Numbers 12 "The Face of Envy" Scott Hoezee

Martin Luther King, Jr. was one of the twentieth century's finest preachers and orators. Already while he was in seminary King's sermons shined for their depth of insight and rhetorical power. But while it's easy for us to admire Dr. King's skill, matters were not so simple for his seminary classmates. To them King was not a rising homiletical star to admire but rather a peer who, annoyingly enough, garnered all the praise of the faculty even as he received far more requests to preach in area churches than did any of his classmates. All in all, Martin was a prime target for envy.

A most egregious example of such envy happened after one of King's earliest seminary sermons, a stunning message titled "The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life." King preached this sermon one Sunday at a church in Montgomery, Alabama. The very next week one of King's seminary classmates, Walter McCall, was scheduled to preach in this same church. So McCall swung into the pulpit the next week with his own sermon titled, "The Four Dimensions of a Complete Life"! Not surprisingly McCall's clunky, envy-driven attempt to one-up and outdo King resulted in a poor sermon that made King's sermon look even better by comparison!

Envy always arises among near-rivals: friends, classmates, peers, co-workers, fellow members of a congregation. Envy leads us to despise, seethe over, diminish, and belittle not those who are different from us or far away from us but those who are similar and close . So, for instance, if you have tried, but failed, to get a book published, then it won't be John Grisham's multiple best-sellers that will set off the klaxons of envy in your heart. But if one day your college's alumni newsletter arrives with news that your classmate Kaye has published a book, you may well find yourself sputtering sentiments like, "Now how did that airhead ever get a book published! I'll bet her book stinks!" And so it goes in envy.

Numbers 12 presents us with a classic vignette of envy. It is one of those highly startling Bible stories, however. You just can't quite figure out where this came from. Two weeks ago we looked at Numbers 11 and saw there not one but two blazing punishments from Yahweh inflicted on his whining and complaining people. Considering the death and carnage of that previous chapter, you cannot help but wonder why Aaron and Miriam, of all people, were not a bit more cautious.

In fact, the title of our sermon two weeks ago came from the opening of Numbers 11 when we are told that the complaints of the people were done "in the hearing of the Lord." Yahweh always listens, always hears. That was glaringly obvious in Numbers 11. So why didn't Aaron and Miriam think to keep their mouths shut now in this very next chapter? We may never know the answer to that rather obvious question, but as we examine this chapter we may see that at least a partial answer has to do with the frothy and furious nature of envy itself. Envy makes us irrational. Envy makes us forget some very obvious truths.

So let's begin this evening with a review of the general nature of envy. It is that deadly tendency, almost a reflex, that makes us frown a bit when a friend succeeds or which brings an irrepressible grin of satisfaction when a near-rival falls flat. As Groucho Marx once said, "No one is ever completely unhappy at the failure of his best friend." The German term psychologists use is Schadenfreude, which literally means having joy over another's misfortune. Just watch all those people on TV smacking their lips over the downfall of Martha Stewart and you'll get the idea.

Envy, however, is not content to wait for a rival to fail--the envy within us is quite willing to take the lead to bring about another person's diminishment. And so envy leads us to ratchet ourselves up in life by saying something that will ratchet another person down. If we can't actually climb as high on the corporate ladder as what Jerry has managed to do, then we will at the very least knock Jerry down a few rungs with our behind-his-back criticisms. A while ago a New Yorker cartoon showed a man sitting on a stool with a big knife protruding from his back. Standing behind the man is a doctor who is scratching his chin even as he says to the stabbed-in-the-back man, "It's got to come out, of course, but that doesn't address the deeper problem."

The real issue is not just the way we stab each other in the back through gossip and put-downs but the envy that leads us to sink those daggers into our peers in the first place. It's not just what we say about so-and-so but why we say it. That is also the case with Aaron and Miriam in Numbers 12. Their kid brother Moses was the most famous man in all Israel. He was clearly God's right-hand man--God himself had such respect for Moses that when Moses went nose-to-nose with the Almighty to save Israel's skin, God actually backed down! Moses was that important.

And the day came when it began to drive Aaron and Miriam a little crazy. Weren't they all siblings and equals!? They had known Moses when. They remembered when he had been the snot-nosed little brother who skinned his knee, said naughty words, lost his temper. So what's so special about their baby brother? Aaron and Miriam had gifts, too. They deserved some special honor, too. Hadn't Miriam written a Top 10 song years ago about the Red Sea crossing? Wasn't Aaron the very high priest of the people whose work at the Tabernacle altar was what kept the people saved before the face of Yahweh?

But did anyone listen to them the way they heeded Moses? No! And so envy began to sink its tap roots deep into the souls of Aaron and Miriam. How rotten to dwell in the chill shadow of a kid brother! But, of course, Aaron and Miriam didn't express their envy in so many words. No one ever does. Instead envy tricks us into looking for other reasons to get at the other person. Aaron and Miriam looked for more subtle ways by which to level the playing field and bring Moses down to a more equitable level. Their chosen route of attack was the back-door method of petty sniping and back-biting.

Someone would come up to Aaron and say, "Ah Moses! Your brother is such a great man in Israel!" Aaron would smile a pained little grin, seethe inwardly, and then blurt out, "Yes, that's true. But oh! his wife! Oy vey! She's a foreigner, you know--not really one of us, and let me tell you, it shows. Her snooty Cushite ways could drive a person insane. It's just shameful the way he runs his household. The stories I could tell you! But I'll say no more. Well, maybe one thing more: I think it's important to remember that though Moses knows some things, he doesn't know everything. If it's family counseling you're looking for, you just come to good old Reverend Aaron or Prophetess Miriam. Moses isn't the only one in this family that the Lord has on speed dial, you know!"

But then comes the end of Numbers 12:2 with its explosive little phrase--just two Hebrew words which could literally be translated "Yahweh heard!" Once again, as in our last sermon, this is a chilling reminder for anyone who has ever whispered words of envy-driven criticism over the backfences of life: no matter how much you lower your voice when you speak against someone, God hears, God knows what is prompting you to say it, and God is himself wounded over the diminishment of one created in his image.

In this case God steps in and meets this problem head on. He has to because Moses himself was powerless to do anything. That's the way of it for the envied person--anything Moses tried say or do would just fuel the fires of envy. Had Moses tried to defuse the smoldering resentment of his siblings by being extra nice, it would have been chalked up as arrogant condescension. "I don't need your charity," Aaron might have replied with a sneer. Had Moses simply withdrawn in hurt, it would have been chalked up as further evidence that he was a self-absorbed proud person. "See what we mean?" Miriam might say. "Who does he think he is, ignoring us this way?"

Moses could not speak to this situation and so God does. In verses 6-8 God confronts Aaron and Miriam with an exalted, poetic speech highlighting Moses' central place in God's plan of salvation. The royal poetry of God's words stands in stark contrast to the petty sniping of Aaron and Miriam. To speak against Moses was to speak against God. And so God leaves Miriam with the rotting flesh of a leper, and this forces Aaron, ironically, to validate the central place of Moses when Aaron has to beg Moses to intercede for Miriam. Aaron recognized after all that Moses was a special person.

Miriam gets healed finally but God's punishment of her well fit the crime. Because envy, like leprosy, rots our bones, eats our flesh, gnaws away at our true humanity. Envy's face is never lovely. As in this situation with Moses so all the time: when we clutch and claw at others--tearing them down as a way to build ourselves up--the one we truly fight against is the God who gives blessings to his people. When you resent Jane's talent or Harold's ministry, who ultimately are you resenting if not the God who himself has prospered Jane and Harold?

Within the structure of the Pentateuch, and more specifically the Book of Numbers itself, this chapter could strike you as a kind of narrative aside. That is, this seems like a small family problem, a little sibling rivalry, that takes place off to the side from the main events related to God's salvation of Israel. But if you look more closely, you will see how this story fits in with the larger movements and the main theme of this portion of the Bible. A first thing to notice is how rebellion is spreading like a cancer.

As commentator Dennis Olson notes, it has been one thing thus-far in the Pentateuch to see the people or the rabble from Egypt complaining and rebelling. But now a measure of rebellion has spread into the leadership of Israel, into the inner circle. In our first sermon in this series I noted to you that the Hebrew title of this book is "In the Wilderness." When you are in one of life's wilderness areas, your mind can play tricks on you. It's a dangerous place to be spiritually. The fact that now even Aaron and Miriam succumb to the same desert madness that led the rank and file folks to complain demonstrates yet again how much we need God's power to sustain us when we face the temptations that are unique to those trough-like, wilderness seasons of our lives.

A second thematic element to notice here has to do with being content with God's way of doing things. The simple fact of the matter is that for this key period of salvation history, Moses did occupy a special, central place. Whether or not Moses had ever looked like the logical candidate to lead God's people (and goodness knows Moses believed himself to be a most unlikely candidate), the fact is that he was the one of God's choosing.

All through the Pentateuch we are surprised to see God's oft-peculiar choices in such matters. Childless senior citizens like Abram and Sarai did not seem like a good place to start in establishing a mighty nation, but they were God's top picks. Jacob was the younger child of Isaac, and a wily, unscrupulous schemer at that. But although Jacob was a crook, he was somehow also God's main man for a while. Young Joseph was a starry-eyed dreamer who didn't have loads of common sense in his youth. But God would reverse his fortunes hugely in the end and save the whole clan through him.

Now Moses seems to be an unlikely choice, too, and no one senses this better than his siblings. So they rebel. But Numbers 12 reminds us of a larger theme in the Pentateuch. And not just here. This theme will gain even greater prominence later in the Bible when another unlikely character, a carpenter's son from Nazareth, emerges from out of nowhere only to be revealed as God's Son. The Bible continually surprises us with God's mysterious ways. But in the face of this Scripture-wide theme, we need to recall that our proper place is to accept and honor those whom God has raised up no matter how surprising it may seem at first blush. We need to have faith and trust in God that he knows what he is doing.

Lots of things in life can blind us to these things and diminish our faith. In the case of Numbers 12, it was envy that blinded Aaron and Miriam. So before we conclude this evening, we need to review what in past sermons we have called some "antidotes" to envy. I will briefly remind you of three closely related ideas we've suggested in the past to combat this deadly sin that can blind us to so much in life even as it diminishes our faith.

One suggestion is to find daily ways to remind ourselves that all gifts come from God alone. Our job is to be thankful for what we already have, which is a pretty big job for most of us as it is. But our secondary job is to be thankful for what also our peers have. That means praying for the person we are tempted to envy. We thank God for him or her, singling the other person out not in envious critique but in thoughtful thanksgiving to God.

If you think that is difficult, a second suggestion is even more so: we should find ways to praise the other person directly. Even if the first few times you do it you sense it is a bit of a pretense, that's OK. As C.S. Lewis and others have written, sometimes the first step in genuinely loving someone is acting as though you do. The wonder of play-acting is that sometimes the genuine emotion will follow if we get into the habit of treating others as though we already love them. So if we get into the habit of telling Sheila how much we admire her and her talents, the day may well come through the work of God's Spirit when we wake up to discover that we really do value Sheila.

A third and still-related suggestion has to do with the fact that envy tends to arise among near-rivals. If you are a doctor, you are not terribly likely to envy a plumber's skill but you may well feel dwarfed by a fellow doctor whose reputation far outshines your own. In these cases, in addition to speaking kind words of praise to this person and giving thanks to God for him or her, perhaps another envy combatter would be to apprentice yourself to this person. If he or she is more gifted than you, be willing to become his or her student. Let God hone your gifts with this other person's help! Taking such a step may mean swallowing your pride, but it's your pride that is leading you to envy in the first place.

Earlier we noted that Miriam's initial punishment of flesh-rotting leprosy aptly fit her sin. But so did her seven-day banishment from the camp, because in the end envy always isolates us. Worse, it can affect the entire community. After Aaron and Miriam were called out by God for their behavior, the whole community ground to a seven-day halt while waiting for Miriam to come back from her exile. But in a sense envy always holds the community up. Whether it is Calvin Church, your family, or the company for which you work, a lack of love for one another, a lack of up-building speech always grinds things to a spiritual standstill.

"Why weren't you afraid to speak against my servant Moses?" Yahweh asked Aaron and Miriam. It was a good question and one with keen relevance for our competitive society in which so much depends on actually fostering envy. And so we also do well to encounter God's question: why aren't we more afraid to speak against others? And what can we do about it? Amen.