Genesis 28: 10-19a Psalm 139: 1-12, 23-24
Romans 8: 12-25 Matthew 13: 24-30, 36-43
Grace and peace to you from God our Creator, from Jesus our Savior, and from the Holy Spirit, our Advocate and Comforter. Amen.
When we meet Jacob today, he is wandering aimlessly. He’s tired, he’s emotionally and physically spent. Let’s remember some of the story up until now. Jacob and Esau were twin brothers; from birth they struggled with one another. Esau gave his birthright to Jacob in our reading from Genesis last week. What’s happened in the chapters in Genesis from then up to today’s reading is that Jacob cheats his brother out of his father’s blessing upon his death bed. To us, in our culture, this may seem really rotten, but of little consequence. But in these ancient times, the blessing upon the death bed or the curse upon the death bed was believed to release a power that essentially determined the character and destiny of the recipient. So, it was critical to Jacob, that although he was in fact the youngest son, he receive his father’s blessing. So Jacob, with the help of his mother, dressed up in his elder brother Esau’s clothing and put the hairy hide of animals on his smooth skin so that if his father touched him he would feel like his hairy brother Esau, and tricked his father into blessing him.
Well, just a few moments later, Esau went into where his father lay on his deathbed to receive his blessing and the gig, as they say, was up. Furious, Esau vowed that he would kill his brother Jacob as soon as the ritual days of mourning were over. When their mother caught wind of this, she sent Jacob off to take shelter with his uncle and his family, and to flee from his furious brother, Esau.
So this is how and why we find Jacob physically and emotionally spent. He has been walking a great distance at a rapid pace searching for safe haven. He is grieving the death of his father. He has lost his relationship with his brother. He is quite literally running for his life. We aren’t even told that he knows precisely where he is headed, he just goes toward Haran. And this is where God meets Jacob…out in the world…while he is on the run.
One does not need to be running from a homicidal sibling to feel like one is running for one’s life. We run from all sorts of things…from the expectations that others have of us, from broken relationships, from responsibility, from people we have hurt, from people who have hurt us. We run from addictions and failings and illness and deception. And often, when we run, whether we have physically left a place or whether we are fleeing emotionally, we feel completely alone. And this, is so frequently where we encounter God’s presence with us.
I want to tell you another story of another wander-er. John was a young man who had always met his family’s high expectations. He had graduated from high school as valedictorian of his class. His interests included theater and music and he was gifted at both. While still in high school he established a program in his small, Midwestern town for elementary school children who wanted to experience theater workshops. He volunteered in his church as an acolyte and VBS teacher and was active in his youth group. While he was in college, though, he came to a true understanding of his sexual orientation. If he were to come out as a gay man, he worried, what would his family say? What would his community think of him? Would he ever be accepted again in his church? And so he dropped out of college following his Junior year and decided he needed to take off so that he could, well, who knows why. But he answered an ad to be part of a kitchen crew in a place he had never heard of and he was going to commit to it for an entire year. It was a remote place, so he could tell his family and his friends that he was gay, then leave for the mountains that were all the way on the other side of the country, where he could remain for a year. And that was what he did. When he arrived at the remote camp where he’d be working he was welcomed with a celebration, as were all of those who arrived with him. He’d never seen anything like it. But God met John there at Holden Village that year. Through the ministry of that place, through the love and care of the community of faith where he landed quite by chance, John learned that he was a beloved child of God first, foremost and always. John was reminded that God had created him in God’s image, that God would never leave or forsake him. God’s promises to John came to life in that remote village where John had run for his life.
Jacob encountered God in a dream, while sleeping on a rock for a pillow. And God repeated to Jacob the promises God had already made to him. God said “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; 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 north and to the south and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring.” Jacob knew these things. He had heard these promises, which had been made for generations of Abraham’s family. The stories of God’s faithfulness had been handed down to him and he knew them…he knew them to be true in his head, but his heart…his heart wasn’t so sure. After tricking his brother and deceiving his father, and losing both of those relationships, Jacob wasn’t so sure that the promises of God could hold. So he ran.
Friends in Christ, what is it that we are questioning? What is it that we are running from? What is it that keeps us from hearing and remembering the promises of God?
God’s further promises to Jacob are promises for all of us, for Jacob and for Esau, for John at Holden Village, and for each one of us today. God makes promises about God’s relationship with us. God says “Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” And Jacob, upon hearing this promise, wakes up from sleep and proclaims something so profound and true that we know it to be true. Jacob says “Surely the LORD is in this place – and I did not know it!”
This is the heart of this story, that Jacob was not aware of God’s presence there. Perhaps Jacob was surprised to find God outside of the places of worship, outside of the temple or the synagogue. Jacob was surprised to find God out in the middle of nowhere. Just there, with him.
So often we imagine that *this place* (the church) is the only place where we will find God. But what this story tells us is that God is present with us, everywhere. God is present with us when we are running for our lives. God is present with us in the midst of our disappointments, in the midst of our difficulties. God is with us when we doubt ourselves, or our actions or when we have been hurt by others. God is with us when we feel that we simply do not know where to turn next. God is with us when we are metaphorically or literally in the middle of nowhere sleeping with our heads on a rock.
We do not come to this place to ‘find God’, as some have said, for God is not lost and God is not only in this place. We come to worship because by doing so it helps us to see God everywhere else in the world. We hear the stories of God’s presence with God’s people….in a garden, on an ark, crossing through the sea, in conflict, in the middle of nowhere and it reminds us of God’s presence with us. We sing the stories in the songs of faith and in the words of the Psalms. We share the stories with one another, teaching them to young and old, talking about them when we are at home or when we are away. And then, whenever we set out…whether it is to go to school or work, to visit others or to walk alone…or even if it is to run for our lives…we are able to see and know that God is with us, wherever we go, and that the promises of God and trustworthy and true, just as they were for Jacob, and for John, so they remain for us. And that is the good news for this day and all of our days. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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