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“Seeing the Face of God,” Jeff Wright, 8/3/14

Seeing the Face of God

A sermon preached at

Heart of the Rockies Christian Church

(Disciples of Christ)

Fort Collins, Colorado

August 3, 2014

The book of Genesis makes no attempt to conceal the fact that Jacob was, among other things, a crook.  What’s more, you get the feeling that whoever wrote up his seamy adventures got a real kick out of them.

Twice he cheated his brother Esau out of what was coming to him.  At least once he took advantage of his old father, Isaac’s blindness and played him for a sucker.  He out-did his double-crossing father-in-law, Laban, by conning him out of most of his livestock, and later on, when Laban was looking the other way, by sneaking off with not only both the man’s daughters but just about everything else that wasn’t nailed down including his household gods.  Jacob was never satisfied.  He wanted the moon, and if he’d ever managed to bilk Heaven out of that, he would have been back the next morning for the stars to go with it.  But then one day he learned a marvelous lesson in a marvelous and unexpected way…

Frederick Buechner, Peculiar Treasures

Texts: Genesis 33:1-10 and Matthew 14:13-21

This morning, we revisit the Biblical saga of Jacob.  I use the word saga because it takes over a quarter of the Book of Genesis to tell Jacob’s story.  Over millennia, church and synagogue have turned to these formative stories because we believe that within these narratives God has chosen to reveal the nature of his personality, his will and his ways, and his hopes for humankind and the whole of creation.  But it’s a demanding task, discerning the stories’ most important revelations.  There are some disturbing things in these stories, choices and actions that shake us – and can mislead us.

During the summer months, the lectionary turns to these epic stories, encouraging the church to revisit a narrative over several Sundays.  The lectionary is a set of texts – two assigned each Sunday from the Old Testament usually, and two from the New.  Over the course of three years, the church is invited to reflect on and be nourished by the Bible’s major themes and characters and stories.

But there’s a problem in our taking these formative stories just a bit at a time.  In seminary, we learned to call these bits pericopes.  A pericope is a unit of a few verses that contain a single thought or tell a single story.  You could think of each of Jesus’ parables as a pericope – a single story that you can take and explore on its own.  But when we take a small bit of the story out of its context – even one of Jesus’ parables – we risk missing the sweep of the story and maybe the even its central point.

The account of Jacob is a good example.

Earlier this year, Janet and I attended the Portland Sabeel Conference.  Author/activist/pastor Brian McLaren was one of the many speakers addressing the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.  McLaren used the story of Jacob to make a point about what it means to be chosen by God, and how – whether Jew, Christian or Muslim – we often use the texts of chosenness to judge and exclude others, to justify our worst behaviors in the name of God.  We know that Jacob is chosen by God.  This is why the story is included in the holy texts.  But chosen for what?   McLaren pointed out that unless we consider the whole of Jacob’s story, we’re liable to miss its most important revelation.

Spoiler alert.  The most important point of the story might be found in this morning’s text.  Curiously, these verses aren’t included in the lectionary.  They’re never read in churches that stick to the lectionary.  The lectionary text assigned from the Book of Genesis this morning is the account of Jacob’s wrestling with the stranger on the bank of the Jordan River.  But we read instead the verses that follow.

Let me remind you what has happened in Jacob’s life up to this point.  You remember how Jacob, the younger, stole his brother Esau’s birthright.  Jacob actually gave Esau a bowl of soup in exchange for Esau’s inheritance, but it was as good as stealing because, after a long and unsuccessful hunt, Esau had come home famished.  “I’m about to die,” Esau said, “of what use to me is a birthright?  Give me the soup!”  Jacob made Esau swear on the deal.  Later, Jacob and his mother Rebekah concocted an elaborate scheme to flat-out steal the blessing – the father’s blessing – that was intended for the first-born son.  It tore the family apart.  Esau had already forfeited his birthright.  To be ripped of his father’s blessing was intolerable.  Esau was so angry he vowed to kill his brother.  Remember that detail.  Esau swore he’d kill his brother.  That’s when Jacob took off for the far country to save his skin.

The Bible’s account of the next twenty years is filled with Jacob’s continued deceit.  The chosen one turns out to be an unrepentant jerk, a liar, a cheat, a schemer and a deceiver.  But God hangs in with Jacob.  God has chosen Jacob.  And Jacob knows by now that God has chosen him.  It’s been revealed to him in a dream.  Jacob travels to his uncle’s home in Haran, where his uncle, Rebekah’s brother Laban, takes him in.  Jacob falls in love with one of Laban’s daughters, Rachel, but Laban double-crosses Jacob on his wedding night, gets him drunk and puts Rachel’s older sister Leah in the wedding tent, instead of Rachel, so that Jacob consummates a marriage to Leah instead of Rachel.  Jacob has to wait another seven years to marry Rachel.  You read on in the account and some of the other epic narratives in the Old Testament, you’ll see where the afternoon soap operas get a lot of their story lines.  Really.

Jacob gets his uncle back – and more.  He learns that his in-laws are tired of him. They’re jealous and angry.  But God intervenes again – because Jacob is chosen by God.  God warns Jacob to flee, to go back to his home and his family.  Without telling Laban, Jacob takes off with both of Laban’s daughters, all his grandchildren and most of Laban’s flocks and herds.  On their way out, Rachel steals her father’s household gods, the idols that he thinks have sustained and blessed him, most likely fashioned of silver or gold.  Laban gathers a posse and takes out after Jacob, catches up with him, too.  But God intervenes again – because, well, because God has chosen Jacob.  Laban doesn’t lay a hand on Jacob.

Twenty years later, now, after Jacob has stolen from his brother, deceived his father, and ripped off his uncle, he heads home.  I’d like to tell you that he missed his family, that he was sorry for the way he messed things up, that he was truly repentant for the ways he had treated everyone.  That’d make a nice point to the story.  Truth is, his lies and deceit have paid off.  Jacob is a wealthy man.  He has two wives, children galore, goats, sheep, camels, cows and donkeys.  He’s headed home because he’s worn out his welcome.

There’s just one problem: his brother Esau, the way he had treated Esau, Esau’s vow to kill Jacob.  So Jacob – may I remind you that Jacob hasn’t changed his ways; that he’s only decided to go home? – he sends a message to his brother, seeking Esau’s favor in exchange for livestock and other incentives.  Jacob intends to buy his brother’s forgiveness, just like he “bought” his brother’s birthright.

Here’s his plan.  He sends a delegation ahead to meet with his brother.  He instructs the delegation, “You shall say to my lord Esau: ‘Thus says your servant Jacob, ‘I have lived until now as an alien in a foreign land.  I have oxen, donkeys, flocks, male and female slaves; and I have sent to tell my lord, in order that I may find favor in your sight.’”  Word comes back through the delegation, “Your brother Esau is coming to meet you.  Oh, one other thing: he has four hundred men with him!”

Terrified, Jacob does what he knows best how to do.  He creates another scheme.  He divides his household into two groups with plans to send one ahead of the other.  He thinks to himself, “If Esau comes to the one company and destroys it, then the company that is left will escape.”  Then he prays, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac… I am not worthy of the least of all the steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant… Deliver me, please, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I am afraid of him; he may come and kill us all, the mothers with the children.”  Then Jacob reminds God that God has chosen him.  He prays, “Lord, you promised, you said to me, ‘I will surely do you good…’”

After the prayer, Jacob arranges a gift for his brother: two hundred female goats and twenty male goats; two hundred ewes and twenty rams; thirty milking camels and their colts; forty cows and ten male donkeys.  He divides these into their differing herds and instructs his servants to put some distance between each herd.  He tells his servants, “When Esau my brother meets you, and asks, ‘To whom do you belong?  Where are you going?  And who do these herds belong to?’ then you shall say, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob; they are a gift sent to my lord Esau; and what’s more, your servant Jacob is coming along behind us.’”  Group after group is to say the same thing.  But you and I know that Jacob’s not “right behind.”  He’s thinking – it’s in the text (32:20), “I just might appease [my brother] with these gifts that go ahead of me…”  I presume this is Jacob’s back-up plan in case the prayer doesn’t work.

Most of these stories are included in the lectionary, read in the church every so often.  That’s one of the reasons they’re familiar to us.  But I can’t remember our reading this morning’s text in worship, the climax of the account of Jacob’s life of betrayal, deceit and manipulation.  The revelation of what it means to be chosen by God and what God wants from Jacob – and from the Hebrew people, and most likely from the rest of us, too.

As we read, Jacob comes along behind this long line of so-called gifts that he’s sent ahead to appease his brother.  When he sees his brother at a distance, Jacob bows before him.  As he draws nearer to Esau, Jacob keeps bowing.  He bows to the ground before Esau seven times.  But Esau runs to meet Jacob.  He throws his arms around Jacob, buries his head in Jacob’s neck and kisses him.  The two of them weep together.  I wonder how long they cried, before Esau looked up and saw the caravan behind them.  “Who are all these people?”

“Brother, these are the children whom God has graciously given me.”  Then the maids draw near, the maids and their children.  Leah and her kids.  Rachel, too.  Esau says, “Why did you send all those goats, sheep, camels, cows and donkeys that I met along my way?  What’s the meaning of that?”  Jacob says, “To find favor with you.”  Esau replies, “I don’t need any gifts.  You’re my brother.  Welcome home!”  Jacob says, tears still in his eyes I’m sure, “Esau, when I saw your face I saw the face of God, because you have received me with grace.”

Brian McLaren started out as a high school English teacher.  He knows we don’t know the story until we’ve read the entire story.  The message of this account of Jacob isn’t that God favors some and rejects others.  If we take this away from the story, all kinds of bad things happen.  We think we’re chosen over others, we’re likely to treat others badly.  No.  We learn our lesson, the deepest revelation in this account when we’re able, like Jacob, to see the face of God in those we thought were lesser than ourselves, those whom we’ve rejected, those whom we’ve abused or neglected, those whom we fear.

Why was Jacob chosen by God?  It took him a long time to discover.  It can take a long time for us to discover it, too.  According to this 13-chapter long epic, in spite of our self-centeredness and disregard, we’re chosen – all of us are chosen – to see the face of God in others.

— Jeff Wright