Genesis 29-32

One summer during the time I was in seminary, I served as an intern at Montreat Presbyterian Church, Billy Graham’s home congregation. At one point during the summer, the pastor, Calvin Thielman, left me in charge of things while he went away on a trip. That Sunday we were to have a guest preacher in church, a missionary. The guest preacher communicated his sermon title and text to the church secretary. However, when I read the text I sensed that there had been a mistake in communication somewhere, because the reading for that Sunday began with Genesis 31:38, “These twenty years I have been with you; your ewes and your female goats have not miscarried, and I have not eaten the rams of your flocks.” Indeed, that was not the passage the guest preacher intended to preach on. However, the congregation got a laugh out of it when I read the verse and told them of the miscommunication.

In a similar way, I think there are many strange things in these four chapters. We see Jacob marrying two of his cousins, each of whom he works for seven years to earn. Thus, women are treated as chattel. Jacob also has sexual relations and fathers children through the servant girls of his wives. (So much for “biblical marriage” once again! Husband, try suggesting the same arrangement to your wife. Good luck with that!) We also see superstition practiced regarding mandrakes making women fertile and sticks causing livestock to breed in a certain manner. Finally, we have Rachel stealing the household gods from her father. Obviously, belief in one God, the Lord, rose out of an environment of polytheism.

However, in the midst of all this strange stuff, I believe we also get some very practical messages that are relevant to us today. We see Jacob the trickster being tricked by his Uncle Laban. (Interesting, is it not, how the sin of deception is a chief characteristic in this family?) The message here seems to be that living a life of deception will lead one to trouble in the end. Because of his deceptive ways, Jacob had some very difficult family relationships to deal with: his father-in-law Laban on one side and his brother Esau on the other.

I believe that in chapter 32 we get a hint of a better way to deal with difficult problems in life. There is a better way than living a life of deception. It is better to confront difficult relationships rather than run away from them. Above all, it is best to take our problems to the Lord in prayer (Genesis 32:9-12).

My favorite story in this section of Scripture is the tale of Jacob wrestling with God. Jacob was certainly persistent (“I will not let you go unless you bless me.”) and that persistence paid off. However, we also need to remember that if we wrestle with God we need to be prepared to have our hip put out of joint.

I believe the essence of the blessing Jacob/Israel received was in seeing God, simply being in God’s presence. I believe we all have this longing for God, in and underneath all of our other longings.

As C. S. Lewis says….

“Apparently, then, our lifelong nostalgia, our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we now feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside, is no mere neurotic fancy, but the truest index of our real situation. And to be at last summoned inside would be both glory and honor beyond all our merits and also the healing of that old ache.” (“The Weight of Glory”)

The good news is that if we truly seek God, as Jacob did, we will find him, and/or be found by him. The Lord says, “When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart.” (Jeremiah 29:13)

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