Words 7.23

Words Twice a Week 7.23

Lessons for this Sunday -

Genesis 29:15-28 Jacob and Laban and Laban’s daughters Leah and Rachel

It’s just a neat story – Jacob [the Trickster] gets a taste of his own medicine as Laban gets the best of him. Then Rachel was beautiful; Leah [elder daughter] had eyes that didn’t sparkle, or did sparkle, or were weak, or were lovely – we seem to have some trouble translating that verse. I’d like it to be ‘Leah of the lovely eyes’, but maybe not.

Here’s a wonderful and poignant note from Thomas Dozeman – God is essentially absent from the story of the confrontation between Jacob and Laban, but does come into the story if we look ahead to vs31 and what has been lurking under the surface – the fate of Leah. “The primary victim in the confrontation is Leah, a pawn in a trick that was not her choosing, and now she is condemned to a life of hatred. When the Lord saw that Leah was hated, God opened her womb.” So Leah has a bunch of sons, and it is years before Rachel has two. God was watching, even if not seemingly involved, and acts finally for the littlest, the least, and the lost.

[alternate first reading] 

1 Kings 3.5-12 In a dream, God says to Solomon "Ask what I should give you." Solomon asks for ‘an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil’. God is pleased that Solomon did not ask something just for himself and gives him the legendary wisdom.

So what are the qualities most critical in a good leader? While the bible accords great wisdom to Solomon, he also heavily taxed and made life hard for the people. When his son Rehoboam continued the heavy-handed approach, it led to revolution. If this is the word of God for the people of God, what do you hear for us today?

Romans 8:26-39 All things work together for good….Who/what will separate us from the love of God?... neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Do all things really work together for good, even for those who love God?  I could maybe see it meaning something like even in the worst of times [say, a coronavirus pandemic], there are still moments of goodness here and there.  That's a stretch from All things work for good, but it's what seems real to me.  and then the rest is just a nice, nice word of assurance.

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52 the Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed;...is like leaven a woman mixes into a lump of dough;…is like a treasure hidden in a field;...is like a pearl of great price;...is like a net full of fish...

‘The Kingdom of Heaven’ – what terminology do you like? I like ‘the Time of God’s Peace’.

Robert Farrar Capon suggests the Kingdom [Time] is already here and growing throughout the Creation – like leaven in a lump of dough. I love it – that makes me a big lump a dough. Yeah, some days I feel like that [though not really very often!] Or am I a little speck of yeast in a world of dough?

‘God longs for God and uses us, rises in us...becomes in us.  Let us be silent, a quiet dough where God moves into every pore…where God lives as God pleases. Let us rise simply, a quiet dough’ – Gunilla Norris

So you are digging the foundation for your new garage, or you are spading up the back yard for a Victory Garden, or you are bringing in the groceries, or you are looking through the jackets at Getz's, or you are knocking back a cool one at the Ore Dock - and all of a sudden, there it is!!!  And you cash in your IRA, you take out a reverse mortgage on your house, you say Adios to family and friends[?], you sell your car - all to acquire 'it.'  Now, what is it? What would you do that for?

And then I really love the disciples here – “Have you understood this?” Jesus asks. “Oh, yah, you betcha!”

God of good times and bad times, of the loved and unloved, you are always there, watching our plans and schemes.  Let the time of your peace grow and come to fruition in our lives and in our world, through us or in spite of us. Grant us wisdom, grant us love, grant us peace.

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