SETTING THE CONTEXT

The setting of our story was during the time the Hebrew people were wandering in the wilderness before they had come to the Promised Land. As the Israelites traveled, they fought many battles with the kings and people whose lands they passed through and the Lord helped them to win. They took possession of the land they defeated and word spread to the other kings in the area. The king of Moab, Balak, wanted an advantage over the Israelites so he sent his messengers to a town along the Euphrates River to get a seer named Balaam. Balaam was not a Hebrew, but according to the story he knew and spoke to God, the God we know as the One True God, the God of Israel. Balak, the king of Moab, wanted Balaam to curse the Hebrew people so he could defeat them, if they fought against him. Balaam spoke to God and God told him not to curse the Hebrews for God blessed them. So Balaam gave the king’s men the word that he couldn’t go with them and sent them back to Balak. The officials gave the word to Balak and Balak’s response was to give up? No way! He upped the ante- he sent more and more distinguished officials and said, “I will give you anything you want.” So now Balaam’s temptation was greater. What was his response? Do you think he said, “The Lord said no and that means no?” Well, sort of. He said, “Although Balak were to give me his house full of silver and gold, I could not go beyond the command of the Lord my God, to do less or more.” (Numbers 22:18) “Hold on one more night and let me check with God one more time.” So what do you think? He was already heading down the slippery slope saying he’d resist temptation, but starting to give in to it. The king was asking him to do something directly in opposition to God’s will and purposes. Would he resist the relentless pressure and the great temptation to cave in and carry out the king’s request? Now our part of the story begins. This delightful story is so unfamiliar I’d like to read the whole thing and then investigate it more deeply.

Read Numbers 22: 20-38

THE SERMON

Balaam was a seer, a fortuneteller and a prophet. He must have had a very good reputation to be known clear into the plains of Moab. The story of Balaam’s donkey I think is a wisdom story, a parable like the parable stories Jesus used to tell. Imagine a village elder sitting on a rock outside his home as the sun sets with the village gathering around at the end of the day as he begins, “let me tell you about old Balaam and his donkey,” as they look over at their donkeys grazing nearby.” Verses 20-21 God told Balaam, “Go, but do only what I tell you.” Now Balaam was walking into a very sticky situation; a king had just hired him with a lot of money or goods to do a job that God was going to forbid him from doing.

Read verses 22-27 This section opens and closes with very similar statements verse 22 says “God’s anger was kindled at Balaam” and vs. 27 closes with “Balaam’s anger was kindled at the donkey”. I would like to talk about these verses in a minute, but let’s look at the angel. The angel of the Lord is Balaam’s opponent and the donkey is the only one who sees him. Do you get the irony? The seer can’t see. As Biblical scholar, Dennis Olson put it, “The irony, of course, is that an ass is able to see divine matters more clearly than this professional “seer,” Balaam.”ⁱⁱ Each time the angel challenges Balaam on the road, the challenge intensifies yet Balaam continues not to perceive them. His donkey does and saves Balaam’s life each time, but he responds with violence towards his donkey. Balaam is really made out like the fool here, not only is he a seer that can’t see, but he is beating the poor animal that can see and is saving him. This is setting the stage for the next scene where the donkey talks, but I want to go back to verses 22 and 27.

At first as I was praying and thinking about vs. 22 about God getting angry with Balaam for going, even though in vs. 20 God told Balaam to go, I tried to rationalize why that would happen. I concocted a very good argument to share with you and then I remembered something I heard in Bill Schwabe’s testimony on Wednesday. He talked about sensing God as YHWH, “I am who I am”ⁱⁱⁱ and I realized that I don’t need to defend God; I don’t need to come up with rationalizations. What I do want to do is understand the parallel between vs. 22 and 27 because the common language is not by accident, in vs. 22 God’s anger was kindled against Balaam and in vs. 27 Balaam’s anger was kindled against the donkey. So let’s go to our story to see why Balaam was so angry with his donkey.

Read verses 28-29 Balaam was angry because he believed that the donkey was making a fool out of him. (The irony was that he was actually making a fool out of himself.) He believed that the donkey was dishonoring him. So was the Lord’s anger kindled against Balaam because he was making a fool out of God? Was Balaam dishonoring God by going to Balak the king of Moab? Balaam was going to the king to receive a large payment to refuse his request to curse the people of Israel; think about how hard that would be to do. Think about the temptation to give in, to ignore God’s command, and to do the king’s request. Wouldn’t it have been so much smarter just to stay at home and refuse the big pay off? Do you really think the king is going to give him that payment when he not only refused to curse the Israelites, but when he blessed them instead? Was the angel commanding him to turn back such a bad idea?

Balaam was not seeing it on his own so the donkey had to speak up. I have been waiting weeks to say this; Shrek did not have the first talking donkey. Oh no! The Bible has the first talking donkey, Balaam’s donkey! (If you don’t know who Shrek is ask any child or youth in the congregation and they will tell you.) Animals that speak are very rare in the Bible, in fact there is only one other animal in the Old Testament that speaks. Can you guess what it is? I’ll give you a hint, you heard about it in last week’s sermon. (It is the serpent in Genesis 3.) So God allowed the donkey to speak and the first words out of its mouth were “What have I ever done to you?” Balaam was out of control mad. He was being a real a**. We’d better read on.

Read verse 30. The donkey did not even mention the angel, it appealed to Balaam through their life experience together. It reminded Balaam of its past service and past record. Scholar Thomas Dozeman made this wonderful point, he said, “Balaam has no business assuming the donkey has sinister or underhanded motives even though he doesn’t understand it’s behavior because their accumulated experience should be enough to warrant trust.”^iv Isn’t that what verse 30 says? “You have ridden me all your life to this day, haven’t I earned your trust?” Now Balaam eyes are opened even further.

Read verses 31-35 Balaam’s sight was cleared so he could see as well as his donkey. He discovered the angel and immediately moved into an attitude of worship. He may be a Gentile, but he honored God. The angel repeated the donkey’s question, “why did you beat the donkey?” It saved you.” If it had sinister motives, it could have had you killed and I wouldn’t have touched it.” It was no longer an issue of trust, the donkey’s actions were clear. The trustworthy donkey, that could see when the seer couldn’t, saved him from a terrible mistake. Balaam in vs. 34 made a right choice he said, “I have sinned. If it is displeasing to you, I’ll return home.” The words implicit are “I’m sorry.” This is confession and repentance right here. Balaam is now humble and on his guard. He is prepared for the very delicate situation that lies before him. He is ready to “speak only what the Lord tells him.” So let’s see what happens.

Read verses 36-38. Balaam gave three oracles over Israel and they were all blessings. This enraged Balak the king of Moab and Balaam did finally go home - without any pay.

This story reminds me of things I learned in George’s sermon last May from the Lord’s Prayer on “lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.” He said that sometimes God prepares us for temptation through temptation by helping us learn and strengthen our ability to stand firm. Through this wonderful story I see God humbling a seer who put himself in a very dicey situation (not that any of us ever put ourselves in dicey situations!) God put Balaam on his guard, for the temptation to give in to temptation would be so great. It also gives me assurance that God does not leave us alone to face our adversity, but gives us help that we may not even perceive. What else does this story tell you about God?

What does this story tell us about us? Sometimes we do come to think very highly of ourselves and the Lord has to give us a good dose of humility. If only mine could be as humorous as a talking donkey! Sometimes we don’t see what is plainly before us. So many times I think I know something only to find out I was totally wrong. We have to be willing to see clearly, willing to face what we’ll see and sometimes that’s not easy. Would we be willing to acknowledge that what we want may come at the cost of doing something contrary to God’s will and purposes? Would we be willing to stand against incredible pressure to do the Lord’s will? Would we be willing to pray as Balaam did - “I didn’t know you were trying to stop me. If you don’t think I should do this Lord, I will turn around right now.” What does this story tell us about us? A good Christian investigator like a good Godly player^v asks, “I wonder where we are in this story?” Amen.

Sermon delivered by Rev. Nancy Cushman on July 18, 2010.