Two of the few remaining adults in our Nation’s Capital are Mark Shields and David L. Brooks who have been appearing every Friday for years on the PBS Newshour. Brooks has also become the default conscious and ethicist for an increasingly secular society.
Two Fridays ago they said this about one of our current national leaders:
MARK SHIELDS: Everybody, I can honestly say, with rare exception, who has been associated with this administration and this president has been diminished by it. Their reputation has been tarnished. They’re smaller people as a result of it. And that’s tragic.I don’t know how to tell you this ... (And I can’t begin to thank your pastor enough for taking a well-deserved rest and leaving it to me to do so) ... but Isaac is kind of an “anti-mentor.” Where ever he goes, whomever life he touches there is confusion and trouble. He seems to have this knack of bringing out the worst in people.
DAVID BROOKS: He’s like an anti-mentor. He takes everybody around him and he makes them worse.1
There are people who you can drop into any situation and they will make it better. And there are people who can make any situation they are in worse.
From before he was born Jacob was making life difficult for his older brother Esau. Their mother, Rebekkah, said “it seemed as though children were fighting each other inside her!” 2
Then, as you know, Jacob, who was womb wrestling for first born status cheated his brother out of his birthright for a bowel of lentil soup.
He fooled his father, made his brother furious, and with the help of his mother had to hightail it out of town.
Which brings us to today’s story that seems like it might have emerged from the plot line of “The Young and the Restless.”
Jacob finds himself traversing through the territory of a man named Laben who just happened to be his cousin on his sister’s side.
Even though they would have been second-cousins Jacob falls in love with one of Leben’s daughters. He had two - the older one’s name was Leah and the younger one’s name was Rachel.
We probably should send the children out of the room for this part because scripture tells us in a paraphrase: “Leah had lovely eyes, but Rachel was shapely, and in every way a beauty.”3
We have now discovered that Jacob is a body man rather then a face guy and we already know how he feels about birth order so he falls in love with Rachel.
Commentator Gerhard vonRad writes: “Even though one cannot speak expressly of a ‘bought marriage’ in Israel, still it was a common notion that daughters were a possession, an item of property that could be transferred from one owner to another without further ado.”4
Wouldn’t you know a male pastor is preaching this text!
Your pastor could preach far better than I could because she knows all about what it is like to live in a male dominated culture.
Pastor Bouman grew up in the Missouri Synod where the though of a having a female pastor is still an anathema. And, before we get to smug, the L.C.A. and A.L.C. didn’t ordain their first women pastors until the fall of 1970.
“Today, on average, a woman earns 79 cents for every dollar a man earns, and women’s median annual earnings are $10,800 less than men’s.”5
The wonderful women here gathered could cite countless examples in their lives when they have felt like second class citizens but remember, if you choose to do so to me at coffee hour, I am on your side!
The good news in this Old Testament Patriarchal story is that Jacob offers seven years labour for Rachel. It is an unbelievably high price and Leban accepts.
Time passes, the wedding day finally arrives Jacob finally gets what is coming to him both literally and figuratively.
After the wedding banquet Leban switches daughters on Jacob.
Look, I have no idea how this happened!
Commentators have broken their pencils and drained ink wells dry trying to explain this one away.
Bad eyesight, Heavy vales, Dark rooms, too much drink have all been offered as excuses as to why Jacob doesn’t know who he slept with until the next morning.
I’m staying with my original thesis: “He takes every situation around him and makes it worse.”
I can imagine the scene the next morning when the alarm clock went off.
Jacob saying to the person next to him: “Your eyes are almost as beautiful as your sister’s. Have you been losing weight? You just don’t seem yourself this morning.
Hey wait! Your not! Your not Rachel! Your Leah!”
When he confronts their father the old man gives him the needle: “We don’t do it that way in our country,” said Laban. “We don’t marry off the younger daughter before the older.”
Then he makes him a deal. “Enjoy your week of honeymoon, and then we’ll give you the other one also. But it will cost you another seven years of work.”6
I am sure every woman in this place is upset about these two brides being offered by their father in a two for one deal. And, to the men who are wondering how good a deal that really was that Jacob ended up with not one but two wives, I suggest you keep that thought to yourself.
What are we to make of such a story?
First, if anybody lectures you about biblical family values I suggest we all remember this story of Jacob from Genesis. And remind them of all of it ... every single sentence!
Second, even those who scheme and make every situation worse and diminish every person they meet, are not outside of God’s care.
Finally, and most important, if we can think of a scoundrel like Jacob playing a central role in God’s plan there has to be role for us. No matter who we are or what we have been God still has a plan for us. All we have to do is listen and even in the midst of our self-created chaos God will show us what that is.
In due time we will know.
That is God’s promise to Jacob. That is God’s promise to us.
Thanks for listening.
__________
1. Brooks, David L., and Shields, Mark, writers. "Shields and Brooks." On The Newshour. PBS. July 21, 2017.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/shields-brooks-spicer-stepping-gop-health-care-bill-fumble/
2. Genesis 25:22. (TLB) (TLB=The Living Bible)
3. Genesis 29:17. (TLB)
4. von Rad, Gerhard. Genesis: A Commentary. (Philadelphia, PA: Westminister Press, 1961.), p. 285.
5. Sheth, Sonam, and Gould, Syke. "5 charts show how much more men make than women." Business Insider, March 8, 2017.
6. Genesis 29:26-27. (MSG) (MSG=The Message)
No comments:
Post a Comment