Last
week, we visited Jacob on the road to Haran. He was fleeing to the home of his
mother’s brother Laban. On the way, he stopped at the place that would be
called Bethel and had a dream…in Jacob’s dream, God reiterated that Jacob would
be the inheritor of the Covenant God had made with Abraham and Isaac. Jacob
would be the ancestor of many nations of people and would be the conduit
through which God would build a relationship with God’s followers.
You
may recall – Jacob was not always the most ethical of people. He tricked his
brother out of the special blessing he was to receive from their father, Isaac.
Esau would have technically been the person through which the covenant with God
would have continued, but Jacob tricked Esau out of that privilege. In this week’s reading, Jacob is the one who
is the victim of trickery – what goes around comes around. Listen to how the
story unfolded as we read from Genesis Chapter 29, verses fifteen through
twenty-eight:
Proclamation of the Scripture Genesis
29: 15-28
Laban
said to him, “Just because you are a relative of mine, should you work for
me for nothing? Tell me what your wages should be.”
Now
Laban had two daughters; the name of the older was Leah, and the name of
the younger was Rachel.
Leah
had weak eyes, but Rachel had a lovely figure and was
beautiful.
Jacob
was in love with Rachel and said, “I’ll work for you seven years in return
for your younger daughter Rachel.”
Laban
said, “It’s better that I give her to you than to some other man. Stay here
with me.”
So
Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only a few
days to him because of his love for her.
Then
Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife. My time is completed, and I want to make
love to her.”
So
Laban brought together all the people of the place and gave a feast.
But
when evening came, he took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob, and
Jacob made love to her.
And
Laban gave his servant Zilpah to his daughter as her attendant.
When
morning came, there was Leah! So Jacob said to Laban, “What is this you have
done to me? I served you for Rachel, didn’t I? Why have you deceived me?”
Laban
replied, “It is not our custom here to give the younger daughter in marriage
before the older one.
Finish
this daughter’s bridal week; then we will give you the younger one also,
in return for another seven years of work.”
And
Jacob did so. He finished the week with Leah, and then Laban gave him his
daughter Rachel to be his wife.
Here
ends this reading of the word of God for the people of God; Thanks be to God.
Amen.
Let
us pray: God of mercy, you promised never to break your covenant with us. Amid
all the changing words of our generation, speak your eternal Word that does not
change. Then may we respond to your gracious promises with faithful and
obedient lives; through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Message Weaving
the Future
This morning, in our scripture reading, Jacob got his “just
deserts.” He had colluded with his mother to successfully take over his
brother’s rightful inheritance. When he
ran away in fear of his brother’s wrath, he learned that our gracious God was
still going to extend the Covenant to him, to Jacob, despite his flaws. This
was the good news. And, then Jacob went to the home of his uncle Laban…and
there things got murky for Jacob…his winning streak was foiled.
Laban,
like Abraham and Isaac, was a shepherd. His family followed the sheep as they moved
from grazing land to grazing land. It
was a harsh life. When Jacob came to Haran and to live with his uncle’s family,
he agreed to work for seven years to earn the right to marry Rachel, the cousin
he was enamored with. But, on the night of the wedding, after the seven years
of work, Laban placed Leah in the tent. Somehow, Jacob and Leah had marital
relations before Jacob noticed the switch-a-roo. We don’t know why Jacob didn’t
notice the women had been swapped – was he too excited to look at the face of
the woman? Was he drunk? Was he exhausted by the wedding festivities? This
question of how Jacob failed to notice the difference has been asked for more
than 4000 years…I guess we will never know.
Jacob
married the wrong woman. And the next day, he had words with his
uncle/father-in-law about the switch. Laban agreed to allow him to also marry
Rachel, but Jacob had to sleep for Leah for a week first. Sigh.
This
is not how we do things in our culture. These events also expose some of the
flaws in how they did things in their culture: Women were property. Their fathers
used them as bargaining chips. And, families had very different rules about
incest than we have now. We do things differently.
Things
worked out ok for Jacob for a while. He had two wives and they brought 2
concubines into the marriage. Jacob had relations with 4 women. He ended up
with many offspring which eventually included 12 sons and a daughter. We have
probably all watched tv shows with this kind of arrangement, and things are
complicated. For Jacob’s family, relationships were not harmonious among all of
the wives and children. The wives were jealous of each other. Rachel had
trouble conceiving children. She eventually had Joseph and Benjamin. The sons of
all the wives were exceedingly jealous of each other. Some of them weren’t nice
to their sister either. It became a pretty tense situation. Laban continued to
try to trick Jacob into working for free.
Eventually, Jacob made an agreement with Laban to take a portion of the
sheep and return to his homeland. But, Laban changed his mind at the last
minute and chased after Jacob and his family. They barely escaped. And, even
when they went to the land promised to Abraham, things didn’t always work out
well.
Jacob and his family
had a lot of colorful adventures and mishaps. They were not always well-behaved
or kind. Instead, they perhaps point to the reality that God loves us even when
we are not good at following God’s commandments.
Jacob went from being
a lonely man running away from his angry brother to being the husband and
father of many people. He would never be lonely again. And, although Laban was
not necessarily kind to Jacob, he helped Jacob have a job, a place to live, and
a family.
The story of Jacob’s
life contains many ironies. Jacob tricked his father Isaac – he took advantage
of his father’s vision impairment to pretend to be his brother and receive the
blessing and inheritance reserved for the first born son. Then, his uncle Laban
tricked him – he took advantage of Jacob’s vision impairment in the darkened
tent to substitute his older daughter for his younger daughter. Jacob unintentionally married the wrong
woman, who was very fertile and is able to bear many children, and his chosen
woman struggled with fertility and was only able to have two children – and died
when the second son was born. Jacob
overtly favors the sons of Rachel, which trigged his other sons’ jealousy and
results in them pretending to kill off her older son, Joseph. Jacob’s
preference for his wives and sons mirrored the preferences his parents had for
their children – leading to broken relationships, jealousy, and nearly murder
among the children. Almost everyone in the family is negatively affected by the
consequences of Jacob’s sins.
This is one of the
soap-opera-tic stories of the Old Testament that is entertaining to read but
was not entertaining to live. The people in this story experienced many
harrowing consequences because of their sins. Yet, there is still hope in the
midst of their pain. God loved them and fulfilled God’s promises to them – God
had promised Jacob that his descendants would be as many as the dust in the
desert – we are all descendants of Jacob’s and inheritors of the Covenant. We
are now able to be in relationship with God, who loves us despite our flaws,
just as God loved Jacob despite his flaws. I hope none of us have been as flawed
as Jacob, but we all have made countless mistakes, and God loves us and
supports us anyway. We all can do better – over time Jacob did better – we all
can seek to do a better job of being compassionate, loving towards others, and
less-selfish. God pays attention to us and appreciates when we make good
choices. God also carries us through the difficult times of our lives.
The story of Jacob is
like a master lesson in learning about how sinful behavior backfires. It is our
work to do better. And, it is also our blessing to know that despite our
personal flaws, God loves us and roots for us.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
