The Art of Resolving Resentment
Homily
by The Rev. Marcia McRae
St.
John’s Episcopal Church, Bainbridge, GA; 4 Lent, 15 March
2015
Year
B RCL: Numbers
21:4-9;
Psalm
107:1-3, 17-22; Ephesians 2:1-10; John
3:14-21
If I
were to ask you to stay standing for the sermon, I wonder how that
might help us gain insight into the uncomfortable scriptures we hear
today.
It would feel uncomfortable to stand
for the whole sermon!
Jesus'
curous self-reference to Moses' snake-on-a-stake1
confronts us with our 1st
reading when Moses does as God says to do & makes a bronze
serpent & sets it a pole. Didn't
God
tell us last week in the 10 Commandments: You
shall not make for yourself an idol...in
the form of anything...in heaven...on earth...or...in the water? Yes,
God did.
The
key word is idol. God says: You shall not bow down to them or worship
them. The
complaining people with Moses do not worship the snake. [That
happens later. In 2nd
Kings, Hezekiah destroys that bronze snake.]
Disturbed by what seems like magical healing when people look at the
snake, rabbis note that by looking up, the injured actually look up
to God, their Father in heaven.2
These
insights may help with this uncomfortable part of our scripture, but
what about our other questions?
Why does our loving God, who is leading God's chosen people, send
poisonous snakes? As
one scholar notes:3
The people say it's because they have sinned by complaining, &,
the scholar says to
notice: God does not say that's the reason. What about all the other
times in the Bible [especially
Psalms]
when people complain to God & no snake bites them?
Notice
how
the people complain: “There's
no food, no water. We detest this miserable food!” If they have no
food, how can they complain about how bad the food is? It's like me
complaining, as I stare into the fully stocked refrigerator, “I'm
starving! There's nothing to eat!” Of course there is, it's just
not what I want to eat.
We
get unreasonable when we're hungry or in difficulty. We can't see the
solution right in front of us. We couldn't see it if it were a snake
& bit us.
The
snakes bite & help complainers see things differently – they
see themselves anew. They ask that God take the snakes away. As God
so often does in the Bible & in our lives, the remedy is
different than what we ask. Notice: Snakes are biting the people, yet
the people live.
Has
anyone here been bitten by a snake? How did you get healed? [Response
time.] Know
this: I
have never been healed just looking at the snake [the caduceus] on my
doctor's building. Something else is required to deliver me from what
ails me.
Deliverance does not come as the people with Jesus expect.
When
Jesus is lifted up on that cross, like Moses lifts up the snake, the
disciples, the leaders, all involved see only death. Yet like that
healing snake-on-stake, Jesus heals our broken relationship with God.
What looks
like a disaster on the cross is a new beginning for abundant life.
Jesus forgives us from the cross. Forgiveness
is essential to healing in this life.
We
want past hurts, broken relationships to be different. Like the
people with Moses, we say: take away the snakes/the problems/the
hurts.
God says: “Look at the problem, face the challenge.”
Look
at the destructive resentment we see in action on both sides of the
issue in Ferguson, Missouri.
Look at the forgiveness & invitation
to meet & get to know each other that the University of Oklahoma
Black Student Union President offered the racist fraternity.
God
says: Look at My Son, Jesus, lifted up on that cross, exalted on that
cross.” Today's Gospel uses the double meaning of the words “lift
up”:
Literally lift up & to exalt. That double
meaning confuses humans who see “the cross (as)...profound
humiliation & defeat. [Our Gospel tells us]...crucifixion,
resurrection,...ascension are...a single movement of divine
[action]...(Like the people bitten by the snakes, we look at what
brings death) in order to receive life...5
As
scholar Lance Pape
says of today's Gospel,
To
believe the Good News of Jesus requires trust & belief about what
happened on that cross AND to “let our...lives be transformed
by...Jesus...”
Part of our transformation takes place in
the
healing work of forgiveness.
We can trust Jesus to work with us
through our past hurts & resentments to a new perspective on
life.
[I commend to you Bishop Benhase's latest e-Crozier about forgiveness
& our Forgiveness Forum.]
Trusting
in Jesus, we confront “the inconvenient truth that God’s
purposes...are not synonymous with our...(perspective) of happiness,
health, & safety.”6
Trusting
Jesus, we can exercise the gift of healing that we offer through
forgiveness.
Trusting Jesus, we can let go our hold on resentment.
Resentment
lives in the darkness of the past that didn't go as we wanted.
Resentment is living today & demanding that the past be
different, especially that someone would have behaved differently.
That's a good way to stay miserable.
Know this: Forgiveness is not
reconciliation. You can forgive someone without speaking to them,
without reestablishing a relationship. You can forgive a dead person.
We
can see clearly in the light of God's love when we accept that we
can't change the past.
We can re-frame how we think of past hurts.
We
can change our demand that things would have been different into a
preference that they would have been different.
The snake of
someone's sin bit me:
I can complain about how bad that was, how it
should/shouldn't have happened & I will stay mired in the past.
I
can re-frame my complaint & say: I would have preferred that it
had/hadn't happened. This loosens my hold on anger about the past &
makes it easier for me to let go of that hurt. Letting go comes by
God's grace that fits us for the work of ministry, as
Paul tells us in Ephesians.
The
Lutheran liturgy in its confession offers a deeper sense of this than
our general confession. Our Lutheran Brothers & Sisters say:
“forgive
us, renew
us, & lead us, so
that
we may delight in your will & walk in your ways…”7
Renew us, Jesus.
Forgiveness
renews us.
Forgiveness reaches beyond just your own life,
just my own
life.
Forgiveness shines new light in the darkness.
When you forgive,
you shine,
you glow with the Light of God's Love.
Bibliography
The
American College Dictionary.
Ed. in Chief: C.L. Barnhart. New York: Random House, Inc. 1966.
Boadt,
Lawrence. Reading
the Old Testament: An Introduction.
New York: Paulist Press. 1984.
Fever, Kyle. “Commentary Ephesians 2:1-10”. http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2393. Accessed: 12 March 2015.
Harper’s
Bible Commentary.
General Ed.: James. L. Mays. San Francisco: Harper & Row
Publishers, 1988.
Harper’s
Bible Dictionary.
General Ed.: Paul J. Achtemeier. San Francisco: Harper & Row
Publishers. 1985.
Holy
Bible with the Apocrypha.
New Revised Standard Version. New York: Oxford University Press.
1989.
Howard,
Cameron B.R. ”Commentary on Numbers 21:4-9”. Accessed: 12 March
2015.
http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2393.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary.
Accessed: 14 March 2015.
Jewish
Study Bible: Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation.
New York: Oxford University Press. 2004.
Limburg,
James.
“Commentary Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22”. Accessed:
12 March 2015.
Pape, Lance. “Commentary John 3:14-21”. http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2393. Accessed: 12 March 2015.
Tenney,
Merrill C. Handy
Dictionary of the Bible.
Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House. 1965.
Voyles,
Robert J. Restoring
Hope: Appreciative Strategies to Resolve Grief and Resentment.
Hillsboro, OR:
3
Ibid. Howard.
4
Ibid.
5
Pape,
Lance. “Commentary John 3:14-21”.
http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2393.
Accessed:
12 March 2015.
6
Ibid.
7
Fever,
Kyle. “Commentary
Ephesians 2:1-10”.
http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2393.
Accessed:
12 March 2015.
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