"Sharing Our Faith
"
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Text: Numbers 22:7-35; Mark 16:15
I am grateful to have this opportunity to preach today. This is a congregation that is known not least for its adult education programs with people learning about their faith and yet still I suspect, people are reluctant to talk about their faith with folks outside the church. Many of us might say, “I do not think I should speak to others about what I believe, it is personal.” Jesus said, “Go out into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation.” He was not just talking to preachers, to some degree it is a burden that rests on each one of us.
When contemplating on what text to preach I was led to the text that tells us that God can teach even a donkey to talk. Don't take offence. Humility is important. God gives us the words we need to share our faith. We need to witness with humility, learning what we can from others, while sharing the light that we have. We ought never to witness with the sense I am right and you are wrong. God gives us the words to say. I have never heard our text read in church or a sermon on it. The disciples said to Jesus, “Teach us to pray,” but given our biblical text about Balaam and his donkey, and given our task of witnessing and our need for humility perhaps we should change the “p” for a “b” and say, “Teach us to bray, if that is what you want. Teach us to speak of you. Make us humble and trusting like a donkey.”
Balaam is a prophet. He has no fancy schooling, no fine degrees but he not only is a special speaker, he thinks he is. International rulers, kings and queens call upon him. He is a Gentile mercenary, a hired hand, a prophet for profit. Two times the king of Moab sends royal representatives to Balaam, two times offering to pay him well for his divinations, entreating him, “Come and curse Israel, whose conquering armies approach.” The first time the king invites him, Balaam prays and God responds, “Don't go with them. You cannot curse the Israelites for they are blessed.” The second time the pay goes higher and the king says, “I will surely do for you great honor, whatever you say to me I will do.”
Now, Balaam already knows God's answer. Why should anything have changed in God's mind now that Balaam can get rich? So Balaam answers and begins faithfully enough, “I can't do it, even if the king gave me his house filled with silver and gold, I could not go.”
You can hear in his words, even behind his “No I cannot go,” his mind is calculating. No one mentioned that he might have the king's own house filled with gold and silver—he thought that up himself. “Even if the king were to give me a Rolls Royce in London, and a condo in Paris, and a houseboat in Venice, and…. Oh no, no, I could not possibly…did he say I could have anything?” His mind is already running the sums, tallying what he might get. “I could have my own stable, trade in my donkey for a horse, tens of horses. I would be an ass not to.” Such thoughts raced through his mind. But God's “No means No.” Still, Balaam reasoned, when God said no, all this money was not on the table, so Balaam responds to the king's second invitation, “But let me check with God just to make sure.” He wants to please God, but he wants to please himself as well. He wants it both ways. It's called burning the candle at both ends; having your cake and eating it too; or hedging your bets. No wonder 2 Peter 2:15 says Balaam “loved the wages of doing wrong.” At some level, who doesn't? So, though he knows God's answer, he asks again, and God relents at least letting him travel to see the king of Moab, not to curse Israel.
In the Maritimes there is an old sea shanty that has as its chorus: “Hey! Ho! away we go, donkey riding, donkey riding. Hey! Ho! away we go, riding on a donkey.” It is a silly ditty, but the silliness is just about right for Balaam riding on his donkey off to see the king of Moab, hoping he can please both God and king. It is hard not to ask, who is the real donkey here, the donkey or Balaam? We all have our own donkeys to ride. We all want things both ways, the bad and the good.
A disagreement has emerged between Washington and Israel over new housing in West Bank settlements. The Obama administration says, “No means No.” Previous U.S. administrations formally called on Israel to stop, but the two countries agreed in private that settlements go ahead if they met certain conditions, like no taking Arab land or giving settlers financial incentives. So Israel would build more houses, Washington would condemn the housing as unhelpful, but otherwise do nothing. They wanted things both ways: the U.S. wanted to support Palestine and please Israel; Israel wanted to please the U.S. and still build.
Why look so far afield? I ride my own donkey. I want things both ways. I am coming to recognize that I always say that I value community, but now I see I have allowed myself to be so busy that apart from my family and a few others, I invested little time in relationships and I wonder why I sometimes feel lonely.
What about you? Here we are, taking precious study time to come to church, perhaps attending classes during the year to learn more about our faith, and we may still be shy about ever speaking about our faith to those who may need it most. We love God and do not want to risk sounding foolish. Or some of us want stronger faith and we may not do small things to strengthen it, like read our Bibles or pray, developing our relationship with God. We are right to be humble. When it comes to talking about our faith, we need to remember that without God giving us the words to say we would all just be huge ears, hooves, hairy bodies, and heehaws. That is why as disciples of Christ our prayer should be, “Teach me to bray, so that we may be humble to speak what God wants.” But excessive humility keeps us from witnessing. It is not hard, tell someone that you prayed or will pray for them in their time of hardship, look for the right moment to say what you believe, own it, don't force it on others as though you have a corner on all the truth, but dare to speak.
At the heart of our text is a simple message: God can teach even a donkey to speak. As Balaam rides to the king of Moab, he hopes to be able to have his cake and eat it too, get the king's money and please God. But God is more than a little annoyed that Balaam asked a second time if he could make the trip. God's, “No” was not good enough for Balaam. Balaam needs a little instruction from the Divine Instructor's Manual, he needs to learn some lessons from the Universe Operator's Handbook. So God placed an angel with a sword in front of Balaam, but only the donkey saw it. The first time was on a path through a vineyard and the donkey turned into a field. The second time was between two stone walls and the donkey tried unsuccessfully to turn around, scraping Balaam's feet. And the third time was in a narrower place where the donkey just lay down. Three times Balaam struck the animal until finally God made the donkey speak, “What have I done to you that you have struck me these three times?”
Balaam replies, “You have made a fool of me. I wish I had a sword in my hand. I would kill you right now!” He is a fool, but it is not the donkey's doing.
The donkey reprimands him, “Have I been in the habit of treating you this way?” The words are not just the donkey's, they are the words God gave the donkey to speak, they are God's words. Moreover, did Jesus not say the same thing to us from the cross, “Why did you strike me? Have I been in the habit of treating you this way?” At last Balaam clues in and God allows him to see the angel whose sword could have killed him, were it not for the donkey who saved him.
If you speak for God, you know you are in trouble when your donkey sees and speaks better than you. Balaam now knows he can only say to the king of Moab the Word that God will give him. He can only say what God wants him to say. So, at the Moab palace, three times the king asks Balaam to curse Israel, and three times Balaam waits on God who gives him blessings for Israel instead. Balaam cannot help but utter them. And God's Word, being a Word that accomplishes what it says, goes forth and protects Israel from the king of Moab. He can only say the words God gives him to say.
If God can teach even a donkey to talk, there is hope for all of us here. I challenged an advanced preaching class some time ago. I said, “Try something in preaching you haven't done before.” The word preaching contains the word reaching implying both trying something new and stretching for the truth we preach. (A friend in the Salvation Army once responded that it also contains the word aching.) Go beyond your normal boundaries. One white woman in particular took me seriously. She said she was not going to try to be like African American preachers, she was going to try to learn from them. She listened to sermons on tape. She caught something of a rhythm. When she came to class that day and started to preach, she was hesitant, timid, cautious, and some folks might have thought, “Well, that is a failed effort.” Yet as she proceeded, she gained a confidence in her voice that had not been there before. She remembered to focus on God and when she did, she started to speak with passion. Someone said, “Amen” and she stopped. She lost her place. She was not expecting call and response. But she gathered her thoughts and proceeded on. This time more of the class got into it. “Amen. Yes. Preach it.” The sermon had real power. When the sermon was over, she went to her seat, and she started to cry. And everyone else in the room was fighting back tears, because she had found not some imitation preaching style, but rather she found the natural preacher God wanted her to be. We met the risen Christ in her preaching and a miracle took place: a critical class was turned into a congregation of worshippers.
Some people will ask, “Can God make a donkey talk?” God can make us into fools for Christ, jack-asses for Christ, as it were, willing to bray or heehaw in public if that is what God wants, may God spare us all. When some folks hear us speak about our faith, I am sure they are convinced that donkeys can talk. But can God teach us to be more faithful witnesses? Well, if God can make a donkey speak and can take an ass like Balaam and make him proclaim; and if God can come to earth in a little baby, and can work mighty miracles and speak eternal truths through him as an adult, and raise him from the dead to sit at the right hand of the heavenly throne, and can send the Holy Spirit the Comforter to lead us; and if God can also take an insignificant person like you or me, and can look on us in all our brokenness and shame, and can hear us call out in our long night of despair, and can soothe us with a cup of balm, and can mend us with a loaf of bread, and can love us while we are yet sinners, and can fill our heads with learning, our hearts with compassion, our souls with faith, our acts with love, our ministries with justice, our lives with the Holy Spirit, our families with hope, and our churches with healing fire, and the world with promise, then, then, there is hope for us all. Because all of that is most surely true, God can make you into the kind of witness you are meant to be. It does not take much, read a children's Bible to your children or grandchildren, tell others that you pray for them, look for the right moment to say what you believe, witness to God in your life. God can work miracles with the witness of donkeys.