Sermon preached at St John’s Bexley: 5th March 2023: Second Sunday of Lent: Evensong: Numbers 21:4-9; Luke 14:27-33
“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.”
Roll up, roll up and get your snake-on-a-stick!
Get your snake on a stick!
Cures what ails you?
Nasty cobra-bite there, Madam? Snake on a stick!
Tight squeeze with a reticulated python, sir? Snake on a stick!
Snake on a stick! While stocks last! All major credit and debit cards accepted!
As those of you who watch a lot of Westerns will be well aware, Snake-Oil was pitched to the gullible and anxious as a medical cure-all that will sort out any ailment or affliction guaranteeing health and longevity to those willing to fork out the ‘competitive price’ being charged…
…It was, of course, complete quackery: A placebo concoction in a little bottle with a fancy label and even fancier marketing– the magic was in the sales-pitch.
How much cleverer we are now, we laugh… Quietly ignoring the Camberwell Pastor convicted of fraud for selling ‘Covid Protection Kits’ at £91 a pop in 2020.
What then do we make of Moses’s Snake-On-A-Stick, which, by the grace of God, the people could look at to be miraculously cured of their snakebites?
There were snake-cults in the ancient near East and so snake totems like this one weren’t exactly a new idea: But weren’t the people of Israel supposed to be getting away from this sort of thing? Staying faithful to the One True God in a World of heathen superstition?
What makes me laugh about the Snake-On-A-Stick, is that this happens at a point where the Israelites have been really perfecting their art at serial complainants: A bit like us navigating our way through pandemic restrictions, anything and everything that can be moaned about has been fair game and when one issue has been resolved, they’ve found something else to complain about:
Not enough food.
Not enough water.
Now we’ve got some food we don’t like it…
And so by this point, the beef-du-jour is snakes: Nasty bitey snakes! Please take them away!
So God gives them a remedy for their problem… But it involves them looking at the likeness of a snake: The exact same thing they’ve been complaining about!
Peak trolling there, God!
The image of their salvation is the exact thing they’ve asked to be saved from!
As we stagger as pilgrims through the Spiritual Wilderness of life we have our own complaints, our frustrations our fears… We seek nourishment, refreshment, healing, miracles, salvation… We turn to self-help, to disciplines, to gurus, to meditative exercises, to religion… We even turn to the Church…
Why? What is it we’re looking for? What are we complaining about and how do we want God to resolve it?
Impatient over the limitations and restrictions of our Human Condition, we seek out a cure.
And on the way we meet the snake-oil merchants: Those who seem to have the solution to everything that ails us bottled up neatly with a fancy label and a very, very compelling sales-pitch.
And they may offer us life, or health, or happiness, or success or transcendence: But, like the snake-oil salesmen of old, there’s a cost – demanding our allegiance, our love… In some cases even our money, our resources, our selves in payment for what will ultimately be a complete con.
But it’s so appealing: So compelling… It’s flashy, well-sold and we’re so convinced… But what happens if we sit down and count the cost?
Maybe the appeal of the snake-oil is that it turns us away from our afflictions: It distracts and dazzles and makes us pretend our problems aren’t there.
Let’s pretend we don’t suffer, let’s pretend everyone loves us, let’s pretend we’re immortal, let’s pretend we’re not even human.
“Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”
Look up to the cross, and see raised high above the wilderness our Saviour: Mortal, naked, mocked, dying, persecuted, sorrowful, suffering and in pain – everything we want to be saved from and there it is raised high for us to look at!
As Israelites in the desert we look to God for our healing and find it in the exact image of the thing we are most afraid of: Our human condition.
We enter into Lent, moving through into Passiontide, knowing that we must confront our mortality, our suffering, our snakes and our poisons for what they are if we’re going to meet God and reach the Promised Land of New, Risen Life.
Fr. Edward 