Ambushed by Envy on the Way to the Promised Land

Scripture: Numbers 12: 1-16

Sermon: Ambushed by Envy on the Way to the Promised Land

Topics: envy, contentment, praise

Preached: July 15, 2007

Rev. Mike Abma

NUMBERS 12: 1-16

While they were at Hazeroth, Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married (for he had indeed married a Cushite woman); ²and they said, ‘Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?’ And the Lord heard it. ³Now the man Moses was very humble, more so than anyone else on the face of the earth. ⁴Suddenly the Lord said to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, ‘Come out, you three, to the tent of meeting.’ So the three of them came out. ⁵Then the Lord came down in a pillar of cloud, and stood at the entrance of the tent, and called Aaron and Miriam; and they both came forward. ⁶And he said, ‘Hear my words:

When there are prophets among you,

   I the Lord make myself known to them in visions;

   I speak to them in dreams. 

⁷ Not so with my servant Moses;

   he is entrusted with all my house. 

⁸ With him I speak face to face—clearly, not in riddles;

   and he beholds the form of the Lord.

Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?’ ⁹And the anger of the Lord was kindled against them, and he departed.

10 When the cloud went away from over the tent, Miriam had become leprous, as white as snow. And Aaron turned towards Miriam and saw that she was leprous. ¹¹Then Aaron said to Moses, ‘Oh, my lord, do not punish us for a sin that we have so foolishly committed. ¹²Do not let her be like one stillborn, whose flesh is half consumed when it comes out of its mother’s womb.’ ¹³And Moses cried to the Lord, ‘O God, please heal her.’ ¹⁴But the Lord said to Moses, ‘If her father had but spat in her face, would she not bear her shame for seven days? Let her be shut out of the camp for seven days, and after that she may be brought in again.’ ¹⁵So Miriam was shut out of the camp for seven days; and the people did not set out on the march until Miriam had been brought in again. ¹⁶After that the people set out from Hazeroth, and camped in the wilderness of Paran.

JAMES 3: 16-18

¹⁶For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. ¹⁷But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. ¹⁸And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

INTRODUCTION — Infected by Envy

Numbers 12 tells of a family squabble. It tells the story of a brother and a sister arguing with their brother. This was a high-power family. All three of them were leaders in Israel in their own right. All three had very important jobs:

Aaron was the high priest, and leader of his family of priests.

Miriam was recognized as a prophet, and was a worship leader. She was the most prominent woman in Israel.

But it was their brother, Moses, their little, younger brother, who was the leader of Israel.

He was the one who spoke to God.

He was the one with whom God spoke.

In this special family, Moses was extra-special.

Aaron and Miriam started to resent this.

It started to bug them.

Why did Moses always act like he was the boss?

Why did he act like he had a monopoly on God’s attention?

Who did Moses think he was?

Aaron and Miriam were infected with Envy.

Where does envy come from?

Do we learn it from someone else or is it something we seemingly learn all by ourselves? It seems to be something we learn all by ourselves. No one has to teach us. Stick a couple of two-and-a-half year olds in a room full of all kinds of toys. Once one of them shows any interest in one of those toys, then suddenly, the other one has to have that toy too. Before you know it, they are both fighting for that toy because it has become precious to them. From a very young age, there is something in us that simply cannot bear to see someone else have something that we don’t.

Marilynne Robinson writes about this in her novel Gilead. The novel is told from the point of view of an aging minister named John Ames. The novel is basically a long letter by Ames to his very young son. At one point, Ames writes about the 10 commandments. He confesses that he thinks the 10^th commandment – Thou shalt not covet — is the hardest one to keep. By coveting, Ames includes envying – not only wanting what someone else has, but actually being offended by what someone else has. Envy sees someone else’s virtue, or joy, or talent, and feels ill.

Ames makes his confessions personal. He confesses his envy of his best friend. You see, Ames had been single for a long, long time. His best friend was the local Presbyterian minister in town. This friend was happily married and had a number of children – and Ames confesses that for a long time he envied his friend’s wife and children. He kept asking, “Why had God blessed him with these gifts and not me?”

This is the same struggle as Aaron and Miriam. They kept wondering, “Why had Moses been blessed with this cozy relationship with Yahweh, and not us?”

SYMPTOMS OF ENVY

Like all the vices we have been talking about this summer, there is a certain wisdom in being able to recognize envy and the symptoms of envy in our life. One of the most common symptoms of envy is what I’ll call the “but-symptom.”

That is the tendency to always add a qualifier to every word of praise we give.

For example:

She may be a great cook but her house is a mess.

His business may be very successful but I hear his marriage is in trouble.

She’s a great athlete, but not much of a student.

He’s a great student, but not much of an athlete.

And if the person is a great athlete and a great student, you have to get creative….

Yeah, that person’s a great athlete and student…but hey, there’s no excuse for that haircut.

Aaron and Miriam do the same thing.

They are trying to find some little flaw in Moses’ life….and they go after his wife, who happened to be from Cush. Why go after her?

No one is absolutely sure. Maybe it was because she was a foreigner.

Maybe it was because Cush was south of Egypt and so Moses’ wife may have had darker skin than most other Israelites.

Whatever the reason, the criticism was unfounded, prejudicial, and God was not pleased.

In fact, Miriam’s punishment — getting leprosy and turning white as snow — may have been a form of getting a dose of her own medicine.

(For those wondering why Miriam is punished and not Aaron — well, again, it is hard to tell for sure. Maybe it has something to do with Aaron being the High Priest. If he were to get leprosy, he would be unclean and unable to function as High Priest.)

What we should see is that the criticism of Moses’ Cushite wife was only a smoke-screen. It was the “but-symptom” in action: “Moses, you may be a great leader but look at that foreign wife of yours.” The real reason Aaron and Miriam were upset with Moses is because he enjoyed a special relationship with Yahweh and a position of authority that they didn’t.

ENVY IN THE BOOK OF NUMBERS

If you know anything about the book of Numbers, you know that this is not simply a little blip of envy on the pilgrimage radar. If you know the book of Numbers, you know that this is only the tip of the envy iceberg.

The book of Numbers starts with Israel at Mount Sinai.

Chapters 1-10 are all about Israel getting organized to march across the desert to

the Promised Land.

The first 10 chapters are all about order:

every tribe has its place and position;

every clan has its leader;

and every Levite has their job to do in the tabernacle.

But after Numbers 10 there is one rebellion after another

and they have at their root envy:

Here we have Aaron and Miriam envying Moses’ leadership.

They are delayed 7 days in order for Miriam to rejoin the camp.

Later the Levite, Korah, will rebel against Aaron and his family. Why? Because Korah was from the lead family of Levites and he was sick and tired of hauling the stuff of the tabernacle. He wanted to prepare and make sacrifices. He wanted a priestly job. He wanted Aaron’s job.

Dathan and Abiram also rebelled. They were both members of the tribe of Reuben. Reuben, you may remember, was the oldest of Jacob’s children. When Israel was organized to march, the tribe of Judah was placed in the number 1 position, not Reuben. The tribe of Reuben was not happy. When the time was right, Dathan and Abiram let everyone know that changes needed to be made. Reuben’s primacy had to be restored.

Notice how envy grows in an environment of closeness:

Envy grows between Aaron, Miriam, Moses – all three leaders of Israel.

Envy grows between the Levites and the family of Aaron – those with special religious duties

Envy grows between the tribe of Reuben and the tribe of Judah – both competing for the number 1 spot. (no one envies anyone from the tribe of say, Naphtali, the end of the line).

That is how it is with envy.

It grows between those we compare ourselves most with:

family members, friends, colleagues, co-workers, neighbors.

But envy is a killer of that closeness – it is a killer of relationships.

As James clearly states in his letter,

where there is envy, there is disorder and all kinds of wickedness.

The book of Numbers bears that out.

Over and over again in the book of Numbers, it is envy that ambushes Israel on its way to the Promised Land.

Over and over again, it is envy that causes chaos and disorder in the order the God so carefully laid out for Israel to march in.

So it was for them. So it often is for us too.

ANTIDOTES TO ENVY

So what can we do about envy – what are some antidotes to envy?

How can we curb it, resist it, keep it from sprouting up like a weed in our life?

Working hard to cultivate a spirit of CONTENTMENT is an important antidote to envy.

Contentment involves accepting who we are,

accepting the talents we’ve been given,

and also acknowledging the talents we may not have been given.

Remember the Parable of the Talents that Jesus tells (Matthew 25).

It is about a Master who gives

one of his servants 5 talents

another servant 2 talents

and a third servant 1 talent.

Now the first question envy asks is, “Hey, why did he get 5 talents and I get only 1?”

That question can be so nagging, so disruptive, that it can have the effect of burying our 1 talent in the ground; we can become so over-wrought with envy that we forget the one talent we do have and can use. Cultivating a spirit of contentment, an acceptance of who we are, is one antidote to envy.

Accepting the talents of others, and showing that acceptance by PRACTISING PRAISE, is another antidote to envy. There are two main challenges in practicing this praise of others:

1. The first challenge is to practice this praise with no qualifiers, no “buts.”

No, “Yeah, she’s really good, but….”

Practice some straight up praise, without qualifiers.

Resist the temptation to cut down what we have just raised up.

Practice praise of others with “no buts” attached

2. The second part of this challenge is to practice praise of those close to home.

It is always easier to praise people far away from us.

It is easier to cheer for, admire, and praise

a home-run hitter like Gary Sheffield of the Detroit Tigers.

But it is much harder to cheer for, admire, and praise the guy on our own church soft-ball team who seems to effortlessly belt them out of the park, while we struggle just to get on base.

It is easier to admire, respect, and praise a best-selling author, like J.K. Rowling of Harry Potter fame, than it is to admire, respect, and praise someone in our own department, in our own discipline, in our own field, who has just written something that is getting lots of positive buzz.

Practice praising the talents of those who are closest to us.

CON CLUSION

Even when we work on contentment and even when we try to practice praise, we may still come to the realization, like John Ames in the novel Gilead, that the command, Thou shalt not covet, Thou shalt not envy really is the hardest commandment to keep.

We may realize we have a lot in common

with Aaron and Miriam who envied Moses;

with Cain who envied Abel, and Saul who envied David.

We have a lot in common with the Scribes and Pharisees who envied Jesus.

That is when we simply need to pray a prayer of repentance similar to the prayer of Aaron.

We need to pray to the new Moses, the new mediator, Jesus.

We need to pray

“O Lord, do not punish me for this sin that I

have so foolishly committed again and again.

O Lord, forgive me and heal me.”

And Jesus, the very one who was killed out of envy,

will intercede for us and plead for us.

In him alone, we can begin to be made into the people we were meant to be.

In him alone, we can get back on the path to the Promised Land. Amen.