Genesis 29
We would be well
served to remember that seldom is something as simple as it appears. You would
think once Jacob encountered God, the rest of his life would be smooth sailing.
Jacob had this promise, “I will be with you always.” As mentioned last week
this is a promise that continues to live on today. But this promise does not
guarantee privilege nor does the promise begin to suggest our lives will no
longer be complicated.
Jacob left Bethel
convinced that the answers to all his problems lay before not behind him. His
plan was to find his uncle Laban, offer to work for room and board, find a wife
and eventually go back home to claim all that was his. It seemed like a
reasonable plan. Jacob felt sure that God endorsed the plan. All Jacob had to
do was keep out of trouble, work hard, and reap the benefits of his labor. But
nothing is a simple as it might first appear.
The first thing Jacob
did on arriving in the Land of Haran was to fall in love. The children of
Abraham seemed to always fall in love with the first woman they met and Jacob
was no different. Jacob stopped at a well to ask for directions and there he
met the daughter of his uncle. I know, this seems a little creepy but remember
the primary intention of the Biblical message is not to be a handbook on sexual
ethics. Sexual customs recorded in scripture usually reflected the cultural
mores, an observation often lost on us as we pick and choose what we use in our
present debates over sexuality.
But I ramble. Let’s
return to the story. Jacob fell in love. Worse than that, Jacob fell in love
head over heels. Nothing was going to deter him from marrying the woman of his
dreams and taking her home. Being a proper gentleman, he introduced himself to
Laban by saying, “Hi, I’m Jacob, the son of your sister, the grandson of Abraham.
I will do anything to obtain the hand of your daughter Rachel.”
Laban, remembering his
first encounter with the sons of Abraham must have thought, “Where is the
livestock? Where the gold I received for my sister Rebekah? Does this fool
think I will give away my daughter for nothing?”
Laban responded, “Son,
you seem to be traveling a bit light. You have nothing to offer for my
daughter. What about we agree to you working seven years for me? At the end of
the seven years my daughter is yours.”
I guess Jacob figured he had waited all his
life for the birthright so what was another seven years. An agreement was
reached and Jacob got to work.
You know the story. At
the end of seven years it was time for a celebration. Jacob was drunk with joy
and perhaps a little too much wine. How else can one explain the situation in
which he found himself? Jacob went through the ceremony, the celebratory party
went deep into the night, and the newly wedded couple had completed all the
rituals necessary to consummate the marriage before the young man realized his
new wife was not his beloved Rachel but her older sister Leah. This story has
all the makings of a bad country western song.
Jacob woke up both
confused and furious, but mostly furious. He got out of bed, ran straight to
Leban’s tent and demanded an explanation. Unfortunately for Jacob, Laban had prepared
for the moment. The father of the bride lamented that when he and Jacob had
struck their bargain, how could he possibly have known his oldest daughter
would still be unwed. It would have been improper for the younger to marry
before the older. But now that Leah had been wed, the way was clear for Rachel
to marry. There was only one slight problem. What did Jacob bring to pay for
the honor of taking such fine young woman as his wife? And with that
explanation, the seven year cycle began again.
Jacob had his mind set
on only one thing. He wanted to be the proud husband of Rachel. Of course Leban
was equally determined to marry off all his daughters and make a profit in
return. Life is never about just the desires of one person. Each of us has a path we seem destined to
follow and often that path is complicated by personal intersections that easily
become roadblocks. Further complicating life are the others we encounter such
as Rachel and Leah? Should their dreams be dismissed? How does each person’s narrative
fit into the telling of life’s story?
Last week I participated
in the building of a ramp. Eighteen Presbyterians from various churches in the
Charlottesville area traveled to SW Virginia to spend a week working in one of
the poorest sections of our nation. Sarah and I represented Rockfish. Once we
arrived our group was divided in half and given a task. My group went to a
local community center and was asked to repair a handicap ramp that provided
the only entrance to the building. The door was more than six feet above ground
level. There are government requirements
on how rapidly a ramp can descend. The
previous ramp met none of those regulations. That proved to be the least of our
problems.
Each member of our
group brought a narrative, a history, that would play a major role in the
success or failure of our project. This was particular evident at the top where
our leadership was divided among three qualified yet headstrong individuals.
Each had a plan and none of those plans had any clear lines of intersections. Each had built a ramp as an addition to their
private homes. But none of those ramps had started six feet above ground. The
first day our group might as well have been six feet under.
Our
leadership consisted of a retired engineer who owned the majority of the tools,
an environmental engineer who had considerable experience in Southwest Virginia,
and a retired Colonel who promoted himself to General by the end of the first
day. Each of the three was determined that the daunting task would be completed
by the end of the week. Each of the three had a heart filled with gold, but
each of the three forgot why we were there.
Sometimes when we feel we are called by God, much like Jacob felt he was
called by God, we forget there are parallel stories reminding us why God put us
in that a particular place.
The first day was a
mess. One leader wanted to restore the old ramp, one leader wanted to start
from scratch and other leader tried to find some sort of compromise. The rest
of us stood around waiting for the gang of three to come to some sort of
peaceful resolution. I am proud to say one of our own, Sarah, took that time to
meet some of the folks in the community and got them to share their stories.
Thanks to Sarah, it became clear to the majority of our leadership that we
weren’t there to build a ramp. We were there to build a bridge between two
distinctively different cultures. We
were there to celebrate the incredible impact a woman named Sherry was having
on a town that had lost hope long before the mine closed. We were there to be
inspired by Wayne, a man stricken with cerebral palsy from birth. We were there
to let Ernie, a difficult person to like, explain to us what kind of ramp the
community center could really use. We were there to let Max, a five year old
boy, hand us screws. We were there to be reminded that trusting folks begins
when we listen each other’s stories. A by-product of those stories was a very stable
ramp built by folks from the Charlottesville area and the village of Clinchco.
Through my years of
ministry I have been involved in multiple mission projects. I continue to
question if these efforts “in foreign lands” make a difference. We certainly
feel good about our efforts. We almost always structurally leave the place
better than we found it. We claim to have made new friends. But as we drive off
in our convertibles, our BMW’s and our Mercedes, the truth is one week will not
change their economic plight nor has any of my “one week” experiences altered my
views on how my lifestyle choices might be impacting the friends I left behind.
Jacob and Laban had
conflicting ideas on what was best for Rachel and Leah. Jacob felt his choices were justified because
he was doing the will of God. Leban felt his actions were warranted because he
was doing what was right for his family. Neither thought to ask Rachel or Leah
what they thought. In the end the children of Rachel and the children of Leah
grew up hating each other. Is that
really what God had in mind?
Let us continue to be
a church defined by our compassion and generosity. Let us continue to be a
church inspired by God’s calling to do acts of justice. But let’s make sure our
ears are as open as our hearts. We might be surprised to find out who God uses
to speak to us.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment