Things Unseen
Balaam’s donkey saved his life. I bet you remember the story from Numbers 22. Three times, while riding on the back of the faithful beast, Balaam became angry when the donkey refused to do what its master commanded. Three times, instead of walking down the appointed path, the donkey seemed to do whatever it wanted to do. It wandered into a field. It drew so close to a wall that it scraped Balaam’s foot. It lay down and refused to go any farther. Each time, full of rage, Balaam beat the animal for refusing to do its job.
Finally, after being punished the third time, the donkey looked at its master and spoke: “What have I done to you, that you have struck me these three times?” God, we are told, had opened the mouth of the donkey and allowed it to say to its master what God would have it say. In the ensuing conversation, Balaam discovered that the donkey was able to see what his eyes were kept from seeing—that the angel of the Lord, with its sword drawn and ready to strike, had been blocking the path. By refusing to follow its rider’s commands, the animal had saved Balaam’s life.
This fantastical story is about more than a stubborn man and a talking donkey. It is about God intervening in ways that are important even if they are largely unseen. Balaam was a diviner-for-hire. A non-Israelite prophet, he had been paid by the king of Moab to proclaim a curse against the king’s rivals, the Israelites. The God of Israel, however, had a different plan. God permitted Balaam to go to the Moabite king but only if he would proclaim the truth that God spoke to him. After his encounter with the talking donkey, Balaam was humbled. God had gotten his full attention. As a result, he promised only to do and say what God commanded.
If only we could see the hidden dangers in front of us or meet a talking donkey who would help us discern them! This week, as I have reencountered the story of Balaam during Morning Prayer, I have wondered what unseen things God might be trying to get us to notice. The danger of asymptomatic transmission of the coronavirus comes to mind. As the number of active cases continues to rise in our area, I wonder how many more people would wear a mask or stay at home if they could see the contagion spreading around them. I wonder how quickly issues of public safety would lose their political baggage if all of us could see what kind of long-term societal damage might result from continued inaction.
We face other challenges that are even harder to see. The recent rise in infections in our community has come largely from poultry plants, where, despite the risks, line workers do their work side by side so that we can buy boneless skinless chicken breasts for $1.99/pound. Of course, those workers are not motivated purely by altruism but by the economic pressures of providing food for their own families. The Marshallese community of Northwest Arkansas, many of whom work in those plants, is being devastated by COVID-19. If we could see the human cost represented on our dinner plates, would we change our behavior or insist that protective changes come to the poultry industry?
This weekend, many of us will observe Independence Day with muted or scaled-down celebrations because of the pandemic. I wonder, though, how the largely unseen legacy of slavery, which has only recently been raised to our collective consciousness by the Black Lives Matter movement, would change our approach to the Fourth of July. For whom was freedom declared in the Declaration of Independence? In what ways do those of us in the majority culture owe the political and economic freedom we enjoy to the human beings whose forced labor built the country we revere? How might a fuller understanding of our nation’s history help us secure the light of true freedom for generations to come?
Rarely does God intervene in ways as dramatic as a talking donkey, but God does give us plenty of less obvious signs when we are headed down a dangerous path. In what ways is God trying to get our attention today? When we recognize what God is doing, how will we respond? Will we acknowledge the moments when we, like Balaam, have failed to see the truth, or will we insist on plodding ahead regardless of the danger? Sometimes, like Balaam, when that recognition wounds our pride, our instinctive reaction is anger or violence. Other times, though, the gift of grace and humility helps us confront the truth and enables us to change. What will future generations say about this moment in our lives? Will our response to largely unseen forces be a testament to our faithfulness or to our refusal to heed God’s call in our lives?
Yours Faithfully,
Evan