Tag: jacob

23rd July 2023

Reflection (readings are below)

The story from Genesis is beautifully visual. The ladder connecting heaven and earth, a thoroughfare of heavenly two-way traffic – and its clear message that God is with us, always and everywhere. The message of God’s closeness to us, that is both intimate and unceasing, also comes to us strongly in today’s Psalm. It is a reminder we need because however much we understand that God is with us, we so easily forget or ignore the fact. People talk of thin places – places where the closeness of heaven and earth feels so tangible, often places of great natural beauty such as a mountain top or a place steeped in generations of worship. It is as if we need a physical prompt to remind us of God’s proximity, or maybe it is that we need to be shaken out of our everyday blinkered business, to be aware of where we are. At other times it is as if we need a shock or a jolt to make us realise that we are – always – in the presence of God. Perhaps that is how it was for Jacob. Away from the trappings of home and the comfortable reassurance of family life, fearful of the discord he has created, he perhaps has the space to contemplate God, the openness of mind to be aware of God – and the  need to hope for the reassurance of  God’s presence. Whatever it is, Jacob wakes up knowing for sure that God is and will always be, with him. 

Does this certainty, this knowledge, change Jacob’s circumstances? Does it remove his need to run away, to escape his brother’s wrath? Does it suddenly give him a job and a home and wife? Does it suddenly reconcile him with his brother? Does it suddenly wipe away the injustices Jacob has created? No. God’s presence with us doesn’t change our circumstances but it does change our ability to cope with them. Much later in the story we will see Jacob returning to and being reconciled with his brother. 

And I think that is also a way of interpreting today’s psalm. It is not that we seek the grave or the uttermost parts of the sea or the darkest parts of the night to escape God, but that if, for whatever reason, we find ourselves in such places we will find God there too. There is no place of suffering or destruction – or evil – where God will not also be. 

Following on from Psalm 139 we have hear the words from Paul that we should not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. When Paul talks of living according to the flesh he means that way of living that closes itself off to the spiritual, the blinkered view that ignores the subtle clues of the richer world around us that is ‘filled with the grandeur of God’. The view that works so hard to push away anything other than material thoughts. That stubbornly refuses to acknowledge that we are not independent beings that need not rely on – nor love –  anything other than ourselves. That cares only for one’s physical well being. Whereas to live according the the Spirit is to be aware of God’s presence in the everyday world around us, to be aware that we are part of a greater and interconnected whole, to be aware of the prompting -the guiding and reassurance of God. To live in the Spirit is for us, as Christians, to follow the way of Christ.

In the next paragraph Paul is talking of the earth groaning and longing to be set free of its bonds, of creation being in the pangs of birth, of an ongoing – at present – suffering of which we are all apart. And what he writes is true. We do live in a world where there is pain and many groans of anguish. We do live in a world full of suffering and injustice – and human stupidity. And I don’t think we can easily escape the feelings of distress and alarm. Indeed if we could, I am not sure it would be helpful. We need to be conscious of the realities of life in order to seek to change what is wrong. (Jacob needs to feel the pain of injustice to seek reconciliation with his brother; the prodigal son needs to experience rock bottom to mend his relationship with his father; we need to experience the pain of witnessing the events of Good Friday to understand what sin and love look like). 

Perhaps that too is a way of understanding the parable in today’s gospel. Jesus is reminding us that we live in a fallen world – that is a world where there is pain and suffering, a world where people can make bad or foolish or misguided choices, a world where people do not always share the same values, do not always or everywhere acknowledge the spiritual, where sometimes people are only  aware of a life lived according to the flesh. And the solution,  says Jesus, is not for God to step in and magically transform everything. To do so would be to cause more damage. Veering away now from the parable and towards the example of Jesus, Jesus’s message is surely one of second chances, of healing and restoration, of enabling people to find the right paths and to develop their true potential as children of God. 

The Christian calling is, I believe, to work with God in the healing of creation, in being midwives in helping the world through the pangs of labour that will give birth to the kingdom of heaven reigning  here on earth. This is why we must act for justice, for compassion and for the care of creation – and do so always remembering that God is there too. Whether we feel that we are winning or loosing, resting or working, God is always with us.

Genesis 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.

Psalm 139: 1-11, 22-23

1 Lord, you have searched me out and known me; *
you know my sitting down and my rising up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.

2 You trace my journeys and my resting-places *
and are acquainted with all my ways.

3 Indeed, there is not a word on my lips, *
but you, O Lord, know it altogether.

4 You press upon me behind and before *
and lay your hand upon me.

5 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; *
it is so high that I cannot attain to it.

6 Where can I go then from your Spirit? *
where can I flee from your presence?

7 If I climb up to heaven, you are there; *
if I make the grave my bed, you are there also.

8 If I take the wings of the morning *
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

9 Even there your hand will lead me *
and your right hand hold me fast.

10 If I say, “Surely the darkness will cover me, *
and the light around me turn to night,”

11 Darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day; *
darkness and light to you are both alike.

22 Search me out, O God, and know my heart; *
try me and know my restless thoughts.

23 Look well whether there be any wickedness in me *
and lead me in the way that is everlasting.

Romans 8:12-25

Brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh– for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ– if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Matthew 13:24-30,36-43

Jesus put before the crowd 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!”