The Wonderment

A Fair Share

This week’s section of Numbers (25:10-30:1) sees the people preparing to figure out the appropriate shares of their future lands. Remember, this is a community in which land is the means to freedom, independence, and survival. Without land, the people would be forced to find employment with others or face indenture or slavery again. While some might have the skills to set up independently, and while the Levites will be taken care of from the portions set aside for the Holy, for the greater numbers of peoples, a share in a free future means access to land. Surprisingly, in the middle of this portioning we meet the petition of Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah, Zelophehad’s daughters. Zelophehad has died in the wilderness and left no son to inherit. His daughters petition for a fair share for their family.  And the Holy agrees, that is what would be just.

 

In a culture where few are bound by the laws of primogeniture and women inherit wealth, lands, debts, and businesses regularly, it might be a challenge to pause for a moment and consider what principles are set forward in saying yes, Tirzah, Hoglah, Noah, Milcah and Mahlah are to be given a fair share to make a livelihood for their family. Without a share, these free people would have to find employment with others, or face indenture or slavery, or forced marriages in order to survive. A fair share is part of the conditions of trying to be free people.

 

That leads us to consideration of how inequities can be inherited and even multiply. Just as great fortunes can be inherited and multiplied to massive wealth, lack of opportunity and its consequences also can be inherited and multiplied. Laws and policies both might contribute. The call at the end of American slavery for 40 acres and a mule, drawn from the confiscated plantations that had exploited those 3.9 million enslaved people and their ancestors, would have dramatically changed the United States and race relations. General Sherman’s Special Field Order 15 did divide confiscated sea island plantations into 40 acres shares for newly freed families. As Henry Louis Gates, Jr. teaches us, the originators of the that idea were African American clergy who met with Sherman. After 40,000 acres had been claimed, in 1865 President Andrew Johnson overturned the order and returned the land to the previous plantation owners, undoing a share of what would have radically improved the lives of the newly freed people. Once that was done, the sharecropping system expanded, indenturing many more freed people, not uncommonly, to the same land owners who had previously owned their family members. The struggle for equality was made exponentially harder by first making it more difficult to have equity, a share, in the wealth that made America.

 

Imagine the formerly enslaved Israelites without land. Without land, the foundation of wealth in agricultural societies, they were at a distinct disadvantage compared to the people who did have land. Without land, they were at risk in another time of famine, of becoming enslaved again as they did when they went into Egypt. That is why Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah are granted a fair share, a chance to ensure their family can stay free.

 

When we speak about reparations for slavery today, it is because of the truth that the American economy and much wealth was created on the backs of those enslaved people. Because of President Johnson’s decision, those people were denied a fair share to start their new lives as free people. Inherited inequities and disadvantages can multiply, just as inherited wealth can, until we start to ascribe certain traits to some people and not to others in the language of meritocracy, when in truth there was no equitable playing field for folks. Zip code matters tremendously for educational opportunity. Land and where you live still very much matters. A fair share recognizes that for free people to have a just opportunity to excel in life, all must have access to the means to create enoughness to care for their families and provide for the future.

 

When we speak about whether asylum seekers should have any assistance in settling, or folks who have struggled with hard times have any support in trying to live a decent life, we are speaking about offering each other a fair share in our lives together, an entry, a welcome, a chance to do with our differing gifts what we can for the good of all. The hard-heartedness that denies access to equitable opportunity, which might include, for example, quality childcare while folks go to work or more funds to schools where property values are lower is not how we are called to be. We are called to advocate for justice, for a fair share here and now, which means assisting the vulnerable and dispossessed and recognizing their claims for a part of what’s needed to thrive as legitimate, fair, and blessed.

 

Angels in the Road

Balaam, the prophet, is sent for by Balak, king of Moab. The Israelites are encamped along the edges of Moab and Balak is afraid of being overrun. He is afraid of losing power and he is afraid of losing the protection of the Moabite god. He has, however, heard of this awesome holy person, Balaam, who has done deeds of power and seems especially good at the blessing and curse business. Balaam agrees to go to Moab, but only after he takes the time to reflect on this, not for wealth, but for his spirit. Along the way, though, Balaam is woken to just what the Holy thinks about this desire of Moab to curse the Israelites. Balaam's lowly mount perceive quite clearly the angel with a sword on the path to Moab and wants nothing to do with crossing G-d. It takes this extraordinary resistance from the least expected being to wake Balaam to what the Holy wishes, which is not the same as what Balak wishes. Balaam goes on to bless the Israelites repeatedly, despite Balak’s desires.

 

When do we resist earthly power? Most of us have rather limited powers or feel we do, even if we have more authority and power than we might think we do. The easiest ways to prevent change in a republic or democracy is to convince the people that they have less power to advocate and make change than they do, and if they insist on trying to advocate and make changes to discount them as illegitimate (questioning their votes or right to vote, discouraging people from voting or advocating with all kinds of tools, sowing mistrust and hatred). Balaam repeatedly reminds Balak that he can only say what is pleasing to the Holy, not just agree with what is pleasing to Balak. Rather frequently, earthly powers threaten people’s lives and well-being, through nurturing hate or mistrust, jealousy or greed, through disempowering folks, and through denying people what is necessary for decent lives. We might be like Balaam’s donkey, shying away from the signs of hard-heartedness, and we might be rather more like the prophet himself, gathering up our courage to say the difficult and necessary thing. 

 

When do we resist earthly powers asking us to curse another? Here are all these people seeking a place to settle, displaced and dispossessed but free, yearning for a home and a chance to live a good life. They are ranged along the border, and on the other side of that border, the primary earthly authority becomes afraid that his power will lessen, that his authority might not be so secure, because there are all these people. Here is truth: when we make way and welcome one another we, too, will change. When we are the ones welcomed in, we will also change. Exactly how, no human being can know in advance. It is the fear of changing and being changed that can stop congregations from growing, sticking to the people they know and are comfortable with. It is the fear of changing and being changed that drives harsh and cruel immigration policies and sharp, punitive borders. It is the fear of changing and being changed that can cause many of us to shake our heads at that harshness but do little to stop it.

 

We are not in this life to stay the same. From the moment we are born until we die, we have the opportunity to grow, develop, and change. Life is change. We have some choices in those changes, directed by how wise, compassionate, generous, or loving we might be, or how fearful, greedy, jealous, or hateful we are. But the idea that if we do nothing or if we act harshly to guard our borders means we will not change is foolishness as well as hard-heartedness. Cursing others to try and bless ourselves never turns out well for very long. 

 

How we change and adapt to change matters. Perhaps you know a friend or family member who has faced a major change in their lives — a loss, an illness, unemployment, a hate crime — and the way they try to manage that change is to pretend that no change is happening and that they adaptation or acceptance of change isn’t needed. Perhaps you also know a friend or family member who met a major change in their lives with acceptance that this is what is and figured out how to live heartfully and wholly, adapting the best they could to the loss, illness, employment situation, or aftermath of violence. Who do we want to be? Do we want to carry on as though the trouble we have is inconsequential and requires nothing of us? Or do we heed the angel in the road and consider the adaptations required to live faithfully and heartfully? I’ve both ignored the angel in the road and heeded that angel at differing times of my life. It isn’t always comfortable or rarely joyful to acknowledge the angel and try to discern how to live with the situation. 

 

The call to resist earthly powers seeking to curse vulnerable people in need is one of those angel in the road times in our lives. Will we advocate for those as or more vulnerable than ourselves? Will we turn again and again to how we can help, accepting that we will change and be changed in these encounters? Shall we run the risk of authorities threatening us or demeaning us or grouping us with those who are untrustworthy? And if we do take those risks, how will we change and adapt to the consequences of disturbed authorities? 

 

Whenever we meet challenges, we meet times of change and adaptation. We will need to take some time, like Balaam, to consider the transient and permanent, what should be passing away and what should endure. Balaam was leaning toward the Holy and how to live faithfully with the Source of Being. But the angel in the road and his steadfast, humble donkey had to show Balaam just some of what living faithfully would require in frustrating and angering earthly power.   Where are we meeting angels in the road today, asking us to attend, challenging us to change and care for the vulnerable, the earth, the whole of life’s being?

 

Wellsprings and the Call to Hospitality

If you’re lucky enough to live someplace with wholesome running water, go ahead, turn on a tap, fill a cup, turn off the tap, and drink mindfully, attentive to the gift of good water and how dependent life is upon that gift. If you’re living somewhere the water supply is corrupted, contaminated, or intermittent then you already know how desperate life can be when we don’t have the clean, abundant water we need. The creation of safe public water distribution systems in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth centuries was a major public health victory, one that where achieved, has frequently, at least in the United States, been allowed to deteriorate until those supplies are often no longer trustworthy. Clean water without salt and arsenic intrusion, without high lead or sulfur levels, in reasonably abundant supply remains a gift, a gift that if we have, we might take for granted. Yet here we are in the Book of Numbers and water is an issue many times and wells given twice in claiming the people’s home.

 

We can thirst for many things, for dignity, for respect, for water, for hope, for courage, for spirit. If you’ve ever felt dusty and parched in your life, whether physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually, you know that thirst tends to occupy a lot of your thoughts. We can live longer without food than we can without water, so when we speak of thirsting metaphorically, we are speaking of something even more powerful and often life-threatening than hunger. We begin with the rebellious people thirsting for safety, for assurance, for being home already and not a moment longer in this terrible place. Have you ever thirsted so? Longed for, then yearned for, then hungered for, and finally, pleadingly, raspingly, thirsted? Faithing in the middle of such experience is a major challenge, pointing out that faith is not a place we go, but an action. We actively have to summon ourselves up to keep going and to trust that we will be all right through whatever is happening.

 

Once again, the people rise up against Moses and Aaron, thirsting to be someplace familiar, someplace they can grow their figs, tend their vines, prune their pomegranates, and, most importantly, slake their real physical thirst. The Holy answers the people with water struck from a rock. In the middle of nowhere, where no real prospect of slaking their thirst is apparent, water is brought forward, sacred, life-giving, needed water. Over and over again in our lives we may find ourselves in tough places, tempted to test the Holy from our thirst, to rebel and to demand, to struggle to live faithfully. Are we ready to find the help that is around us to be the help for others in such times? Are we ready to strike what is unyielding and oppressive and find life streaming forth?

 

The people petition to traverse Edom, including the promise of not draining the wells as they pass through Edom. Edom denies them, even though the Israelites are willing to pay for the water they might use (20:19). But afraid of the strangers, Edom marches against the migrants seeking only to pass through, turning aside the people. When we might be tempted today to turn away migrants, for all the same fears of these ancient peoples, let us remember our spiritual and genealogical ancestors who also were turned away. When we are called to protect and welcome the stranger, that call comes directly out of this spiritual ancestry, of thirsting for home and being denied welcome. Can we trust in the ability to create enough for each and for all? Can we stretch ourselves to wisely share the resources that there are so no one need thirst or worry about a safe place to rest?

 

Throughout this section of Numbers, the issue of water is tied to welcome, faithing, and trust. The wilderness is a place without known and trustworthy water, without welcome, and where the people are at great risk. When they attacked by serpents, they are fiery biting snakes. And when they can camp after that it is at a wadi. And after that they travel from wadi to water, along the edges of the Moabite territory until they reach a place where the leaders dig a well to quench the people’s thirst. Sihon refuses the right of crossing the territory, even without drinking from their wells, and this lack of hospitality results in battle. When we fail one another with compassion and hospitality, we set the scene for bloodshed and violence, for what do the people petitioning for compassion and hospitality have to lose? They already stand to lose their lives without help. Denying water and asylum to those seeking safety decreases the safety of those denying that welcome and compassion and protection. Hard-heartedness is not the prudent course, as these stories teach us through the ages, for hard-heartedness only makes it easier for others to justify striking back in self-protection. The rock we need the Holy to strike most often these days is the hard-heartedness of those who would refuse those who thirst for welcome, for compassion, for justice, for a place of safety from which to rebuild a life of love and well-being for all. 

 

We are called to bear the waters of life to those in need, to unite in compassion and hospitality, knowing what it is to thirst, to ease the thirst of others and tend the well-being of each and of all. Resource wars are easy to start in a thirsty world severely affected by our rapidly changing climate. The resources that we can nurture and grow with wisdom and heart are compassion, love, hospitality, generosity, equity, and justice for each and for all. We have and will need those resources at various times in our lives. And so, too, will our neighbor-strangers. Will we live faithfully and nurture wellsprings of hospitality and justice? It starts with one spadeful of hope and one bit of advocating for change, making welcome, making way, bringing a cup of water to those who thirst.