Leah, Rachel, Jacob: Learning a new way

 For the past couple weeks, we’ve been looking at the family dynamics in the lives of Jacob, Rachel and Leah from the Hebrew Scriptures. Leah and Rachel had a competition over the number of children and the status that provided in the tribal culture. Their antagonism trickled down to their sons. This caused the sons of Leah to hate their half-brother, Joseph.

As the proud, and seemingly oblivious, father, Jacob doesn’t help the situation. Jacob loved Joseph more than all his other sons, because he had been born to him when he was old. He made a long robe with full sleeves for him. When his brothers saw that their father loved Joseph more than he loved them, they hated their brother so much that they would not speak to him in a friendly manner. (Genesis 37:3-4)

The sons of Rachel band together to throw Joseph into a pit to die, then decide to sell him into slavery. “What will we gain by killing our brother and covering up the murder? Let's sell him to these Ishmaelites. Then we won't have to hurt him; after all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood.” His brothers agreed, and when some Midianite traders came by, the brothers pulled Joseph out of the well and sold him for twenty pieces of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt. (Genesis 37:26-28)

As we look at our own tendencies to dislike or even hate someone (or some culture) because they are different, how might living as Christ taught change our response?

Jesus says, You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:43-48)

Jesus expands the meaning of neighbor in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, where it is the unexpected (hated) Samaritan who helps the wounded man. Jesus, on the cross, cries out Father, forgive them. Jesus calls us to go beyond the personal and cultural norms to build relationships and bridges instead of burning them.

What can I do in my life today and this week to create a healing opportunity in my family or in another relationship? Maybe all I can do is start to pray for someone I dislike or fear. Maybe, like this cat and dog, I can find a common ground of agreement.

Leah, Rachel, Jacob: Truth and Lies

 Last week we met Jacob and Leah and Rachel, one of the many dysfunctional families in the Bible. While this family lived over four thousand years ago, the dynamic of competition and rivalry is still present and active in our lives. It drives our divisions and disagreements. It manifests in hate and war.

How can we combat this tendency in our lives? For Leah and Rachel their rivalry was fostered by Rachel’s inability to have children. She even bartered with her sister for some mandrake root (a supposed aphrodisiac) by offering Leah a chance to sleep with Jacob.

Our own self-importance or our perceived lack of power can make us do unhealthy things, too. At first glance these two things seem opposite. Yet, it is our desire for control that causes us to think we are wonderful, or it can cause us to think we have no control over anything.

Rachel needed to have (or thought she needed) children, especially sons. Being barren made her feel like a failure. She started to see her fertile sister as being better and having more power in the family. That led to feelings of anger, even against Jacob, and insecurity. She confronts him, When Rachel saw that she was not bearing Jacob any children, she became jealous of her sister. So she said to Jacob, “Give me children, or I’ll die!” (Genesis 30:1)

His reply probably didn’t help the situation. Jacob snarls, “Am I God?” he asked. “He’s the one who has kept you from having children!” (Genesis 30:2)

Leah’s ability to have children seems to have given her pride. It did give her status in the family unit. When she stopped having children, she offered her maid to Jacob as a surrogate wife to keep up with Rachel’s maid. Leah realized that she wasn’t getting pregnant anymore, so she took her servant, Zilpah, and gave her to Jacob as a wife. (Genesis 30: 9)

Each of the women told themselves a lie and came to believe it deeply. Rachel believed she was no good because she was childless. Leah felt that she was, if not loved, at least honored for having many sons. The truth was that God loved both women, and Jacob tried to do so as well.

Within our own families and other relationships, we may not start a birthing competition. However, don’t we all know families where siblings try to outdo each other with better cars or houses or jobs? Don’t we all know people whose only goal in life is to have the newest and best thing on the market even if it means destroying a relationship? Aren’t there people we know who sneer at other family members because their lifestyle is different from the family norm and therefore “wrong”.

This comparison doesn’t stop with family members. Neighbors and cultures and countries that have different customs and norms from our personal ones, may be deemed ‘barbarian’ or ‘evil’ or ‘stupid’. That designation, untrue though it is, historically has lead to genocide, wars, and inquisitions among other evils.

What are the lies we tell ourselves about our families and other relationships?

Think about your own personal norms. How do they differ from other members of your family or community? Do you find yourself labeling those who think differently as ‘bad’?

What might you do to change that mindset and be more understanding of neighbors and family members who are different from you?

Leah, Rachel, Jacob: Family Dynamics

 This summer, and into the fall, we are looking at men and women in the Bible who can inspire us to remember that God uses even flawed and fumbling humanity to build the Kingdom of God. We have already looked at Elizabeth and Zechariah from the New Testament in June, and Sarah with her husband Abraham from Genesis in July. We now move forward a couple generations to look at Leah and Jacob (Abraham’s grandson). Theirs was a troubled relationship, and yet God was present and active in their lives.

Isaac, the miraculous son of Abraham and Sarah’s old age, marries Rebecca. She bears him twin sons: Jacob and Esau. (Genesis 25:19-26) We hear that Rebecca receives a prophecy stating, The sons in your womb will become two nations. From the very beginning, the two nations will be rivals. One nation will be stronger than the other; and your older son will serve your younger son. As the boys grow, the sibling rivalry seems to be fostered by the parents. We learn that Isaac loved Esau because he enjoyed eating the wild game Esau brought home, but Rebekah loved Jacob.

Jacob seems to take advantage of this by tricking his brother out of his birthright with lentil stew. When Isaac is old and blind, he wants to bless his sons. Rebecca convinces Jacob to trick the old man into giving him the blessing of the first-born son. (Genesis 27:1-40). Esau is, understandably, enraged and Jacob flees to Haran where he meets his mother’s brother Laban and his two daughters. In Genesis 29, we read how Jacob loves Rachel, the younger daughter, but is tricked into marrying the elder one, Leah.

When the Lord saw that Leah was unloved, he enabled her to have children, but Rachel could not conceive. Bearing children was important in tribal cultures because it ensured the lineage. Because she cannot conceive, Rachel starts a sort of ‘birthing competition’ by giving her maid to Jacob to bear children she can claim. Leah, even though she has four children, responds by offering her own maid to Jacob. (Genesis 29:40-30:24)

Finally, God remembered Rachel’s plight and answered her prayers by enabling her to have children. She became pregnant and gave birth to a son. “God has removed my disgrace,” she said. And she named him Joseph, for she said, “May the Lord add yet another son to my family.”

The family rivalry continues to manifest and multiply between the sons of Rachel and Leah, until his brothers sell Joseph to slave traders going to Egypt, then claim he was killed by wild animals. (Genesis 37:18-36)

What can we learn from all this dysfunctional family dynamics from four millennia ago?

It would be easy to stand apart and say, ‘that’s awful and the parents should have known better.’ Then we might be self-convicted by realizing that we have our own competitive tendencies. Perhaps not amongst our families (although every family likely has some dysfunction and competition). There are other ways we can compete and try to outdo each other. Or we simply think we are better than someone else because we can do a task better, or because we are lucky enough to have more privilege.

Think about your life and relationships. Where do you find yourself in competition with co-workers, family members, or even the trap of ‘keeping up with the Jones.’ Next week we’ll delve into that idea more deeply. 

Pentecost: Rachel

Ordinary days and times. They can be tiresome if you don’t feel appreciated or loved. Rachel faced days of frustration and rage because she couldn't do the one thing she really wanted. She couldn’t get pregnant and have a son. Rachel knew she was her husband’s favorite. She is the one he worked seven years for her brother to marry. He probably was none too happy to find her sister Leah in the marriage tent. Still, she fretted, and even blamed Jacob (Genesis 30:1-3). Rachel’s great sorrow was that she had no children. So she ‘gave’ her maid to Jacob in order to claim any children that woman bore. It seems to have been a relatively common practice in ancient societies. Sort of an early form of surrogate mother, except that the maids or slave women had no choice in the matter.

How often do we compete with others who we think are prettier or more gifted or have nicer things? Rachel and Leah’s years of competition resulted in a dysfunctional family dynamic and jealousy among all the sons of Jacob. Rachel’s first born is sold into slavery in Egypt by his brothers because they were sure that their father ‘loved him best.’

It’s an age-old problem. Jesus faced it among his disciples. In Luke 9:46-48 we hear an argument started among the disciples as to which of them would be the greatest. Jesus, knowing their thoughts, took a little child and had him stand beside him. Then he said to them, “Whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. For it is the one who is least among you all who is the greatest.”

Jesus points to a child as the example of one who doesn’t compete for position and is content with simply being a child, loved by their parents. Philippians 2:3-4 councils that we should Do nothing out of rivalry or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. Everyone should look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.

The least is the greatest says Jesus and Paul adds that we should look out for the interests of others. That philosophy, and theology, has often gotten lost in our society where we try to have the biggest and best because that’s what the media and commercials urge us to work for.

Ordinary days and times look different depending on your perspective. A Facebook post by a friend who works with the homeless community really struck me. He says, "On my last stop at a park, I see a mother with a new born baby on a blanket. “Hi,” I call out. “What is your little one’s name? He is beautiful.” 

“Trevor,” she calls out putting one hand on his body as though to reassure herself that he is breathing.

I get out of the car to haul food and supplies over to her. “Do you have what you need for Trevor?”

“Yes, the hospital gave us a bunch of stuff before I left. I have a friend who says we can sleep in her garage at night so we will be okay. My boyfriend didn’t want me to have the child and told us to get out of his apartment a week ago but I wanted someone who would love me.”

I tend to zone out commercials, but if you really listen to the message, they are selling fear of not enough. They are sowing discontent, which, ta-da, can only be solved by buying their product which is better than similar ones or what you already have. We are told that we are inferior if we don’t have that new car or phone with all the special features. We are threatened with poverty if we don’t invest properly (with just the right company). We are tricked into thinking we can turn back the clock by using this or that potion and cream. All this consumerism and waste leads us to forget that across the globe--and in our neighborhoods--there are people who have a tiny fraction of what we throw away and they feel blessed to have it.

Rachel didn’t have commercials driving her to make purchases, but she had her own insecurities that brought her into conflict with her sister and husband. She was willing to die in childbirth just to prove she was able to bear a son for her husband’s lineage. The homeless woman was willing to bear her child, even in abject poverty, because she “wanted someone who would love me.”

Even though I think of myself as frugal, I still fall easily into the trap of getting something I don’t really need simply because it’s ‘cute’ or ‘on sale.’ I rarely stop to ask if I really need it, where the product was made and under what conditions and if the process perpetrates injustice. That is something I need to work on, and I need to learn to ask pertinent questions. If I learn to pause before purchase and ask if I really need the item, I might discover there is contentment in simplicity and that I don’t have to have the newest and best. Then there might be enough and more for the least of these who truly don’t have anything.

Can I/you find a way to think of the interests of others when it comes to whether I/you need the next biggest and best thing? Might something smaller or simpler do just as well and leave more for the next person, next child of God?

God of Grace and God of Glory

Continuing with thoughts from from Madeline L’Engle’s book, A Stone for a Pillow and Richard Rohr’s book Things Hidden, chapter 9. Last time we pondered the contrast between a ‘forensic’ God and a God of Love. According to both L’Engle and Rohr, we too often believe that God is keeping score. Instead, our God is, as L’Engle notes “the image of God within us is Love.” This time, we will consider how that God of Love is manifest-as the God of Grace and God of Glory.

One of my favorite hymns is by Harry Fosdick (see below for full text or here for a video). The hymn is triumphant praise to the One who is in control of all things. Fosdick starts out by calling on the God of Grace and God of Glory to pour out power on the People of God and bring the Church (which is the people-the Body of Christ) to true and ‘glorious flower’.

Fosdick’s hymn starts in the right place-by asking God to work in us. The fact is that we cannot by ourselves become holy or even good. Indeed such efforts can have the opposite effect. “If I, self-consciously, try to make myself good, I am unwittingly separating myself from those I love and would serve…I learned that if I was what I had considered selfish, that is, if I took reasonable care of my own needs, we had a smoothly running household,” say Madeline L’Engle. We try so hard to be perfect and good that sometimes we cannot see the Holy spark within us, and fall into the trap of thinking we aren’t any good.

So we try to make ourselves over into what the world (or the church) says we should be. Too often that comes at the cost of relationships and even our soul. Rohr states, “it is precisely my ego self that has to die, my need to be right, to be in control, to be superior…the longer you gaze [on the Crucified One], the more you will see your own complicity in and profitability from the sins of others.”

Fosdick’s hymn reminds us of the “hosts of evil ‘round us [who] scorn Thy Christ”. Those hosts might just include our own need to control and work out our own salvation. When we are working in our own power to be ‘good enough’ for God, we live in the “fears that long have bound us”. Instead God would “free our hearts to faith and praise.” This doesn't happen overnight. In looking at Jacob's life in the Bible and in L'Engle's book (A Stone for a Pillow) you can see that transformation was a life long process filled with lots of errors. AND GOD STILL LOVED HIM! God loved Jacob enough to make him the patriarch of Israel-father of the 12 tribes!

The start to this process, for many of us, is learning to love and forgive ourselves. L’Engle insightfully remarks, “[the] most difficult of all is learning to bless ourselves…[to] accept ourselves as blessed-not perfect, not virtuous, not sinless-just blessed.” Both L’Engle and Rohr know that we have to forgive ourselves before we can really love ourselves or anyone else. Rohr notes, “Forgiveness is probably the only human action that demands three new ‘seeings’ at the same time: I must see God in the other, I must access God in myself, and I must see God in a new way that is larger than ‘an Enforcer’.” Because God is Love not Judgment, we must shift our paradigm to see ourselves as we are seen: in and through the lens of God’s Love.

Too often we find it difficult to release the aim of making ourselves holy because we fear the retribution of the angry God if we fail. Fosdick calls on the God of Grace and Glory to “bend our pride to Thy control. Shame our wanton selfish gladness, rich in things and poor in soul.” The problem is that we really, deep down, like ourselves the way we are. Yes, we admit to having some faults and know we could be ‘better’. However, we don’t really want to get rid of the image we have created of our identity.

Rohr compares the paradigm shift to the “Passover commemoration [where] we have an image of the death of something good, innocent, and even loved”. He says we are called to put to death “what I deem necessary to my identity; it is what I cannot live without. It is these seemingly essential and good things-when let go of-that break us through into much deeper levels of life.”

Not an easy thing-letting go of the identity I carefully have built up. It is only in looking to the Cross and living Fosdick’s refrain “Grant us wisdom, grant us courage…” that we can start to change. Slowly we see, with Rohr that the Cross is “not an image of the death of the bad self but, in fact, the self that feels essential, right, and necessary-but isn’t necessary at all.”

The final verse of the hymn calls on God to “save us from weak resignation…let the search for Thy salvation be our glory evermore.” When we let the God of Grace and God of Glory live and rule our lives we will be able to live with our “feet on lofty places…armored with all Christ-like graces in the fight to set men free.” It is in the letting go of our image of being in control and in charge that we find true freedom and forgiveness. Then we learn that what Archbishop Desmond Tutu said is true. “God loves you! And God’s love is so great, God loves your enemies, too.”

It is not easy to live a life of openness to God’s love. That Love demands a response. L’Engle emphasizes the paradox “our faith is a faith of vulnerability and hope not a faith of suspicion and hate”. We are called to enter into a life of openness and vulnerability instead of insisting on our own way. Then we can with Fosdick live as  “Serving Thee Whom we adore.”

Rohr says God’s love calls for relinquishment of those things in life and esp. those things in ourselves that we think we cannot live without. What might God be calling you to give to God? L’Engle says we must learn to see ourselves as “blessed”-not perfect, just blessed. Do you really believe that you are blessed? Fosdick’s hymn says we need to lean on the God of Grace and Glory “lest we miss Thy Kingdom’s goal”. Can you trust God enough to let God be in charge?

 God of Grace and God of Glory, Harry E. Fosdick, 1930  

God of grace and God of glory,
On Thy people pour Thy power.
Crown Thine ancient church’s story,
Bring her bud to glorious flower.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
For the facing of this hour,
For the facing of this hour.

Lo! the hosts of evil ’round us,
Scorn Thy Christ, assail His ways.
From the fears that long have bound us,
Free our hearts to faith and praise.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
For the living of these days,
For the living of these days.

Cure Thy children’s warring madness,
Bend our pride to Thy control.
Shame our wanton selfish gladness,
Rich in things and poor in soul.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
Lest we miss Thy kingdom’s goal,
Lest we miss Thy kingdom’s goal.

Set our feet on lofty places,
Gird our lives that they may be,
Armored with all Christ-like graces,
In the fight to set men free.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
That we fail not man nor Thee,
That we fail not man nor Thee.

Save us from weak resignation,
To the evils we deplore.
Let the search for Thy salvation,
Be our glory evermore.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
Serving Thee Whom we adore,
Serving Thee Whom we adore

Forensic God or Loving God

For the next few weeks, join me in considering thoughts from from Madeline L’Engle’s book, A Stone for a Pillow and Richard Rohr’s book Things Hidden, chapter 9. I read both recently and was moved by the similarities of thought even though the two writers are very different.

These two works offer insight into how we too often view of God as judgmental (forensic, to use L’Engle’s metaphor) rather than Grace-ful and Loving. L’Engle explores the story of Jacob in her book. She says that in many places church culture has shifted to a view of God Who seeks to punish and keeps lists of what we do wrong. If we really read the Old and New Testament we will find a God of love Who cares for and forgives even someone like Jacob who lies, cheats, steals, etc. When we image God as the One who tallies good and evil on a scale, Rohr says, “We end up making God very small and draw the Godhead into our own ego-driven need for retribution, judicial resolution and punishment…exactly what Jesus came to undo.”

Rohr’s work asks us to revisit the Cross because, he says, too often we do not see the Cross as the “revelation of a mystery” but rather as a “substitutionary tragedy”. We humans have “always needed to find a way to deal with human anxiety and evil…usually by sacrificial systems…[and] we think it is our job to destroy the evil element.” We find it too easy to point fingers at others instead of accepting our own role in whatever problems arise.

In the ultimate paradox and overturning of our systems, “Jesus took away the sin of the world, by exposing it first of all as different than we imagined, and letting us know that our pattern of ignorant killing, attacking and blaming is in fact history’s primary illusion…he shared with us a Great Participative Love, which would make it possible for us not to hate at all.” Our response to that Love needs to be seeing God in life. God loves us not matter how incompletely and imperfectly we accomplish that.

L'Engle says, “If our worship of God means anything at all, it must be voluntary, not coerced.” God gives us the choice to see and respond. Jacob, you may recall, finds himself fleeing from his brother’s (well deserved) wrath and discovers God, perhaps for the first real time at Luz. He does not encounter God who chastises him for his deceit and failures. He finds “the Lord is in this place…this is the Gate of Heaven.” (Genesis 28:16-17) L’Engle notes, “Wherever I call upon my Maker is always God’s house”. Of course, we have free will to see or not the glory around us.  Jacob, in fact, even though he is awed, bargains with God. “IF God will be with me, and will keep me…THEN the Lord shall be my God.” (Genesis 28:20-22)

Rohr quotes Duns Scotus who states, “God’s redemptive action…[is] God’s perfect and utterly free initiative of love…God is in charge of history, not us and surely not our sinfulness.” Rohr insists “Jesus Christ is both the medium and the message…Jesus is pure gift, grace and glory!” Unlike Jacob, Jesus (God in human form) is the true image of God. According to Rohr, those gazing upon the ‘Crucified One’ with “contemplative eyes are always healed at deep levels of pain, unforgiveness, aggressivity, and victimhood.”

Our sacrificial, forensic metaphors and images limit how we are able to come to God. They are built from our own desire for control and power. Throughout history, we have chosen to seek power rather than healing which comes from 'gazing upon the Crucified One'. Rohr notes, “enslavement and exodus is the great Jewish lens through which history is read…the pattern of down and up, loss and renewal, enslavement and liberation, exile and return, transformation through darkness and suffering has become quite clear in the Hebrew scriptures.” We don't like the enslavement, exile, loss parts of the cycle and try to control our lives to prevent that, even if it means trampling over others in the process.

However, the real image of God is “Jesus on the cross [who] identifies with the human problem…He refuses to stand above or outside the human dilemma…instead becomes the scapegoat personified.” Scotus says, “Jesus was not ‘necessary’ to solve any problem whatsoever-he was no mopping-up exercise after the fact-but a pure and gracious declaration of the primordial truth, from the very beginning which was called the doctrine of ‘the primacy of Christ’.”

When we are able to turn and see God in the ups and downs, then we can respond differently than when we are trying to earn approval from a God who is all about judgment. L’Engle quotes Thomas Traherne who says “It is by your love that you enjoy all His delights, and are delightful to Him.” When we respond in love to God, we enter into His joy and that is the goal of all living and all worship. Later she notes that “The image of God within us is love.” Not only is the image within us love, but also we are to be that image to the world.

Take a moment or more to consider how you view God? As the Judge who takes notes of every wrong action to hold up at the final judgment or as God on the Cross holding out arms of all embracing Love? Is God in every place, for you, so that all is the Gateway to Heaven or only in selected places and times, when you are ‘perfect’ and ‘all is well with the world’? What difference do the two images of God make?

Next time we will consider the God of Grace and God of Glory based on L'Engle and Rohr's thoughts.

Chosen as Bride

Welcome the current blog series where we are exploring images of the Bridegroom and Bride in scripture and how that could inspire us to live more fully as bride or spouse for the Holy Bridegroom. This time we are considering the aspect of Being Chosen as the ‘help meet’, to use old language.

In Biblical times, and still in some cultures today brides and grooms had very little choice in who they married. Our modern, ‘Western’ sensibilities are probably offended by that idea. Aren’t we supposed to ‘fall in love’? Don’t all girls want and expect a ‘knight in shining armor’? Some have suggested that the idea of romantic love is a construct built on the idea of chivalry, which at its core could be considered truly a search for the Holy Bridegroom in all.

Recently, my husband has become an avid viewer of the series Merlin on Netflix. The series is based, as you would imagine, in the time of Arthur before he was king. It’s made me look into Arthur and Camelot history and reality vs. legend. Apparently the ‘real’ Arthur was not the medieval king of knights and ladies faire but a Celtic chieftain. It was thanks to Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur and Idylls of the King by Tennyson and that the image of chivalry, romantic love, and gallantry emerged.

Indeed, up until fairly recently, parents, esp. fathers had a much greater say in who married who. The union of man and woman in marriage was often a business proposition for the betterment of the tribe and family. Families looked for a strong son-in-law to work the farm, a sturdy maiden to bear sons, an alliance with a neighboring lord to improve the strength of the holding, etc.

Back to the Bible. You don’t have to look far to find that the Biblical patriarchs also sought to build up the tribal unit. Marrying within the family line was important in maintaining tribal purity for all ancient peoples. Abraham sent his servant back to his home town of Haran to find a wife ‘from my relatives.’ (Genesis 24:4) Rather than allow Isaac to wed just any girl he fancied from the Canaanites, Abraham wanted to maintain tribal integrity with a girl from the same lineage.

The same thing happens years later when it is time for the sons of Isaac and Rebekah to find wives. Esau marries a Hittite woman. Rebekah uses that as an excuse to send Jacob safely away from his brother's jealousy. (Genesis 21:46). Only then does Esau marry someone of his great-grandfather’s lineage: Mahalath, daughter of Ishmael. (Genesis 28:9) Meanwhile, in Haran, Jacob falls in love with Rachel but ends up marrying her older sister Leah first because of the marriage laws and customs. From their children, the 12 tribes of Israel are descended.

Throughout scripture God refers to the people of Israel as chosen, in relationship similar to choosing a bride. Psalm 135:4 says, “the Lord has chosen Jacob for himself, Israel as his treasured possession” (or beloved bride). Isaiah 42:1 is repeated in Matthew 12:18. “Behold my servant, who I uphold, my chosen/beloved, in whom my soul delights.” Peter echoes the sentiment, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people.” (I Peter 2:9)

The prophet Jeremiah uses the bride image openly. “’Return, faithless people,’ declares the Lord, ‘for I am your husband, I will chose you…’” (Jeremiah 3:14 NIV). Of course the imagery in Hosea is that of God choosing to take back even the faithless bride. (Hosea 1-2). The metaphor continues in the New Testament when Jesus tells his disciples, “You did not choose me, I chose you.” (John 13:16)

Like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had brides that were chosen for them, the Father chose you and me (male and female) as the bride for the Holy Bridegroom. You and I are chosen as the perfect one to continue the family lineage. I think that is pretty awesome. Paul gives the Colossians a recipe for living out the relationship, “as God’s chosen…holy and dearly loved, clothe yourself with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.” (Colossians 3:12) We are chosen and betrothed and wed to the Holy Bridegroom who will never leave us or forsake us (no matter what we do)!

Next week we’ll look more closely at one Old Testament bride.

Thin Places-in Dreams

Thin places and times, as we saw last week are instances where the Holy-where God-is intimately present. While God is, of course, present always, there are time and places that are more obviously filled with holiness. This is probably because the person encountered by God is open to the manifestation of God. Sometimes this is because the person is in the midst of a life change or challenge. (Don’t we all look for God when we feel troubled or stressed?)

Jacob, in the Bible, is one such person. You wouldn’t think that he’d be very pious. After all when we meet him in Genesis, he’s rather a mama’s boy who isn’t averse to tricking his older twin out of the birthright (the inheritance of the eldest son, including tribal leadership). (Genesis 25:29-34) This youthful ploy may have been on his mind later when Rebekah encourages Jacob to trick his aging father, Isaac, into giving him the first born’s blessing (even though he was born second).

Esau is livid when he learns what has happened. “When Esau heard his father’s words, he cried out with an exceedingly great and bitter cry, and said to his father, ‘Bless me, me also, father!’ But he said, ‘Your brother came deceitfully, and he has taken away your blessing.’ Esau said, ‘Is he not rightly named Jacob? For he has supplanted me these two times. He took away my birthright; and look, now he has taken away my blessing.’…And Esau lifted up his voice and wept.” (Genesis 27:34-38)

The thought of Jacob’s treachery rankles with Esau and he begins to plot murder after Jacob dies. Rebekah convinces Jacob to send their son to her family in Haran to find a wife. It is on the way that Jacob first encounters God at a ‘thin place’.

On his way to 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.”(Genesis 28:11-12) This 1900 lithograph shows Jacob at Bethel with the angels in the background. God speaks to Jacob and promises land and descendents and blessing. God tells him, “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.” (Genesis 28: 15).

This must have been both terrifying and reassuring to Jacob. He is essentially in exile from his family/tribe because of his brother’s rage. In an culture where family is the core value, this is not a comfortable place. Yet, here God assures him that he will return and all his dreams will come true. Jacob consecrates the spot by taking “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; but the name of the city was Luz at the first.” (Beth-El means House of God.)

Years later, Jacob has another close encounter with God. As he is returning to Canaan with his wives and many children he learns that Esau is coming to meet him with an army. Faced with this frightening prospect, he sends his family across the Jabbok River. Then, “Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, ‘Let me go, for the day is breaking.’ But Jacob said, ‘I will not let you go, unless you bless me.’ So he said to him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Jacob.’ Then the man said, ‘You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.’” (Genesis 32:24-28)

When we find ourselves in challenging situations, we often turn to God as a last resort. In that moment of turning we discover that God has been standing nearby all along, like a watchful parent, just waiting for us to say ‘help’. Like Jacob we sometimes wrestle with God about what we are being called to do. He knew he had wronged his brother and that Esau had every right to desire revenge. However, Jacob was now a family man with responsibilities and perhaps felt God urging him to offer reconciliation.

Even with the assurance of God’s promise at Bethel, Jacob is afraid that his brother will kill him and all will be lost. So he wrestles with God-figuratively or physically about what to do. God again blesses Jacob and gives him a new name. Rather than being Jacob the ‘supplanter or liar’ he will be Isra-el (Ruled by God). Jacob went on to reconcile with his brother and did indeed become a powerful tribal leader.

Jacob’s first encounter with God came as a dream. Dreams are a common way God comes close to people in the Bible. (Think of Joseph of Nazareth, Samuel, and others.) Have you ever had a dream that helped clarify something for you? Or have you felt God pushing you to do something you really don’t want to do?

Next time we’ll look at a Bible person who encountered God in a different kind of ‘thin place.’

Re-evaluation, Hagar Returns

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hagar encounters God. She is changed and no longer the victim. Because of what the angelic messenger tells her, the slave woman decides to return to her mistress. She re-evaluates her choices and decisions in light of her experience with God.

Hagar bore Abram a son; and Abram named his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael. Gen. 16:15-16


We do not know how Sarai reacted when Hagar returned. Perhaps Hagar changed her attitude and the women got along better. As I mentioned in the first of this series, it was apparently a fairly common practice for concubines to be used as surrogate mothers. During the actual birth, the wife held the surrogate in her arms. In this way the infant was counted as coming from the wife.

Two generations later, Rachel offers her maid Bilhah to Jacob, “Here is my maid Bilhah; go in to her, that she may bear upon my knees and that I too may have children through her.” (Gen. 30:3) After the baby is born, Rachel claims, “God has judged me, and has also heard my voice and given me a son’; therefore she named him Dan.” (Gen. 30:6)

It seems that, unlike Bilhah, Hagar had some input in the naming of the child. The infant is given the name Ishmael as the angel said.

Hagar, Abram, and Sarai all had a series of decisions to make on their journey through life. They each react differently to the same stimuli—the need for an heir for Abram. Like them, some of our decisions will result in growth and others leave dead wood like this tree split by a storm.

In her attempt to provide an heir of his seed to Abram, Sarai set in motion a series of events that echo through the centuries. She despairs of ever giving birth herself because she is too old and offers her maid to her husband, rather than waiting for God to act.

Hagar starts as a victim of the needs and desires of her master and mistress. Then she makes the decision to run away and her life is changed forever. She discovers that the God of Abram also cares for her. The Living Lord has a plan for her life and for her yet unborn son, but she has to return and be obedient to God’s whole plan.

Abram has received assurance from God “your very own issue shall be your heir.”… “And he believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness.” (Gen. 15:4-6). Perhaps he thought Sarai’s offer of Hagar was the way to accomplish this promise.

I think it is interesting that Ishmael is born 13 years before Abram is visited by a trio of angels and learns that Sarai will personally bear him a son. God does accomplish what was promised, but in God's time, not through the mechanisms of Sarai, Hagar, and Abram. During that time Ishmael is the heir apparent. It is no wonder that when Sarah (her name and Abram’s are changed when the angels visit) bears a son, Hagar is cast out of the camp. That is the story for another meditation, perhaps. (See Gen. 21:8-21)

When Ishmael is born, each member of this triangle has to re-evaluate their positions. Sarai and Hagar can learn to share the mothering of Ishmael, while Abram finally has a son to be his heir. Like this family, we each have daily opportunities to make decisions based on our best interpretation of events. The good news is, God is in the outcome!

Today is our last look at Hagar. Her decisions led her closer to the One God of her master, even though at first it looked like she was acting foolishly. Her journey of self discovery led her to God. It is part of God’s amazing love for us that God will meet us even (perhaps especially) when we are lost.

If you are feeling lost, and even if you think you are on the right path, take time to be still and evaluate where you are. When we have journeyed along a certain path for a while, it is important to stop and look at our progress. Some questions to ask include:

Are you still heading in the direction you planned?
Did you take advantage of the advice you received?
Have you started to see results?
What else are you called to do?
Is there a new path to take?
Lent starts on Wednesday. Next Sunday, this blog will begin to look at ways to “Simplify with Women of the Bible” during Lent. Often people give up something for Lent, like candy or cigarettes, or lattes. This is not a bad thing, but the purpose of Lent is a time for self-reflection. We will take brief looks at several of the women in the Bible and see how their lives benefited from simplifying and evaluating their journeys. See you then.