God's Promises 7-23-23
God’s Promises
Mt 13:24-30, 36-43; Gen 28:10-19a
Mt 13:24-30, 36-43
He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he replied, ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’” Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.” He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!
Gen 28:10-19a
Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran. He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And the Lord stood beside him and 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 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. 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.” Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!” And he was afraid, and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” So Jacob rose early in the morning, and he took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. He called that place Bethel;
Prayer - O God, we ask that you would give us the courage to open our eyes, to open our hearts to receive your grace filled presence no matter where we are or what we are doing. Help us to receive what only you can give us, the blessing of being chosen and beloved – Amen.
Believe it or not there are lots of subversive texts in the Bible by 21st century standards. The Bible is most extraordinary because it repeatedly and invariable legitimizes the people on the bottom, not the people on the top. Rejected sons, barren women, sinners, lepers, or outsiders are always the ones chosen by God. It’s rather obvious if we are willing to see the reality of scripture and in every case, we are presented with some form of powerlessness – and from that situation God fulfills God’s promises and creates a new kind of power. This constant power is found hidden in plain sight.
We repeatedly see God showing barren women favor in the Hebrew Scriptures. Sarah, Abraham’s wife, was barren and long past child-bearing years when God blessed her with Isaac. Rachel, Jacob’s wife, was barren until God ‘opened her womb’ and she bore Joseph. Barren Hannah poured out her heart and soul before the Lord God gave her Samuel.
Even before Moses, God chose a nobody, Abraham, and made him a somebody. God chose Jacob over Esau, even though Esau was the elder, more earnest son and Jacob was a shifty, deceitful character. God’s choosing has absolutely nothing to do with worthiness, rather divine usability, and historically as well as biblically, usability normally comes from having walked through one’s own wrongness or ‘littleness.’ God chose Israel’s first king Saul out of the tribe of Benjamin, the smallest and weakest tribe. The pattern is clear that the last shall be first and the first last.
Which brings us to our story this morning related to a scoundrel of biblical proportions. Jacob was a schemer, liar and deeply flawed as well as self-absorbed individual. Jacob didn’t deserve much of any blessings he received nor the dreams he dreamed. But then again, how many of us deserve the dreams we dream. Jacob was such an accomplished liar and con man that he pulled the wool over his father’s blind eyes in order to get what he wanted, his older brother’s family blessing.
What a shameful way to obtain a blessing! In fact, Jacob strikes me less as ‘Father Jacob’ as his duplicity and cowardice are profound. It is somewhat amazing to me that this rogue can repeatedly get into trouble but still evokes love and devotion from a parent and countless others. It just doesn’t make sense to me, and I can imagine it may not make sense to some of you as well.
In cahoots with his mother, Jacob steals the blessing intended for his older brother and his mother sends him away for “awhile.” Jacob goes off alone, apparently, and he goes on foot, heading out into the hill country with no more than he can carry – no tent, no torch, no donkey for company. Out on the road back to his father’s homeland, Jacob is “at great risk from the known behind him and the unknown before him.” (Gene Tucker) Jacob has become an ‘unperson in an unplace’, an immoral and irreligious rogue, escaping his past with a stolen blessing. Who knew it would turn out to be twenty years, and multiple wives and children before he returned?
Walking north on a high ridge, with the sun warming his face until it goes down, dusk finally arriving and unable to see his path, Jacob makes camp at a “certain place” set about with stones. Choosing one stone for a windbreak and another for a pillow, Jacob lies down in that place, where he falls into the exhausted sleep of someone on the run. It is in that place that the dream begins, a dream of a ladder with its bottom step on earth, leading up and out of sight with the whole company of heaven passing upon it. If the divine Dream-Giver makes mistakes, this is surely one. There must have been hundreds of folks back in the promised land who have prayed for a dream like this, people who have kept their vows and done their duties, dedicating themselves to the service of God. Jacob is not one of them – he is not on a vision quest; he connived his way to a blessing and he is on the run. He is between time and places, in limbo of his own making. Jacob is nowhere, which is where the dream touches down – not where it should be but where he is. In that unplace God came to meet Jacob, to talk with him, and to renew the promises that had been given to his grandparents and parents before him. One’s colorful history and misdeeds matter not one bit when God decides to call, or better, when God shows up on our journeys.
When Jacob wakes, he is still a double-crosser and a deceiver, but he is also God’s chosen one, a visionary who does not mistake what he has seen in his sleep. “How awesome is this place!” he declares to the high, thin air. No doubt, he doesn’t deserve the dream but he needs it, and what is more, he believes it. He doesn’t write the whole thing off as indigestion; rather he accepts it as God’s gift to him. The same thing had happened to his grandfather years and years ago. His grandfather had cut his covenant with God in the dark of a deep sleep, where the vision of a smoking firepot and flaming torch changed his life and the lives of his descendants forever.
When Jacob woke up the next morning he spoke good words, “Surely God is in this place – and I didn’t know it.” What had looked to him like an ‘unplace’ turned out to be God’s place. What had looked to him like an ordinary pile of rocks turned out to be the gate of heaven and he set his stone pillow up as a pillar to mark the spot, Bethel – House of God, he called it, pouring oil on the rock. It seems kind of funny that God shows up in unexpected places to unexpected people and amazing, surprising, life-changing things occur.
We hear something even more surprising beyond God’s presence and that is God’s promise to be with Jacob wherever he goes, not just in the land of promise. In those days, gods were associated with a specific place or land, but this God of Abraham and Sarah, of Isaac and Rebekah, and of Jacob himself, will not be limited to one place or time. It must have given Jacob great comfort to not only feel God’s presence but to hear God promise to be with him always and to bring him back home to the land he had been promised.
Jacob hears these same promises on his way out of the land of promise, just as his grandfather heard them on the way in. In either case, and in our case as well, God takes the initiative of showing up, of being present with us, all of us, when we least expect it, even when we don’t deserve it – and that says more about God than it does about us and that is a good thing.
Jacob was not a particularly good person, not religious and spiritual, but God didn’t seem to mind that. Jacob was alive, and that was what God required. I wonder if that holds true for me and you, for all of us in this world? Is having life all that God requires of us, not seeking justice, loving kindness and humbly walking with God? Can Jacob’s dream of presence and promise apply to us, even if, like Jacob, we aren’t all that good? Have we lost confidence in our ability to dream, or perhaps in “our” dream of a healed earth full of holy people?
WE are all dreamers, but dreamers have fallen on hard times. For Jacob, his grandfather, his father and others, a dream was a doorway into another reality – a spiritual dimension where God spoke to folks, bringing presence and promise. It was a way for God to act in the ancient world. You and I have been taught to think, not to dream, and we have lived long enough to watch many of our dreams die hard. Only saints and children still believe their dreams will come true – the rest of us adults have learned the difference between fact and fantasy. Our dreams may rise up but we tamp them back down because we know that dreams cannot bandage wounds or buy a loaf of bread.
In our divine economy we think we have to do something spectacular in order to get God’s attention. Thinking we have to do certain things, act certain ways, pray certain prayers, we believe our twelve hour days of religiosity somehow makes us good enough and we fall into bed exhausted. If so, don’t be surprised if the ragged curtains of sleep are drawn aside one night, and a warm breath makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, and the sound of God’s voice enters into your semi-consciousness – not your dream, but God’s dream – more vivid than life, showing you what you never would have believed. Look but also listen; strain to hear the words, the voice that is always calling us, saying, “I am with you . . . I will give you . . . I will not leave you . . . I have promised you.” Look and listen well, because this is the voice that tells the truth. This is the dream that reveals the presence and promise of God. This is the dream that changes the future – we may not deserve it, but we need it, and we need above all else to believe it.
We are the dreamers of God’s promise, set apart to bless all of the families of the earth. The dream of God’s promise comes when we have run out of things we can get for ourselves; it comes when all the conniving has blown up in our faces and our luck has run out. There, in the middle of nowhere, is where the dream touches down, reminding us that we sleep at the gate of heaven where it has pleased God to be with us, even when we are at our worst.
God has a way of showing up in unplaces where unpeople find themselves. Those places become sacred places so that all who see them know that Bethel is not somewhere but everywhere in this wide world that the good Lord has consented as home. We also have been given a promise – a promise of always being with us, a promise of blessing when we least deserve it, a promise that God has chosen each of us, all of us, and that we are indeed beloved – thanks be to God – amen.