Rev. Amjad Samuel
Lent 4 B
March 18, 2012
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to
you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. AMEN.
The Arch Bishop of Canterbury announced this Friday that he will be
retiring by the end of this year. BBC reports him saying the following about
his successor, "I think that it is a job of immense demands and I would
hope that my successor has the constitution of an ox and the skin of a
rhinoceros, really.” My dad, along the same lines, used to say, that,
ministry requires a soft heart and a thick skin; Soft heart to relate and
understand the needs of the flock, and a thick skin to not let the feelings of
the flock come in the way of God’s calling.
In today’s Old Testament lesson, Moses faces a flock testing the thickness of
his skin. They rebel and they reject Moses and God. God sends serpents
and the flock repents. Did I ever tell you, I LOVE GOD!!! 
Another thing that my dad used to say, which I have found immensely
helpful in ministry is, “the solution is always with the people who have the
problem”. I find it interesting that God asks Moses to make a poisonous
serpent for people to look at and receive healing! The solution is always
where the problem is!
But we do not necessarily live in a world that thinks that way. In most cases
when we run into problems, we do not look inwards, we look outwards. We
seek experts and consultants who are outsiders to come in and fix our
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problems; never realizing that the solution is with those who have the
problem.
God so loved the world that he became a part of it, suffered in it, by it,
through it, because of it, for it. God took the form of the problem, so that
the solution may no longer be somewhere out there in the highest heavens,
but be Emmanuel, right with those who have the problem.
The other day I was driving to the office and there were some utility
workers working on the power lines in their big trucks blocking my side of
the road. There was a car right ahead of me and it had a bumper sticker
which read, “just be nice”. Just as it caught my eye, the car zipped on the
other side of the road to cross the utility workers, causing the oncoming
traffic to make an abrupt stop! “just be nice”!
We may find the irony of the words and deeds amusing in this case, but the
fact is that most people today live with that principle. The idea is that
somehow if we were nice, the world would be a wonderful and peaceful
place, which, the religious amongst us can happily call the kingdom of God,
if they insist, that is, else, we can just be spiritual and find some other
mutually acceptable language for it!
If we have any affection for the scriptures, we should be able to tell that
Paul, John, the writer of Numbers and all the rest of the witnesses find such
an approach misguided. Paul is very clear that our works don’t bring us
salvation, it is God’s gracious gift. And salvation just doesn’t happen by
being nice, but by believing. And not just believing in anything that one
fancies, but believing in Jesus Christ. Interestingly, John and all the
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witnesses of the New Testament make the same point; which, by the way, is
the reason we believe these writings to be scripture for us, not because they
provide us with varied perspectives of the writers, but because they all point
to the ultimate truth: Jesus Christ.
So then what is the solution for a broken world? How can an injured world
be reconciled and healed? Interestingly, not by inviting outside
perspectives, but by looking deep inside of ourselves; and I believe that
deep inside of us there exists a cosmic battle between belief and disbelief.
I believe that we do not need to go seeking to find Jesus in the scriptures or
Christ in and around others or God’s image in our fellow human beings.
Those all exist right amongst us, we do not have to go anywhere to find
Jesus! Jesus is right with us: Emmanuel.
What we do need to do is to look intently within us and ask ourselves this
question, do I believe? According to John, if the answer is in the
affirmative, then, everlasting life is ours, really!
Amen.
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