2020.07.19 | Finding God in Strange Places
“Finding God in Strange Places”
Rev. Dr. Arlene K. Nehring
“Jacob’s Ladder” is one of the best-known African American spirituals. Today’s scripture passage provided the lyricst with the inspiration to compose this familiar song.
Though we don’t know the original lyricist’s name, modern hymnolgists agree that this spiritual was developed by Liberian captives, who were brought to the U.S. and forced into slavery during in the mid to late 18th Century.
There is no small amount of irony to be found in the fact that “Jacob’s Ladder” became one of the first spirituals widely sung by white Christians, even though enslaved people sang this song in defiance of their white owners, who attempted to indoctrinate them with a version of Christianity that promoted passive acceptance of their servitude.
Slaves weren’t permitted to speak in the fields, but they were allowed to sing and chant. By singing “Jacob’s Ladder,” enslaved people affirmed their spiritual ancestors’ vision of freedom from the Egyptian Pharaoh and emancipation from their white owners.
In addition to inspiring these lyrics, the story of Jacob’s ladder describes the Hebrew Patriarch Jacob’s surprise at finding God in what he thought was a God-forsaken place.
II
I wonder, have you ever been surprised by where God has shown up in your life?
To answer this question, let’s first consider where it is that we expect God to show up. I imagine that most people expect God to show up in Church. Right?
I think this is why the Shelter-In-Place order is so difficult for many Christians to accept. In this tipsy-topsy world, people of faith would like nothing more than to be in worship—in a familiar place, singing familiar songs, saying familiar prayers with familiar people—so that we might reground ourselves in the knowledge that God is in charge, and that everything is going to be OK.
But then, lo and behold, the County Health Officer and the Governor start pulling back the reins on phasing out Phase 1, and some of us find ourselves suffering disappointment, while others are angry, and the federal government’s failure to follow common sense public health guidance and protracting the pandemic.
So it’s understandable that many people of faith are stressed out by the current closures of worship centers, and are feeling like strangers in a strange land, even though most people are stuck at home in front of a screen, or stay-cationing in their backyard.
Given that the SIP has been a “leveling exercise” for all of us, I’m going to posit that this experience has been disorienting for all of us, even if our surroundings look very familiar.
And, I’m going to posit that we are all—spiritually speaking—in a place much like the place where Jacob found himself.
The literal place where Jacob was situated in Genesis 28 was probably Harran, an ancient city located in what is now modern Turkey, and a spiritual place between what- was-once-familiar and only-God-knows where.
If we’re honest with ourselves, we feel disoriented—if not fearful and anxious. I participated in a Zoom meeting this past week in which everyone in the Zoom Room acknowledged a shared sense of disorientation.
One member asked, “Does anybody even know what day it is? I don’t. I’ve had to look at the calendar three times, just to know what day it is—much less the date.”
Two of us on the call are essential workers, another two serve organizations that are on the front lines of COVID-19, and the fifth person was in quarantine. All of us agreed that we were fortunate to have a roof over our heads, food on the table, and job security or a secure retirement.
“If this is how we’re feeling,” one person observed, “imagine how people are feeling who are out of work and can’t meet rent or the mortgage payment! Or worse yet, Imagine being diagnosed with COVID-19 AND not being about to work or pay your bills!”
III
To borrow an image from today’s scripture reading, I suspect that they (or even we) are feeling like Jacob as he laid his head down on that rock, closed his eyes, and tried to drive the demons of fear and anxiety away.
The way the story goes, Jacob dreamed a dream in which there was a ladder set up on the earth, with the top reaching to heaven; and the angels of God ascended and descended on it. And God stood beside Jacob and said, “I am the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your children, and your descendents will be as numerous as dust on the earth, and all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”
Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely God is in this place—I did not know it!” And even though Jacob was still afraid, he said, “This place is awesome! This is the house of God, and the gate of heaven.”
Then Jacob got up early in the morning, and he took the rock that had been his pillow and he used it to create a pile of rocks, a pillar, to mark this holy place where he had encountered the living God, so that he could place here and say his prayers again, when he was on his way home.
Then Jacob poured oil on the top of the pillar, and he called that place “Bethel.”
IV
So what do we conclude from this story about Jacob’s Ladder? Do we conclude that Jacob lived happily ever after, like characters in a Disney movie?
We might, but such a conclusion wouldn’t be completely truthful, according to Genesis.
As we read on in successive chapters of Genesis, we learn the truth that Jacob did live to tell—and eventually lived happily—but not before enduring a series of trials that lasted most of his adult life.
As you may remember from Sunday School, Jacob and his twin brother Essau had a complicated relationship. In fact, they were arch rivals. Esau was the older of the twins by just a few minutes, so he was technically his father’s oldest son, the heir apparent to his father’s estate, and the next in line to lead his tribe, and Jacob, though born just a few minutes later, was second in line.
Not surprisingly, Jacob coveted all things that by Abrahamic law belonged to his brother, Esau. One day Jacob tricked his father, Isaac, into giving him all of the blessings and worldly goods that were intended for Esau.
Despite his dishonesty, no one but Esau contested his father’s decision. Isaac made a promise. His word was his bond. End of story. Right?
Well, not for Esau.
When Esau realized that his father would not overturn his decision, Esau swore that he would murder Jacob.
Were it not for the shrewd intervention of their mother, Rebekah, Esau might have succeeded in killing Jacob.
Rebekah went to Isaac, and insisted that he send Jacob to her brother’s house, ostensibly to search for a wife. Isaac granted her wish, and Jacob went on his way.
It was on this journey that Jacob had the dream in which a ladder was lowered from the sky, and angels ascended and descended on it. In that dream, God spoke to him reiterating the promise God had made to his grandfather, Abraham, telling Jacob that God would make his people a great nation, and saying that they would inhabit the very land on which Jacob then slept.
When Jacob awoke from this dream, he was refreshed and ready to continue to his uncle’s home where he was warmly welcomed. He soon fell in love with Rachel, his Uncle Laban’s youngest daughter, and asked for the right to marry her.
Laban agreed to the marriage provided that Jacob serve as his shepherd for seven years. Jacob did as Laban required, but at the end of the seventh year, instead of presenting his youngest daughter for marriage as he had promised, Laban presented his oldest daughter, Leah, to Jacob, and said that he could not allow his younger daughter to marry before the older one.
Jacob was unhappy with Laban’s decision, but Jacob accepted it; he married Leah, and agreed to work another seven years to earn the right to marry Rachel. Finally, at the end of fourteenth year of service, Laban consented to the marriage of Jacob and Rachel.
Jacob and his two wives, Leah and Rachel, continued to live in Harran, and Jacob continued to serve as a shepherd for Laban, so that he could acquire a sheep and goat herd of his own. Eventually, when Jacob was satisfied with his earnings, he decided to return to Cana and rejoin his parents.
Jacob told Laban his plans and asked to be given what was owed to him. Once again, Laban cheated his son-in-law. The night before the herds were to be divided, and Jacob and his family were to leave for Cana, Laban sent his servants to cull Jacob’s livestock from the herd and run them into a distant pasture. The next day, when Jacob went to claim what was his, the animals bearing his mark were gone.
Though Jacob had been cheated three times by his father-in-law, he labored on, and eventually received what was owed him. Then he and his family left for Cana, the land where he was born.
V
The reason that this story about Jacob and his family has become part of the Jewish Torah and the Christian Bible isn’t just because it’s a great story. This story is part of the Jewish-Christian canon because the dream that Jacob dreamt at Bethel came true. But it took a while to unfold.
First Jacob had to leave Bethel and travel on to find his Uncle Laban, and where he met and fell in love with Rachel. Jacob worked as a shepherd for his father-in-law for seven years in order to earn the right to marry Rachel, but he was tricked by Laban into first marrying Leah, and then tricked again into further service, in order to acquire his own herd.
Some view the trials that Jacob endured as “payback” for cheating Esau out of his birthright—and maybe it was.
Regardless of whether we may have done something, like Jacob, to deserve payback for our sins, the story of Jacob’s Ladder teaches us to expect that God will show up for us in surprising places like Bethel, and the SIP, and the coronavirus pandemic--even if we haven’t “earned” God’s holy presence. Why?
Because the God who we worship cannot be contained by geographic boundaries, an elected official’s SIP orders, or a deadly virus like COVID-19. Neither can God be confined by small-minded, short-sighted, judgmental theology.
Instead, what we discover in the story of “Jacob’s Ladder,” what we sing about in verse one of the spiritual, and what the words of Psalm 139 (which is the psalm for today) is that there are no limits to where God will go to stay in relationship with us.
There are no limits to what God will do to render justice for all.
And there are no limits to God’s ability to fulfill God’s promises, even if we find ourselves in some God-forsaken place and doubt that we are worthy of God’s presence and grace.
Church, this is good news on any day of the week, but it is especially good news in this time of spiritual dis-ease, when we find ourselves spiritually disoriented, and when some are suffering so much as a result of the disparities that this pandemic has exacerbated.
Amen.