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“Even when not aware”
Message preached on
July 23, 2017
Long Green Valley Church of the Brethren
Glen Arm, Maryland USA
based upon
Genesis 28:10-19a
Somewhere between Beer-sheba and
Haran, Jacob - son of Isaac and Rebekah, younger brother by a fraction of
his twin Esau, grandson of Abraham and Sarah – caught a glimpse of heaven.
When he lay his head down to sleep, he had no intention of seeking such a
vision, nor any clue that it might happen. It just did … somewhere between
Beer-sheba and Haran.
Earlier, as his father lay dying,
he followed his mother’s instructions and wore goat skin on his hands and
neck, and took a last meal to Isaac, prepared by Rebekah in the savory way
Esau would. In so doing, he beat his brother to the punch. “How did you catch your game and cook it so quickly?” his nearly
blind father asked. “Because the
Lord your God granted me
success,” Jacob replied. Please note, he said “your God,” not “my God.” Somewhere between Beer-sheba and Haran that way of seeing
things would begin to change for Jacob, just a little.
Later, his brother was furious
when he took his meal and realized his father’s blessing which belonged to
him as first born (even if first born by only a second) had already been
given to Jacob. “Your brother came
deceitfully,” Isaac told Esau when he realized what had happened, “and he has taken away your blessing.” Sheer hatred grew within this
elder son as he spoke his brother’s name. Jacob had been so named because
he had been born grasping Esau’s heel. The name means “heel.” However, as
Esau breathed the word - this name shifted to its other meaning, “one who
grasps, who takes.” “He took away my
birthright,” my inheritance! He is a trickster!
Somewhere between Beer-sheba and
Haran, Jacob is running away from his brother’s wrath, for Esau had vowed
to kill him. “Flee at once to my
brother Laban,” Rebekah told him in no uncertain terms. “Stay
there until your brother’s anger fades, and he forgets what you did.”
Isaac agreed, and sent Jacob with the task of finding a wife there. Esau
had already chosen unwisely – in his parent’s eyes - from among the women
nearby, who “made life bitter for
Isaac and Rebekah
(26:35, cf 27:46, 28:8).
Somewhere between Beer-sheba and
Haran, Jacob is running from his past and traveling toward his future,
unaware that on the road between the two God would intervene… And it is at
this juncture that we step into the story and seek to make it our own. No,
we cannot claim to face the same struggle, but we have our own. On our
journey, there are things – perhaps – that we’d really like to put behind
us. I cannot say what that might be for you, but for me – well, I’m
currently running from an angry back, trying to make my way toward a
future with less pain. On a different level, I’ve got my eyes on that
horizon called retirement, trying to figure out what I’m going to be when
I grow up. Whether that’s running from or running to, I’m not sure. All I
know is that I’m somewhere between here and there.
What about you? Where are you on
this road? Are you running from something? What might you be traveling
toward? It seems we spend a lot of our time either putting the past behind
us or aiming toward some not-yet-fully-defined or realized future. Along
the way, we may see God as more involved with some previous point in our
lives when things may have seemed more clear, or we see the Lord as off in
the distance, somewhere down the road when we get to where we’re trying to
go. Or we may, like Jacob, not really have much sense that the God of our
parents or grandparents is our God.
Somewhere between Beer-sheba and
Haran, Jacob caught a glimpse of heaven. In so doing, God became a bit
more real to this heel of a guy, this grasping brother, this trickster. It
happened as he was just trying to get a good night’s sleep on the road…
Isn’t that when inspiration (or something) often happens – not just in the
Bible, but in our own lives? When we just want some shut-eye. Oh, it may
not feel terribly inspiring in the moment. Sometimes it is a restless
night that breeds holy dreams, troubling visions, thoughts from deep
within or far beyond… With a stone for a pillow (imagine that), Jacob
fancied a ladder as he slept.
Now, don’t get so caught up in
logistics here. I know, I placed a ladder against the wall up front – just
to get those brain cells imagining. Some translations of Genesis here call
it a “ladder” in this dream, but others use “staircase,” or “stairway.”
Those last two may have been more in line with the time, but if a ladder
such as this rings your bell, go for it… You may recall that Jacob’s
grandparents were originally from a place called “Ur of the Chaldeans”
(11:31) before they moved to Haran,
which is where God first spoke to them.
Perhaps campfire stories were
told to Jacob and Esau of the great Ziggurat in Ur. I’d show you a picture
of an archaeological reconstruction of it in the present-day country of
Iraq, but there were no photos of it to show the grandkids back then. Just
word pictures. It was a massive building, with stairways leading up to
level after level, a building that served as an administrative center for
the city, as well as a temple, a shrine of the moon god Nanna, the patron
deity of Ur. Built a couple hundred years before the time of Abraham and
Sarah, it may still have been standing. I wonder if this isn’t a bit of
what Jacob dreamed – in the imagination of those who wrote down this story
at a later time.
How ever you picture it, here is
Jacob’s dream – a ladder set upon the earth, a stairway leading up to
heaven, reaching beyond where the eye can see. Countless messengers of
God, angels, were coming down or heading up on those stairs (or rungs).
Here is Jacob, caught up in his present goings and comings, the troubles
he is running away from and the future toward which he is headed. Such a
small life, really. And here is this dream of heavenly busy-ness – a
reality greater than his (or our) imagination.
In the middle of it all is God.
Now, some translations or paraphrases picture the Lord at the top or even
above the structure. In others, God is simply on or at the bottom of these
stairs. Still others portray Yahweh standing right in front of or next to
Jacob. All of these can be correct, not only from the Hebrew words, but
also from the faith we derive from them. God is both transcendent (i.e.
far above and beyond us), as well as imminent (i.e. closer to us than we
dare imagine).
There, somewhere between
Beer-sheba and Haran, in a dream God speaks to Jacob – the heel, the
gasping taker, the trickster - the same promise made to his grandparents
and parents:
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“I will give you and your
descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will
be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west
and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on
earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with
you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you
back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I
have promised you.” |
Did Jacob deserve such a promise? Do we deserve God’s unconditional
love? Do we deserve grace? That’s the good news of Christ in our lives. We
may not deserve God’s love, but God loves us anyway. And will continue to
love us, no matter what. An unconditional promise. It’s the gospel, if you
will, right here in Genesis. Here is Jacob, who lied to his father and
tricked his brother, who was running from the past even as he was trying
to make a life for himself by heading back to his Uncle. Of course, his
uncle Laban would prove to be as good at tricking Jacob and Jacob had been
at tricking Esau – making him work twice as long as intended. But that’s a
story for another day.
Gospel in Genesis: an unconditional promise to an as-yet
untrustworthy man. Of course, you might add that all this was simply a
dream, a restless night on an unforgiving pillow. However, when he woke
up, Jacob considered it very real. “Surely
God is in this place – and I did not know it!” he told himself after
the dream, and the next morning he made his pillow into a memorial. He
called that place Bethel – the
“House of God.”
God’s house can be anywhere along the way, you know. It is not
defined by the four walls of a sanctuary, nor is it a massive structure
somewhere – be it a great Ziggurat, a Temple, a Cathedral, even a
Tabernacle. Bethel, “God’s
House” can be found anywhere along the way. We may not even realize the
place for what it is, for it is more than a place. Perhaps you have been
somewhere between here and there in your life, and in this moment or place
became aware of God presence and promise. Maybe you are now running away
from something, trying to get somewhere, and you are tying value and
meaning to the past or the future, and the now is just the muddle in the
middle along the way. Guess what? Your
Bethel may be right here and now
– God on the stairway (it’s not a dead-end), angels all around, Jesus
right in front of you, the Spirit within and beside you. Welcome! … and
you weren’t even aware of it, just like Jacob.
Let me take the story just a sentence or two further
(28:19b-22),
for today’s reading ended at an almost too neat and convenient point. You
see, after Jacob set up that stone memorial and named the place
Bethel, he made a promise back to God. Only his promise was quite
full of conditions, whereas God’s was not. “If
you’ll be with me,” he prayed, “and
keep me safe to this destination, and feed me and clothe me, so that I
return again to my father’s house in peace (knowing that my brother now
hates and wants to kill me),
then the Lord shall be my God…” Not “now,”… “then.” [Sigh!] It
wasn’t exactly the greatest prayer ever prayed, along the lines of “I’ll
love you if you buy me a Mercedes Benz.” I’ll bet that all of us have at
some point prayed just like Jacob did (maybe we still do). But that’s
okay, because God wasn’t done with Jacob yet. Just like the Lord isn’t
done with you or me individually, or us together as a people – as a
“church.”
There’s much more to the story – good news to be shared, promise to
be fulfilled, grace to be extended, peace to be made, hope to be lived out
… even when we’re not yet aware.
Blessed assurance – this is my story, and yours as well.
©2017
Peter
L. Haynes
(you are welcome to borrow and, where / as appropriate, note
the source - myself or those from whom I have knowingly borrowed.)