The Twenty-Second Sunday After Trinity (November 5, 2023)

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be alway acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer. Amen.

We’re nearing the end of the Church Year which means we begin a new cycle soon. For so many weeks, we’ve been in what’s often called Ordinary Time, these Sundays After Trinity. And during this time, we wear the color green. Why? Ordinary time is not, despite what you might think based on the name, boring. Rather, we call it ordinary time because the focus on this time of year in the Church Calendar is the Christian life. And so we wear green because we are focused on growth. It’s a good reminder for us that the Christian life is never done and it’s the most important thing we do. And anyone who has lived the Christian life for any length of time knows that the tricky part is that it’s rarely linear; it’s often circuitous with starts and stops. In fact, their story is our story and so many early Christians read the parts of Exodus and Numbers that involve the wilderness wandering to be about the Christian life. Their story is our story. And today’s story from Numbers is about our human faithlessness and God’s faithfulness.

Now I’ll be honest, when I first read the selected passage from Numbers, I thought it was kind of a weird choice. There are two stories in the reading: the first is about Israel being denied passage through the land of Edom; the second is about the death of Aaron. The land of Edom was inhabited by the descendants of Esau. This means that Israel and Edom should have been friends because they were descended from brothers. So Israel goes to Edom and asks for passage through their land and the people of Edom say no. When Israel requests a second time, they’re denied with a show of force. So Israel has to take the long way around the land of Edom. Immediately after, when Israel arrived at Mount Hor, God tells Moses that it’s time for Aaron to die. Aaron, like Moses, wasn’t allowed into the Promise Land because of previous sins. So Moses takes Aaron on the mountain, strips him of his priestly vestments, and puts them on Aaron’s son, Eleazar who would succeed him as the High Priest. These two stories are related because they’re about human faithlessness and God’s faithfulness.

When I initially read the first part of the story, Israel dealing with Edom, my first inclination was to think “Wow, the Edomites are real jerks to the Israelites here.” And that’s not wrong technically. But actually, there’s something missing in the story. The leadership of Israel approaches the Edomites but where is God? Do they pray about it beforehand? Does Moses or Aaron consult with God? Remember: this is the same God who led them out of Egypt, who divided the Red Sea for the people, and has brought them this far. Don’t you think he might have something to say? But no, Israel goes straight forward into the negotiations with the Edomites without talking to God first. No wonder they failed! And this isn’t the first time Israel’s leadership failed them. We saw a striking example a few weeks ago when we read the story of the Golden Calf: Aaron failed the people by acquiescing to their demands to build an idols rather than correcting them and standing up for the true faith and they were punished as a result. One major instance, the one that’s cited as the reason Aaron was not allowed to enter the Promise Land, is because of the Rebellion at Meribah. This was when the Israelites had no water and God told Moses to speak to the rock but he hit it with his rod. For this disobedience, the leadership of Israel—Moses, Aaron, and Miriam—were not allowed to enter the Land. So we see an important lesson here: when we think that we know better than God, whether it involves building our own idols, or disobeying a command of God, or not consulting him at all before we make certain decisions—we miss out on his blessings. And I don’t mean this in a Prosperity Gospel sense; the point is not “Obey God and he’ll shower material benefits on you so that you become healthy and wealthy.” No, the kind of blessings we miss when we disobey are for our own benefit because it’s about our Christian life. We recognize that obeying God brings us closer to beatitude, that it makes us better versions of ourselves, that it feels good because obeying God is what we were created to do.

Another important point to draw out here is that if we’re to obey God, we should not only consult him but we should also trust his timing. Israel didn’t consult God before they went to the Edomites, no doubt because they wanted to take the most direct route to their destination, but the door was closed. You might remember in the Lord of the Rings movie when Gandalf the Wizard tells Frodo, “A wizard is never late, he arrives precisely when he means to.” God’s timing operates according to a similar principle: he often makes us take the long way, but the road he puts us on is never the wrong way. He knows what we need and when we need it. We like to rush in and do things on our time, but that’s human wisdom which amounts to foolishness in God’s eyes. The best timing is God’s, even and especially when his timing makes us uncomfortable. That’s exactly when we grow.

If you take anything away today, I want you to remember that God is always faithful, even when we are faithless. In the greatest act of faithlessness, we killed God when he sent us his Son but, by going to the Cross, Jesus reveals to us the faithfulness of God. This faithfulness is evident in today’s reading: Aaron may have rebelled against God on multiple occasions, he may not have lived up to his calling as a priest, but this doesn’t mean God abandoned Israel’s priesthood; quite the opposite! What happens in the reading? Moses strips Aaron of his priestly vestments and puts them on Eleazar his son. The priesthood continues. Just like in Israel, so today, the priesthood is not about the individual person who holds that position. Priests should of course strive for holiness and to live out their vocation but even a bad priest in Israel could offer the sacrifices and even a bad priest today can confect the sacraments of the Church. Not only should this bring us comfort because we never have to wring our hands wondering if we really received the sacraments because our priest is a jerk or something; but it should bring us comfort because it reminds us that the priesthood is always God’s means to work for his people. It’s not because I’m special or Fr. David is special; it’s because Jesus is our Great High Priest and he enlists us to participate in his ministry for the Church. Israel was faithless and their leaders acted faithlessly too, but God provided for them by giving them the sacrificial system and allocating priests to represent God to the people and the people to God. Similarly, we the Church after faithlessly and our leadership—bishops, priests, and deacons—can also act faithlessly; but God has assured us through the Sacrament of Holy Orders that we will be taken care of because the Sacraments are always signs of his faithfulness. And we can look at this over the history of the Church. I have it somewhere if you ever want to see it but we can trace Bishop Chad’s line all the way back to the Apostles: God has been faithful to his Church since the beginning and we can be confident that, even in a world that is changing, a world that is secularizing, a world in which it seems like even the Church is too often taken by the Spirit of the Age that God has and will continue to remain faithful to us.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.