure,” and “Taking a Walk with Whitehead: Meditations with Process-Relational Theology.” His books on faith and politics include, “Talking Politics with Jesus: A Process Perspective on the Sermon on the Mount,” “One World: The Lord’s Prayer from a Process Perspective,” and “Process Theology and Politics. His most recent texts are a trilogy: “Process Theology and Healing,” “Process Theology and Mysticism,” and “Process Theology and Prophetic Faith.” He may be reached at drbruceepperly@gmail.com.
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