Lundar Lutheran Church

Having challenged myself to preach on the Old Testament texts this summer, I now am faced with a part of the story in which God is not very evident. This story of the marriage of Jacob with the sisters Leah and Rachel is entertaining, but what can we learn in this story to help us in our Christian lives?

This story seems very ordinary in its concerns. Jacob is living and working with his uncle Laban, and Laban feels it is only right to pay Jacob for his work. Jacob wants to marry Rachel. Fine. He works seven years for this privilege. Then Laban pulls a fast one on him. He gives him Leah instead. You’d think he’d notice, wouldn’t you? He must have been really drunk or something. Anyway, Jacob the trickster has been tricked. He works another seven years for the girl he wanted in the first place.

An amusing story, and a story that is important in the overall story of Israel becoming a nation. But where is God in this story? Why should we read this in church? What can we learn from it?

I think the key to interpreting this passage is found in the second lesson today. “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” Jacob was certainly chosen by God for God’s own purposes. And one of those purposes was that Jacob should have a large family. God had promised that Abraham’s descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky. And God always keeps God’s promises.

But Isaac and Rebekah only had the two sons. Somebody in this family would have to start producing more children! And if Jacob had married only Rachel, there would have been no large family. Rachel could not have children for many years, and then gave birth to only two, Joseph and Benjamin, and died giving birth to Benjamin. Jacob may have loved her, but she was not very good for God’s purposes. So we can see God’s hand at work in the trickery of Laban, giving Leah to Jacob as well. Leah gave birth to six sons and one daughter. And so God began to build the family that would become God’s own people, the nation of Israel.

Our God is a God who is at work in our world, sometimes where we don’t even see it. God has purposes, and they are sometimes not the same as our own purposes. But God has given us the privilege of giving ourselves to God’s purposes. God has called us and set us to work.

Sometimes we know what God wants us to do. All the “religious” things we do are obvious. We come to worship. We say our prayers. We study the Bible. But there is a whole lot of our lives that is not “religious”. There is the shopping and the cleaning, the working and the playing, that doesn’t seem to have much to do with God and God’s purposes for our lives.

But here we are told that “all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” All things, not just the religious things. Sometimes it doesn’t seem like it, does it? When you are battling a life-threatening illness or grieving the loss of a loved one, it certainly doesn’t seem like all things are working together for good. But God is in the background of our lives at those times, just as he was in the story of Jacob’s marriage. God is working to make sure that God’s purposes are fulfilled.

I guess it’s some kind of consolation that God is fulfilling God’s purposes, but what about my own purposes? I don’t want to be simply used and discarded by a God who is only interested in his own agenda. I can see why some people don’t want to be Christians, if this is the situation. We want to be happy. We want to be prosperous. We want to be successful.

And the Christian life is NOT a shortcut to happiness and prosperity and success. That’s not the point. The Christian life offers a different set of purposes, a set that is not obvious at first.

The set of parables that Jesus gave us today have one thing in common. There is something of value, but it is hidden. The mustard seed is buried in the earth. The yeast is hidden in the dough. The treasure is buried in the field. You can’t see it. But you can see the effect it has. The mustard seed grows. The yeast makes the loaf rise. The treasure seeker sells everything to buy the field.

This is the secret of the Christian life: the treasure is hidden in the everyday, ordinary events of our lives. It is sometimes hard to see God at work in our lives. Often it is only when we look back that we can see how all things were working for good for us. When God opens our eyes to see how God has worked in our lives, we can see what a treasure we have been given. And what we have been given is a call, to follow Jesus and to make God’s purposes our own.

And this is far better than happiness, far better than prosperity, far better than success. We are destined to be made over again in the very image of Jesus. God does this by setting us free from all our sins. And since we are set free from our sins, our end is glory, the very glory of God. What a treasure! And it is all part of God’s purpose, for us and for the world. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Lundar Lutheran Church

Pastor Nancy Walker phone 739-3589 (cell) 762-5317 (home) 762-5592 (church)

For the summer months, June, July and August, we will be worshipping at 7:00 p.m. Sunday evenings. Everyone who has been baptized (in any Christian church) is welcome to come to the Lord's Table for Holy Communion.

Pastor Nancy Walker
phone 739-3589 (cell) 762-5317 (home) 762-5592 (church)