Then There’s Grace

Romans 8:26-39

Genesis 29:15-28        

So the story of Jacob continues. After his night in Bethel where he saw the ladder of angels climbing between heaven and earth, and heard the voice of God reaffirming the promise of a future, Jacob arrives at the home of his uncle Laban – his mother’s brother. Here he is welcomed … here he meets a beautiful girl … it looks like Jacob has landed on his feet.

But what’s that thing they say about karma? Karma is a you-know-what, right? After seven years of hard work impressing his future father-in-law, Jacob the trickster gets tricked. Bigly. And surprisingly, Jacob doesn’t even complain. Maybe he’s been waiting for this, the proverbial other shoe, to drop. So he sighs, nods in acceptance, then puts his head down and continues working off his sentence – seven more years for Uncle Laban. And we, the readers, sit back and say, WOW.

You have to appreciate the irony – it is thick in this story, isn’t it? The young man who passes himself off as his older brother to get the inheritance – and gets away with it – becomes the victim of an almost identical crime. Leah is passed off as her younger sister to get the husband. It is the revenge of the older sibling.

But look deeper and see that in each case the trick was orchestrated by a parent. Jacob was disguised to look like his brother Esau by his mother, who was acting to defeat the tradition of the first-born privilege. And then Leah was disguised by her father, who was acting to defend that same tradition. This is a huge showdown: It’s Rebekah versus Isaac, Esau verses Jacob, Rachel verses Leah, Laban versus Jacob. This is a big, fat, complicated family affair.

You start looking for where to pin the blame, but then it becomes hard to figure out just where to put it. Jacob is blamed in the family for tricking Esau, but what if Jacob didn’t even want to do it? It was all his mother’s idea; maybe Jacob was a victim too.

But Rebekah, remember, had a vision when she was pregnant, telling her that the younger was destined to rule over the older. And maybe Rebekah had been carrying that burden for all these years, until she finally saw where she could lay it down.

Laban … well, nobody really likes Laban, so I won’t say anymore about him. But Leah – sure she got the husband Rachel was counting on, but did she even want any part in this deception? It could be that Leah was just miserable about the whole thing. Who’s to say?

It is impossible to say why people do all these kinds of crazy things to hurt one another. You might look for some kind of cosmic order in all of it – it’s human nature to want to find order in all of it – and maybe you will find answers that seem sufficient.

Maybe it is enough to say that Jacob sinned in cheating Esau, and now he gets his punishment.

Maybe it is enough to say that Rebekah heard the voice of God tell her that Jacob would be the chosen one and her scheme was simply an act of obedience to God.

Maybe it is enough to say that Laban, as the head of the household, had an obligation to hold up the traditions they held dear – by whatever means necessary. It might be enough, but if it’s not then –

Maybe we should add that, in this experience with Laban, Jacob received an opportunity to grow in maturity, compassion, and wisdom. I think he did.

Maybe we should add that Jacob, who still had much to learn about life, now would have the time to learn it. I think he did.

And, we should also add that the story is not over yet; there are more twists and tricks and confrontations to come.

A good story is like a multifaceted gem, you can turn it and turn it and always see something else sparkle in it. And the more you turn it, the better you understand that each one of us in this world has something of both darkness and light in us. The more you turn it, the better you see how little we really understand of ourselves and others. The more you turn it, the better you see that there are no white hats and black hats – but just a bunch of hurting, broken people, sinners all.

And then there’s grace.

And that grace is truly the good news of the day. In these words from Paul’s letter to the Romans, we are told how profound is God’s grace. We can take Paul’s words and lay them over the story from Genesis, and know that God took this young man Jacob with all his flaws, and conformed him to a different image, the firstborn within a large family.

In the story, as in life, things keep going around and coming around, and sometimes people learn something – by the grace of God. Because, as Paul said (and even when it doesn’t look like it), things are working together for good for those who love God and are called according to God’s purposes.

In the end, grace wins. In the end, love wins.

Photo: By SitharaAriyarathna - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=90824084

Where God Is

Genesis 28:10-19a     Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran. He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And the Lord stood beside him and said, “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; 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 in you and in your offspring. 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.”

Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!” 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.” 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. He called that place Bethel;

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It used to be that when I read this story of Jacob I would get stuck on the notion of a stone for a pillow. I thought, a stone for a pillow? there’s no way that works. That’s where I got hung up. Never mind the ladder to heaven, with angels climbing up and down. Never mind the Lord just showing up, standing beside him and telling Jacob what his future will be. I didn’t think twice about any of that because I couldn’t get past the idea of laying down for a night’s sleep with a stone for a pillow.

Until one day at a church camp. I went hiking with a few others. We hiked up to a place they called the Bald Spot.  In the mountains of Pennsylvania, where just about every surface is covered in trees, there is an area way up high that is covered in white rock.  When you see it from the ground and just looks like a bald spot on the mountain’s head. 

The climb up there is long and hard; we stopped to rest once along the way and, believe me, I would have stopped again, but for the peer pressure that kept me going.  So when we reached the bald spot I was as tired as I know how to be. 

I looked out over this site and it was marvelous – this beautiful vista of mountain ranges out to the west as deep and wide as the eye could see. Then right in front of me I looked down on the Bald Spot and saw a delightful thing: somebody, sometime, had arranged large flat stones into furniture – big chairs and sofas from slabs of rock. Picture Fred Flintstone’s living room.  So I took my tired body and I sat down in a stone-age recliner and I thought of Jacob.

It was then I had an inkling of how tired Jacob was, that he would lay his head on a slab of stone and call it rest. If you are tired enough any surface, hard or soft, will do to rest your weary head.  Jacob was bone-tired when he stopped for the night – weary in body and mind and soul.  We know this, because we know where he was coming from.

Jacob and his twin brother Esau were the sons of Isaac and Rebekah. Isaac favored Esau, the elder, and Rebekah favored Jacob. That, by itself is not unusual. I have heard it said the first child is the father’s child and the second child is the mother’s child, so I guess it happens often enough. But there was a special reason Rebekah favored Jacob.

When she carried the twins in her womb she heard a word from God that the elder of the two would serve the younger. Jacob, the younger, would take the place of Esau, the elder. And Rebekah, apparently, felt it was her responsibility to facilitate that.

When the time came, Rebekah and Jacob schemed to take Esau’s blessing.  Their father Isaac, in his old age, and with dimming eyesight, asked his son Esau to come to him to receive the blessing due to him as the eldest son.  But while Esau was out hunting game to offer his father, Jacob came in his place pretending to be Esau.  Isaac, unaware of the deception, gave him his blessing. 

The ancient people who told these stories to one another believed there was real power at work in the blessing. It was a gift, and once given it could not be taken back. Jacob received Esau’s blessing, the inheritance of the firstborn son, and that was that. So Esau really did have his birthright taken away from him.

He casually gave it away for a bowl of soup. But he didn’t really believe that he was giving it away. Now he realizes it is gone. And he’s angry – angry enough to kill.

Jacob fled from the family home. He ran and got as far as this place which was no place, and he stopped for the night. He was tired, he was weak, he was worn. He laid his body down on the hard ground, a stone beneath his head, and he slept. And he dreamed.

He dreamed of a ladder going between heaven and earth, and angels of the Lord climbing up and down that ladder, between heaven and earth.

And God stood beside Jacob and said, “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; 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 in you and in your offspring. 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.”

And Jacob awoke from his dream, knowing that the Lord was in this place. And he took the stone that was his pillow, stood it up on end and poured oil over it, anointing it. Jacob will remember this place, where God spoke to him. Before, it was no place; now it was Bethel, the house of God.

It’s what we sometimes call the church, our sanctuary – a special place and we have missed being in it together. Because when we come here to this place we know that God is here with us. But during these past few months we have made the sacrifice of not being here together for the sake of our health. We had to adjust in some ways we never imagined we would – like watching a worship service on a small screen, or settling for just reading the bulletin and the sermon later on.

Yet we know that, although we have been unable to gather in the house of God, we have not been without God. We know from the story of Jacob, and countless others in the scriptures, that when we are weary, when we are at our end, God is there.

When Jacob was on the run from Esau … When Elijah was on the run from Jezebel … When the Israelites were on the run from Pharaoh … God was there.

Wherever we are in our journey, we may be assured that God is there. And it is a comfort, a source of strength, for a tired and weary and wandering people.

Much sacred music comes from a place of being tired and weary and lost, and finding that God is present in those places with us. It’s as old as the psalms the people of Israel sang together in worship – we, like they, need to remind ourselves that God is with us everywhere, but most especially where we need God most, where we are bone tired and lost and alone.

It was that way for a man named Thomas Dorsey, a talented musician. In the 1920’s and 30’s he divided his talents between the jazz clubs and the church. He loved them both, and his love of jazz helped him to develop his own style of spiritual music that might have seemed irreverent to some, but became well loved by many.

In 1931, he kissed his pregnant wife goodbye in Chicago and drove down to St. Louis to attend a gospel convention where he was to perform. Everything was going well. After he got off the stage, he was handed a telegram that said, “Come home. Your wife has died.”

She had died giving birth to their firstborn son. The infant died a day later. One day Thomas Dorsey had everything, the next day, nothing.

He was lost in his grief. He didn’t perform, he didn’t compose, he didn’t know what to do anymore. Until finally, a friend gently led him to a piano; he sat down and composed this song:

Precious Lord, take my hand;

Lead me on, let me stand;

I am tired, I am weak, I am worn.

Through the storm, through the night,

Lead me on to the light;

Take my hand Precious Lord,

Lead me home.

The gift of music brought him back – back to the knowledge of the presence of God. He poured out his feeling, his need, his prayer in this song. And the Lord answered his prayer, leading him on, through the storm, through the night, to the light.

This was neither the first nor the last time Thomas Dorsey would be tired and weak and worn. He had been lost before and it would happen again, but every time the Lord would lead him home.

As the Lord led the people of Israel, God will lead us through all our wilderness journeys. As the Lord led Jacob, God will lead us through times of fear, of confusion, of feeling abandoned. Wherever you are, God is with you and there is no place God will abandon you. Call on the name of our Precious Lord to take your hand and lead you on.

Photo: By Unknown author - British Library, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=76427100

Entitlement

Genesis 25:19-34       

When we were little, my older sister and I told our youngest sister that our parents found her in a garbage can and brought her home.  We only told her that because she was young enough and innocent enough to believe it and it amused us that she believed it.  We convinced her also that her duty as the youngest child was to wait on us; run down to the kitchen and get us a snack if we were hungry, even run down to the 7-Eleven if we had a sudden craving for Doritos or Laffy-Taffy.  We were bad. 

It’s the natural order of things that older siblings dominate the younger ones because they can. They’re bigger, smarter, stronger … for a while.  Later, when things even out; when the younger siblings are as big and strong and smart as the older siblings, they’re still dominated by the older ones, because everybody is used to it.  It’s the way things have always been.

But the thing that seems kind of weird is that, even in the case of twins, it happens. This natural order asserts itself.

Even with twins, babies who share the same womb at the same time, even when they are born minutes apart – possibly just seconds apart, if we take seriously the notion that Jacob came out grasping Esau’s heel. Even if it’s just a matter of seconds, the older one is still the older one and, therefore, the dominant one. I’m not sure why it happens; it’s a bit of a mystery to me. So I asked one of my sisters who has twins and she gave me some insight into this.

Her twins are identical twins. They were born 20 minutes apart. The firstborn weighed about six ounces more than the second-born. A small difference. Yet that 20 minutes, those six ounces, were enough to cement the order of things into their personalities. It is clear to those who know them well which one is the firstborn.

It seems like just being able to say, “I’m older than you,” gives the firstborn an inherent advantage. In fact, if you ever see a younger sibling gain an advantage over the older sibling it’s probably because they carefully watched and listened and schemed to get it … like Jacob.

The story of Esau and Jacob is fascinating, like all stories of family dynamics are. The fact that they were twins, growing together in the same womb, then severing that relationship so completely, just adds layers of interest to it. But the story of Esau and Jacob is a puzzling one, as well, because it’s just hard to figure out what to make of these characters.  I have questions. Would Esau really trade his birthright for a bowl of soup?  Would Jacob really withhold food from his brother until he gave him his birthright?  And is this really a binding legal transaction?

To the third question, I really have no idea.  It seems to be mostly symbolic; it’s not as though there was any magic involved, like a Freaky Friday sort of thing where the two people switch bodies with each other.  But it does seem to indicate consent on the part of Esau to give over to Jacob the right to his inheritance, presumably the traditional double share that the first son is entitled to.  And as such, it takes us back to our bewilderment that he gave it up so casually. And cheaply.

The scripture says he despised his birthright.  In the way we understand what it is to despise something, I don’t believe we really see evidence of that in the story.  A newer translation, the Common English Bible, uses the phrase “showing just how little he thought of his birthright.” I think perhaps that makes more sense.  Clearly, Esau thought little about his birthright. 

And that is the point: Esau didn’t trouble himself to think about it, to appreciate it, to truly value it.  Maybe Esau took his birthright for granted, never questioning that it was his.  After all, his birthright was his natural right, wasn’t it?  He couldn’t really give it away to his brother any more than he could give his brother his natural red hair.  By the laws of nature it was his and his alone. Right?

Well, the message that the story in Genesis seems to be driving home is:  the way we think things should be is not necessarily the way God ordains that they should be.  And that God enjoys stirring the pot now and then to remind us of that. Don’t get too complacent; don’t be too self-assured about your rights. 

Because, by what right do we have anything at all? When, really, it’s all gift? And yet it is true that all of us – at some time, about some things – have that sense of entitlement.

Yes, entitlement. That’s a loaded word.  It is generally used either to refer to a type of government program or a derogatory term to suggest that someone’s trying to get away with more than they should.  Or both at the same time.  As I said, it’s a word heavily-laden with baggage.

To be clear, I am not talking about government programs that we call entitlement programs. These efforts to ensure that all have the basic needs met – like food, shelter, health care – are important for a society to attend to.  What I’m really talking about here is the creeping sense of entitlement, or privilege, that you and I, all of us, are vulnerable to. 

We get this sense of entitlement from growing accustomed to certain things, because it’s just the way things are.  The culture we live in, the people around us; what we have always known and had, and learned to expect.  It trains us to see a thing as our due – instead of seeing it as gift.

And if we ever think of those people who don’t have all the things that we are somehow entitled to, we tell ourselves that in some way they are different from us, and perhaps less deserving/entitled than us.

Maybe you don’t think this applies to you?  You never have this sense of entitlement? Maybe you don’t. But next time you feel resentful about something, ask yourself this: Am I resenting this situation because I feel entitled to something different?  And, if that is so, ask yourself this:

By what right do we have anything at all?  Our God-given right, perhaps?

Well, that’s just what Esau thought – when he thought about it at all. He just assumed the rights of the firstborn son belonged to him. Because, of course, he was the firstborn son. Could there be any question about this? 

And Jacob comes along, with some help from his mother, of course, and says, “Yes, I have a question about this. I would like the same rights.”

Now you may think that Jacob is acting like he has a big sense of entitlement, with all his grasping, but actually it’s just the opposite. Jacob knows that none of these things will be given to him. He will have to use his heart and mind and strength and wiles to get anything. He’s like Alexander Hamilton singing, “I’m just like my country, I’m young, scrappy, and hungry, and I’m not throwing away my shot.”

Esau thought it was his God-given right to carry the promise, to receive the inheritance, to be the chosen one – but it wasn’t. That would belong to Jacob, and he certainly had the God-given talents to seize it and hold it and succeed with it – that we will see as the story continues.

See the story of Jacob and Esau from the perspective of entitlement verses gift, and we see something we perhaps didn’t see before. It’s all gift. If there is one thing the book of Genesis wants us to know, it is that it is all gift from our Creator God. But we are God’s partners in receiving and using the gifts we are given.  So, to borrow a phrase from Mr. Joel Osteen, how will we go forward living our best life now?

May we lose our sense of entitlement, and gain the joy in remembering that it is all gift from our Creator God.

May we practice gratitude for all these gifts, forgoing resentment about the gifts we don’t have.

May we follow the light and listen to the word that guides us on the path God gives.

Photo: My sisters and I all turned out okay, in spite of everything.

O Soul, Are You Weary and Troubled?

Romans 7:15-25

Matthew 11:16-19,25-30     

Some years ago, I began a search for Jesus pictures. I was interested in all the different ways Jesus is portrayed in art. There is quite a variety. Over the centuries you can see the ways cultural priorities have been reflected in the popular images of Jesus. In the early centuries of the church, there were some rather severe images: Judge-of-the-world Jesus and victorious-in-battle Jesus. But modern people seem to prefer a milder version: Gentle-shepherd Jesus and little-children-loving Jesus.

There are some that are less common but very arresting: like sad Jesus, looking on the state of the world with a tear on his face. One of my favorites is polite Jesus, knocking on our door, hoping we will answer. There is also laughing Jesus – which, for some reason, a lot of people don’t like, and I’ve never really understood why.

But one thing I have never seen is drunk Jesus. Or gluttonous Jesus. I have never seen Animal House Jesus. Ever.

Tell me the truth. Can you imagine Jesus holding a red solo cup at a party, drinking a beer with the tax collectors? Or at a pig roast, sitting back and loosening his belt a notch after chowing down on barbeque and all the fixings. Can you picture it? Even in wedding at Cana story, where Jesus saves the day by turning vats of water into wine, we kind of imagine him and Mary being the only sober ones at the party, don’t we?

Yet, apparently, this was a not uncommon criticism of him, that he was a drunk and a glutton – he heard it enough that it got him a little riled up and he snapped at them, like, is there no satisfying you people? John was criticized for being absolutely no fun at all, while Jesus was criticized for having too much fun. They can’t win for losing, as my mother used to say.

To what can I compare this generation, he asks? If someone comes playing the flute for you, you will not dance with them. Yet if someone comes wailing, you will not mourn with them. A bunch of critics, you are! whiners.

And so, I would suggest that what we have here is an image of Jesus just losing it with his people. Something else we really don’t see much of in religious art – irritable Jesus; the I’ve-got-one-nerve-left-and-you’re-standing-on-it Jesus. We don’t see much of that one in religious art. Although perhaps we should.

Although we don’t dwell on it, there were plenty of times Jesus was angry. Angry about injustice, angry about hypocrisy, angry about the obtuseness of his disciples, their slowness to catch on. Although we want nice Jesus, easy Jesus, what we have is a different kind of Jesus.

Because there never was a nice, easy Jesus. We have good Jesus, but that’s not the same as nice. We have gracious Jesus, but that’s not the same as easy. The problem here is that, as much as we like to imagine him as gentle and mild, Jesus has always challenged us. And it’s a problem, because who among us wants to be challenged? Does anybody feel like they need another challenge this year?

We have had more than enough challenge for now. We would like 2020 to be recalled. We are over it.

We are tired; we are frayed at the edges, wearing out from all the tensions we are living with. Little problems cause us to snap at each other. Parents are thinking about re-homing their children (just kidding!). Loving couples are retreating to their separate corners and nursing their wounds. While those who live alone are thinking, wouldn’t it be nice to have someone to be bicker with?

We are weary. And none of us really wants to be scolded for being too demanding and wanting what we cannot have. Nobody has the energy for that now.

Yes, it is a truth we cannot deny, that as the Apostle Paul says, sin dwells within us. Yes, it is a sad fact that, even when we know what is right, we find we cannot do it. All we can do, my friends, is pray for mercy.

Because we are tired, and weary, and troubled.

And then the gospel says to us, rest in that, beloved. Rest. In. That.

Rest in that sense of weariness, that helplessness, that I-hate-this-and-I-don’t-feel-like-being-strong-anymore, because dear one, that is who you are. Rest in it.

Infants, that is what you are, Jesus says – but in a kind way, a loving way. We are infants, and that is the good news.

Because those who believe they can solve all the problems on their own; those who excel at analyzing and criticizing; those who feel they have a leg up on all the others and look down on them – these are the ones who are passed over. For, as Jesus says to his followers, it was the gracious will of the Father that the lowly ones would be favored. The weak ones, the poor ones, those who do not presume they can do it for themselves; those who have no preconceptions about what their salvation should look like – the infants.

And this is good news, even in the context of everything that has been happening here. Because we would do well to remember that everything was happening then, too. If you have been paying attention the last few weeks, you know it. Jesus made it pretty clear it is not easy. Yet, even though, as Jesus told them, the way would be costly; even though all the beloved institutions would suffer and possibly even be broken; even though they would be asked to take up their cross and follow him; even in all that, there is this:

Your burden is heavy, but my burden is light. You are weary, but my yoke is easy. Follow me, learn from me, and find rest for your souls.

Yes, even though the way is difficult, and the price is high, God is gracious and gentle with those who follow Jesus.

All thanks be to God. Amen.

Photo: drawings of Jesus from a congregational worship project.