Sermon – What to Pack?
Genesis 31:13-21; 1 Corinthians 2:1-5
Farmville Presbyterian Church
2/9/25
You are not where you were yesterday. I suppose I mean that literally. Maybe someone came by to help set up for today. I know some folk came by Friday to get ready for today’s fun, but my guess is that no one actually came up yesterday, but the real meaning of my statement is that no one is where they were yesterday. You are older, even if just a day. You are more experienced and maybe a little bit wiser. You have lived more with others, with God, and even with yourself. It sounds like such a small thing – living for one day, but one day can change lives. I’m sure we have all had those days in which everything changed in just one day. On a small scale, that is what happens every day. We grow and change, sometimes on purpose – maybe sometimes not so much on purpose. We might physically change, emotionally change, mentally change, or spiritually change. Our trust in God can also grow, knowing for one more day that God is with us, proving a stronger faith than we had yesterday. No one is where they were yesterday. We are all going somewhere in life. Today, we are considering what to pack – what to take with us.
This has always been a source of “creative and vibrant discussion” when my family decides to go on a trip. “Someone” in my family loves to take all the extras, including pillows (because any hotel, even a Marriott or Hyatt, might not come with pillows??). With Valentine’s Day this week, I can comfortably say that I am nowhere near as perplexed at these things anymore. Maybe they are endearing, now. Maybe I’ve grown soft. Or maybe I’d like to eat ever again.
Speaking of family, we have an important family in the story of God’s people in Genesis. Rachel, daughter of Laban and wife of Jacob, was going on a trip, a pretty big trip, with her family. She was leaving her home and her country, I would guess for the first time. I doubt she ever had a reason to leave before in her life. Jacob, son of Isaac and Rebekah (Laban’s brother) had come to his mother’s family to find a wife. He was not expecting to leave with at least two wives and kind of four. Here in today’s passage, he was getting out of town quickly to go home. Things had become tense between him and Laban. Now, Jacob was on the run with his family and possessions. He just didn’t know about what his favorite wife, Rachel, had packed.
Please, for the sake of your faith in Christ and the love of God, do not bring your family idols. Take the extra pillows. If you want to bring a different pair of shoes for every day you are gone, go for it. Just do not carry your idols with you. Families back then who wanted to have some kind of representation of some god could easily have had a shrine in their home to whatever gods were around. There were plenty to choose from. Laban had his own gods honored in his house. We do not know what gods they were, but we do know the idols that Rachel took was dear to him. Granted, the Ten Commandments were still hundreds and hundreds of years off in the future, so there was no Second Commandment outlawing any graven images yet.
The fact that the Bible makes this distinct point is striking, though. We all want our ancestors to be righteous and faithful and to do what is right, yet they struggle and stagger and fail to walk in the best ways. Here Rachel is clearly clinging to what is not God. This is the pretext for Laban to chase them down. He wants his gods back. This can also be seen as Rachel’s doom. When Jacob is outraged that Laban would pursue them for these little figures, he promises that whomever might have them shall not live. Rachel does die in childbirth with her second son. No, I don’t think it was because she stole these idols, but the Bible almost wants to make that connection. She was sadly destined for an early death, and it seemed to be at least foreshadowed by what she took with her. At the heart of the problem is that you take what is important to you, whatever that might be. What was so important to her was not a good thing. I wonder what we must bring.
Plenty of people do not understand why I have to take my camera. I don’t necessarily understand it. Sometimes, I feel like an idiot whenever I travel anywhere. My camera is going. Even when I have to pack for a whole week in a carry one bag with a CPAP machine, the camera is going. That was my last mission trip to Guatemala. This summer, Anne and I both plan to do the trip down there to see our mission partners, and I look forward to seeing how Anne packs for that one. One thing that I know will go with me, though, is my camera.
Interestingly, this is also Paul’s issue with the followers of Christ in Corith. This was a church that got caught up into being special. They thought they were special because of who baptized them. They thought they were special because of their spiritual gifts. They were carrying their pride front and center in their shared life. Paul, on the other hand, was carrying the anti-pride – the answer to pride. If you want to deflate your ego, admit that your Lord and Savior was arrested, tortured, and executed, suffering one of the worst deaths as the lowliest of criminals. If you want to check your pride, admit that your beloved Son of God was betrayed by his own people, even by his closest friends. No worldly hero goes to a cross. Crosses in this day were still a huge issue and a great scandal. People, friends, were still being executed on crosses. It was not a sign of triumph but of cultural shame. It was an unmistakable symbol of Roman power and brutality. No one wanted to be associated with that symbol. This is why Paul reminds the Corinthians that God chose the most idiotic human way to show us the brilliance of godly wisdom. Love is not expressed in power and control but in surrender, grace, mercy, and forgiveness. Love is found in what was broken, what was ugly, what was disgraceful, and what was weak. The “most special” is not you or me but that God should love you and me like this in all of our mess. Jesus’ death on a cross is a love letter that you can never forget. It is the kind of thing that cannot be undone and will never make sense to the world. This is the one thing that Paul must take with him wherever he goes, though. It is what was most important to him.
This is much more than a “what’s in your wallet” conversation, but that does relate. Our greatest desires can often be tied to wallets, but it makes no difference what cards might be there. This conversation is very much about what we carry in our hearts through our journey in life. Some things are better than others as today’s readings demonstrate. And, no, we cannot take everything for any occasion. The heart cannot have everything in there being equally important. Some things must be at the top and go with us everywhere.
It comes back to our love for ourselves and our love for others. If we carry our love for ourselves and our own self-importance and our own worth above all others, then our ability to actually love will be very diminished. When Jesus gave us the most important commandment, he was dramatically clear: love God first and love your neighbor, the other, as much as you love yourself. He never says we cannot love ourselves. He never says we cannot be pleased with things we do. He never says that we are bad, but we cannot celebrate ourselves at the expense of the person down the street. We cannot forget about real love.
Real love is what compelled Jesus to accept the cross. There was nothing about that that made him happy. He would have rather been doing ANYTHING else. He prayed for that option in the garden, but his love for God and for us all moved him to accept the brutality and finality of death to show us that God’s love is even bigger.
Today is a day of celebration in a number of ways, but what I like about it is that we have invested our love for God and one another into our love for others. This is what churches should be and how we should stay busy. We are a people of the Crucified and Risen Lord. Take that with you wherever you go. Take that with you every day. To God be the glory. Amen.