"Jacob's God Moment"

Genesis 27:46-28:22

January 18, 2009

          Will you be the same person in five years? - or one year? - or next week?  I suppose the honest answer is, "I don't know."  There's some comfort to being the "same old" (your name here) as some mark in the past.  But don't we want to be somehow different - changing?  We can hope experience changes us for the better. 

          We can hope to be "same, same," with experience, a Vietnamese expression that means "the same -- but different."  As we journey with Jacob this morning, we'll see him evolve from "same old" to "same same."  Ordinary and extraordinary things of brought him to Bethel - but a God moment sent him out a different man than when he came. 

          Last week we saw how Jacob stole the blessing and birthright from his older twin Esau.  Well, Esau was biding his time, waiting for a chance to do his brother in.  Mother Rebekah was worried.  Both she and Isaac were irritated by the women Esau chose to marry.  So Rebekah saw her chance to protect her favorite and make a common cause with her husband.  Father Abraham's decision to find Isaac a bride in the homeland turned out well -- so why shouldn't young Jacob go to the same source?

 Then Rebekah said to Isaac, "I'm disgusted with living because of these Hittite women. If Jacob takes a wife from among the women of this land, from Hittite women like these, my life will not be worth living."

                 So Isaac called for Jacob and blessed him and commanded him: "Do not marry a Canaanite woman.   Go at once to Paddan Aram, to the house of your mother's father Bethuel. Take a wife for yourself there, from among the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother. ³ May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and increase your numbers until you become a community of peoples.

 ⁴ May he give you and your descendants the blessing given to Abraham, so that you may take possession of the land where you now live as an alien, the land God gave to Abraham."

            ⁵ Then Isaac sent Jacob on his way, and he went to Paddan Aram, to Laban son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, who was the mother of Jacob and Esau. ⁶ Now Esau learned that Isaac had blessed Jacob and had sent him to Paddan Aram to take a wife from there, and that when he blessed him he commanded him, "Do not marry a Canaanite woman,"  ⁷ and that Jacob had obeyed his father and mother and had gone to Paddan Aram.⁸ Esau then realized how displeasing the Canaanite women were to his father Isaac; ⁹ so he went to Ishmael and married Mahalath, the sister of Nebaioth and daughter of Ishmael son of Abraham, in addition to the wives he already had. ¹⁰ Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran.

          Unbeknownst to anyone but God, Jacob had a date with destiny in the high country.  Having traveled over forty miles from home, Jacob used a stone for a pillow and fell fast asleep. 

 He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.  There above it stood the LORD, and he said: "I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying.

  Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.  I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you."  ¹⁶ When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, "Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it."

          Jacob, no doubt, had heard his father talk about the promises grandfather Abraham received.   The family would become a great and populous nation that would bless everyone on earth.  Now it's personal - God is speaking right to Jacob in this dream!  It's not someone else's promise anymore!  Jacob will come to know how the Lord protects and will return him safely.

          This would have been like going to a Holiday Inn and discovering that the bathtub in your room is a wormhole to a parallel universe!  How often does it happen?  People go on their own business and God ambushes them!  "Surely God is in this place and I was not aware of it." 

          When we think we know enough about God to predict God's ways, we show how little we know.  According God's timing and grace, God shows up to set us straight.

          Jacob marks the spot.  He doesn't know the half of what has happened, but he knows he will never be the same.  God moments are like that.

⁸ Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. ¹⁹ He called that place Bethel, though the city used to be called Luz. ²⁰ Then Jacob made a vow, saying, "If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear ²¹ so that I return safely to my father's house, then the LORD will be my God

 ²² and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God's house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth."

          "If the Lord God will go with me and carry out the promises, I'll honor God on this holy spot and give a tenth of my wealth."  This God moment will bring about substantial action. 

          The stone on which Jacob laid his head was big enough to make a sacred monument.  He put his strength into it, set up the stone, and poured on oil to signify that this spot was sacred.  This God-moment, set in real space and time, will be remembered at a place where offerings would be offered.  The stone is called a masebah in Hebrew.

          God moments happen to real people, in real places, and in real time - and they are meant to be remembered.  They still happen!  Sometimes they come in times and places you might expect -- but sometimes it's not that way at all.  A song on the radio, a candlelight service, a sunrise, or seeing God peek through creation; any of these can change us forever.  We need to form masebahs to these times and places.

          One time I had a God moment at Gordon-Conwell Seminary.  Richard Foster sent us out to do an exercise in contemplative prayer and a wren perched in a bush right in front of me.  I marveled at the intricate markings and the little bird looked me straight in the eye for the longest time.  God revealed more about God's creative wisdom in that moment than ever before.  That bush and that memory is a masebah to me.  (The next time a wren landed near me I was in McDonalds.  It landed on my side mirror.  I settled in to contemplate -- and it left a white marker on the mirror.  I laughed my head off!)

          Think of your God moments.  Do you have masebahs?  Let these moments and monuments continue to turn and confirm the direction of your life.

          Today we remember the Lord's Supper -- a masebah if ever there was one.  We remember the most crucial God moment in history.  God was in that spot at Calvary and hardly anyone knew it!  Think.  Remember.  Maybe there's a communion service you remember -- or perhaps you can let this masebah in bread and cup be a timeless reminder of how Jesus called you.

          God moments make us different people - better people - redeemed people! 

          Lord, by your presence and grace, make this communion a holy moment - and show us the way.  As you are faithful - help us to be faithful too.