SCRIPTURE: Genesis 28:10–19a
TEXT: 15aKnow that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, THEME: God travels with us through life. INTRODUCTION I have found it helpful to leave notes to my future self. Last week I was going to bring some stuff for the Rummage Sale so I left it on my front porch to load up when I went to my car. I got up to Dodge Hall and forgot to take those items with me. The next time I did that, I left my computer, wallet, water and face mask, on the porch too, and remembered. A sign, an altar, a marker from the past, for my future self to remember something in the past. SCRIPTURE Jacob, the heal grabbing brother, is running away from Esau’s anger. Oh no, he couldn’t just give his brother some of the lentil soup that he made, he had to sell it to him for his birth right. And now when their father was ready to pass on the blessing God had bestowed upon him, Jacob, disguises himself as his older brother, in his hairy jacket, to steal his blessing. Telemundo! You’ve gotta love this crazy, dysfunctional family. Esau is so angry he is ready to kill his brother. “Hey Jacob”, his mother calls, “I can’t stand these Hillbilly brides in my household. I forbid you to marry a local girl,” “Go back to my homeland and find a nice girl from there. You have been putting this off long enough, so Go Now!” The timing couldn’t have been better, so off Jacob goes. Away from his brother, (as fast as he can). He travels as far as he could as it gets dark, about 50 miles from home and he beds down for the night, in the wilderness, using a stone for a pillow. He dreamed that there was a ladder set up connecting heaven to earth, with Angels going up and down the ladder. Then the Lord,” The God of Abraham and the God of Isaac.” stood beside Him and repeated the promise of descendants, land and blessing to the world. This is the eighth time this promise is repeated, and God assures Jacob of always being with Jacob. This is a thin place, between heaven and earth, where the holy was experienced, Jacob marks with a stone altar and stone pillow on top. Then he renames the place Bethel, the “House of God”. APPLICATION God draws us into relationship just as we are and we begin our faith journey. As imperfect, broken and unique as we may be, we are called to participate with God in mission. Faith enables us to see how God can be found everywhere. How do we see God in the events that are unfolding today? Where are the thin places where God can be felt especially close? How does our mindfulness of God change the way we live? The stories of Jacob are favorites, because of how human he is. We sort of feel that if God can love Jacob, then God can love us too. We often feel that we disqualified ourselves from the love of God. We ate forbidden fruit; our jobs have caused us to go against our better judgment. We have found ourselves in messes that snowball into greater atrocities. Lying, cheating, deception, forgery, stealing, greed, selfishness, unbridled ambition has become the litany of our lives and yet Jacob is loved by God. Literally running for his life, Jacob stops for the night and as his life pauses, God speaks to him in a dream. If God can be found in the wilderness, away from everything, then God can be found everywhere. Thin places, between Heaven and earth are formed when we pause and allow God to speak to us. Beauty, art, music, the woods, prayer, nature, exhaustion, the wilderness, architecture, create pauses in our lives where we take a breath and God can speak. The church in the middle of the pandemic gives us a chance to pause and allows God to speak. The church in the middle of the inequality, speaks against the behavior, privilege, disrespect, and biases based on skin color. All lives mattering is the pause Black Lives Matters protest have given us. The church praying, healing, feeding, protesting in the middle of narcissistic governmental leadership that is more concern about personal numbers and re-election than the preservation of people’s lives is a pause for God to speak. God is speaking through food drives; God is speaking through the majority voices that are protesting against the empowered minority. God is speaking through the valiant efforts of health care workers risking personal safety to save the lives of strangers. God is speaking through people who care more about you than their own discomfort by wearing a mask in public. God is speaking through the members of this church who are preparing for the rummage sale, preparing for Sunday services, preparing to reopen our preschool. These are thin places that should be marked with an altar and stone pillow on top. The last visit I had with a seminary classmate lead to a discussion on memory. He said to make a memory’s imprint stronger, attach a feeling, a taste, a smell or a sound to that memory. Like the sounds of stones being stacked upon each other, or the smell of fragrant oil being poured out, or the fear we felt as God stood next to us, or the renaming of a place, a person, a bias, a fear, or an enemy. God events in our lives are thin places, where our faith has been inspired. Attach what we were experiencing to that memory of God. Remember what we smelled, heard, or tasted when God met us in that thin place. This is an altar marking a memory when God was near. And if appropriate, we can rename the event as friend, human, forgiven, accepted, peace, respected, empathy, or loved by God. CONCLUSION Take note of God’s provision in this pandemic. Take a note of the persons who have checked in on you from time to time and was a God send. Name something that you weren’t sure how it was going to work out but God’s intervention made it have a good ending. Names have been changed in this time of civil unrest when our bias have been brought to light and color has been drained away. We wonder what character, will portray the Washington D.C. football players? Name calling reveals our character, more than the person being called a name. Marks of faith from the past are notes to our present self of what God has done. Our faith, is marked by events of the activities of God and how we can entrust our lives and future to God. The stories in Genesis are faith markers of how God connects us with a holy DNA, of how God visits to encourage us, of a God who hears the cries of all, of how embraceable we are to God, of how God’s ways are good for us to live in our ordinary lives, and of how God loves that we are different and has a unique relationship with each of us. These markers of faith are reminder to our future self that we are not alone, there is much more ahead, that God will be there to help us, and if God can meet Jacob in the wilderness in between home and the future, God will be with us in whatever tomorrow we will be living. Mark our faith today as a note from our present self to our future self of what we should not forget about God.
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May 2024
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