Stories from our Tradition

This past week a few of our Diocesan clergy met to discuss results of storm damage to our church buildings and to share some thoughts about an article from “Leading Ideas,” published by church leadership.com.

Many of our Diocesan church buildings have had storm-related problems.  Ours is rather significant as water damage has come through the ceilings and walls around several windows.  There is damage at the entrance to the office and parish hall downstairs, in the storage room at the back of the parish hall, around the lancet windows and in the ceiling in the Sacristy.  More damage is in the organ loft although the organ itself is fine.  The most significant damage is at the rear of the nave in the wall next to the stained glass window.  The back wall is also in need or repair as is the high ceiling at the rear of the center aisle.

We have initiated insurance claims and it is clear the repairs will cost thousands of dollars.  I ask for your patience and support as your Vestry takes the necessary steps to make all the repairs.

In the article we discussed from “Leading Ideas” the concluding paragraph states, “The renewal of mind…means inhabiting a story in which our identities are a gift, …a story in which the liberating God of the Bible is up to something in our midst today, a story in which the Spirit of God is continually bringing forth new life, even out of death.  It draws us deeper into the tradition and its rich stories and practices, deeper into our histories, and deeper into relationship with our neighbors in a posture of humble inquiry.”

Our scripture readings this morning are about two of the stories that are deep within our tradition.  The first story is from the Book of Numbers.  As they wandered through the wilderness the Israelites were impatient and spoke against God and against Moses.  They asked, "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. … 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.”

God answered Moses’ prayer and said he would provide healing through a symbol, a bronze snake on a pole.  Those who looked at it and believed in God would be healed and live.  This is a story about leadership, specifically what Moses had to do.  Moses struggled to be an effective leader.  The bronze serpent was preserved and worshipped until it became a symbol that was separate from the worship of God.  In the late 700s BC it was smashed during the reign of Hezekiah.

The second story is about God bringing new life out of death, and it comes from the Gospel of John chapter 3 verse16.  It is perhaps the most often quoted verse in the Bible: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”  We need to examine this verse in its context.  The verse just before it says, "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.”  

The Son of Man was lifted up on the cross so that those who trust in God will receive God’s gift of eternal life.  This is about participation in God’s life in the age to come.  John’s Gospel was written about three generations after the time of Jesus.  John wrote, “All who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed.  But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”  This entire passage is about the light of life, the eternal life that is the victory of the Cross.

These stories are our stories.  They are two stories about the liberating acts of God “in which the Spirit of God is continually bringing forth new life even out of death.” 

Martin Smith, an Episcopal priest in Washington, D.C. has said, “We are to trust a strange analogy with the contemplation of Jesus hoisted up on the cross.  In an utter paradox, this vision for the believer is radiant with healing power. Those who gaze on it experience a burning away of all denial of human brokenness and their own share in it, and at the same time see the cross as the display of God’s limitless healing compassion.  God lifts Jesus for us on the cross, and lifts him to vindication in the resurrection, and we are drawn with him into intimacy with God.”  Amen.