Over the last few weeks, we’ve been looking at the flawed founders of our faith, the forefathers from the stories in Genesis, from Abraham who fathered great nations and through his descendants who carry the legacy of God’s covenant. We’ve seen that these heroes of our faith are very fallible humans who sometimes do some terrible things.
One of the worst of these is Jacob. At least when Abraham casts out his wife and son or when he attempts to sacrifice his other son, although these are abominable deeds, he at least gets reassurance or even instruction from God. Jacob however lies and cheats purely out of his own selfish desires. He has duped his older brother out of his birthright and he has deceived and tricked his mostly blind, dying father into thinking he was his older brother. Jacob’s name literally means “heel” because it says he came out of the womb holding his twin brother’s heel. But he is a heel. He has deceived his father while his father was lying on his death bed; he’s cheated his brother out of his birthright. He is cunning and deceptive. He lives up to the name, Jacob, the heel.
Then, when we get to today’s story (Genesis 28:10-22), he is on the run for his life. Esau swears that he’s going to kill Jacob as soon as their father is dead and, rather than facing his brother Esau after what he’s done, Jacob scarpers. So now, Jacob is out in the wilderness, on the run and in fear for his life. Remember that in the previous stories, they’ve talked about Esau being the hunter and Jacob as the indoorsy type. But now he’s out in the wilderness, probably feeling hungry, scared, and it says he’s using a large stone as a pillow as he sleeps under the stars.
Part of me wonders at this point if Jacob is just getting what he deserves. He has lied and he has cheated and now he’s scared, hungry, and alone in the wilderness, and he’s got no one to blame but himself. There’s some sort of poetic justice to the story at this point.
In the psalms, they often describe God as a just God, rewarding the righteous and punishing the wicked, and some would look at Jacob’s predicament and say that this is exactly what God is doing. But in this story, instead of God letting Jacob suffer for being such a heel with his family, God instead gives Jacob a vision of heaven, and then God makes a promise, a covenant, with this lying, cheating, low-life. If our God was a truly just God, then Jacob has no right getting this promise from God.
But grace isn’t about getting what you deserve. When we talk about God’s grace, we’re not talking about what we deserve. Grace is not a right that we claim from God. We don’t ever earn God’s grace, otherwise it wouldn’t be grace. Grace is a gift from God, freely given.
Now some people find this idea unsettling. We want to know that truly evil people go to hell. Our sense of justice demands that evil people get punished. But the grace of God doesn’t work that way. In our reading from Matthew’s gospel (Matthew 13:24-30), there’s this parable that Jesus tells of a field of wheat but someone evil has planted weeds. The workers are keen to pull out all the weeds, but the farmer says no. He says that they might pull up good grain in the process: better to leave it until the harvest.
I reckon if it was one of us looking at Jacob, we’d see him as a weed. He’s a liar and a cheat and a coward. He’s no good. We’d all be better off if he was removed now, before he does any more damage. He’s just a weed. But God, the wise farmer, says no. In your efforts to pull up the weeds, you’re going to damage the wheat, because until it comes to the harvest, you can’t truly tell.
In fact, Jacob isn’t a weed. In the end, he will turn out to be someone special. And so God gives their promise to Jacob. That’s what happens with grace. After receiving this gift from God, freely given, who knows how you may grow? In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul talks about it this way. He says: For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God — not the result of works, so that no one may boast. (Eph. 2:8-9)
We might look at the world sometimes and it’s like looking at a wheat field that’s full of weeds. It’s corrupted and tragic and a far cry from what it should be. But it’s not our job to pull the weeds. Because where we might see someone who we think of as out and out evil, as just a weed taking up space in the field, I think God sees them as wheat surrounded by weeds: wheat who are growing amongst weeds of addiction or mental illness or loneliness or constant degradation, and so are having a harder time to bear grain: someone in need of grace.
It was Aleksander Solzhenitsyn who said that the line between good and evil is not between different types of people but the line between good and evil runs through every human heart. It would be much easier if we could separate the evil people from the good people, but in fact each one of us is flawed, in need of God’s grace, and each one of us is also a wheat stalk capable of bearing grain.
And so it is with Jacob. Jacob has grown up in a household that practised favouritism, where he was told that he was less than because his brother was seconds older than him, where he was encouraged to lie and deceive. Yes, Jacob has done some bad stuff and he has to own that. Yes, he’s grown up in a crap family, but it was him not his family that did what he did and he has to carry the responsibility of that and eventually he will have to deal with what he’s done – that’s next week’s story. But in the meantime, God is still willing to offer their grace to Jacob, not because he’s earned it – he hasn’t – but because the love of God is not something that is earned. The love of God is something that is freely given.
So God makes a promise to Jacob: that God will be God not just to his ancestors but to Jacob personally, that God will protect Jacob and keep him safe, that God will bring him back to this land that God has in store for him. But this story is different to Abraham’s story. Whereas Abraham and Isaac are simply passive recipients of God’s promise, Jacob responds to God’s grace, he responds to God’s promise, by making his own covenant with God, by making his own promises to God. Jacob responds to the grace of God by making his own commitment to God.
He promises that God will be his God, and that he will give a tenth of everything he earns back to God. And as part of this covenant, he turns the rock he was sleeping on into a monument to God, to remind himself and others that God is in that place, that the house of God exists there. The grace of God is freely given with no strings attached, and yet it prompts a response.
I wonder how we might respond to God’s grace. I wonder how the grace of God has changed our lives and how we have changed the way we live because of it. I wonder if people might recognise that in us as a community. I wonder if they may say the same thing about this place: “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” Is it through this community and how we have responded to the grace of God that people may get a glimpse of heaven? I wonder.
But for now, I want to leave you with three things.
The first is that it’s not our job to decide who is worthy of God. It’s not your job to tear someone apart because you think they’re just a weed. Our job is to recognise the wheat, everyone we come across no matter what our preconceptions who is capable of bearing wheat.
The second thing is a reminder that the grace and love of God are not earned; it is freely given. We experience God’s love and grace, despite what we’ve done, not because of it. So we have no right to think of ourselves as better or more worthy. God loves you and God’s grace is for you. Don’t boast, don’t use it as a source of division, but rather be grateful.
And finally, a question: how will you respond to this freely given promise? What is it that you are willing to commit to God, in response to God’s loving grace?
This is not about payment; God doesn’t sell grace to us and we don’t have enough to offer anyway. This is about response, responding to that infinite love and grace, that is too wonderful to put into words. God believes in you. God loves you. And nothing can get in the way of that.
So how do you want to respond? How will you respond to this loving generosity of God?
Amen