Summer
Sermon Series: Wrestling with Jacob
Genesis
28:10-22
This morning we continue our summer
sermon series “Wrestling with Jacob.” We
have observed so far that Jacob is a less than upright character in our
scriptures. Early on in his story, Jacob
convinced his brother Esau to trade his inheritance right as the firstborn son
away for a bowl of stew. Not exactly a
fair trade. In our reading from last
week, Jacob and his mother Rebekah, conspired against Isaac and Esau to trick
Isaac into blessing Jacob with the blessing Isaac had intended to give
Esau. It was a painful story and the
result was that Esau was prepared to kill Jacob at the first chance he
got. And so, this morning, we find our
hero (or more likely anti-hero) Jacob on the run as a fugitive.
(Read Genesis 28:10-22)
Throughout our series so far, we have
often wondered just where God was in the story.
Today’s reading leaves no doubt about that as God is very much present
in our narrative. The first part of the
reading concerns Jacob’s dream. Often
called “Jacob’s Ladder” scholars think that it is more likely that Jacob is
describing a ramp like in this picture here . . . This is a middle eastern Ziggurat
which would have been built by other ancient tribes for religious
ceremonies. The Ziggurat was a microcosm
or mini-representation of the whole cosmos of earth and heaven. The ramps would have been used by priests and
they represented a pathway from earth to heaven.
Jacob is dreaming of a ramp between
heaven and earth where angels travel up and down on that ramp. We could wonder for days at the details of
such a dream but the point of the author of Genesis is pretty clear. Jacob is realizing that earth and heaven are
connected. They are not totally separate
realms, but they are woven together.
What happens on earth matters in heaven and what happens in heaven
matters on earth. More basically, what
Jacob does, the actions he takes and the choices he makes, actually matter to
God.
That is evidenced in the next section
of the narrative as God appears not on the ramp but beside Jacob himself. God makes promises to Jacob within the
framework of the dream. God will be with
Jacob, God will provide Jacob with protection, and though he is fleeing for his
life right now, God will bring Jacob back home.
Jacob wakes from the dream and
realizes that he is upon holy ground. He
sets the stone he was sleeping upon up as a monument and anoints it with oil so
others will recognize it as a holy site.
He declares that this place is “none other than the house of God” (bêt ‘elòhîm), and he names the place
Beth-El “House of God”. Jacob makes a
vow, that if God will keep God’s promises, then Jacob will be faithful to God.
As readers, we have wondered whether
or not God’s blessings could really fall upon such a character as Jacob the
heel, and this morning we find irrefutable proof that they do. Jacob is the one that God has chosen to
continue the line of ancestry. God
declares that God is the God of Jacob’s ancestors and that through Jacob’s line
the offspring will be numerous and the land will be acquired. God is transmitting the ancestral promises of
Abraham unto Jacob.
This is an interesting text for modern
readers, as much of the Jacob narrative is, and we often get distracted by the
dream sequence. “Isn’t that amazing!” we
declare. “How strange that God would
contact someone in that way.” But when
we focus on the dream, we miss the point of the author. It is no wonder at all to the author of
Genesis that God would appear in a dream.
That was just the normal way of encountering the divine world. Even Jacob himself does not seem surprised at
the experience.
Instead, the wonder that the author is
trying to convey is that God would appear to Jacob at all. Throughout the narrative, the author has done
everything that they can to portray Jacob in a negative light. The dream encounter is all God’s initiative;
it is God reaching out to Jacob. The
miracle of this text is not the vision itself, but that God would choose to
bind God’s self to a figure like Jacob.
This is the story that the writer is trying to shock us with.
And it is a shock. All along we have seen nothing but treachery
from Jacob. He has done nothing but
trick and scheme his own family, all for personal gain. There is no sense of him acting out of a
place of faith; rather his sole motivation appears to be greed. Jacob is a scoundrel of the highest order,
and yet he is the one that God makes binding promises to. He is the one that receives God’s grace.
God’s promises of grace bring Jacob
into the covenant that God made with Abraham.
Like his grandfather, Jacob will be known as the father of the
nations. There is a reason God is so
often referred to in the scriptures as the “God of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob.” This is the chosen ancestry
through which the promises pass.
When God makes promises to Jacob, God
is making promises to what will become the nation of Israel. God promises the land, the covenant of a
place, a Holy Land. God promises a
people, “your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth”, the people of the
nation Israel. God promises that all
families of earth shall be blessed by this chosen family. And as followers of Christ, we have grafted
ourselves into this covenant. Finally, God
promises presence, “Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you
go.” This is the promise that lives on
in the person and nature of Jesus Christ, “Emmanuel”, God with us.
I’ve struggled a bit this sermon
series to connect Jacob’s story to our own lives, but this week the connection
is really clear. If God would choose to
bind God’s-self to someone like Jacob, then perhaps God might choose to bind
God’s-self to someone like us as well.
If God makes promises of grace to Jacob, then God makes promises of
grace to us as well. Jacob’s story can
be our story.
Even though Jacob has not been
faithful; he hasn’t looked for God, he hasn’t prayed to God, and he hasn’t
worshipped God, still God reaches out to Jacob in love. Jacob’s vision reveals the connection between
heaven and earth. Neither earth nor
heaven operate alone. They are connected.
We are connected with God, whether we recognize that connection or not.
The story of Jacob’s dream at Bethel
is a story of grace. No matter who we
are, no matter what we have done, God’s promise to Jacob is a promise that God
makes to us as well: “Know that I am with you.
I will not leave you until I have fulfilled my promises.” Whether we choose to acknowledge it or not,
our lives are connected with God, and God’s spirit is ever present with
us.
If we connect the theological dots,
between our modern experience of the world and our modern understanding of
religion, we can trace the line of God’s promises of grace made to Jacob to
promises made to us today. Through the
blessings of the Israelite people, to the person and nature of Jesus Christ, to
the work of the Holy Spirit and the power of faith that continues to unite us
today, God continues to make these promises of grace. “Know that I am with you and will keep you
wherever you go.”
When we wrestle with the character of
Jacob we also wrestle with ourselves. We
might not be jumping up to say it out loud here in church, but we all know
there are parts of our lives where we have failed God. That is the nature of the human
condition. As Paul reminds us, all of us
have sinned and fallen short of God’s call on our lives. When we read the story of Jacob the
scoundrel, we can marvel at the miracle it contains. Even though Jacob is a liar and a cheat,
still God loves him and is with him.
Even though Jacob causes strife and hurts his own family, still God is
with him in love. When we can recognize
God extending that grace to a character like Jacob, then perhaps we can allow
that God might extend the same grace to us.
Even when we make poor choices and act out of self-centered places, even
when we try to ignore or hide from God, still God is present with us in
love.
I have had lots of opportunities this
week to chat with folks about the God I believe in. And over and over again I have tried to
explain that I believe in a God of love.
A God who is constantly trying to reach out to us in love, and
encouraging us to reach out to others in that same love. I see evidence of this God in the Jacob
story. Jacob does nothing to deserve it,
and yet God comes to Jacob in love and blessing. God chooses Jacob, when perhaps we would not.
And that is the rub of the story. Jacob is very underserving of God’s love, and
yet it is offered anyway. This can be
offensive to us in our moments of proud perfection, just as it can be a comfort
to us in moments when we are confronted with our own brokenness. To wrestle with Jacob, is to wrestle with the
God of love. As Jacob’s dream shows us,
that love of God is always present, always connected to the lives of people
here on earth, whether we are aware of that love or not.
We will notice as we move forward in
the Jacob story that he has been changed by this encounter. Don’t get me wrong, he is still a heel, but
now he is also a man in covenant relationship with the divine. Come back next week to find out what happens
next for Jacob, God’s beloved trickster . . .
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