Service and sermon July 26, 2020 Leighmoor Uniting Church
-Rev Barbara Allen
Hymn suggestions:
TIS 130: We plough the fields and scatter the good seed on the land
TIS 137: For the beauty of the earth
TIS 581: Happy the home that welcomes you, Lord Jesus
TIS 650: Brother, sister, let me serve you
TIS 703: As the deer pants for the water
TIS 613: Lord of all hopefulness, Lord of all joy
Prayers of Adoration, Thanksgiving and Confession
O God, you are our holy parent.
We, your children, are thankful that you gather us to yourself as a mother hen her chicks.
You cover us, and shield us with your love.
We know you are with us as we sometimes struggle to live as human family.
We thank you for the gift of family-blood relatives, friends, and church family.
Help us as we reflect on the biblical family and our own.
Help us to be amazed yet again, at your patient forgiving love, active in the stories of your children’s lives.
Help us to praise you with undivided hearts.
And yet, O Loving God, we confess the disorder in our human family.
We fight, we bicker.
Others irritate us-in our blood family, and in our church family too.
Forgive us.
We weep when the vulnerable are abused, but often we fail to honour and respect the ones closest to us.
Forgive us.
Help us to welcome your Spirit within us, and among us, so that our shadows do not block out your healing Spirit that glows within us.
May we feel forgiven, and strengthened so that we may, with joy, bless the lives of those whom you have chosen to accompany us on this journey called life.
This is the best of all:
When we are empty, God fill us;
When we are disheartened, God is compassionate;
When we are wounded, God brings healing;
When we confess our sin, God forgives.
In Christ, through Christ and because of Christ, our sins are forgiven.
(Thanks be to God)
Bible Readings
Genesis 29: 15-30
Romans 8: 26-39
Matthew 13: 31-33, 44-52
Sermon: Are families perfect?
Genesis 29: 15-28
‘Always keep in mind that parenting is like gardening. You plant and you wait. Some seeds take a long time to sprout and develop.’
(Denis Waitley, 1985)
Jacob-the trickster.
In today’s story-Jacob is tricked. Is this a family trait?
Will he learn from someone else’s deception, will he, at long last, sprout and develop?
Or
Does this story-of deception and trickery, fit more in line with this quote from George Bernard Shaw:
‘If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.’
(repeat)
Most of us remember the television series The Brady Bunch. It was set in the 1970s. The story of a widow and a widower, each with 3 perfect children. They became a ‘blended’ family- but unlike most- or indeed all families, this TV series depicted a ‘perfect’ family; the dramas were usually trivial-who keeps using the telephone and those sorts of things, but, on the whole, a ‘perfect’, unrealistic family.-a family many hoped for.
-our own families appeared to be flawed-they didn’t come up to the standard of the Brady Bunch
-were our families the only ‘wrong’ ones?
-was every other family like the Brady Bunch?
What was real?
-and what was fantasy?
How did this compare with our own family holidays?
We have the ‘ideal’ in our mind, or we see the ads, but, in reality, someone becomes sick the first night away, the accommodation isn’t what it should be, the teenagers argue and bicker all the way to your destination
-making everyone as miserable as they are!
REAL FAMILIES!
-the reality rarely turns out to be as we plan. Jacob is still on the run, in exile, after tricking his brother out of his birthright and out of his blessing.
Last Sunday’s reading spoke of Jacob’s incredible experience of awe and wonder
-when, blessed with a divine vision, he saw a ladder of angels-
ascending and descending from heaven.
A schemer he might be-but he is also one chosen by God to be part of the family by whom the world shall be blessed.
Perhaps Jacob’s life may take a turn for the better…
Perhaps.
Today’s episode is a strange story.
It’s caught in the middle-between the dramatic dream of the ladder of angels, from last week-and Jacob’s encounter with God at the river of Jabbok-Jacob’s
‘wrestle’ with God.
Between those two God-filled stories, the vision and the encounter-we have a more mundane episode.
Jacob arrives safely at his mother’s home town of Haran. He finds himself among relatives. He meets Rachel at the well, helps water the flock.
Rachel’s father, Laban, welcomes Jacob, the down-on-his-luck relative from far away-into his household.
At first, things go well, and Jacob is no doubt grateful that he has ended up among relatives, family who will care for him and pay him as he works for them.
In a sense- he becomes part of the family business
But, as in some families-
when they work together-there is the potential for conflict.
There will be conflict, because Laban and Jacob are similar-
Both are schemers, both are tricksters!
Laban has another daughter, Leah-she is older than Rachel, her eyes are either ‘weak’ or ‘lovely’- the Hebrew word is unclear. But whichever- it does not matter, for Jacob has set his sights on Rachel. He is so smitten with her that he offers to work for Laban for 7 years, in order to make enough money to marry her. (now, if you are married, or in a relationship-would you have worked 7 years for your loved one?)
v15: ‘Then Laban said to Jacob, ‘Because you are my kinsman, should you therefore serve me for nothing? Tell me, what shall your wages be?’
v 18: ‘Jacob loved Rachel; so he said: “I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter, Rachel.”
7 years: a long time to wait.
What would we be prepared to wait (or work for-) for 7 years?
-education?
-establishing a farm?
-waiting for the first crop of grapes/macadamia nuts?
-working long and hard for our family?
-tending to a sick relative?
Can we put a value on love?
Can we put a value on dedication?
Can we put a value on our life’s work?
Laban’s reply to Jacob is a little ambiguous, a bit unclear:
“It is better that I give her to you than that I should give her to any other man; stay with me.”
They shake hands-it’s a deal.
Nothing is put on paper
after all, they’re family!
So Jacob worked for Laban for 7 years.
At the end of the time, Laban holds a feast-a wedding party.
But what happens?
Laban out-smarts Jacob.
He takes Leah to Jacob’s tent-not Rachel.
It was dark
Women wore heavy veils.
At any rate, it was morning before Jacob realized that his bride was none other than the older sister, the one with either ‘weak’ or ‘lovely’ eyes. Leah!
In the Midrash: ‘Upon awakening the morning after his first wedding, when he discovered Leah next to him instead of Rachel, Jacob could not stifle a complaint: ‘All night I was calling you Rachel and you answered me; why did you deceive me? And you, she retorted, your father called you Esau and you answered; why did you deceive him?’
It’s worth noting that in our wedding ceremonies, the bride’s veil is lifted before the vows are said
-to make sure the groom us marrying the ‘right’ woman!
Jacob said to Laban, “What is this you have done to me? Did I not serve you for Rachel? Why then have you deceived me?”
Laban said, “Didn’t I tell you? I certainly meant to make it clear that in our culture it would be terrible for the younger girl to marry first. I thought you knew that. Oh well.”
Jacob was stuck. He stayed married to Leah. Laban said, “Look, in our culture, if you work for me for another seven years, I’ll be delighted to give you Rachel.”
Now- if we think back to the ways Jacob tricked Esau and Isaac- we’re probably thinking that Jacob has at last gotten what he deserves.
Jacob, at last, has been tricked
-and suffers for it.
At last he received the hand of Rachel ( if you read this story carefully, you’ll notice that Jacob didn’t have to work another 7 years and then have Rachel’s hand-at the completion of the week’s festivities for Leah-he then received Rachel-and worked another 7 years)
The story goes on.
Rachel and Leah squabble.
What else would we expect?
Two sisters married to the same man!
Polygamy-a man marrying more than one woman, was accepted practice in those times.
-it encouraged the raising of heirs
-it protected the widowed and the outcast
It meant, in the days prior to benefits and wages for women-it insured food and shelter
-it literally kept them from starving
BUT the marrying of two sisters meant the breaking of levitical law
Lev 18:18: ‘And you shall not take (or marry) a woman as a rival to her sister….’
Eventually the sisters team up with Jacob-to put one over their father Laban (this marriage is not the only trick Laban plays on Jacob! At last-Jacob has met his match!)
They trick Laban, ending up with most of the property.
Why would today’s story be in the Bible?
Perhaps this story was told as a way of explaining the origins of the various tribes of Israel, Jacob’s family.
-some of the tribes traced their parentage to Leah, others to Rachel.
When there were arguments, they could trace their feuds way back to the beginning of their families.
Maybe.
There’s no mention of God in the story.
It’s an utterly human, thoroughly mundane and earthy story.
Perhaps that is why it is told.
It’s a funny story.
Jacob the trickster gets tricked by Laban.
Jacob, the one who was always putting one over his family-gets one put over him by Laban and Leah.
Laban, who gets 14 years of work out of Jacob for his daughters, plus a further 6 for his flock (20 years!) finally gets tricked by Jacob, with a little help from his own daughters.
It’s a family- a family in a mess.
Not a Brady Bunch at all.
Many families are in a mess, go through tough times.
We mean to love one another, but sometimes our love of ourselves gets the better of us, gets in the way of our love for one another.
And at times we trick, or deceive.
The person we marry is not exactly the person we thought he/she was.
When I would counsel couples before they got married, I would always remind them not to enter marriage thinking that once you are married, you can change your partner!
Sometimes the in-laws are the out-laws!
And sometimes the prospect of Christmas dinner doesn’t sound like good news! Stress, tension.
And so we listen to this story.
It sounds so strange and foreign at first-then before too long, it sounds familiar.
Close to home.
The story from Genesis becomes a story about re union-a family reunion in which we are joined across the ages to the all-too-human family.
And through it all-there is God.
As I said earlier, God doesn’t appear in the story, isn’t there to settle the disputes
BUT
God is in the shadows, behind the scenes.
In a real sense this story tells of God’s relentless determination to have a people.
That’s the promise that begins with God’s promise to Abraham and Sarah-that he will make of them a family whereby all the families of the world would be blessed.
Jacob is not just an annoying, ambitious son-in-law.
Jacob is Israel. God is going to use this Jacob-to bless the world.
These are the ancestors of Jesus.
These are our biblical ancestors, at the top of our Bible family tree.
In most families there is both love and joy-and pain.
There are past hurts, deceptions, a long history of disappointment and disagreement.
That’s how it is with families
-the way it has been from the beginning.
YET
God meets us, where we are.
God stands in the shadows of our conflicts, gradually moving the story along, moving us closer to love and grace.
In the Gospel reading Jesus uses parables to describe the realm of God
-the pearl, the net, the yeast, the seed.
Something small (with the exception of the net) becoming bigger, or more valuable.
Our own families may be small-but the love, encouragement and nurturing within them are like rain on thirsty soil.
Priceless.
Families are not only made up of blood relatives; many friends become family, and we are part of God’s family, and of the church family.
God’s family: we are valuable, loved unconditionally.
WHERE WE ARE God loves us.
AS WE ARE NOW
God does not withhold his love until we become ‘perfect’ like the Brady Bunch-for this will never happen!
Surely Jesus’ example demonstrates that we are part of God’s family.
And that is good news indeed.
We are part of God’s family, loved and cared for-despite our faults and flaws.
God is our parent.
‘Always keep in mind that parenting is like gardening. You plant and you wait. Some seeds take a long time to sprout and develop.’
Amen
Prayers of the People
Lord of all,
We come to you with our prayers for others-including for the world.
We continue to grieve for the ill, for the victims and families devastated by the covid-19 pandemic.
As numbers soar, including within our own city and communities-be with them, be with the medical teams and the emergency crisis teams.
Be with us.
Let us not forget what is happening in other parts of the world.
Stressed relations between China and the United States, and between Australia and China.
Tension in borders between India and Pakistan.
Continuing tension between Israelis and Palestinians.
Guide world leaders so that right decisions are made, egos left at the door-and compassion becomes the currency of the day and the reason behind their decision making.
We pray for our natural world-for the firefighters in Greece, battling wild fires. For the fear of flooding in parts of China.
We also give thanks for brave people-heroes-ordinary people, who, seeing two children about to jump from a burning apartment building in Grenoble-gathered around, and caught them as they fell.
May we celebrate that heroism, and take hold of these jewels of hope, in a much suffering world.
We pray for those in our community and family who need our prayers: for Rohini and Jaya, for Fredrica and Alan, for families at home with children, for Erica’s brother-in-law, James, for Bruce and Maggie, for Lex and Leora and their daughter Robyn, for Jean and Jacqui, and for others near and dear to us who need our prayers. In a time of silence we bring their names and concerns to you.
(silence)
In the words our Saviour taught us, we are confident when we pray to say,
‘Our Father in heaven…’
Amen
Dismissal and Blessing
‘As the earth keeps turning, hurtling through space, and night falls and day breaks from land to land, let us remember people- waking, sleeping, being born and dying- of one world, and of one humanity.’ (World Council of Churches, 1975)
Amen
26 July, 2020 Leighmoor Uniting Church
