Sermon: One God of All
I love this story. This may be the only story in the Bible where a donkey proves itself wiser and more faithful than its human master, who makes a real “horse’s patootie” of himself, as my grandmother would have put it. This is one of those stories that never makes it into the lectionary, and never gets preached on. Fortunately, since it’s summer, Pastor Pam and I, with the approval of the Worship Committee, decided to break from the regular lectionary and its prescribed texts, and address some of these lesser-known Biblical stories about lesser-known characters. Since I’m only here for a few more weeks, Pastor gave me first pick for my final sermons, and I quickly chose Balaam and the talking donkey for this week. I mean, honestly, who could resist, if given the option, preaching on, “the seer who couldn’t see what was right in front of him?” If there were ever going to be a sermon that would write itself, this would surely be the one, right? The hardest thing would be deciding whether to focus on Balaam’s blindness to the presence of God or God’s messenger right in front of him… or to contrast the wisdom and vision of the donkey with its rider, who proves to be such a mean-spirited horse’s behind that the angel is tempted to slay Balaam, but spare the donkey.
I chose the blindness, of course. After all, who hasn’t at times been blind, or at least, oblivious to the presence and activity of God all around them? Yup. I had my sermon all planned out, complete with illustrations and corny puns. But, as usual, God had other ideas. The Holy Spirit kept nudging me, telling me I was missing something, reminding me that I shouldn’t take this one little excerpt out of context, no matter how good a sermon it might make. Of course, I had read the entire story before, but to be honest, the rest of it isn’t nearly as memorable, much less as entertaining as this part with the talking donkey. But it wasn’t that long ago that I preached about the importance of context, and the Spirit was using my own words from my own sermon against me. So, I read it again, dutifully—the whole thing. It takes up three whole, long chapters in the book of Numbers. And, of course, the Holy Spirit was right—there’s a much better message here. But in order to preach that message, I have to tell you more of the story—to at least put it in context of the larger story and provide you with a good synopsis. So, get ready… take a deep breath, cause we’re about to dive in.
The Israelites, meaning the descendants of Jacob, because there has never been a nation called Israel yet, have just come out of the desert where they’ve been wandering for forty years. But they haven’t crossed the Jordan River into the promised land yet. They are on the plains of Moab, where they have just defeated the Amorites, taken possession of their cities, and massacred the King of Bashon and his army. King Balak of Moab has seen how powerful and ruthless they are, and is afraid that this massive swarm of Israelites will do the same to him and his armies, and go on to devour all the land and resources on the plain, destroying every army in their path. So, he sends to Midian, his ally, and makes arrangements to hire Balaam, a very famous and highly respected seer and divinator to come and curse the Israelites so that his worst fears won’t be realized. They send elders with money as enticement, and Balaam tells them to stay the night while he consults God.
Then the most astonishing thing happens, God shows up and has a conversation with Balaam. This is not a Moabite God, or Canaanite or Amorite God, but the LORD, YHWH, the God of Israel, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the Father of Jesus—Our God! The God! The One and Only God of all creation! God knows Balaam, and Balaam knows God—by name, the name God gave Moses at the burning bush, the God, “I Am that I Am.” And the Great I Am tells Balaam not to go with these men, because I Am has blessed the Israelites. So Balaam tells the elders that God will not permit him to curse the Israelites, and sends them back to King Balak.
Balak is determined to hire the legendary Balaam, so he sends back a more important, higher ranking group of Moabites with the promise that Balak will pay any price, do anything Balaam asks, if he will come and curse the Israelites. But Balaam tells them that he can do only what the LORD commands, no more, no less. However, Balaam again invites them to spend the night while he speaks with God. God shows up again, and this time tells Balaam to go with them, but to do only what God tells him to do. So, in the morning, Balaam goes with them, riding on his donkey.
Here's where things get strange. YHWH gets angry when Balaam and two of his servants head back to Moab with the Moabites, though that’s exactly what God told him to do, so, God sends a sword-wielding angel to block the way and challenge Balaam. The donkey sees the angel, and turns aside into a field, refusing to go back to the road, which elicits violence from Balaam. The angel keeps blocking the way until the poor donkey has nowhere to go to escape, and lays down, as Balaam continues to abuse the poor thing. So YHWH God gives the donkey the ability to speak, and explain itself. The fact that the donkey can suddenly speak doesn’t seem to phase Balaam, who responds by telling the donkey that he would kill it, if he had a sword. Then God opens Balaam’s eyes, allowing him to see the angel with the sword, and Balaam prostrates himself in front of the angel. And the angel tells him that the donkey has been trying to save his life, and had the donkey not protected him, that the angel would certainly have killed Balaam, but not the donkey. Balaam confesses to sinning without knowing the angel was there, and offers to turn around and go home. But the angel repeats the previous command to go with the Moabites, but say only what YHWH tells him to say. So, Balaam continues the journey to the plains of Moab. Note that Balaam never apologizes to the donkey, and that his two servants and the whole group of Moabites totally disappear, and then reappear.
King Balak comes to meet Balaam, demanding an explanation for his refusal to come at his first request. Hadn’t he offered the seer enough of a reward? Balaam dismisses the question and says, “I’m here now, but I can only say the words God puts in my mouth.” Balaam has been promoted from seer to prophet, for only prophets speak the words of God.
The King makes sacrifices, and the next morning, he takes Balaam to where he can get a glimpse of the Israelites. Balaam tells him to build 7 altars and offer up a bull and a ram on each one—the highest sacrifice according to the laws of Moses, which neither Balaam or the King knows about. Then he goes off to meet and consult with God. When Balaam comes back he tells the king in beautiful poetry, as prophets do, that he can’t curse people whom his God has not cursed, and speaks admirably about these people. The King gets angry and takes Balaam to a place where he can get a better view of the Israelite people, and makes another 7 offerings on another 7 altars. Balaam goes out to meet God again, and reports back once again that God has blessed this people, and this cannot be reversed. They are blessed with tremendous military might and fertility. This happens several times, each time giving Balaam a better vantage point from which to view the vastness of the Israelite encampment.
Balak becomes furious, and tells Balaam to go back home without pay, because he has blessed the people that Balak hired him to curse, on account of Balaam’s (and Israel’s) God.
Before he leaves, Balaam pronounces some prophetic oracles from a vision he has received from YHWH, including the following:
“I see him but not now;
I behold him but not near—
a star shall come out of Jacob,
and a scepter shall rise out of Israel;.”
which is sometimes interpreted as the first Messianic prediction. Most of the oracles, however, predict the fall and defeat of Moab and other nations in the region, including the destruction of Moab by Israel.
In writings and stories of Balaam outside of the Bible, Balaam is depicted as a heroic, salvific figure with incredible powers as a seer, but so far as I am aware, not as a sorcerer or one who places curses on others. With the exception of the odd and seemingly out of place episode with the talking donkey and the angel, Balaam is also portrayed in these three chapters of the book of Numbers as a non-Israelite foreigner who is in relationship with YHWH, the God of the Israelites, one who is incredibly obedient and faithful to the Israelite God, whom in verse 18, Balaam claims as his very own God.
That’s the central theme in this text. Balaam has established a relationship with the God of Jacob, without being of that lineage, without the benefit of the religious practices and beliefs of Judaism, without the benefit of the revelation of God’s name to Moses, without having ever met or heard of Moses or Jacob, without having been one of the slaves freed from slavery in Egypt, or having experienced God’s presence on the Mountain, or in the desert, or any of the plagues or miracles that the Hebrew people have witnessed or experienced. Balaam has never met an Israelite, and knows nothing of them, except what God has revealed to him in this story. And although the people of Israel have been saved, blessed rather than cursed, by a great Gentile prophet and seer who knows, worships and obeys Israel’s God, and might I say, more faithfully than the Israelites do most of the time. Balaam not only knows and converses with God, but he knows him by no less than 4 distinct names that the people of Israel use to refer to their God.
According to the New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary on this story, the part with the donkey may have been inserted at a later date, for reasons that are not clear, but which suggests a dlater of discomfort with the idea that God has embraced a foreigner. However, in most other places where Balaam comes up later in the Bible, including the New Testament, he is painted in a much less flattering light. It seems that at some point later in Israel’s history, the Jews blamed Balaam for having caused them to sin by intermarrying with Midians and Moabites. Yet, even though he is not remembered as heroically as this story suggests, some of his beautiful poetic lines are still an important part of the Jewish liturgy today.
But if the odd, comical story of the talking donkey is meant to tarnish Balaam’s reputation, it is probably just because he is not Jewish, nor Hebrew, let alone an Israelite. People have a difficult time accepting that a religious outsider might actually be worshipping, even on good terms in a healthy relationship with God. I remember how upset some of my classmates became when professor Hanson suggested in Thinking Theologically that,
“If, as we say we believe, there is only one God, then doesn’t it stand to reason that all people worship the same God, regardless of how differently we worship, or what different name (or names) we use to refer to God? Even if they divide God up into many Gods, each with different powers or forms or responsibilities?”
For some strange reason, people like to believe that they have exclusive rights to their beliefs and to the truth, and exclusive access to right relationship with God. Christians aren’t any different. The truth is, even different Christian denominations like to think in exclusive terms, limiting salvation to only those who believe and worship as they do. We are reluctant to entertain the idea that Muslims or Hindus might be worshipping the same God that we do.
And yet, if there is only one God, and that one God created all that is, and if God desires to have relationship with all living beings created by that one God, then who are we to object? We teach that God meets us all where we are, so why is it so hard to consider that God might show up for different peoples in different ways, answering to different names, interacting with them in different ways than God does with us as Americans, or as Christians, or as Lutherans as opposed to people in other places or from other cultures?
The truth is that the Old Testament is replete with non-Jewish people with whom God is in relationship, and whom God works in and through and alongside, not only to save or protect Israel, but other people as well. Perhaps the most interesting thing in this story is that it takes place without any knowledge or awareness or involvement of the Israelites, whatsoever. But the Biblical writers wanted the Israelites to know it happened—to know that God knew and interacted with a faithful worshipper who was totally outside of their faith, and that God interceded on their behalf with the help of this total stranger from another place, an outsider who put God before wealth and power and politics, and blessed a people he knew nothing about, without knowing or interacting with any of them. Maybe that jealousy, that desire for exclusivity that this story violates is the reason Balaam was blamed for Israel’s sin, and why he was murdered by the Israelites in chapter 31.
And yet…why should that be a problem at all? Doesn’t Jesus himself say in John 10:16, that he has other sheep outside our fold—our church, our specific flavor of faith—and that he wants to bring us all together into one flock?
I don’t know about you, but for me, this story is good news. This is gospel news. God loves the whole world and everything in it, enough to engage and interact with all of it—enough to die to save it—people of all cultures and faiths; even you and me and the neighbor down the street who doesn’t speak English or come to worship on Sundays; the Jews in Israel and the Muslims in Palestine who may not think they worship the same God—and God wants us all to live together in peace and harmony. We’ve got a long way to go. But maybe the first step is to open our hearts and minds to the idea that there really is just one God who isn’t limited to interacting only with us and loving only us and no one else that has different ideas, different cultures, different languages, different beliefs. Maybe, if we could accept and rejoice in the knowledge that this one and only God can and does love and interact with all others, even the birds and bees and flowers and trees and donkeys that see what we don’t, then just maybe we can learn to follow God’s lead, and dare to love and accept and interact with others who are different from ourselves. Now, wouldn’t that be something wonderful and miraculous? I think it’s worth a try, don’t you?