Genesis
29:14b-19; 21a; 22-23a; 25-28; 30b
Does
anyone remember the TV show An American
Family? Premiering on May 30,
1971 on PBS, there were twelve episodes featuring Bill and Pat Loud and their
children. It was the first reality
television show, and was quite controversial at the time. It took a “typical” American family,
placed them in front of the lens of a TV camera, and then broadcast their lives
to the world. In the process the
family unraveled, and millions of people were riveted to their TV screens to
watch. Before that show, most
families were seen on TV as a Leave It To
Beaver family, with the appearance that everything is fine in most
homes. An American Family lifted the lid off of the American home and
presented the real world of family life.
As
I’ve said before, the Bible presents the lives of its characters in all their
dysfunction, struggles, ups and downs – it shows us the real world of human
life. There are no illusions or
false pretenses given in Scripture.
What churches have tended to do, unfortunately, is to polish up the
lives of the Biblical characters, put halos on them, and thus removed them from
the reality of every day life.
We
can do the same thing with Mother’s Day.
It’s a great holiday but it can also mask a lot of pain that people face
– the pain of wayward children, the pain of struggling relationships, the pain
of missing spouses, the pain of a missing mother, and the pain of those who
were unable to have children.
Our
Scripture reading for this morning presents some interesting characters to us,
and it gives us a glimpse into the very real world of their relationships and
struggles. This is a small part of
the longer story of the life of Jacob, and as we examine what happens between
Jacob, his father-in-law/uncle Laban, and his wives Leah and Rachel, we find
their real world was one of struggle, pain, conflict, deception, and
heartbreak. I would encourage you
to find time and read the entire story of Jacob as found in Genesis chapters 27
– 37 and 49 – 50. It will make you
feel better about your life and family.
Today’s
part of the story begins with Jacob living with and working for his uncle,
Laban. After a month Laban comes
to Jacob and tells him he would like to pay him for his labors. Laban had two daughters – Leah and
Rachel, and he was certainly aware that Jacob was in love with Rachel. The Bible describes Rachel as lovely in form, and beautiful. She was hot. Leah is described as having weak eyes (17). Poor
Leah! The good news is she is
immortalized in Scripture, but the bad news is that it’s with the description
of having weak eyes. It was a nice way of saying she was not
very attractive. It's the Biblical way of saying she has a nice personality.
Jacob
is so head-over-heels in love with Rachel he is easy picking for Laban. Love is a wonderful thing, but it can
sometimes cloud our thinking. When
I first met Tanya I started showing up early in the morning at the library
because I knew that’s where she would be.
My roommate had to tell me where I could find the library. I started going to Shakespeare plays
with her, and at that point in my life I had absolutely no interest in
Shakespeare.
Jacob
has it bad. So bad, he tells Laban
he will work for him for seven years if he can marry Rachel. Laban, I imagine, was quite
shocked. And Genesis says that Jacob served seven years...but they seemed
like only a few days to him because of his love for her (20). Now there’s a Mother’s Day story. You
know kids, your father loved me so much he worked seven years for my father
before we were married. I’ll leave
out the part about your grandfather cheating him and all the other things that
happened, but isn’t that a nice story?
The
seven years are finally complete and Laban gives a feast but there is no happily ever after. Jacob wakes up in the morning and finds
he is married not to Rachel, but to her sister Leah. Jacob reaps what he has sown. Jacob, the deceiver, has been deceived. Entering his father’s tent, Jacob
deceived him in order to steal away his older brother’s blessing. Now he entered into another tent only
to find he has been deceived by his father-in-law.
We could ask how many people find out the person they married is not
really the person they thought they knew?
What happened to that kind, funny person I was dating? There is never any harm in taking
plenty of time to get to know the person you are going to marry. There is never a need to be in a hurry.
Jacob
is incensed by the deception and confronts Laban. Laban, who plotted to do this from the beginning. Laban calmly tells Jacob it is not our custom here to give the
younger daughter in marriage before the older one. At that point Jacob is probably ready to say you could have mentioned that seven years
ago! Laban tells Jacob he can
marry Rachel, if he agrees to work for another seven years. Jacob agrees, and a week later he and
Rachel marry, and Jacob goes to work for his father-in-law for another seven
years.
Verse
30 gives us this interesting piece of information – and he loved Rachel more than Leah. Now there’s a reality show for you. And also a source of clients for a counseling service. Your father-in-law deceives you, you
end up married to two women who are sisters, you love one of them more than the
other – what a mess!
But
isn’t that where we often live our lives?
How often do we look at our lives, throw up our hands, and say what a mess! I can’t even trust my
own family, my marriage isn’t what I wish, and let’s not even talk about my
job! I’m working in the family
business and my father-in-law is my boss and he hired me through a deceitful
arrangement!
Is
your life looking any better to you?
So here we have a polygamous marriage, a deceptive father-in-law, a
deceived son-in-law, and no mention of God anywhere in this part of Jacob’s
story. So what do we make out of
this story?
This is who we are – a collection of people who believe we must do
what it takes to survive, and doing what it takes to survive can lead us down
the road to some very bad decisions and very bad situations. But these are the people God used, and
used in such dramatic ways!
Churches too often communicate that you must get your life cleaned
up, shined up, and halo worthy before God is going to be interested in you or
willing to use you. Nothing could
be further from the truth. These
are the people God used – Jacob, a deceiver who lived his life by treachery and
built his fortune through deceit.
Rachel, the loved wife, but also the insecure wife, who was so jealous
for her husband that she later made some very tragic decisions. And poor Leah, the unloved wife, who
had to live with the knowledge her husband’s heart was with another woman. And the struggle doesn’t end with this
generation of the family. Remember
the story of Joseph and his brothers?
Guess who was Joseph’s mother – Rachel. Do you know who was the mother of the other brothers –
Leah. That explains some of the
animosity of the brothers toward Joseph.
God
uses people who live in the real world of struggles, and problems, and
failures.
When
I was a junior in high school we had a very interesting event take place in
worship one Sunday morning. When
it came time for the sermon, one of our elders stood up from the choir where he
was seated and made his way to the pulpit. He began to criticize our minister over something he had
said in his sermon the previous Sunday.
I remember what he said – if you
can’t say something nice about someone you should keep your big, fat mouth shut. As I remember it most of us laughed and
agreed when he said those words. I
imagine this particular elder had it in for our minister, and this was his
excuse to get rid of him. After
complaining about the minister using such language from the pulpit, he said I believe we should fire him immediately. Chaos broke out as people were trying
to speak at once. In the middle of
the chaos a young lady who was my age stood up. She was seated on the other side of the sanctuary from
me. I knew who she was, but I
didn’t really know her as a friend.
Everyone in town, in fact, knew who she was. They knew who she was because she had been the subject of a
great deal of whispering and gossip around town, because she was pregnant. When this seventeen-year-old pregnant
girl began showing up in church there were a lot of people unhappy. But she stood up in the middle of the
chaos that day and spoke out. She
said our minister had reached out to her and to her family and so she started
coming to church. Unfortunately,
she was met with a lot of stares and whispers, but she kept coming back. Up until that moment, I didn’t know why
she had started coming to our church.
I admired her courage, because it was obvious she had not received much
of a welcome. But I learned
something incredibly important that day.
I learned that you do not have to have your life perfectly put together
before you come to God, or have it perfectly put together before he will love
you, or have it perfectly put together before he will use you. God used that young lady to teach our
church a lesson that day, a lesson we had been to blind to see.
We
live in the real world, and that is where God meets us. You don’t have to have a halo or a
perfect life before God will love you or work in and through your life. God wants you just as you are.
May
we pray.
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