Numbers 21:4-9

 

“The fence – I’ve been out there four times, I’ve taken visitors.  That place has become a pilgrimage site.  Clearly that’s a very powerful personal experience to go out there.  It is so stark and so empty and you can’t help but think of Matthew out there for eighteen hours in nearly freezing temperatures, with that view up there isolated, and, the “God, my God, why have you forsaken me” comes to mind.”

Rev. Stephen Mead Johnson in the Laramie Project

 

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.  

     Numbers 21:9

 

This passage from Numbers 21 and its gospel accompaniment, John 3, make this a difficult Sunday for worship planners, for these two scriptures are among the most mystery-laden in scripture.

A few years ago I was cast in a production of The Laramie Project, a play created from transcripts of interviews with citizens of Laramie, Wyoming, following the brutal murder of Matthew Shepherd, a young, gay, college student.  Some of my friends were apprehensive about attending for surely, they thought, such subject matter would be depressing.  Although they didn’t think that theatre always needed to be light entertainment, wasn’t this going to be much too heavy?

Instead, they all reported that they came away feeling uplifted!  The general sense was that the play was able to bring healing and understanding to a tragic moment in our public life.

That has helped me understand at least one facet of these two biblical passages.  When we are able to truly look at what causes us pain, or upon pain that we have inflicted, God is somehow able to use that for our healing and growth. 

One of the ways that arts serve the world and the Church, is to lift up and help us see our pain and brokenness so that we may be healed.  Not everyone can make a pilgrimage to the fence where Matt Shepherd was left beaten and frozen.  But the play can take us there, and help us come to grips with the humanity that joins us with both Matthew and his attackers.

During Lent, we turn our eyes to the cross.  There we see the results of our sin, our propensity to violence and our cowardice in the face of them.  But until we turn our eyes upon the cross, there is no real healing.  Our calling, as artists serving the Church, is to find creative ways to help our congregations “turn their eyes upon Jesus” in both the brokenness of crucifixion and the joy of resurrection, so that we can be made whole.

Rev. Pamela Abbey, Acting in Faith Drama Ministry, Concord, CA. Pam also chairs The Fellowship’s Drama Interest Area.