Home  Sermons March 11, 2012
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March 11, 2012 Introduction From my childhood, it was Mr. Ed. “A horse is a horse, of course, of course; And no one can talk to a horse of course; That is, of course, unless the horse is the famous Mr. Ed.” Now in the era of CG movie making, we have Shrek, Puss in Boots, Kung Fu Panda, and The Lorax. Don’t you just love animals that talk?
In Numbers 22 in the Old Testament, we find a funny, yet serious story of a talking animal: Balaam’s Donkey (you may know it by an alternate translation). As we continue a look at Seven Not-So-Deadly Alternatives, this morning we look at patience and its counterpart, anger. God has a way of trying to develop patience in his people as well as handling our times of anger. A warning here: be careful with both. For if you pray for patience, the Lord will give you opportunities to exercise and grow. If you persist in anger, the Lord has ways of dealing with that too.
I. The Background and StoryThe Book of Numbers tells about Israel’s wanderings in the wilderness following the exodus from Egypt. When they started settling into the plains of Moab, northeast of Egypt, the Moabite king began to get nervous. These people began to crowd into his land. And they outnumbered his own people. So King Balak worried that the Israelites might rise up and try to conquer his territory. He decides it is time for action. Like so many warrior kings, before he went to battle, Balak wanted to make sure he had the gods on his side. He knew of a prophet for hire named Balaam who would invoke the gods to curse one’s enemies. And so, Balak sends his agents with the money to get Balaam to come and curse the Israelites.
After a night of prayer, Balaam – who was not an Israelite – tells them that Yahweh said not to curse the Israelites because they are blessed. In verse 18 Balaam says, “If Balak were to give me his whole house filled with gold and silver, I cannot go beyond the command of Yahweh.” But something happens. Perhaps against his better judgment, perhaps at the threat of bodily harm, Balaam sets out toward Moab, riding his trusty donkey.
One has to feel for the donkey: clearly terrified by the presence of the angel and then harassed and ill-treated by Balaam. This poor animal was caught between the angel’s sword and Balaam’s stick. Soon Balaam would find himself trapped between Balak’s demands and God’s command. For some reason, Balaam lost it. Have you ever lost it like that? Have you ever, gone off on someone, for no apparent reason? Have you ever taken out your frustration on a poor innocent by-stander, when really it was someone else you were mad at? I think Balaam was really mad at God. God had told him twice not to go to Moab. Somehow he was pressured. Either Balak sweetened the pot or made him “an offer he couldn’t refuse.” Whatever, when Balaam’s journey gets delayed and sidetracked by God, he takes it out on the poor donkey. Have you ever done that? If you have, then you know just one of the many shapes the deadly sin of anger can take in your life.
Maybe your meal at a restaurant was not very good, so you’re rude to the waitress when it’s the chef you’re upset with. You come home from being chewed out at work for a mistake you made and you end the day yelling at your kids. You’re really ticked off at the cable company for
charging you for pay-per-view movies you never ordered. You wait to get through to customer service and then blast the person on the other end of the phone. Regrettably, I’ve done all three of these. More than once. Every one of us somewhere along the way has been Balaam and unfortunately somebody else has been the donkey. And each one of us has been the donkey from time to time.
In his book Sinning Like a Christian, William Willamon writes this about anger: “Perhaps all sins, at least many, are paradoxical. On the one hand anger can be righteous indignation at injustice; on the other hand, anger can be blind rage in which we see nothing but ourselves, and our diminished sense of self, reacting with murderous rage. Anger is surely one of the most self-delusional and destructive, usually self-destructive and potentially violent, of sins.”
II. Turning Toward PatienceIn Ephesians 4, Paul writes to the church: “As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.”
The New Testament word for patience is sometimes translated “forbearance” or “long suffering.” It is the virtue that helps us to see clearly what our anger often blinds us to. The donkey saw the angel of the Lord. Balaam was so angry, he couldn’t or wouldn’t. Patience allows us to see the bigger picture. How humiliating it must have been for Balaam. He prided himself on the ability to see divine revelation yet was unable to see what his dumb donkey saw. I’m reminded of I Corinthians 1:27, “God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise.”
This word patience is uniquely a Christian word. It doesn’t appear in classical Greek. Described as a Christian virtue, it was no virtue at all in the ancient world. Early Church Father John Chrysostom said, “Patience is the spirit that could take revenge if it liked, but utterly refuses to do so.” Aristotle defined the Greek virtue the very opposite: refusal to tolerate any insult or injury. In the natural state of human beings, the Big Person is one who goes all out for vengeance. In Christ, we are called, even when we can get back at someone or something, to refuse to do so.
Remember in Galatians 5. Paul calls God’s people to “walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature… Now the acts of the sinful nature are obvious: hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy… But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness…”
Patience is not a natural human characteristic. It is the fruit of the Spirit. Patience is the great characteristic of God. Scottish pastor and scholar William Barclay said, “If God had been a man, he would long ago have taken his hand and, with a gesture, would have wiped out the world. But in his ‘patience’ he bears with the sins, the follies and the disobedience of men.”
When it comes to this one of the seven-not-so-deadly alternatives, the Lord wants to grow in us patience with one another just as God has been patient with us. It’s like the bumper sticker theology: “Please be patient. God isn’t finished with me yet.”
Fortunately, the Lord wasn’t finished with Balaam either. Grace was still at work. At the last minute it says, “Then the LORD opened Balaam’s eyes, and he saw the angel of the LORD standing in the road with his sword drawn. So he bowed low and fell facedown.” The season of Lent is meant for a time to bow down before the Lord, even fall facedown as we accept the forgiveness that God offers to each one of us in Jesus Christ and ask the Lord to guard us from the seven deadly sins, growing in us the seven life giving alternatives.
Conclusion I’m sure that you and I can identify with Balaam: when we ignore God and just go ahead with our plans or when we beat up the one voice that could easily have helped us or when it takes a crushed foot to sense the signal of an angel of the Lord blocking our path. Maybe it will take the voice-over of Eddie Murphy’s donkey in Shrek talking back for us to consider God’s presence and message when our lives need a mid-course correction.
So, let us pray for one another for God’s patience to be given in greater measure, a gift and grace of the Holy Spirit throughout this year’s season of Lent. |
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