Cheaters, All

Many of you already know that today’s reading from Genesis is part of my favorite account in the Bible. It is part of the Patriarch narrative that begins with Abraham and traces his family through several generations. Let me do a little recap of the story so far. Jacob is standing at the Jabbok alone because he fears his brother is going to kill him as he returns home. Jacob, with his mother’s complicity, cheated his older brother Esau out of his father’s blessing. In fear for his life Jacob fled from his home. In his new home he met Rachel and made a deal with Rachel's father Laban that he would work ten years for him so he could marry her. However, after ten years, Laban switches his daughters and Jacob ends up marrying Rachel’s sister Leah. He has to work another ten years to receive Rachel’s hand in marriage. Are you starting to see a pattern? In all their major events this family cheats. It does not end here either. Jacob also cheats Laban out of most of his flocks. Rachel steals her father’s gods when Jacob decides to move his family back to his homeland. That is where we find Jacob in the part of the story we read today. Jacob has sent his two wives, eleven children, his servants, and all his possessions across the Jabbok hoping that Esau, when he sees what Jacob had acquired, would spare his life. 

That night Jacob struggles with God. This story is quite amazing because as Jacob and God struggled neither has the upper hand. You would think that God would easily win this wrestling match. Since it was a tie God tries to get out of Jacob’s grasp by dislocating his hip – a bit of cheating by God. Although that does not free God and Jacob demands a blessing before releasing God. There is much that we can say about this struggle and our relationship with God. I will leave that for another day. Today I want to emphasize that this family whom God chose to be the ones to enact God’s plans are deeply flawed. They cheat and lie. They are jealous of each other. They struggle with each other. Just as Jacob and Esau struggled, Leah and Rachel struggled with each other trying to be Jacob’s favorite (Leah seems to win this by bearing more children for Jacob. She also cheats by giving her maid servant to Jacob for two more children.) We see in this story a much flawed family whom God chose to use to bring about God’s plans. 

Now, if God can use that flawed family to enact God’s plans, God certainly can use us. We too struggle with God, have cheated, worked to be the favorite, and striven to better ourselves at the expense of others. But for us the table has been turned. We no longer have to demand that God bless us. We have received God’s blessing in the waters of Baptism. We no longer have to struggle to be God’s favorite for Jesus gave his life for us and made us children of God. With that great gift comes the desire to be the ones that better the world for others. We pray constantly and work for Justice, Justice is something that cannot be individual. Justice is that state where all people are able to live as God desires for them. When we look around we see that is not the state of affairs today. There is great injustice in our world and until there is justice we are called to be the hands, feet, and mouthpiece of God working to bring justice to the world.