Gourock St. John’s
Opposite Blessings
Genesis 27-28 (NRSV)
22 August 2021, Sunday School Revisited 13
When Isaac was old and his eyes were dim so that he could not see, he called his elder son Esau and said to him, ‘My son’; and he answered, ‘Here I am.’ He said, ‘See, I am old; I do not know the day of my death. Now then, take your weapons, your quiver and your bow, and go out to the field, and hunt game for me. Then prepare for me savoury food, such as I like, and bring it to me to eat, so that I may bless you before I die.’
Then Rebekah took the best garments of her elder son Esau, which were with her in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob; and she put the skins of the kids on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck. Then she handed the savoury food, and the bread that she had prepared, to her son Jacob.
So he went in to his father, and said, ‘My father’; and he said, ‘Here I am; who are you, my son?’ Jacob said to his father, ‘I am Esau your firstborn. I have done as you told me; now sit up and eat of my game, so that you may bless me.’ But Isaac said to his son, ‘How is it that you have found it so quickly, my son?’ He answered, ‘Because the Lord your God granted me success.’ Then Isaac said to Jacob, ‘Come near, that I may feel you, my son, to know whether you are really my son Esau or not.’ So Jacob went up to his father Isaac, who felt him and said, ‘The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.’ He did not recognise him, because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau’s hands; so he blessed him. He said, ‘Are you really my son Esau?’ He answered, ‘I am.’ Then he said, ‘Bring it to me, that I may eat of my son’s game and bless you.’ So he brought it to him, and he ate; and he brought him wine, and he drank.Then his father Isaac said to him, ‘Come near and kiss me, my son.’ So he came near and kissed him; and he smelled the smell of his garments, and blessed him, and said,
‘Ah, the smell of my son
is like the smell of a field that the Lord has blessed.
May God give you of the dew of heaven,
and of the fatness of the earth,
and plenty of grain and wine.
Let peoples serve you,
and nations bow down to you.
Be lord over your brothers,
and may your mother’s sons bow down to you.
Cursed be everyone who curses you,
and blessed be everyone who blesses you!’
Jacob left Beer-sheba and went towards 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.’
I used to think that my brother and I were pretty bad as far as fighting and sibling rivalry goes. When we were younger we broke things, hurt each other, and shouted ourselves hoarse. I don’t know how our parents put up with us honestly.
And then I read the Bible, and the things that siblings get up to, even just in the book of Genesis, puts our petty squabbles to shame.
Jacob and Esau are a good example. They’re twins, and even in the womb they were already wrestling. While she was pregnant, their mother Rebekah suffered a lot from their constant movement, and when she prayed about it, she received a vision from God to say that she was giving birth to two nations…and that the younger would take precedence over the elder. Now of course they’re twins, so there’s not much room for younger and older, especially since Jacob was born quite literally on the heels of Esau — it says that he was holding on to Esau’s heel with his hand!
From that moment onward, they were rivals in every way. One was their father’s favourite, and one their mother’s favourite. One was skilled in hunting, the other in husbandry. On and on the list goes of how they were polar opposites of each other. And of course there’s the story where we learned that Jacob was a typical Scot as well — he was able to cook a good hearty meal, and his lentil soup was so good that when Esau came in from hunting and was so hungry, he agreed to sell his birthright, his inheritance, to his brother for a bowl of it! A good cook and canny too!
So perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that there’s a twist to the story of their father was preparing for his last days, and thinking about his legacy, wanting to give his eldest son a blessing.
Remember Rebekah had been told by God that “the elder will serve the younger.” She simply did, in her mind, what she had to do to ensure that God’s word came true. So she and Jacob worked out a plan to dress Jacob in Esau’s clothes, to cover him in goat hair, and to take in Rebekah’s best cooking. After all, Isaac’s eyesight had failed, and he wasn’t mentally as sharp as he’d once been either, so the plan that Rebekah and Jacob concocted paid off. They were able to manipulate and scheme their way into Jacob getting his father’s blessing.
Esau was murderously angry, of course, which is why Jacob fled towards Haran — the homeland of his grandfather Abraham, running away with only what he could carry. No servants, no livestock, no extra baggage allowance, just what he was wearing and a bag on his back as he headed into the wilderness.
When he laid down that night, exhausted from running, having left his mother with his dying father and his angry brother, the only thing he had to hand was a stone. We always think he used it as a pillow but it’s more likely to have been a large stone that he laid down next to, his back to it, protecting his head and back and hiding him from at least one angle as long as he didn’t stick his legs out. The wilderness is a dangerous place, especially at night, that’s the best he could hope for in terms of protection.
There, in the middle of nowhere, under the stars, his back to a stone, exhausted and sad, Jacob slept.
There’s nothing more vulnerable than a person who is mentally and physically exhausted, exposed to the elements, asleep.
And that is when God appeared.
Not when Jacob was controlling the situation and scripting the conversation, but when he was asleep, outside, far from home, alone.
There he saw the connection between earth and heaven, and how easy it is to move between them for those messengers doing God’s work. He understood that even there, in the wilderness, he was in the house of God, literally sleeping at the gates of heaven…and he had no idea.
Now at this point I could go on for quite some time about the fact that we, like Jacob, so often have absolutely no idea that God is in this place. Right here and now, wherever we find ourselves, is the gate of heaven. God has not left a single square millimetre of the universe without divine presence, it’s just that we choose not to see God all around us, and we choose to treat the creation as if it is not God’s house, but our own to abuse as we wish. Rather than being vulnerable and open to receiving the truth of the interconnectedness of heaven and earth, we have chosen to stay closed in order to manipulate and overpower creation for our own purposes, as if that will have no consequences for us or others or for the kingdom of God.
And that is all true.
But what I most want to notice with you today is slightly different. Related, in a way, but different.
Take a look at the blessing that Jacob and Rebekah worked so hard to get from Isaac. It is about two main things: material prosperity first (the fatness of the earth, plenty of wine), and power second (let peoples serve you, be lord over your brothers).
Those are things that many of us strive for. To have more than enough to satisfy our desires, and to have a higher status than other people. To work our way up the ladder, socially and economically, to be better off than our parents were — isn’t that what we’re culturally conditioned to work for our whole lives, and what our western economies require of us?
Now take a look at the blessing God gives to Jacob while he is sleeping at the gate of God’s house. God says “I am with you and will keep you wherever you go” and promises that this land will be full of his descendants, people who will be a blessing to others.
God blessed him with the knowledge of God’s constant presence everywhere, not just in holy places, and with the gift of being a blessing to others, to all the families of the world.
It’s the opposite of the blessing he’d manipulated his father for, which was about being served while God’s blessing is about being a blessing.
One is what we often think of as blessing, we work for it or we say we’re “so blessed” when we have prosperity and power. And the other is what God thinks of as a blessing: to know God’s presence and share it with others, to spread the news that “surely the Lord is in this place” and to work for a world where all can experience God’s goodness here and now.
In other words, as Jesus put it, to receive a blessing is not to be served, but to serve. To love as we have been loved. To represent God’s image in the world.
This doesn’t only apply to us as individuals, though it is the opposite of the way we use the word “blessed” culturally. It also applies to the church as a whole. A blessed church is not a church that has a lot of people and a lot of money and a high profile in its town or nation or the world. A blessed church is a church that gives itself away as a blessing to others. A blessed church isn’t a church with a beautiful building, a blessed church is a church that knows the people are the church, wherever we are. A blessed church isn’t a church that’s packed to the rafters, standing room only, a blessed church is a church that is reflecting the image of God outside the sanctuary walls, loving its neighbours in every neighbourhood where the church lives. A blessed church isn’t one that controls or manipulates to get what it wants, a blessed church is one that recognises God’s presence everywhere and stands up to say “Surely the Lord is in this place” — in the high street and in the train station and in the dark alleyways and in the deprived empty town centre and in the hospital and in the funeral parlour and in the drugs den and in the beautiful park and in the school and in the eyesore of a building and in the pub and in the fancy restaurant and in the community garden and in the close no one is caring for and in the care home and in the library and in the council offices and in the chippy and in the big fancy yachts and everywhere else.
The blessing we’ve been pursuing so hard for ourselves is actually no blessing at all, and while we’re putting all our energy into that, we can’t see what’s right in front of us. Which means a blessed church has to be one that is full of people who are willing to pause, to let our guard down, to be vulnerable, to stop working so hard for our own institutional survival and the desires of those already inside the walls, and instead make space for God to speak…even if it’s to give us a blessing we aren’t sure we actually want. Because that’s what comes when one sleeps at the gates of heaven.
When we are vulnerable enough to recognise that the Lord is in this place, and that the Lord is calling us to be a blessing to others, then what will we do? How will we give ourselves away to share the good news, to spread the blessing far and wide, to participate in the work that all those messengers of God are doing when they go to and fro between heaven and earth?
When we answer that, we’ll find ourselves in God’s house, wherever we are.
May it be so. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment