Genesis 29:15-30
Dysfunctional Families and a Loving God
James Sledge July
30, 2017
After
stealing his brother’s birthright, Jacob must flee to escape Esau’s plan to
kill him. He seeks refuge in the far away land of Haran, with the family of his
mother. When Jacob arrives in Haran, he encounters shepherds at a well and asks
them if they know Laban, the uncle he’s
never met. They do, and they inform Jacob that the young woman coming to water
a flock of sheep is Laban’s daughter, Rachel. Jacob is overcome with emotion.
He weeps and embraces Rachel, who runs to tell her father of Jacob’s arrival. There
is a warm, family reunion, and Laban invites Jacob to stay with him.
During
the midst of this family reunion, the story offers an odd note. It says, Jacob
told Laban all these things, with no explanation as to what “these things”
are. Does he tell of stealing Esau’s birthright and fleeing to Haran,? Does he tell
of his dream at Bethel and God’s promise to be with him? The story doesn’t say.
It leaves us to guess or assume.
But
our story tellers surely chuckle as Jacob the trickster is himself tricked.
Laban invokes the tradition of the older
sister taking priority over the younger, a reversal of what Jacob did to his
older sibling. Perhaps when Jacob told Laban all these things, Laban
took offense at how traditional lines of inheritance had been tossed aside in
the house of Isaac.
Regardless,
the dysfunction we saw in Isaac’s house seems only to get worse as Jacob joins
his uncle’s family. We see a bit of this in our reading today. Jacob now has
two wives, one that he loves and one that he doesn’t. Laban has used his own
daughters as pawns and bargaining chips to make Jacob serve him. If Laban knows
about the dream at Bethel, knows that God is with Jacob, perhaps he thinks he
will benefit from Jacob’s presence. Now Jacob is bound to Laban for another
seven years. And we’re just getting warmed up.
As
the story continues, a bitter rivalry develops between Rachel and Leah. They
vie for Jacob’s attention and to be mothers of his children. God comes to the
aid of both women in times when they are ignored or oppressed. And both women
give their maids to Jacob in order to produce more children. In the end, the
unloved Leah will be mother to eight of Israel’s twelve tribes, with Rachel mother
to four.
Meanwhile
the struggle between Laban and Jacob continues. Laban becomes wealthy with
Jacob working for him, and he resists when Jacob thinks it time to return home
to face Esau. Laban does not want to lose the services of Jacob. But Jacob does
leave, aided in part by his two, rival wives working together against the
father who used and even abused them. And the final trick, the final act of
deception in the story is done by the younger daughter, Rachel, against her
father, Laban.
When
Jacob and his family and his servants and his flocks slip away from Haran while
Laban is off on business, Rachel steals the household gods from her father.
These are not only valued religious items, they are symbols of Laban’s
authority and power over his family, likely inherited from his father as
symbols of his birthright and blessing.
When
Laban discovers Jacob gone and the household gods missing, he sets out in
pursuit. He overtakes Jacob, confronts him, and accuses him of stealing. Jacob,
unaware of Rachel’s theft, vows that anyone possessing Laban’s gods shall be
killed, and Laban begins to search the camp. After searching various tents,
Laban finally enter Rachel’s. He searches all around while Rachel remains
seated on her camel’s saddle, the gods hidden beneath it. She apologizes to her
father for not getting up to greet him, but, she says, “I cannot rise, for the way of
women is upon me.”
In
ancient times, a woman’s period was considered a weakness. It brought temporary,
religious “uncleanliness” so that she could not touch others or participate in
community life. But now this weakness, this uncleanliness, becomes the very means
by which Rachel dupes her father, the way Jacob gains the upper hand over
Laban, who has “falsely” accused him.
And so Laban and Jacob come to an
agreement, and Jacob and his family and possessions continue their journey back
to Canaan, back to the land of promise, back to his father’s house, and back to
Esau, the brother he deceived all those years ago.
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Most
every family has a bit off dysfunction, but Jacob and his families take things
to a whole new level. What a messed up group. So why do the people of Israel
cherish these stories so? Why remind themselves over and over again that their
origins are not rooted in greatness, power, achievement, or an impressive résumé,
but rather in conflict, dysfunction, suffering, and scheming? Why revel in
these stories that celebrate what unlikely and unfit candidates they were to be
the vehicle for God’s blessings to enter into the world?
Israel’s
storytellers understood something that Jesus also knew and embraced, something
that Western Christianity forgot over its many centuries of power and
dominance. God prefers the weak and the lowly, the broken and the lost, the
messed up, over those who are impressed with themselves. And so Jesus speaks of
the kingdom belonging to children, who were totally without power or voice in
Jesus’ day. He says, “The first will be last, and the last will
be first,” and he tells religious leaders impressed with getting
religious things just right, “The tax collectors and prostitutes are
going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.”
We
religious sorts have often reflected Jesus’ opponents more than his teachings.
We’ve made faith mostly about morality, respectability, and the status quo.
We’ve forgotten our origins in the messy stories of Israel. We’ve forgotten
that those we look down on, whether drug dealers or those whose theology
doesn’t measure up to ours or single moms on food stamps or those whose worship
isn’t as impressive as ours or anyone else we imagine inferior, are in line for
the kingdom ahead of us. At least that’s what Jesus says.
The
perpetual temptation for every religious group is to think our religion affords
us special status. Whether it’s because we think we’re more enlightened and
sophisticated or we’ve figured out just what God wants or we just happen to be
the group God prefers, we use religion to draw lines that put us on the inside
and others, therefore, on the outside. But the stories of Jacob and the stories
of Israel and the story and life of Jesus keep tossing aside our conceits and
breaking down our boundaries, revealing a God whose love is so big it embraces,
includes, and make use of the most messed up and undeserving among us. God even
seems to prefer such folks.
And
when we remember that, we can become agents of God’s radical, boundary breaking
love. We can embrace those we once looked down on, those we imagined inferior,
wrong, beneath us, or undeserving, with the same astounding love and mercy and
grace that embraces us no matter who we are or what we’ve done or failed to do.
And God’s new community of love grows. And Jesus smiles.
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