Readings: Psalm 139:1-12, Romans 8:12-25, Matthew 13: 24-43, Genesis 28: 10-22
Preached at Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, NY, on July 23, 2023
Jacob has a dream. A leader reaching down from the clouds towards him. On the ladder, traveling up and down are angels. At the top, God, who identifies himself as the God of Jacob’s father Isaac, and grandfather, Abraham.
In this dream God promises Jacob that the land upon which he was sleeping would be the dwelling place for the numerous descendants who would be Jacob’s heirs. In addition, God promises that wherever Jacob goes, God would go with him, never leave him or forsake him and at the last bring him to the land of promise. Jacob is left in total awe. He declares “How dread-full is this place” (‘Dread-full’ in the sense of being completely awesome and wonder filled)… “This is the gate of heaven.” He marks the place as sacred and vows to be a servant of God for the rest of his days.
Must have been a vivid dream! I’ve had some strange dreams, even some challenging dreams, but nothing quite like Jacob’s ladder. And what does it all mean? To Jacob it is a life-changing encounter with God. But what about us? What can this passage of scripture say to people like us, so far removed from Jacob’s experience?
One thing I believe that it reminds us of is that;
God is a God of Mystery
There is a satirical movie called ‘Dogma’ that has an image of Jesus as sporting a cheesy grin and giving the ‘thumbs up’ to life. This icon, known as the “Buddy Christ,” is a cynical reflection on the modern church’s attempt to introduce their deity to a fun loving world.
At times we do indeed portray Jesus as the ‘best buddy we could ever have’ or in such homely, earthly tones that we are in danger of obscuring the fact of His deity. “Jesus is my co-pilot” “He’s my forever friend.” A kind of holy Care Bear. We create a very safe God for ourselves. A God we can define, a God who can be fully known and is in full agreement with our earthly desires.
That is not the God revealed to us by Jacob. Jacob’s God is one who transcends time and space, a God whom can only be known through what that God chooses to reveal. A God whose holiness is of such magnitude that this God can only be approached through visions and dreams for a face-to-face encounter would surely destroy us.
One author uses the Latin phrase “Mystereum Tremendum”. Another, Rudolf Otto in his book “The idea of the Holy” coins the word “Numinous” to describe the nature of God. This numinous God of tremendous mystery is known only through revelation. This God drops a ladder down from heaven and sends angels scurrying back and forth to do His bidding.
This God is wholly other than what we are. Rather like a scene in a Sci-Fi movie, this God occasionally creates a portal, a ‘Stargate’ to the other world, the other dimension, where we catch just a glimpse of a greater reality behind the external world of our everyday workaday lives.
As Christians we believe we have a broader picture of God than Jacob, in the life and work of Jesus Christ. However, if we lose the sense that God is ultimately unknowable and the One who remains beyond us and above us, then we are no longer worshiping the God of Scripture, but a deity created within our own imaginations. A God that will be contained by our prejudices, misunderstandings, and unbelief.
Those angels going up and down, God working in unseen and scarcely comprehensible ways, a God who remains unpredictable and whose purpose we never can fully fathom… such appears to be a more realistic portrayal of the God of the Bible than any lame ‘good buddy Jesus.’ Jacob’s ladder reminds us that God is a God of mystery.
Whilst mysterious, that does not equate to unknowable. We can know God through what God chooses to reveal to us. One of the revelations that comes to Jacob is that;
God is a God of Promise
At the Glastonbury music festival in the UK this year one of the big surprise successful acts was the singer Rick Astley. Rick Astley had a huge hit in the nineteen eighties, “Never going to give you up.” Thanks to the power of the internet and a phenomena knows as ‘RickRollin.” that led to his video being viewed over a billion times, the song received a huge boost in popularity and thousands turned out at Glastonbury to sing-a-long …
“Never gonna give you up, Never gonna let you down, Never gonna run around and desert you,
Never gonna make you cry, Never gonna say goodbye, Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you.”
Well, that isn’t exactly what Jacob heard from God, but he is given particular promises in relation to his life’s journey. Supreme of these is that promise that wherever he goes and wherever life leads him, God was never going to give up on him. In words reminiscent of Jesus’ commission to the disciples on the mountaintop, Jacob receives this assurance in verse 15; “I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”
That the unknowable, awesome, almighty God, should promise such a thing to any mortal man or woman took Jacob’s breath away. “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it” (verse 16). The promises of God that come to us are no less awe-inspiring! Think for a moment! Why should God even be bothered with the likes of you and I? What is there about us that is noteworthy to the Divine? Why should God care to be involved in our lives and interested in where we end up?
God has revealed God’s self as a parent who cares for God’s children, as a redeemer who in Jesus Christ seeks to bring restoration and healing and renewal to our lives, and as the Holy Spirit who desires to be in us and around us and working through us the things of God’s Kingdom.
It makes no sense. In our lives we seem to be running from God as much as we run towards God. We know the commandments and seek to find ways around them. We know our inconsistencies and struggles and besetting sins. We know we are not all that we think we are, let alone all that others may be generous enough to think we are.
One of the glories of reformed theology is that it rests heavily upon the concept of, what we were talking about last week, the Grace of God. That we are saved, not by our acts of commitment to God, but by God’s promises and acts of commitment towards us. Supreme in those acts of commitment is the death of Jesus Christ on the Cross of Calvary. There is nothing we can do to win the favor of God. We are entirely dependent upon God for our salvation.
As we have seen in our previous ‘Patriarchal Ponderings” Jacob was no saint. He was a smooth-talking mothers’ boy who tricked his brother Esau out of a birthright that rightly belonged to the elder brother. In the process he deceived his own Father, played a trick on his dad whilst he was in his old age and was suffering from the loss of mobility and sight.
If you follow Jacob’s story, his romances, his deals with different families and powers, the times he runs away rather than face consequences, there is a lot about his life that is decidedly unsavory. Like his descendant Abraham, he has a soap opera like life and muddles through difficult events that are mostly his own fault. Were it not for the Grace of God that called him and carried him and forgave him, and refused to give up on him, Jacob would have ended his days as a nobody.
The love of God is such that it embraces all of us no-bodies and makes us somebody. Somebody that Jesus cared enough to die for. Somebody whose life can make a difference. A child of God. Unique.
And it’s all because of God’s grace. Acts of commitment come as a response to the love that God is showing us. Praise God! Jesus has secured our salvation! But we must claim it as our own. It’s no good having won a prize if you never claim it! A third thing we see in Jacob’s story is that;
God is a God who inspires commitment.
Our New Testament passage gave us the parable of the weeds growing alongside the good seed. The expectation would be that the farmer would say, “Go and gather up all those weeds right now!” But no. They are allowed to grow up together. Only at the final harvest will it all be sorted out.
In our lives we have to live with both the good and bad things about ourselves. Be it in temperament, be it our health, be it particular quirks or individualities that everybody else sees, but remain blind spots to ourselves. There are some things about us we never, this side of eternity, seem to get sorted out!
We know that about ourselves. It can help us get along with others if we grant them the same permission not to be perfect. That we recognize that we are all works in progress. The Good News is that, if we are prepared to open our lives to God’s influence, God promises to work with us and make us more into the sort of people God can see we could become.
In response to the promises of God, Jacob makes some promises of his own. Verse 20 :- “If God will be with me and will keep me on this journey that I take, and will give me food to eat and garments to wear, and I return to my fathers house in safety, then the Lord will be my God".
It’s a response to the grace of God. Not a perfect one, but a response nonetheless!
The God of Jacob is a God of mystery. Let us not lose sight of the awesome wonder of the God of Scripture.
The God of Jacob is a God of promise. Let us claim the promises of Jesus for own lives, promises that He will always be with us, will never give up on us, will guide us and help us draw others to share in the blessings of His Kingdom.
The God of Jacob is one who inspires our commitment. We love because we are loved. We forgive because we are forgiven. We serve because Christ came to serve. We are called to be as accepting of others as God has been accepting of us. Why? Because we are all recipients of amazing grace!
Makes me want to finish with a prayer. Something along the lines of…
“You know God, You just keep on loving me, in spite of the mess I make of things, You keep showering down blessings on me, and promising You are never going to give up on me. You sent Jesus to make things so much clearer, and deal with the things, that could keep us apart. The Scriptures tells us, that there’s even, some out of the world positive stuff, at the end of the road, for those who trust in You… So, Lord, be my God and help me to be Your sort of person. Amen!”
To God be all Glory! Amen.
The Reverend Adrian J. Pratt B.D.
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