Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 16, Year A

Called By Grace

Readings: Genesis 28:20-29a; Psalm 139:1-12, 23-24; Romans 8:12-25; Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

It is the dark of night. Jacob is on the run – again. He is running in fear from a disaster of his own making. He is a fugitive with known anger behind him and unknown dangers ahead of him. It is a long story, almost a soap opera as we hear one thing after another from this trickster. First of all, he does his slightly older twin brother Esau out of his rightful inheritance. He then cheats him out of the blessing that is rightfully his as well. Esau is ready to kill his brother, so his enabling family helps him by spiriting him away to a relative’s place to find a wife. After all, he now has the family inheritance. It is important that he find a suitable wife in his ancestral lands.

It is while he is on the run travelling from Beersheba to Haran, that this story takes place. As night falls, he is still far from his destination. He uses a stone for a pillow, and despite the unfamiliarity of his surroundings, he falls asleep. He has a dream. In his dream there is a stone stairway reaching from earth to heaven. There are angels on the stairway, ascending and descending. God is there, not at the top of the ladder as one might expect, but right there beside Jacob. And surprise, surprise! God brings a message, not of recrimination, not of reproach and accusation, but one of great comfort and blessing. "I am the LORD, 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 offspring; and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring.”

And here is the real kicker. “Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land.”

It is an amazing promise. What is even more amazing is that God is giving this promise to Jacob. One might have expected a little vengeance. One might imagine that God would have something a little different in mind for Jacob, something a little more suited to his bad behaviour. A little justice if you will. Some come-uppance. Yet there it is. Not even a harsh word. Instead, an unforgettable dream! It would, of course, take a long time for the dream to reach its fulfillment, for Jacob to become the great father of Israel as God had promised. On the other hand it did not take long for Jacob to realize what had happened and to make the most of it.

He wakens up from his sleep. There are some fearful moments as he takes stock of what has happened. He feels that sense of awe that comes over one who has met God, who has seen God face to face. After that momentary period of introspection, he moves on.

He does take the time to build a monument in honour of the place, calling it Bethel, “house of God”. But let’s face it! His behaviour continues to prove that he has not really changed at all. He is still the grasping man that his name suggests. The baby that came out of the womb grabbing his brother’s heel, the young man who grabbed his brother’s inheritance, is quick to grab for what he wants, even when God is the giver. He is also quick to avoid the real work of redemption to which God has called him.

And so we are left to ponder, what on earth is God thinking? There are two truly amazing aspects of this story. The over riding one, of course, is God’s amazing grace. The other is whom God chooses. There is no other answer for it, is there? Jacob does not even attempt to climb the stairway to meet God half way. And yet God chooses to bless him.

Did Jacob ever come to his senses? Did he finally express remorse for his trickery? For those he hurt? Did he acknowledge God’s generosity and goodness? For that matter, was it enough to make him mend his ways? The judgement is out on that one. But then the judgement is out on you on me as well. Consider what God has been doing for us on our life’s journey. How God has graced our lives! What God has been doing all along! That is clearly the message of the Gospel. God has graced us. God did that most clearly through the death and resurrection of Jesus. It is what God has been doing ever since for a world, for a church, for people like you and me. So that we can be blessed!

Luckily for Jacob that God doesn’t love people because of who they are. It is rather about who God is. That is the nature of God’s grace. Maybe some of you learned about grace in your preparation for Confirmation when you memorized the Catechism where it is defined in the following way. "Grace is God's favour towards us, unearned and undeserved; by grace God forgives our sins, enlightens our minds, stirs our hearts, and strengthens our wills."

Grace is undeserved favour. It is not given to us as a reward for our knowledge or any of our abilities. It is simply given. It affects all of our relationships, beginning with our relationship with God. And hopefully it manifests itself in our actions. We learn to share the grace by which we have been graced, not by looking for Brownie points. First of all, God doesn’t give them. But even more important, we don’t need them. Grace is free.

Not that it is always easy to access God’s grace! We tend to strive in life, to mistrust anything that is free. But there is simply no other way to receive God’s grace. God has already made the choice to bless us. We need to accept the gift and then use it. We use it by offering Christian service, the kind of service that is always offered by practicing Christians. It is the kind of service that the world needs to see us doing, because it offers Christ to the world. It is seeing God’s grace manifested in us that will change the world.

So it is not just lucky for Jacob that God’s grace is freely given; it is lucky for us. Jacob did go on to father a great nation. And many generations later, Jesus of Nazareth was born into his family. That is God’s grace at work. Let us awaken to the wonderful things that God has in store for us. Let us put our trust in God’s promises. Let us pray that God will give us the grace and vision to be everything that God is calling us to be.