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This is an uncomfortable story. And it starts with a wife and son tricking an elderly dying man with reduced capabilities, man out of the most important thing he had to give before he could give it to his elder son as culture dictated. And in a time when such things continue to happen to people including our elderly, that’s pretty uncomfortable. Possibly even and raging.
Isaac, despite his diminished vision and knowing that death was near, had an almost little Red Riding Hood interaction with Jacob seeming to recognize that there was a problem but just accepting the situation as it was. Because we had planned to have Joe here this week and we had to switch it up, we’ve skipped the text that was supposed to happen here which was the birth of Isaac and when his father Abraham and Isaac walked up the mountain that God asked them to because God had commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. On the way up the mountain, Isaac turns to his father and says where is the ram we are to sacrifice and Abraham said God will supply. Even there. It seems Isaac understood there was a problem, just accepted what was told to him.
When Rebecca was pregnant with the twins Esau and Jacob, she was told by God that the elder would serve the younger. And that the younger would be blessed and beloved by God. So, while Isaac was passive, Rebecca set things in motion. She knew the plans that God had and she assured them that they would happen.
The blessing that Isaac had to give was not a gesundheit or a blessing in a birthday card. This was all of his resources, wealth, livestock, the best tent, and the slaves. It was Isaac’s honor and reputation and in an honor-based society that meant a lot. It was the tradition and the lineage and the future. The father had but one of these blessings to give and could only be given once, no take-backs. But in the case of Isaac’s blessing that he had to give, it was attached to the blessing that was given to him and to his father Abraham from God. There was in a sense cosmic implications for the blessing that Isaac was giving. The universe shifted. Things were set in motion.
We skip the part of the story where Esau comes back and Isaac and Esau realize what happened, both are distraught. And Esau threatens Jacob’s life. Rebekah arranges to have Jacob go to her family and marry a woman from her people. But also to save his life.
Just so you know, while Esau didn’t get the official blessing, Jacob left with nothing. Esau ultimately became the caretaker of their father’s resources, lands, livestock, tents, and slaves. Esau was already married and had been blessed with children of his own. This is probably why, when Esau and Jacob meet again many years from now, Esau has already forgiven him and they embrace as brothers.
But until then, Jacob is on the run.
I would assume Jacob was given some resources for his journey but it seems he doesn’t have a tent or blanket or a pillow on which to rest his head. As he travels, he is focused on the goal of getting to Haran, to the household of his mother’s family.
I love learning stories of the midrash, the stories from the rabbis who thought deeply about each biblical story and what is missing in the texts. They tell the story of Jacob’s journey this way. God desperately needed Jacob to stop at a particular place, at the place that would be called Bethel. But Jacob was focused on his goal, of getting away and of getting where he needed to be; he was focused on the path and where each foot fell. So, God set strange things in the wilderness to get Jacob’s attention. Like a bunch of flowers in the desert where those flowers wouldn’t grow. Maybe God even had a test run of the burning bush thing that he would find successful later with Moses.
But Jacob was so focused on his goal, his destination, his fears, his anxieties, that he missed the presence of God around him.
I think the rabbis developed this story of God trying to get Jacob’s attention because of the strange line in the scripture that we read today where it says he came to a certain place and stayed for the night because the sun had set. Well obviously. So if something was put in there so obviously there must be a reason. And so they wondered since Jacob missed all of the other signs, perhaps God had taken the noonday Sun and dropped it, set it so Jacob would finally stop, lay his head, and cease from his journey and his goals to hear what God had to say.
Jacob had to be asleep to hear from God. Not just stopped from his journey, but stopped focusing on himself and his own thoughts.
I don’t really have a lot to say about the dream itself. The ladder as it is often translated and sung was probably better translated as stairs represented in the ziggurats of the ancient world, step pyramids, which is way more dignified than thinking about Divine beings climbing up a ladder and having to navigate around each other as the other ones come down. I like to think of them now as divine mall escalators.
God’s promise to Jacob is like it was before for Abraham, a promise of land and descendants and presence.
If we were to keep reading, we’d see that Jacob responds to God: If you keep your promises, then I will call you my God. Jacob basically says: Prove it. And, I suppose God does. And it is through Jacob that there are 12 sons, and Joseph will assure the survival of many in and around Egypt during a famine. And Jacob will be called Israel, his children will bear the names of the tribes of people who bear his name.
But here, in this moment, with a rock for a pillow, a flawed and broken human, who tricked and schemed and lied, who ran instead of facing his problems… brother, here is Jacob being blessed by God.
Do you think he deserved it?
And when Jacob awakes he realizes what God was trying to say all along, that God was present in this place and he had missed it.
It says something about God that even Jacob is blessed. It wasn’t about what he did or didn’t do. It wasn’t about if he earned it. It wasn’t about him or who he was at all. It was all about who God is. God of blessing, of love, of the unexpected.
But what it is here is that God was doing something unexpected, countering the way people decided the world worked, showing up in desolate and unexpected places.
In the midst of chaos and uncertainty, in the terror and fear God showed up and offered a blessing, promised to be with Jacob always.
I wonder where you have experienced the Divine and unexpected places? At the birth of a child, in the presence of a beloved Aunt, in a conversation with a loved one, in the song of the birds, the burbling of a stream, holding the hand of a parent or grandparent in their final moments. In those moments, we’re often putting ourselves aside and being fully present to the moment, making space for God to be known to us.
But I wonder how often we show up at what we think will be a holy place or moment and… find nothing. We say, “Here I am God, where are you?”
Maybe it’s when you come into church. To be honest, this particular church building doesn’t fill me with the awe and wonder and mystery that a cathedral or an old orthodox church can. Maybe it is easier with the right aesthetics.
Maybe you go on a hike expecting an experience with the Creator in creation and you find yourself surrounded by people who walk and talk loudly, scaring off all the creatures.
Maybe you go to a concert and expect to experience the divine in the beauty and harmony of the music, but you can’t seem to get past the guy in front of you humming and singing along.
Maybe… There are 100 ways we might expect to find God and feel that we arrive alone.
I don’t believe that God has left us. I do believe that the promise of God’s presence that was given to Jacob and repeated again in Psalm 139–
7 Where could I go to get away from your spirit?
Where could I go to escape your presence?
8 If I went up to heaven, you would be there.
If I went down to the grave, you would be there too!
9 If I could fly on the wings of dawn,
stopping to rest only on the far side of the ocean—
10 even there your hand would guide me;
even there your strong hand would hold me tight!
But perhaps sometimes we are so focused on finding God, or we are so focused on our own self and goals and expectations that we don’t see that God is already here.
Where do we find God?
Where do we experience God?
Can we?
I wonder if we remained open without expectations, we might find God in unexpected places, people, situations. I wonder if we traveled into new places and new experiences, we might find God in new ways.
God shows up on the way, in the in between. Jacob is changed, a little, and will continue to be changed by this experience and by the faithfulness of God.
God still meets us in unexpected places, in unexpected ways. God still loves the world in the way that it intended to be and not with the priorities that we have imposed upon it. God still blesses us, calls us beloved, gives us promises, a purpose, a call, and a mission that our blessings and the love we’ve been given are not just for ourselves but to be a blessing to creation, as much as we can.
We discover God when we stop and rest. When we stop working, stop moving, stop. When we stop thinking we’re the reason for our blessings, when we stop thinking we’re so clever for making things work our way, when it stops being about us. Imagine what we might enjoy anew if we stopped putting our goals, destinations, expectations on every moment and just experienced it for what it is. Even God stopped to rejoice and enjoy creation.
God is present in our struggle and our trouble, in our chaotic times and lives, in our grief and suffering. When we are lost, uncertain, stuck, wandering, God is still with us. God shows up in love, in peace, in the presence of a stranger, in the kind word of a friend, in the morning glories that greet the day with purple beauty and the sunset that sets the skies on fire. God is present with us as we seek certainty in a world that is uncertain, not to give us clear answers, but to give us hope, to remind us to choose love.
God is with us in community. When we gather together: as a church, as families, as friends, as strangers; in protests, in classrooms, at work. God is present in the kindness, compassion, empathy that are shared with us and we with others, and each other. And God is present in our conflicts and as we work toward reconciliation. God is with us in our uncertainty, in our doubts, in our anger.
God is always trying to get our attention, to remind us that they are here, near us, in the face of our neighbor, in the creation around us, when love is shared, when there is healing and reconciliation.
So I wonder this week where you might look for God. Maybe you go to some place new, unexpected, with different people and be open to what God is doing there, in the people you meet. Maybe you stop, and rest, and enjoy creation, and experience God in a time of Sabbath. Maybe you connect with someone you’ve lost touch with, someone you’ve wronged, someone who has wronged you, and you take a stop toward reconciliation and forgiveness and you find God in the healing.
I wonder if this week you look for God in those places, and come back next week and tell us about it. Where do you see God in your life? Where do you see God in the world? Where do you experience the love of God? What unexpected way did God reveal themselves to you?
I felt God’s Presence when:
A blessing I can bless others with is: