change the channel
Wildfires, election campaign, hurricanes, protests & riots. Covid19 pandemic with 200K US deaths and Dr Fauci saying two things he absolutely will not do: neither take an airline flight nor eat in a restaurant. Unnecessary risk.
How do we deal with covid19? We change the channel. We grow bored with it. We tire of precautions. We claim our rights. We settle into it as New Normal. We silt back into life as we liked it. We accept death by covid as a statistic. Stalin said, If One dies it's a tragedy, if a Million die it's a statistic. Statistics are impersonal numbers: death by flu, cancer, car crash, plane crash, meteorite, lightning strike, train wreck, accidental shooting, chocolate, poisoning, hunting accident, mugging, shark attack, coronavirus, home invasion, drowning, hit by a fly ball, tetanus, hit and run, falling, terrorism, choking, spider bite, house fire, war, pneumonia, murder, hurricane, heart attack, drive by shooting, stroke, alligator attack, suicide, snake bite. This is how we'll beat the pandemic: it's a statistic, it's the way it is, the odds are against my getting it, it's not personal, ignore it.
Have a nice day.
Here's the Bible story for next Sunday:
From the wilderness of Sin ( סִ֛ין a wilderness location between Elim and Sinai, not related to the English word "sin") the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. The people quarreled with Moses, and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” So Moses cried out to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” The Lord said to Moses, “Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.” Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and tested the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?” (Exodus 17:1-7 NRSV)
Something goes wrong here, wrong for Moses. Read Numbers 20:10-13 and Deuteronomy 3:23-28. Because of something not quite clear that Moses does wrong at Massah & Meribah, God is angered with Moses and decrees that he will not be allowed to lead Israel into the Promised Land; and indeed, that is what happens, Moses is allowed to look but not to go in, and dies.
Counter to our Collect that lauds God as showing his power in mercy and pity, it makes God look petty, small, unforgiving, vindictive and churlish, like a miffed and sulking child who will take the rest of Moses' life to get even and fix him good, have the last word and show Moses who is boss. That may be, and the story is the story and it's not up to me to change it. But what I think is that it's a clumsy resort to what's called etiology.
As discussed in our Sunday School class, we see it in the Bible from time to time. An example is the pillar of salt. Why is this pillar of salt here? Oh, don't you remember? Lot's wife disobeyed the Lord, she turned and looked back as God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, and as punishment for her disobedience God turned her into a pillar of salt. Whether in medicine or in Bible scholarship, an etiology is an explanation of something's origins.
And this! Poor snakes, why must they crawl on the ground, why don't snakes have legs like other land animals? And BTW, why are women so afraid of snakes? Why is childbirth so painful? Why do we men have to get jobs and work for a living? Check out Genesis chapter 3, and there are your answers!
Another example, while Moses is up on the mountain with God getting the Ten Commandments, the children of Israel grow impatient, assume Moses is dead, so Aaron collects all their gold and melts it down into a golden calf for them to worship instead of worshiping God. Uh oh! Where did these poor Israelites get gold to melt down? Well, uh - - oh yes, don't you remember? The Egyptians collected all their gold and silver and gave it to the Israelites to get them to leave Egypt because they were so eager to get rid of them after all the plagues, especially the killing of all the Egyptian first born.
Well, to me this is another etiology. Poor Moses dies just before the Israelites can cross the Jordan. So the logical question is With all that Moses did for God and for Israel, how could God let Moses die before victoriously leading the children of Israel into the Promised Land? Oh my, yes, well let me think - - oh, yes. Remember back when Moses struck the rock at Massah Meribah and water flowed out? Well, Moses did that all wrong, he didn't strike the rock exactly right, or he struck the rock when he was supposed to just Shout, or he struck the rock twice when it was supposed to be once, or was it vice versa, or he let the people praise himself instead of giving God the glory; and God was really angry that Moses did it wrong. The storyteller has explained it; that the explanation makes God look mean-spirited instead of showing his power in mercy and pity is not the storyteller's problem.
More tomorrow. As I say, have a nice day.
T+