Jacob is
an unlikely hero. In case you were not with us last week, let me just catch you
up. Jacob is the twin brother of Esau, born second and grabbing onto Esau’s
heel at birth, trying to steal Esau’s place as the first born. Their mother
Rebekah favors Jacob, but only God knows why, because he was a conniving ornery
little brother. Their father Isaac prefers the eldest son Esau because he is
strong and a good hunter.
One day
when Esau comes in hungry from the fields, Jacob, who has been in the kitchen
cooking, (because he’s a Mama’s boy) tricks Esau into trading his birthright as
the eldest son for some lentil soup. He takes advantage of Esau’s hunger.
Later, in
a story we skipped over, Jacob dresses up like Esau, and goes to see their
dying father who has really poor eyesight. He tricks father Isaac into giving
him the deathbed blessing that should rightfully have gone again to the eldest
son.
By this
time, their mother, Rebekah, knows that the jig is up and Jacob had better hit
the road so she suggests that he should go stay with her brother Laban in
another country. She makes an excuse that she does not like the local girls and
that he will find a more suitable wife in the country of Haran. As we come to
our reading for today, Jacob is about 50 miles or so into his 400 mile journey
(source: http://act.ucc.org/site/MessageViewer/?dlv_id=88828&em_id=64141.0).
I don’t
know about you, but I don’t think much of Jacob by this point. He is not much
of a brother, and not much of a son. He is selfish, self-serving; he’s a liar,
and a cheat. But he is the one God seems to have chosen to carry this promise
God made with Abraham and Sarah – to give descendants as many as the stars in the
sky and to give land. This is not the guy
I would choose to be the father of the chosen people.
Richard
Pervo described Jacob as "an unperson in an unplace….an immoral and
irreligious rogue,” (New Proclamation Year A 2011).
Barbara
Brown Taylor says that Jacob "is on no vision quest: he has simply pushed
his luck too far and has left town in a hurry. He is between times and places,
in a limbo of his own making" ("Dreaming the Truth," Gospel Medicine). (quoted in http://act.ucc.org/site/MessageViewer/?dlv_id=88828&em_id=64141.0). It’s
true, isn’t it? We don’t really feel sorry for Jacob. This is an example of the
old cliche: “Jacob, you made this bed; now lie in it.”
He is
like so many other people we know, or we have been, in a season of life when we
are running away from something. You don’t have a clue what you are running to,
only that you are on the move. Something has got to change. So you hope a
change of scenery will help. A change of scenery alone rarely helps, by the
way, because we take our problems and our life choices with us, and all that
baggage with us. The problems are inside us. Jacob could not travel far enough
to get away from what he had done. He could not run away from his conscience.
He could certainly not get away from God.
So Jacob
lays down to sleep, using a stone for a pillow. And he has this famous dream –
the one from which we get that old spiritual, “We are climbing Jacob’s ladder.”
In his dream he sees this ladder going up to heaven, with angels going up and
down. He is getting a vision of heaven. And God is standing next to him, and
God says:
“I
am the Lord, the God of Abraham
your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you
and to your offspring; 14 and your offspring shall be like the
dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and
to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be
blessed[c]
in you and in your offspring. 15 Know that I am with you and
will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will
not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”
16 Then
Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord
is in this place—and I did not know it!” 17 And he was afraid,
and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God,
and this is the gate of heaven.”
18 So
Jacob rose early in the morning, and he took the stone that he had put under
his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. 19 He
called that place Bethel;[d] but the
name of the city was Luz at the first.
Jacob has an “Ah-ha” moment here.
Perhaps we might even call it a turn-around moment. Kathryn Huey writes that he
continues to be crafty and does not change completely but we do see some
changes in his behavior. And “can’t the same thing be said of us, even after we
feel that our lives have been transformed by grace?” (ibid). Do you know people like this, who have a
life-changing moment and their life turns around, but they keep backtracking to
their old behaviors?
Jacob wakes up and suddenly he knows
that God is in this place. Jacob did not make the place holy. He discovered its
holiness. He woke up to the reality that his life was blessed. He was chosen to
inherit the promise from his father and his grandfather. “Your offspring shall
be like the dust of the earth.” “I am with you and I will keep you wherever you
go and I will bring you back to this land.”
No wonder Jacob awoke and said, “This
place is awesome and holy!” For a screw up like Jacob to get the message that
he is still blessed and chosen by God? Well, that is truly awesome and holy.
This same message gets through to
ordinary people every day. And that is how the world changes. When we discover
God is right here with us. When we discover our holiness places and times when
God is right here with us. Pastor Emily Heath told a story last week on the UCC
devotional web site about just such a world changing turn around.
Emily C. Heath writes:
“One of my college mentors started his career as a parish minister in the Deep South, right around the time the Civil Rights movement was really heating up.
“One Sunday he preached a sermon in which he called for desegregation. Afterwards he was shaking hands on the way out of church when a man came up to him. "See that man over there?" he asked. ”He's the head of the local Klan, and he is not happy with you, pastor."
“Sometime after that, a call came in the middle of the night. The local Klan leader wanted the young pastor to come meet him at a roadside bar out in the country. …
“One of my college mentors started his career as a parish minister in the Deep South, right around the time the Civil Rights movement was really heating up.
“One Sunday he preached a sermon in which he called for desegregation. Afterwards he was shaking hands on the way out of church when a man came up to him. "See that man over there?" he asked. ”He's the head of the local Klan, and he is not happy with you, pastor."
“Sometime after that, a call came in the middle of the night. The local Klan leader wanted the young pastor to come meet him at a roadside bar out in the country. …
“When the preacher sat down
across from the Klansman, he was surprised at what happened next. The man told
him that he knew he could no longer be the man he had been, and he knew he
needed God's help. And so he asked the young preacher, "Would you pray for
me?"
“And the preacher, looking around at the bar and the pool tables and the passed out patrons, said, "Here?"
“And the man said, "Preacher, don't you believe in God?"
“My friend learned that day that God is everywhere. Even where we least expect it. Even in a roadside dive. And even in the heart of a man who had made a lifetime of bad choices.
“And the preacher, looking around at the bar and the pool tables and the passed out patrons, said, "Here?"
“And the man said, "Preacher, don't you believe in God?"
“My friend learned that day that God is everywhere. Even where we least expect it. Even in a roadside dive. And even in the heart of a man who had made a lifetime of bad choices.
You see,
holy and awesome places show up when we pay attention to God’s voice. God is
everywhere. There are times in our lives when we feel like we need to run away
like Jacob, or when we know we are on the wrong path like that Klansman.
Our
choices may not be as obvious or horrible, but I know that we all have life
choices from which we would like to run away. We wish we could go back in a
time machine or have a do over.
Today,
this is our good news: God gives us a do over. The promise that God made to
Jacob is the same one God makes to us:
15 Know that I am with you and will
keep you wherever you go, and I will not leave you until I have done what I
have promised you.”
Whatever
dream God has in mind for your life, God is going to be with you for the
duration. Whatever has been a roadblock need not get in the way, because God is
in this place and in this moment. God is
going to stay with us to fulfill those promises. How awesome is that? We are
blessed. God is with us. God is in this place. Thanks be to
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