20 July 2008

The Rev'd Lloyd Prator

New York City

Today's story from Genesis is an interesting, familiar one. From the beginning, until now, we have been hearing about the family struggles of Abraham, Isaac, and now Jacob. There was a wedding; there were children being born and children fighting over position as leader of the family.

The story of Abraham and his descendents, is now focused upon Jacob, the clever one who had managed to defraud his brother from his birthright; the same guy who managed to get his father to give him a blessing normally reserved for the firstborn—that guy who is more of a trickster than a patriarch. More of a scoundrel than a father in the faith—and today we meet him journeying toward Haran and settling in for the night.

He made a pillow for his head, out of a stone and he dreamed. In the dream, there was a ladder set up on the earth, going up to heaven. Now, this might seem an odd image, but in fact, it is a common image, I think for primitive people in talking about theophanies—about visions of heaven and of God. To consider how common it is, remember those pictures you see of primitive temples in, for example, Central America. The sides of the temples stepped upward in an architectural sweep up into heaven—steps to God—like the ladder that Jacob saw.

And, then, to be sure we get the picture, we are told that there were angels on the ladder—messengers from God. But, in fact, no messenger was needed because the next thing is God himself assuring Jacob that the ancient covenant made with his grandfather, Abraham, still is valid and that Jacob can look around him and see land which will one day be his and consider his future which will include many progeny. The ancient promise is, you see, renewed.

And Jacob's response is to acclaim God: This is a genuine experience of God and God was in this sacred place. And to mark it, he took the pillow stone he used for his head, anointed it with oil and made it a memorial to that even, calling it Beth-el., house of God.

So, what do we take from this story.

A few things. First is that this is a story about redemption. Jacob is a scoundrel, a crook, a fraud, and a trickster. And, yet God uses him. It is as if God looked down at humanity, at the family he had gathered to him, and while it wasn't much, it was what God had available and he would use it. One of my directees and I were talking the other day about how bloody and violent was the English reformation, with its martyrs and savagery. Awful. Perfectly terrible, were many of the people who later became luminaries of the Church. And yet God used them, and used them for good things, even though they were vastly imperfect. Redemption. God being able to use even imperfect humanity for his purposes. That is what we mean by redemption.

This is also a story about a trickster. Jacob was a clever lad who could manipulate situations and circumstances for his own purposes. Tricksters occur in all religions—especially native American expressions of faith. The trickster is the one who appears like the biblical figure of the miracle worker. He does things which call attention to himself, and in biblical stories, the trickster calls attention to God. The miracles worked by Jesus, for example, remind us that some of the idea of the trickster lived in him, but transformed from an ego exercise, to an exercise which expressed love and care for the suffering and turned peoples eyes and ears to God. The story reminds us of the role of the trickster in faith. Even our faith.

This is a story about renewal. The whole point of Jacob's vision was to renew the ancient covenant between his people and God. From time to time, we all need to renew important relationships. A couple, for example, who takes some time away, perhaps at a romantic place, to rekindle passion and reconsider commitment is in fact, renewing sacred covenant. The prayer book, wisely, provides a form for a married couple to renew their vows, because renewal is important. At several points in the Church year, we renew the promises of our baptism, at the commemoration of the baptism of Jesus, at Easter, at Pentecost, and at the festival of All Saints' for example. We gather and we renew our faith. In a sense, every time we stand and say the Nicene Creed, we are saying what we believe to be truth about God and about our selves and we are renewing our covenant.

This is a story about physical memorials. We are told that Jacob turned his odd little stone pillow into a memorial by making it into a pillar and anointing it with oil. We still do that sort of thing. When this altar was new, 20 years ago, the Bishop dedicated it to be a place where the sacred covenants of Christianity would be celebrated and recited time and time again. And when he did it, how did he do it? He found, in the center of it, a stone, set by the craftsman who made it, and upon that stone, he poured oil. Just as Jacob had done with the stone at Beth-el that day. The stone at the place called the House of God. And every year, on Maundy Thursday, that stone is anointed again in the rites that follow the altar stripping. Sacred renewal of covenant is something we do time and time again, both in secular life and in those rites at the center of our faith.

So, today we come to know more of Jacob, the trickster, the scoundrel, the person who is maybe just a little more like ourselves than we might think. I don't know about you, but I take great comfort that God can use a person like Jacob. It holds out hope for me that God might even use someone of my own weaknesses, failures and shortfalls. For us weak and failing human beings, God retains ways of offering us sacred reminders of his abiding presence, in case our humanity might cause us to forget.

Check around and see if there is an anointed stone lying around somewhere in your life. And praise the God who reminds us of his covenant with us, that God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.