Covenant Series: Moses - Whine and Geez Party
Numbers 21:4-9
Rev. Dr. Mary Alice Mulligan
As we continue the story of the people and the covenants, we know Yahweh uses Moses to set the Hebrew people free from Egyptian enslavement. LORD Yahweh leads them through the wilderness, reminding them they are moving towards the land promised to Abraham. God provides daily food in the form of manna and establishes the teachings, the commandments, to help shape their life. But human beings that they are, the Hebrews grumble about their circumstances. The Bible reports time after time when they complain: “We don’t like traipsing around the wilderness.” “We don’t like Moses’ leadership.” “We don’t like eating the same thing day after day; we don’t even know where our next water is coming from.” So the instigators comprise an informal “Back to Egypt Committee.” They keep asking: “Wasn’t it better to be enslaved? At least things were secure in Egypt; what is wrong with Moses bringing us out of enslavement? So what if we had to work all the time making bricks without straw? Certainly Pharaoh would never start killing off our boy babies again.” By the way, lots of churches still have informal “Back to Egypt Committees,” eager to return to the idealized past of their selective memory.
The Bible isn’t clear whether Hebrew grumbling was constant, or just stirred up when things felt especially difficult. But what is clear is that the Hebrew people really knew how to throw a party of “Whine and Geez.” “It was better in Egypt…” They whine about not having any food; then they geez about not liking manna – which by the way is food, which is divinely provided for them each day. No wonder God’s patience reaches the end. From the 21st chapter of the book of Numbers, listen for the word of God.
From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. The people spoke against God and against Moses, “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. The people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.” 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.
Griping does damage. When people complain, the atmosphere turns poisonous. A normal day can suddenly feel terrible, just by the contagious power of griping. Children fall prey to such unpleasantness easily. We’ve seen them laughing around the school lunch table, happy to relax and share some food, then suddenly some smart-aleck makes a gagging noise and says, “This milk tastes awful.” Suddenly everyone is tasting the milk and agreeing. Five minutes earlier, everyone had been drinking the milk just fine; but one suspicious complaint about a sour taste, and no one can stand against it.
But of course, even with adults, even in church, a pleasant experience can be ruined by whining and geezing. A coffee hour table full of laughter is squelched by one person’s complaint that they didn’t know Council decided to replace both air conditioners in the sanctuary when only one was broken. Suddenly the whole table is feeling blindsided and joy is sucked out of the room. Their happy fellowship is suddenly a disgruntled group who completely ignores that every Council meeting is open and each month’s minutes are public. All they had to do was ask.
Grumbling (murmuring the King James Version calls it) is contagious. Whining, fault-finding and criticizing can infest any group, making people act small. Back to Egypt Committees in many churches are key creators of whine and geez parties, where whatever is happening now is never as good as what happened 20 or 30 years ago. Whine and geez parties can spend hours remembering when the entire neighborhood attended the Easter sunrise service at the movie theater, because that was the only auditorium big enough to hold everybody. And then they complain because no one is planning Easter sunrise this year. Geez. If whine and geez parties merely looked to the past with fondness, they wouldn’t be so bad; but grumbling results in negative feelings about the current situation. Criticism bubbles up about current programs and then current leaders. Fault-finding spreads until dissatisfaction infests every corner, which can become deadly for an entire congregation. Griping does serious damage.
But there is a solution. We can turn to God instead. We can lift our vision from pettiness to godliness. We can choose, with God’s help, to see the church and in fact the world through holy eyes. When the Hebrew people grumbled, whined, and spoke against God, poisonous snakes slithered into the camps. After many people died from bites, they concluded they were being punished for their disobedience, so Moses prayed to God for a cure for people’s sin. He was told to create a bronze serpent, hoist it on a pole, then when people were bitten, they could look at the bronze snake, and live.
One of our devotionals recently claimed that we need to look at where we sin; pay attention to how we have turned from God; lock eyes on whatever snake has bitten us because when we face up to our failure and confess our weaknesses then healing can start. Our devotional today reminded us that we benefit from looking at our sin. The author uses the specific example of reading banned books on racism and climate change, to help us see what we have done. We have a word for when people turn from God to something else. The word is: idolatry. Didn’t we hear just last week God’s first teaching is that LORD Yahweh is God alone. No other gods. No idols. In the midst of our grumbling sinfulness, we should look only to God. Then we can take our attention off our complaints, resentments or old angers. We can open ourselves to finding God’s healing way through whatever our situations. There is also a word for turning to God. It’s: worship. No matter our need, we can look to God in worship. No matter what snake has bitten us, we can always turn to God.
Then God grants us life. The One who created us fills us with abundant life. As we turn to God, we discover we are being brought to health, not according to our ideas, but according to God’s will. Focusing our attention on God allows God’s Spirit to shape us anew, helping us become the individuals God has imagined us to be. Since God has chosen to be in covenant relationship with humanity, in spite of our constant failings, we have everything we need to be whole.
Don’t get me wrong. There are individuals who don’t have enough, but the One who created us provides everything humanity needs to flourish in our living together. Most of us here have enough food to live well; enough money to have a home and some income to provide for our daily needs. Are there luxuries we might wish for? Certainly, but like the Israelites, if we have our necessities (if we have manna), we have enough.
But then the question is, what shall we do with the abundant life we have been granted? In other words, what can we do with our individual and church-wide health? The One who has forgiven us all our stubborn sinfulness and has provided among us all we need, probably expects us to respond by spreading life around. Wanting to spread life, one church in East Detroit heard about young women and girls walking miles for their family’s water every day. They decided to donate a well to a village in Tanzania, so girls could be freed up to go to school like the boys did. How could they find the money? The church planned a fancy fashion show as a fund raiser, to help make the world a more beautiful place – in Detroit and Tanzania. People who had never been to the church came and sufficient money was raised. Detroit church people making a difference in Tanzania and their work made a difference in them. We may not decide to sponsor a fashion show or support a well project in Africa, but God expects us to bring healing around us. We have what we need – for the Sarasota community and beyond. So when we grasp God’s generosity to us, we know we need to join with others to spread health around. Because God grants life for everyone.
Certainly, we get mesmerized, dreaming of unattainable luxury. And we slide into whining and geezing at the slightest disappointment. But God covenants with us, calling us to find wholeness with God. For only God can empower us to turn from selfishness to true worship. And when we allow ourselves to be filled with worship, we find we are healed. We are forgiven, and God’s generous love is spread to all.