In our first reading today, the people have turned against God. And snakes are biting them as punishment. They want to be healed and forgiven. So God tells Moses to take a snake made out of brass—and put it on a pole. When the people look up at it, they would live and not die.

The verse John 3:16 was the first piece of scripture I memorized. I remember choosing it because it was the easiest and shortest, not really for any important meaning. I had often heard it used to tell others that they were not going to be saved because they weren’t Christians. Or to tell me I don’t believe hard enough.

Yikes! These words are jarring—not only to us, but probably even more to the first crowds who heard them. In Jesus’ world, family was the foundation of life. It was your safety net, your identity, your livelihood. Family was survival, and to suggest turning away from family would have been unthinkable.