LENT 2020: Day 11

• LENT 2020: Day 11 Monday, March 9, 2020:
  Psalm 128; Numbers 21:4-9; Hebrews 3:1-6

“And the people grew impatient on the way,” according to our reading today from Numbers. We can relate.

As we begin this third week of Lent, we are 40% of the way through our 40-day journey. And it is only natural if we are feeling impatient. We are in good company.

Think back to Ash Wednesday, though, when we started our Lenten journey with a call to resist the temptation to “accept the devil’s terms for the world’s salvation,” to use the language of theologian Stanley Hauerwas.

“The devil is but another name for our impatience,” he writes. “We want bread, we want to force God’s hand to rescue us, we want peace — and we want all this now.” 

But as our reading today proves, it’s not just that we want bread. We just want. And we want, what we want, when we want it.

“There is no bread and there is no water,” the people complain, even though there is plenty of bread, for God has been providing manna daily in the wilderness.

Maybe they are tired of manna. That would be understandable, for we crave variety. By the third day of eating leftovers, we are sick and tired of even our favorite meal.

But their frustration causes them to lie.

And then, impatiently, they reveal their true complaint: “We loathe the wretched bread.”

We might imagine this last part slipping out on accident. The truth has a way of just slipping out, though.

As we approach the halfway point of Lent, may we confront our frustrations purposefully and intentionally, not accidentally and not impatiently.