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Last updated on
Aug. 6, 2005
The Deceiver is Duped
Delivered July 10, 2005
by Pastor Werner De Jong
Text: Genesis 29:15-28
Main Idea: When God makes a promise God will work it out in God's own time, even in the midst of conflict. This truth requires a faith response of patience and perseverance.
Purpose: To encourage the listeners that God is ultimately in control of life; the very future is in the hands of our faithful God. To challenge the listeners to respond in faith to God's good promises by adopting an attitude of faith-filled patience and trusting perseverance.
Introduction: For the last two weeks we have been considering the story of the Old Testament character Jacob, who was born into a generation of conflict. As God had announced to Rebekah in a birth oracle, the twin boys in her womb would give rise to two divided peoples, with the elder serving the younger. As the brothers grew up, God's word began to be fulfilled. As a young man Jacob skilfully extracted the birthright from his older twin Esau, and some time afterward Jacob also tricked his father into giving him Esau's blessing.
Last week we heard of a dream Jacob had as he fled Esau's wrath. In the dream God bound himself to this lonely fugitive, repeating the promise he had made to his grandfather Abraham, a promise of land and descendants and blessing. But God also gave Jacob an additional promise, a promise to be with him, to keep him wherever he went, and one day to bring him safely back home. These are the same gracious promises Jesus made to his disciples in the New Testament, promises which also extend to us. Jesus has promised always to be with us, he has promised to guide us and to strengthen us, and he has ultimately promised that we too will have a safe homecoming, that one day we will have an eternal home with him in heaven, a home which death itself cannot keep us from seeing.
Patience and God's Promise: This last promise is one, which like Jacob, we can only wait for in faith. And the wait can be very long. For God does not fulfill his promises on our timetable, but on his own. When God appeared to Jacob in the dream, for example, little did Jacob know that he wouldn't be returning home for more than twenty years. And those twenty years were rocky ones, filled with intrigue, discord and struggle. Jacob may have run away from his skirmish with Esau, but he ran straight into a battle with his Uncle Laban. For twenty years these two tricksters locked horns with one another. Three full chapters in Genesis (29-31) are dedicated to narrating Jacob's sojourn with Laban, until in chapter 32 Jacob finally makes preparations to return home. God did not forget the promise, but from Jacob's perspective it was a very long time coming.
The overall story of Jacob and Laban, of which today's sermon text is a good representative sample, is an excellent illustration of the theme of this morning's children story. The lesson written at the end of that story was this: "Patience is knowing that, in the long run, God's work will be done, in spite of obstacles and setbacks." This is the main lesson to be learned as we consider Jacob and Laban's interaction. As we read through their story we may temporarily take our eyes off of God's promise as the two engage in a classic battle of wits, like two opponents trying to outsmart one another in a chess match. The game apparently ends in a draw, but once it is over we are reminded of God's promise as Jacob not only heads for home but is accompanied by his wives and his many sons and his daughter, through whom he will have as many descendants as the grains of sand on the seashore. Taken as a whole the story challenges us to respond in faith to God's good promises by adopting an attitude of faith-filled patience and trusting perseverance. For once again we encounter the truth that God can accomplish God's purposes even in the midst of chaos and conflict. We might wish that our lives would be all smooth sailing, but the reality is that God works through the messiness of our lives to redeem them and to accomplish his good purposes.
The Story: Let's take a closer look now at the story before us. After Jacob's dream of the stairway extending from earth to heaven he proceeded to Haran, where his grandfather Abraham had once lived before migrating to Canaan. In Haran Jacob sought out and found his Uncle Laban, the brother of his mother Rebekah. This was all part of a plan hatched by Rebekah, who sent her favourite son into exile not only to protect him from her other son's anger, but also because she wanted Jacob to marry someone from within her own family. For she looked with disdain upon the local Hittite women and did not think any of them would make a suitable partner for Jacob.
Soon after he arrived in Haran Jacob fell head over heels in love with Laban's daughter Rachel. His solitary pilgrimage was over, and Rachel was the first person he met from his Uncle's family, as she was drawing water at the well. The New Living Translation describes Rachel as "beautiful in every way, with a lovely face and shapely figure." It is not difficult to understand how lonely Jacob became infatuated with her! Rachel also had an older sister Leah, but Jacob wanted to marry the younger one. And so he approached Laban, and asked for Rachel's hand in marriage. At this point the story becomes very entertaining. Laban takes advantage of Jacob's strong desire for Rachel and skilfully extracts from Jacob a promise to work for him for seven years before the marriage can take place. It is a one-sided deal which is weighted heavily in Laban's favour. But observant readers of the story will be reminded of another lopsided deal when Jacob took advantage of Esau's hunger and purchased his birthright for a bowl of lentil stew.
But for his part Jacob didn't mind putting in seven years for Rachel. As they say, love is blind, and as the story says, "Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her" (29:20). Finally the seven years came to an end, and excited Jacob said to Laban: "I have fulfilled my contract, now give me my wife, that I may go in to her." So Laban invited everyone in the neighbourhood to celebrate with Jacob at a wedding feast. That night, when it was dark, and after much eating and drinking, Laban brought the bride-to-be to Jacob's tent, and the eager groom consummated his marriage with her. But when Jacob awoke in the morning, he was mortified to discover that the woman he had slept with was Leah, and not Rachel. And with words dripping with irony the narrator records the words of rage Jacob spoke to Laban: "What is this you have done to me? Why have you deceived me?" It is wonderful storytelling–the deceiver has been duped, the trickster has been taken, the swindler has been swindled! We can only imagine how delicious Laban's joke must have seemed to him. He probably laughed himself to sleep that night as he remembered the veiled bride in the dark, the shared bed, and with the breaking of day–surprise! The story doesn't record how Leah felt about this deception, or even Rachel for that matter. That is considered secondary to the main story line, which drives home the point that in Laban Jacob has finally met his match.
When Jacob demanded an explanation for Laban's action, Laban provided Jacob with a very lame excuse: "Oh, by the way Jacob, didn't you know that we have this custom here by which the eldest daughter must be married first? But if you still desire Rachel, here is the plan. Wait until the bridal week with Leah is over, and then you can marry Rachel. There is only one small hitch-- you must promise to work for me another seven years." Jacob the manipulator was now further manipulated, but because he still loved Rachel he had no other recourse but to agree, and he ended up serving Laban another seven years.
And even that is not the end of the story. After Jacob had worked fourteen years for his two wives, he was ready to return home. But he had no possessions, for all of his work was done as an indentured servant for Laban. Laban wanted Jacob to stay, because he was growing rich off of Jacob's labours, so he offered to pay him if he would remain. Jacob was just about stone-broke so he agreed, but stipulated the terms–he wanted all of the speckled and spotted and dark-coloured sheep and goats in Laban's herd. From all of his experience caring for Laban's flocks, he knew that these animals were more vigorous, and better breeders. Lazy Laban didn't know this, so he agreed. And soon the tide begins to turn in Jacob's favour. His flocks began to prosper at Laban's expense. When Laban found out he began to treat Jacob very poorly. After another six years Jacob finally couldn't take it any longer, so he called Rachel and Leah out to the field to see him and said, "Your father has turned against me and is not treating me like he used to. But the God of my father has been with me. You know how hard I have worked for your father, but he has tricked me, breaking his wage agreement with me again and again. He said the speckled animals were mine...(but when the flock started producing speckled animals)...he changed his mind and said I could have the streaked ones" (Gen. 31:6-7). So frustrated Jacob finally left with his wives and his children, only to be pursued a few days later by Laban. But when Laban caught up with them, Jacob challenged him saying, "Twenty years I have been with you, and all that time I cared for your sheep and goats so they produced healthy offspring....Yes, twenty years–fourteen of them earning your two daughters, and six years to get the flock. And you have reduced my wages ten times! In fact, except for the grace of God–the God of my grandfather Abraham, the awe-inspiring God of my father, Isaac–you would have sent me off without a penny to my name. But God has seen your cruelty and my hard work" (Gen. 31:42, NLT). And then their story ends, with the two men making a peace treaty, each agreeing not to cross over a certain boundary line so that they could do no harm to the other.
God is in Control: In these last two speeches of Jacob, first to his wives and then to Laban, we are reminded that God is at work in the midst of all schemes and machinations. In spite of the ever-present conflict that is happening on the human level, the unseen hand of God is guiding circumstances in order to work out God's purposes. Not the least among those purposes is to teach the lesson that you reap what you sow. Jacob received at Laban's hands the natural consequences of his own actions. In a similar way we shouldn't be surprised when we have to face the consequences of the wrong things we do. God has created us as free creatures who live in a free world, but together with this freedom comes the burden of responsibility. We are responsible for how we use our freedom, and when we use it for our own gain at the expense of others we shouldn't be surprised when others do the same to us. This results is a cycle of violation. The story of Jacob and Laban is a real life illustration of such an unending cycle of violation. Manipulation produces more manipulation, fraud produces more fraud, and treachery produces more treachery.
If it were not for the grace of God, we would all be forever stuck in downward spirals of selfishness and betrayal. But the most beautiful thing about this story is that in spite of Jacob's actions God doesn't abandon him. God certainly allows Jacob to reap what he has sown, but God never leaves him. For God had made Jacob a promise, and God was going to keep that promise.
In fact the deepest meanings of this story have to do with God working to bring about God's promise. At the very centre of the Jacob-Laban narrative is the birth of Jacob's offspring, through whom the promise of God is transmitted from one generation to the next
(see overhead of "Chiasm in the Jacob-Laban narrative"):
A. Jacob's arrival in Haran, Gen. 29:1-14
B. An agreement concerning wages, Gen. 29:15-30
C. The birth of offspring, Gen. 29:31-30:24
B. An agreement concerning wages, Gen. 30:25-43
A. Jacob's departure from Haran, 31:1-55.
(Source: Eugene Roop, Genesis: Believers Church Bible Commentary, Herald Press)
This chiasm demonstrates that God is at work to bring about the promise even in a context of struggle, conflict and suffering. The story declares the wonderful good news that our faithful God is ultimately in control of life; in fact the very future itself is in the hands of our faithful God. When from a human perspective everything seems to be spinning out of control we can know the reassurance that our future and even our eternal destiny is still safe in the hands of our good and loving God. In his own time God will work through the circumstances of our lives to transform us and to bring about his promise. The apostle Paul meditated on this wonderful knowledge, especially as it applied to God's fulfilment of the promise in Christ, and it led him to proclaim the following great words of hope (which we already heard in our lectionary reading from Romans 8): "Can anything ever separate us from Christ's love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or are hungry or cold or in danger or threatened with death....No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us. And I am convinced that nothing can separate us from his love. Death can't, and life can't. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, and even the powers of hell can't keep God's love away. Whether we are high above the sky or in the deepest ocean, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 8:35-39, NLT). Why is Paul so convinced of this? Because Christ himself promised never to leave us, and he demonstrated his great love and faithfulness to us by dying and rising again.
Application: Faith-filled Patience and Trusting Perseverance: The Jacob-Laban story is so valuable because it teaches us how to respond to the promises of God–with faith-filled patience and trusting perseverance. This brings us back to our children's story. We can wait patiently for God's promises in faith because in the long run God's work will be done, in spite of obstacles and setbacks. The faith that we are talking about is not a passive faith–we are not only called to wait for God's promise with patience, but also with perseverance. The way to respond to the promise of God is with a faith that works with determination for a better future. Because God is in control of the future, we can wait and work with absolute confidence that all things will be well.
The interesting thing is that we learn these lessons from no one else than the person of Jacob. Up until this point we have known him only as a scamp and a con artist, but ever since he encountered God in his dream we see that Jacob's character has been developing. He is being transformed by the power of God's promise. All God gave him to go on was a word, but Jacob believed that word, and he demonstrated his belief through a combination of patience and perseverance and sheer determination. Through these things Jacob ultimately won Rachel, and Leah too, and during this time Jacob had many children, thus setting the stage for all that is to follow in the story of Abraham's family. In the end Jacob prevailed even over Laban because his faithful persistence was as great as his duplicity.
As his encounter with Laban draws to a close Jacob is still far from a perfect man, but he has made large strides forward. Jacob left home as an empty-handed fugitive; twenty years later he turns for home as a man of means. Ultimately, of course, Jacob prospered by the hand of God. Jacob had no tricks to reverse Laban's deceit. All he could do was to wait upon God, which he did. And that made all the difference.
Once again it is good to remember that God has given us as followers of Jesus the same promises God gave to Jacob. God has promised to be with us always, to keep us, and to sojourn with us until we arrive safely at our eternal home. This promise asks for a response from us: first, it asks that we wait upon God's promise with patience, even when we might wish that the difficult circumstances of life would quickly change. Sometimes circumstances do change quickly, but at other times they don't. But the story reminds us that God will work things out in God's own time. And in the meanwhile we can be assured that God is with us. And secondly the promise asks that we persevere in our work for God, in our work of seeking God's kingdom, even when conflict swirls in our lives and threatens us like a storm. For as we also heard in today's reading from Romans, "We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose" (Rom. 8:28). God can and does work through all the circumstances of our lives, in order to accomplish his good will. And his will includes loving us and seeing us safely home. Therefore when we encounter difficult times, and some of us may be in the midst of such times even today, it does not mean that God has abandoned us. Rather, as in the story of Jacob, it is simply another way for God to work out God's purposes.
Conclusion: I'd like to conclude now with the verse of a song I was listening to while writing this sermon. It is from a CD by Fernando Ortega. The words are perfect: "There's coming a morning when sorrow and shame will cease; God's children who've suffered, forever will live in peace. But until then I will wait for him on my knees. And through the years of my life, through the changes, He's never left me alone; So all the days of my life I will follow him. Till I reach my home. Till I reach my home." (Fernando Ortega, "Till I Reach My Home"). Amen.