the Third Monday of Advent
Scripture Reading for Today:
A Little Vindication, Please?
I’m gonna just say this flat out: I felt a leetle bit of excitement when I read the first reading from Numbers today.
I know that doesn’t make me look good. I know that this is one of those stories that we are supposed to struggle with in Scripture, and I promise that I do. If you read to the end of the chapter in Numbers 16, you see that there was a reason that God warned Moses and Aaron to take a step back from their accusers. We see Moses making a declaration: If his accusers die a natural death, then Moses is not from God. But, if something unnatural happens, such as, say, the earth opening up and swallowing the men, then that will show God is with Moses. And then the earth opens! It swallows the naysayers, and all their households - even their possessions.
Yes, I do find this story a hard one. This vengeful God can make me a bit uncomfortable. I am not so much a fan of the reality that innocent women, children, and animals were swallowed up in this group. It’s not an easy text.
But, like I said, there’s that small piece of me that finds this story a teeny bit titillating. It’s not a nice piece of me. It’s the piece of me that has felt like Moses has in this story – the part of me that has been weary with people who have charged that I am a bad pastor, a bad person, or an ungodly leader. Which has happened. In my sixteen years as a pastor, people have left our congregation, and sometimes their reason has been that I do not lead well. And sometimes, it really hurts.
Many years ago, we had a woman attend our church who I will call Jane. Jane was in her eighties and she and her husband Mark had moved to our congregation as seniors after attending a small community church in another part of the city for years. Mark died shortly after I started at the church. His was my very first funeral, and after that, I spent a lot of time with the family. I can honestly say that I visited Jane more than any other person in my time as a pastor. She was a lonely widow, I was new to pastoring and I had been raised with a strong theology of the importance of the pastoral visit. Our church was relatively small and I felt a special connection to her. I was happy to visit often.
Then I went on a parental leave with my second child. When I had my first child, I continued to visit Jane, maternity leave or not. But it was too difficult when my daughter came along, with a toddler also to manage. Plus - you know - I was on leave.
When I came back from my time away a woman from our church gave me a call. She had been to see Jane, who wanted me to know that I was never to come to visit her again. She did not want me to do her funeral when the time came. Why? Because I “never visited her.” The congregant fully understood that I was on leave and tried to explain this to Jane, to no avail. After years and years of supporting Jane and her family, I was completely shut out, villainized, declared a terrible pastor and selfish human being. Jane died a few months later.
The part of me that likes the story from Numbers is that part of me that felt hurt by Jane. It’s the part that wanted the chance to say to her: “This isn’t fair!” “You are wrong about me!” “I visited you a lot!!!” It is the part of me that loves the idea of a little vindication, a moment when God will make clear to the Janes and all the others who have criticized me that I did my best. I’m not saying I want God to swallow Jane and others like her up whole...but a little voice from the clouds saying “Yes, Jane, she visited you often and you are being unreasonable” would be nice.
My guess is that many of us reading that story today can empathize at least a little with this feeling. You don’t have to be a pastor or a leader like Moses to know the feeling of wanting to be proven right. At some point in our lives, most of us want justification. Many of us may have felt this with particular intensity in the last twenty months. Perhaps we have thought “I can’t wait for my Uncle to see that I was right about vaccines!” or “When is my friend going to see she has been so wrong about her COVID theories?” It’s why we share those articles on social media that we secretly hope “that” person will read and finally agree that we are right.
So I was reading Numbers and feeling that ugly part of me bask in the glow of the hope of retribution. And then I turned to the reading in Isaiah. And I saw the rest of the story.
Wolves living with lambs. Leopards with goats, calves and lions lying together.
Yes, it says the wicked will be slain. But here we see a glimpse of God’s big story - the story whose ultimate goal is not retribution, but healing. The story that works towards peace. The story that comes to completion not with vindication for the one who is right over the one who is wrong, but with all gathering together peacefully in a place of rest - and the most unlikely enemies coming together.
As I read the Isaiah passage, I felt the goodness of that story. I felt the goodness of peace, which felt far better than the temporary excitement of vindication. Sure, there are moments when I think how satisfying it would be for God to play a reel for Jane of all my visits with her, of a moment in eternity when I would get to say “See??? I was not a bad pastor!” But what is far more beautiful for me is the thought of a joyful reunion with Jane when all our hard feelings will disappear. That is the hope of us all living in tension: not being proven right, but receiving the gift of peace between us and those with whom we struggled the most. That is the story to which God is working, even in that ugly moment in the desert when God needed to protect his people from harm to make space for His big story to continue.
If you long for vindication in some area of your life today, I get it. Being misunderstood and mislabelled is hard. May the promise of a day when peace will reign comfort your weary heart.
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