Dreams and Disappointments

We all know the story of how Jacob was tricked by his uncle Laban (Genesis 29:16-30). When he thought he was marrying his beloved Rachel, he married her sister Leah instead; and then was forced to work for 7 more years in order to marry Rachel. What if we heard this story from Leah's perspective? What would she say about it? This sermon does just that. You might be able to hear the voices of many marginalized women if you listen closely enough.

My name is Leah; and I have weak eyes. That’s all you ever hear about me – that I have "weak eyes.” Even now that I am Jacob’s wife, I am not the one who is beloved. I am the wife with “weak eyes.” If I sound bitter, it’s because I am bitter! All my life, I have taken second place to my little sister. I’m not the clever daughter, the charming daughter, the daughter who is slim and nimble like a gazelle. No, that one would be Rachel. She is all those wonderful things; while I am stupid and clumsy and can’t make decent conversation. All my life I have lived in her shadow. She has always been the favored daughter. And now she is the favored wife, as well.

Do you know my story? Certainly you know the story of my husband Jacob. You know how he came to my family to find a wife – and to get away from his brother Esau. I’m not sure exactly what happened between them – Jacob would never talk about it – but it must have been quite a disagreement. Once, when my uncle Laban asked him about Esau, he averted his eyes and didn’t really give an answer. He’s running away from something big, that’s for sure. When he first appeared at the well where we water the sheep, I had hoped that he might ask for me as his wife. After all, there are not too many men in our area who are not members of our close family; and I certainly can’t marry one of them! A stranger appearing at the well, especially a stranger who is from our extended family… I thought that one of the gods had sent him to us! But of course, he asked for my sister Rachel instead. For seven years he worked for my father in order to marry Rachel. And never once did he give me even a second glance.

Then came that awful day when Jacob was to marry my sister. My father gave a huge wedding feast to celebrate the occasion. The men ate until they could eat no more; and the wine flowed like a river during the rainy season! Soon all the men were drunk – even Jacob, the groom. My father encouraged all of them to drink their fill. When the time came for Jacob to take Rachel to his tent, my father came to the women and said to my sister, “Stay here. This is not yet your night.” Then he turned to me. “You will go with Jacob,” he said harshly. “I will never be rid of you if I do not give seize this opportunity. Jacob is so drunk that he will never know the difference. I can give Rachel to half a dozen men, but you… I’m getting rid of you tonight.”

As Jacob took me by the hand and staggered to his tent, all my dreams turned to ashes. I had dreamed of marrying a man who would love me and seek my companionship. I had dreamed of marrying a man who would cradle me in his arms and speak tenderly to me. I had dreamed of marrying a man who wouldn’t care that I was shy and clumsy, but who would love me in spite of it. Now, those dreams were dead. I knew that Jacob didn’t love me, and that he would be angry that my father had tricked him. Sure enough, when Jacob woke up in the morning and realized that his bride was not his beloved Rachel, he was angrier than any man I have ever seen. His shouting at my father could be heard for miles. When their argument was finally settled, Jacob had bought my sister Rachel for seven more years of labor; and I was just part of their bargain.

I’m sure that you have heard how disappointed Jacob was to find that he had married me instead of my sister. You must have heard about it; he has told everyone he meets about the underhanded trick that my father played on him. He talks about how his dream of marrying Rachel after seven years was thwarted. He has told everyone how his seven years of work turned into fourteen years, and how he had no choice if he wanted to marry Rachel. But the fact is that Jacob married my sister just a week after he married me. Oh, we celebrated that week of our marriage – if you can call it a celebration. Jacob dutifully took me into his tent for that week. He didn’t turn me out and send me back to my father. But I have always suspected that he tolerated me because he was afraid of losing Rachel. The two of us were a package deal – if he wanted Rachel, he had to take me, too. So at least my marriage has been secure. And I have borne Jacob six fine sons and a beautiful daughter, while Rachel has given him only one. My children certainly bring me great joy! But when I hear Jacob talk about his disappointment, it’s all I can do not to weep bitterly. Jacob was disappointed for – what – a week? After that week with me, he married Rachel; and ever since that day, I have been invisible to him. If he was disappointed, I have been disappointed much more deeply. Jacob has a wife that he loves, and who loves him in return. I will never have that. His dreams of a happy marriage may have been postponed, but they were eventually fulfilled. My dreams of a happy marriage are gone forever.

We all have dreams, don’t we? We have dreams of what we hope will happen to us and to our children. We have dreams of contentment and fulfillment – even of happiness. And then, we are disappointed. What we dream for and hope for and yearn for never happens at all. Oh, good things sometimes happen – here and there. But so often, our dreams end in disappointment. And it makes me wonder – where are the gods when our dreams turn to ashes? We sacrifice and pray, day in and day out, and sometimes it seems like all those prayers are useless! Don’t the gods care about us at all? I have overheard Jacob talk about his god, the god who accompanied him when he came to live with us. He says that this god cares about the people he watches over. He claims that this god protects his people, and is even able to bring joy out of disappointment. I have never heard of a god who could do that. Maybe it is all just idle talk. Jacob worships his god and I worship mine.

But – I had a dream last night that caused me to think again about this god of Jacob’s. In the dream, I saw my son Judah holding a royal scepter and a gold crown. He was standing next to one whose glory filled the whole world, and his descendents were so many that they stretched out behind him as far as I could see – a huge multitude of people! The glorious one spoke to me, saying, “I am the Lord, the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Your offspring will be like the dust of the earth, and all through your son Judah all peoples of the earth will be blessed.” As I watched, a man came out of the crowd of Judah’s descendents, took the scepter and crown from Judah’s hand, and was seated on a throne. Then I heard a great choir of voices singing: “Salvation belongs to our God, and to his Messiah! He will wipe away every tear. Mourning and pain will pass away; and he will reign forever.”

Do you suppose that’s true? Will one of the descendents of my Judah be a king – a king who can turn disappointments into joy and make dreams come true? Will he really be a savior? If that is so, then I am content. I will worship Jacob’s god, and I will trust that he is indeed watching over me and caring for me. The dreams that I had in the past are gone; but perhaps there are new dreams for me in the future. Perhaps… I can still hope.

Hide and Seek

The stories of Jacob in Genesis are great ones! Almost everyone knows the story of Jacob's Ladder, the staircase that stretched from heaven to earth that Jacob saw in a dream. But do we remember his reaction? And more importantly, do we understand his reaction? This sermon might help you understand why Jacob raised that stone of remembrance when he woke up in the morning!

Do you remember playing hide and seek as a child? Sure, we all played it! You remember how it worked! If you were “it,” you hid your eyes and counted slowly to ten, then you searched out your friends who had vanished into thin air. If you weren’t “it,” you were as creative as possible in finding good hiding places. Not in the closet – everybody hid there! Maybe you hid under a bed, or behind a sofa, or even in the cellar (if you were brave enough to go down there). The very best players found the very best hiding places, so that they didn’t have to run home until they heard, “Allie allie outs in free!” Yes, hide and seek is a great childhood game. But it’s not so great when it’s not a game. When we are really hiding from someone else, trying with all our might not to be found, it’s a very serious business. Anyone in the witness protection program will tell you that. Those folks are so serious about hiding that they get a whole new identity for their own safety. That kind of hiding isn’t any fun at all.

You might be surprised to find out that the Bible is full of this kind of serious hide and seek. The first time was way back in the Garden of Eden, when our first parents ate the fruit that God had specifically told them not to eat. When they realized what they had done, they ran away from God and hid themselves among the trees in the garden. Of course, it didn’t do much good. God found them right away. Nobody called “Allie allie outs in free” on that day! That was the beginning of a long tradition of trying to run away instead of facing the consequences. Gideon did it; and so did Jonah. And Jacob, whose story you just heard. He’s a great example of someone who tries to run away and hide instead of facing up to what he did.

We met Jacob last Sunday when he persuaded his brother Esau to trade his birthright for a bowl of stew. But that wasn’t all he did. Jacob stole their father’s deathbed blessing by pretending to be Esau. He dressed up in Esau’s clothes knowing that old man Isaac was half blind and would never know the difference. And then when Esau went gunning for him, Jacob did what slippery characters always do when they get in trouble. He ran away. Now, the Bible is kind to Jacob. While one text tells us that he took to his heels to get away from Esau, another says that he decided to go back to his tribal home to get a wife. Who knows which story is true; maybe both of them have some truth in them. In any case, Jacob headed north, far away from Esau; and far away from his god, as well.

In those days, every piece of land had its own god. No one ever imagined that one god could be everywhere! Canaan had one set of gods, Egypt had another, Syria had yet another. And so, when Jacob hightailed it north towards his tribal home where his uncle Laban lived, I’m sure that he hoped he would escape not only Esau, but also the god who had shown himself to Abraham in Canaan. After all, that god just might take Esau’s side and demand justice. Maybe by heading north, Jacob could hide from Abraham’s god, just like Adam and Eve had tried to do back in the Garden of Eden. But it didn’t work out any better for Jacob than it did for Adam and Eve.

As the story goes (Genesis 28:10-22), while Jacob was sleeping one night during his travels, he had a vision of a ladder that went all the way from heaven to earth. Heavenly beings were climbing up and down on it, traveling between heaven and earth; and at the very top was the god of Abraham – the god that Jacob thought he had left behind. And that god gave Jacob a message! “I am the god of your father Abraham and of your father Isaac,” he said. “I will give you this land and make your descendents like the dust of the earth. And I will watch over you and be with you wherever you go. I won’t leave you until I have done what I have promised to do!” Jacob must have been astonished. Why, he hadn’t left the Lord behind any more than he could leave behind his own shadow! The god of Abraham and Isaac – his god – was going right along with him. No wonder he raised a stone of remembrance when he got up in the morning! The experience of realizing that God is present in our lives when we think we’ve slipped away from him is worth remembering.

And Jacob’s experience was repeated time and time again. God was in Egypt with the Hebrew slaves; and led them through the wilderness as they traveled to the Promised Land. God was with Jonah when he ran that way instead of going this way; and was even in the belly of the fish that swallowed him. God was with the exiled Israelites in Babylon; and with Daniel when he was thrown into a den of lions. In fact, so many people felt the presence of God in faraway places that the psalmist wrote in astonishment, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven and live with the gods, you are there. If I descend to the land where the dead live eternally in the shadows, you are there. If I fly away with the fading night and dwell in the chaos of the depths of the sea, even there you hold me by the hand, and lead me with your presence!” There is no place that God is not. Wherever we are, God is there, closer than our own breath.

Now, that’s a little bit scary to some folks. Do I mean to say that there’s no place that we can get away from God? Am I saying that whatever our mistakes, whatever our failings, whatever our sins may be, we can’t hide them from God by running away? Is God with us even in the toughest situations of our lives? Yep, that’s what I’m saying. God knows exactly who we are, where we are, and what we’ve done every minute of every day. Oh, we can try to get away, but just about the time that we think we’ve finally shaken God off our trail, we feel a tap on our shoulder; and when we turn around, there’s God standing right behind us! If we insist on playing hide and seek with God, we will quickly find that we have nowhere to hide.

But why would we want to run away from God? God loves us; God forgives us; and God wants more than anything to heal us of all our pain. God is searching for us even harder than we’re trying to hide from him. But he’s not looking for us to punish us. He’s looking for us because he loves us! Jesus assured us of that when he told us that God is searching for us as hard as a woman who has lost a coin; and we’re more valuable to God than that coin. God is searching for us as hard as a shepherd who has lost one of his lambs; and we’re more valuable to God than that lamb is to the shepherd. Why, God is searching for us even harder than the Publisher’s Clearing House representative is searching for the lucky person who has just won three million dollars! (I don’t think that Jesus used that particular comparison, but he might use it if he were living today.)

Yes, hide and seek is a wonderful children’s game. But when we play it, and when it gets in the way of our relationship with God – well, maybe it’s time to give it up. Maybe it’s time to come out of hiding and to allow our God to find us at last. After all, God has been there all along. And in the end, God will sweep us into a bear hug, give us a big kiss, and declare, “I’ve been looking all over for you! It’s about time you came out of there. Welcome home!”

 

I'll Know When I Get There!

God frequently asks us to step out in faith, traveling to places that are not familiar to us. One story in Genesis tells of a situation like that, as Abraham sent one of his servants far away to find a wife for Isaac. When has God asked you to travel in faith like that?

It’s nearly impossible to get lost these days. Even for those of us with absolutely no sense of direction, there are all kinds of helps so that we don’t end up wandering in circles. If we need to go somewhere very far away – another country, perhaps – a travel agent will be happy to help us navigate the maze of travel options. If we are traveling a bit closer to home, we can use a GPS system like Garmin. These systems guide us along the best roads to our destination. Some newer cars even come equipped with one of these systems already installed in the console! And we can always use a good old fold-up map of the area where you’re driving. It may be low-tech, but they have always worked just fine for me!

Then there are some people who never need any kind of travel help at all. These folks seem to have an internal compass that guides them unerringly to their destination. I’m married to someone like that. “I’ll know where I am when I get there,” he’ll say; and to my disgust, he always does. He knows what roads to take and where he should turn, whether or not he has a GPS system talking to him from his smart phone. Now, me, I’m a different story. If I’m ever silly enough to state, “I’ll know where I am when I get there,” I am going to get lost. I was traveling to Columbus recently with a good friend, going somewhere that I had been many times before; and so I didn’t bother to program my destination into my GPS system. I said what I shouldn’t have said – “I’ll know where I am when I get there!” Famous last words. When we hit the outer belt on the far side of Columbus, it was evident that I didn’t know where I was. When we finally stopped for directions, it turned out that I had taken the wrong road entirely! We did get there eventually… an hour late. So, fair warning, friends. If you are ever travelling with me, and I say, “I’ll know where I am when I get there,” please shove me in the back seat and insist that someone else drive!

We all do what we can so that we don’t get lost. But sometimes we simply have to travel without any directions. That happens a lot as we travel through our lives. Interstate highways may be full of signposts, but the highway of life… not so much. There are times when we simply have to put one foot in front of the other and trust that God is leading us where we need to go. This morning’s scripture (in Genesis 24) tells the story of a time like that. It’s the end of the story of Abraham finding a wife for his son Isaac. Abraham doesn’t want Isaac to marry any of the local girls – not one of those Canaanites! And so, he sends his servant to find a wife for Isaac from Abraham’s ancestral tribe. The only trouble is that Abraham’s tribe lived far, far away! Do you remember where Abraham was when God called him away from his home? He was living in Haran in northern Syria, just south of the border of modern-day Turkey. That’s nearly 400 miles north of where Abraham had settled in Israel. How in the world did Abraham expect his servant to find his relatives when they lived so far away? Why, they could be anywhere! Today, we’d look them up in the local phone book, or even Google their address. But those options weren’t available 4,000 years ago! Abraham’s servant had to travel without knowing exactly where he was going, or even how long it would take to get there.

We’re not all that different from Abraham’s servant. We, too, are called to travel when we don’t know exactly where we’re going. Isn’t that the situation of our congregation today? We can’t stay where we are. Our congregation is aging. We have only a few children for our Sunday school program. The softball teams who once used our recreation park are no longer in existence. We can no longer confidently state, “If you build it, they will come.” Fewer and fewer people are interested in coming, regardless of what we build. Our congregation needs to do some things differently if we want to continue to proclaim the good news of the gospel to people who need to hear it. But… how are we supposed to do that? We don’t have any GPS to follow, no map to guide us. We have only the faith that believes if we follow God faithfully, step by step, we’ll end up where we ought to be. We’re like the people in the musical “Paint Your Wagon” who sing, “Where are we going? I don’t know. Where are we bound for? I ain’t certain. All that I know is I am on my way!”

But don’t despair! When we get where we’re supposed to be, we’ll know it. Abraham’s servant did. One day after months of travel, he stumbled upon an oasis in the middle of the desert. And he prayed to God for a sign. If a young woman came to the spring and offered him a drink, he would know that woman was the one he was searching for. Sure enough, Rebekah appeared, water jar on her shoulder. She immediately offered to give a drink not only to the servant, but to his camels, as well. And when he asked her who she was, it turned out that she was a distant cousin of Isaac, just the one who would make him a good wife. Although Abraham’s servant didn’t know where he was going or how long it would take to get there, he recognized the end of his journey when he got there.

I think that we’ll recognize it, too, although it might look different than we expect it to look. We’ll recognize it not because the people around us look different or because our church building has changed or even because our worship is new. No, in the same way that Abraham’s servant knew Rebekah, we’ll recognize the end of our journey by what the people around us are doing. The prophet Micah told us what God wants of us – to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. When we are surrounded by a growing community of faith who is eager to do all those things, we’ll know that we’ve arrived at our destination.

But there’s another person who undertakes a journey in this story, isn’t there? Rebekah travels, too. Let’s not focus so much on Abraham’s servant that we forget Rebekah. She doesn’t know where she is going any more than Abraham’s servant did when he went in search of her. In fact, she is asked to begin an unknown journey to marry a man she has never met. And she has a choice. Did you catch that, right in the middle of the story? “So they called Rebekah and asked her, ‘Will you go with this man?’ And she answered, ‘I will go.’” (24:58) What a gutsy answer! Rebekah had no proof that Abraham’s servant was who he claimed to be. He might have turned out to be a slave trader, ready to sell Rebekah to the first caravan going in the other direction. But Rebekah trusted in God’s guidance, just as Abraham’s servant had done. We know the happy ending to the story. “Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he married Rebekah… and he loved her…” (24:67)

We have a choice, too. We can begin to do some new things, to move away from where we are now, and to trust God’s guidance; or, we can stay put, and go nowhere. Are we ready to answer, with Rebekah, “I will go”? That’s the beginning of our journey, after all. We have to decide to take the first step. Because without the first step, we don’t need a GPS, we don’t need a map, we don’t need guidance from God or from anybody else! And that first step into unfamiliar territory is the hardest one to take. Once we’re on our way, we’ll get used to seeing different scenery. We’ll get used to relying on God for guidance, and we’ll start to anticipate what our destination might look like. But we won’t do any of that if we don’t decide to go in the first place! Let’s trust God and step out in faith! We don’t have to be afraid of where we’ll be going, because God will be traveling right along with us. Oh, we might wander a little bit, but that’s not necessarily bad. Think of it as an adventure! And even though we don’t know where we’re going, God will be guiding our steps. And believe me – even for those of us with no sense of direction at all – we’ll know it when we get there!