Page 1 of 9 Genesis 28.10-19a; Psalm 139.1-11, 22-23; Romans 8.12-25; Matthew 13.24-30, 36-43 In 2011 ABC cancelled the soap opera, All My Children, after a forty-one year run. The decision by ABC was meant with a lot of angst by long-time viewers. An attempt to revive AMC on-line lasted less than six months. There are biblical stories that contain all the intrigue and plot twists of a modernday soap opera. The story of Jacob, which comprises twenty-five chapters of the Book of Genesis, is one of those. Like most soap operas the story of Jacob involves multiple partners, numerous and often competing offspring by numerous and often competing women; lies, collusion, and hidden agendas. You might say that the story of Jacob is the All My Children of Hebrew Scripture. For those who might have forgotten here is the backstory. Isaac, the son of Abraham and Sarah, has married Rebekah. She is unable to conceive so Isaac prays to Yahweh, who answers the prayer. Uh-oh! Be careful what you wish for. Rebekah becomes pregnant with twins who, it seems, are competing for attention even before they are born. If, to quote the psalmist, Rebekah s children were being made in secret, you could not have proven it by her. The two move and kick a lot. They are so active that Rebekah engages in her own pity party. If this goes on for all of my pregnancy I ll wish I were dead. She goes to Yahweh wanting to know what is going on, anyway.
Page 2 of 9 What Yahweh tells her is an oracle of the future. Two nations are in her womb, two people are in conflict even before they are born; one people shall overpower the other; the older will serve the younger. Finally, Rebekah gives birth to twins. The first twin comes out all red and covered from head to toe in hair. He is named Esau. Esau s brother follows, gripping his heel. He is named Jacob. Jacob was to become the third great patriarch of the Israelites, Yahweh s chosen people, and the immediate ancestor of the twelve tribes of Israel through the births of his twelve sons. Now do you understand why we might call Jacob s story the Hebrew Scripture version of All My Children? As the boys grow into men Esau becomes a skilled hunter and outdoorsman. Jacob, on the other hand, is quiet and prefers a more sedate life. In typical family dysfunction each parent has an obvious favored child. We can guess how this goes, can we not. Isaac favors Esau because he is a manly man. Rebekah dotes on Jacob. He is probably a bit of a mama s boy. The story continues and the plot thickens, along with the red lentil stew that Jacob is cooking. Esau comes in from the field famished, demanding that Jacob give him some food and he does not even say please. Jacob agrees. However, the cost of the lentil stew is Esau s birthright. The first-born son was the possessor of the birthright, which entitled him to eventual leadership of the family and more important two-thirds of the inheritance. But Esau, who is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, is so hungry he could die! Filling
Page 3 of 9 his face in the moment matters more than filling his coffers in the future. Who needs a birthright anyway? Fast forward to some time in the future. Isaac is old and blind, and he knows his days are numbered. He needs to transfer the blessing he received from his father, Abraham, to his eldest son, Esau. Isaac summons Esau and directs him to go to the field and hunt game. He is to return and prepare Isaac s favorite food. Once Esau brings the food to Isaac and he has eaten, Isaac will then bless Esau before he Isaac dies. Unbeknownst to the two men, Rebekah is lurking outside the room eavesdropping on the conversation. This is another plot device commonly used by soap opera writers. Once Esau has left to fulfill his father s orders, Rebekah summons Jacob and together they conspire to cheat Esau out of the blessing. One gets the idea this is not the first time that Jacob and Rebekah have acted together furtively for less than honorable purposes. Rebekah orders Jacob to go to their flock and pick two choice young goats. Jacob is to bring them to her and she will prepare Isaac s favorite foods. Then Jacob will take the food to his father and Jacob will receive the blessing intended for Esau. Jacob is not convinced that their ruse will work because, he tells his mother, Esau is hairy and he is a man of smooth skin. If Isaac touches him, game over and Jacob will receive a curse not a blessing. Jacob is Rebekah s favorite child but, geez, the guy scares easily. No guts, no glory she always says. Rebekah is constantly reassuring Jacob, and this time is no exception. She tells him not to worry; the curse will be on her.
Page 4 of 9 Finally convinced, Jacob does as his mother tells him. He retrieves two young goats from their flock, gives them to Rebekah who then prepares them for Isaac. The deception, worthy of the most deftly written soap opera, continues. Rebekah takes some of Esau s clothes and dresses Jacob in them. Then she takes the goatskins and covers Jacob s hands and neck with them so that none of Jacob s smooth skin is exposed. As with the modern soap opera some plots stretch credulity. This is one of those plots. Rebekah gives Jacob the tray with the food and you can almost see her push him into the room. Jacob announces himself to Isaac as Esau. He gives Isaac the food, and urges Isaac to sit up and eat it so that he can then give Jacob the blessing. Now Isaac may be old and blind. But he is Abraham s son and nobody s fool. He asks Jacob, who is impersonating Esau, how it is he has returned from the field so soon and prepared the food so quickly. Because the LORD your God granted me success, Jacob tells Isaac. Isaac is still not buying it. He wants to touch his son so he can know whether it is really Esau who is in his presence. Jacob approaches Isaac and Isaac touches him. Isaac responds that the voice is Jacob s; the hands are Esau s. Isaac then asks Jacob to kiss him, which he does. And, of course, since Jacob is wearing Esau s clothes he smells like Esau. So Isaac inadvertently blesses Jacob, thinking he is blessing Esau. Deathbed blessings (and curses) were important to ancient peoples. Such blessings, they believed, released a palpable power that set the character and destiny of
Page 5 of 9 the one who received the blessing. That power could not be revoked once it was released. Mission accomplished. Jacob leaves his father. No sooner has that happened than Esau returns. He brings food, asks Isaac to eat it and then bless him. Who is it? Isaac asks. Esau says, I am your first born son, Esau. Isaac and Esau realize that they have both been scammed. Esau begs his father to bless him, too. But, Isaac has only one blessing. He has given it to Jacob and he cannot revoke it. Esau vows that once Isaac has died and the mourning period has ended he is going to kill his brother. Rebekah, in true soap opera form, somehow gets wind of this. She summons Jacob to warn him of Esau s intentions. Rebekah urges Jacob to leave and take refuge with her brother, Laban, until things blow over. She assures Jacob that he will be home before he knows it. Rebekah continues her duplicitous ways. Esau married a foreigner, Judith, and they made her life miserable. She complains to Isaac that she does not want Jacob to do the same thing. Isaac summons Jacob and tells him to go to Laban, his mother s brother, and marry one of Laban s daughters. Rebekah has killed two birds with one stone. She has gotten Jacob away from his brother and she has ensured that he will marry someone not one of those people. Our reading picks up at this point with Jacob heading toward Haran. More about that in a minute. First, a briefly summary of the rest of Jacob s life is in order. He falls in love with Rachel, one of Laban s daughters. Laban has promised Rachel to Jacob if he works for him for seven years. Jacob holds up his end of the
Page 6 of 9 bargain; Laban, not so much. He tricks Jacob by sending him Leah, his older daughter, whom he marries instead. Eventually Jacob marries Rachel. He has twelve sons and one daughter with four different women and he amasses great material wealth. Laban wants Jacob to remain in Haran because he obviously benefits from Jacob s success. But Jacob is sick of being taken for granted. He is sick of Laban s chicanery. Jacob is called by God to leave Laban and return home. He leaves in secrecy so as not to arouse Laban s suspicions. However, Laban follows Jacob and threatens him if he does not return. Somehow, he manages to placate Laban. Jacob learns that Esau is on his way to meet him, with 400 men in tow. Jacob is afraid that Esau is coming to make good on his promise to kill him, so Jacob prepares accordingly. It turns out, though, that Jacob and Esau reconcile. Jacob continues to settle in and then leave a place several more times during his life. He endured the death of Rachel, harsh famine, and other calamities. He was left inconsolable at hearing that his beloved son, Joseph, had been killed. Joseph was really alive, and toward the end of his life Jacob was able to travel to Egypt where he met Joseph again. We are told Jacob died at the age of one hundred and forty seven. Back to our reading from Genesis. Jacob is heading toward Haran but he stops at a certain place because evening has come. He falls asleep and has a dream in which there is a stairway (not a ladder) that reaches all the way to heaven. Angels of God are ascending and descending on it. Yahweh stands next to Jacob and says to him, I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac;
Page 7 of 9 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. Yahweh continues with the promise in what is my favorite verse of this passage, Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to the land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you. Jacob wakes up and realizes that God was in the place where he is and that he did not know it. In the morning Jacob takes the stone he had used as a pillow and sets it up as a pillar; he calls the place Bethel, which means House of God. That is where our reading ends. However, it should continue through Verse 21, where we witness Jacob still being Jacob, still cutting his losses. If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my father s house in peace, the LORD shall be my God... It took Jacob years after this experience on the way to Haran to realize that Yahweh had always been his God; to realize that Yahweh had always been with him. Jacob had spent years living his life as if God were absent, as if Yahweh were someone else s God. He schemed for birthright and blessing. It seemed that, for a large part of his life, what he had was never enough so he kept amassing more. The truth is that Jacob was never left to his own devices.
Page 8 of 9 Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go... I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you, Yahweh says to Jacob. In Jacob s dream heaven has come down to earth. God has established a covenant with a man who, at this point in his life, is on the run from a brother who wants him dead. The God of Abraham is Isaac s God, too. The God of Isaac is Jacob s God, too. The God of Jacob is our God, too. How much do we, like Jacob, live our lives as if God were absent? How much do we, like Jacob, live our lives as if God were someone else s God? How often do we, like Jacob, seek someone else s blessing or affirmation? Too often we, like Jacob, feel that what we have is not enough so we keep amassing more. The truth is that, like Jacob, we are never left to our own devices. And if the story of Jacob does not convince us we have the psalmist. You press upon me behind and before* and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;* it is so high that I cannot attain to it. Where can I go then from your Spirit?* where can I flee from your presence? If I climb up to heaven, you are there;* if I make the grave my bed, you are there also. If I take the wings of the morning* and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, Even there your hand will lead me* and your right hand hold me fast.
Page 9 of 9 Soap operas come and soap operas go. But the story of Jacob is timeless because God s promises to Jacob are sure and eternal. Yahweh never left Jacob because Yahweh s promises to him never ended. God promises to us are sure and eternal as well. God will never leave us because God s promises to us will never end. The good news is yes, there is good news in Hebrew Scripture that we do not need a soap opera when we have the compelling story of Jacob and God s faithfulness to him. You see, unlike the soap opera, Jacob s story of God s faithfulness is our story, too. Thanks be to God! Trinity Episcopal Church Bay City, MI Sunday, July 20, 2014 Proper 11A