Genesis 31:1-5; 32:3-12; Acts 9:19b-30
March 13, 2022
- Jacob returns home a changed man
Imagine for a moment that you are Volodymyr Zolenskyy, the President of Ukraine, at least he was still the president last that I heard. It seems like that could change at any time. If you were President Zolenskyy, though, the first thing you would have to do once you figure out how to spell your name is to is face the unbelievable and incredible and terrifying task of leading your nation and remaining people each day into another day of fighting for your life. Every waking moment and probably most of the sleeping moments, too, would be consumed with how to get Putin to change his mind about the invasion. Just think about that. That one objective is his chief aim more than anything else right now. How can he get Putin to change course and stop? Everything else aims there.
That is when the futility hits and hurts because (as we know) you cannot make anyone else do anything. The future is out there, and it is coming toward us no matter how hard we try to make it happen or prevent it from happening. The forces at work are so far beyond our control, and yet, we can try to walk into the future with faith and to push as much as we possibly can what is good and right. Sometimes in some places, people are even willing to give their lives to push for what is right. Sometimes in some places, sacrifice leads to change.
That is exactly the spot that Jacob finds himself in today’s text, this impossible, terrible, unavoidable situation that might very well spell his end the further he travelled. This is fascinating to me how life can place us in these desperate situations in full view of what might be coming. We might even think we know with relative certainty what will happen, but ultimately, so much of it is beyond any control of ours. We, therefore, face the future with every virtue that we can muster and pray to God that things work out well enough. We might try as hard as we possibly can for what we believe is right, but ultimately, we also must trust in God to handle a future too big for us.
Jacob is pretty much as terrified as he can be. His brother Esau has literally wanted to kill him ever since Jacob left home 20 years before. Jacob, however, is compelled to go back home because he cannot stay in Haran with Laban any longer, and God told him to go. But, but, but, when Jacob hears from his messengers that Esau is coming to meet him with a small army of men, this all looks like it is going to go in one very bad direction. Jacob divides up his household in case Esau attacks so that at least some of them might get away and live.
Things change when we leave home for a while. Life moves on, people move on, things happen that change us, and we move in different directions once we literally move in different directions. We expect this to happen when people go off to college or to start a new job or just to go somewhere different in life. I found this in the beginning years of my marriage when my relationship with my college friends changed without me even being aware. In perhaps the most dramatic and troubling way, that is happening right now in Ukraine with the millions of people who have already fled the country. Even if they come back in a few weeks, they will find things different than when they left. Those who have remained have become prisoners to Russian terror, soldiers of insurgency, and people hardened by this senseless war. When and if those who left are ever reunited with family, friends, or neighbors who stayed, they will have a lot of sharing and growing to do before they can re-find themselves.
But, this is also where God likes to work – in our hope, in what is about to happen, in our places of greatest need, that is where God is most actively at work. In our conflicts is where there is most opportunity for growth. Out of the brokenness of our history, God forges new things of promise. Throughout history, God’s great hand for righteous change has come in the most difficult of conflicts. This has been a recuring theme in our American experience of the needed reconciliation of the races and our successes and failures to be one people made in God’s image. As long as we continue to struggle to value, truly value the lives of those who do not look like us, God will be meeting our resistance to find home together with openings for something better. In fact, I believe this is the greatest ministry we can have as American Christians in the 21st century. This is the most powerful expression of God’s Kingdom in the world today: how can we truly be ONE PEOPLE in Christ Jesus our Lord, looking past our differences, especially the senseless, meaningless, and abhorrent differences we have created in race. If we could simply honor God’s love for all of us between us, we could change the world. If we could truly recognize our sisters and brothers of all colors, so much that is wrong in our society could be helped. That is our future; that is our home. It is out there for us as God’s children, if we are willing to walk into that future, even when it is scary.
Jacob took each step in faith as he made that long trek back to his family and his brother. That Jacob who left a trickster and con artist was returning as the next father of God’s people, but before he could realize that destiny, he had to give away his past to God. To walk into the future and to return home, he had to become someone new. The passage that we skipped here was the famous story of his wrestling with God. All night he wrestled with this divine being until he received a blessing and a permanent injury. He was renamed Israel as part of the blessing. The entire nation and people takes its name from him. Jacob’s identify was radically changed, and he was finally prepared to come home through that struggle.
Paul also had to change before he came home. God pushed him into that change, even though it was the hardest thing Paul had ever done. He met resistance, fear, hostility, even from God’s people, especially from God’s people. Paul proved himself, however, by not giving up but following God into that journey home. He trusted the future as God was giving it.
I deeply wish everyone’s future would work out as we wish they would. I deeply wish that we could come together and see the world God wants. I deeply wish that everyone could come home and be welcomed. Sadly, the journey does not work that way. Many, many, too many Ukrainians will never see their homes, again, but will have to establish new homes. Putin is doing his level best to leave Ukraine a flat wasteland. If he cannot have it, no one will.
But our sisters and brothers over there scattered across Europe and even in Russia, the terribly oppressed and suffering people of God over there, will have a future. They will find home in our God, even if the journey changes them forever.
Jacob kept marching on to meet Esau. When he finally saw his brother, something pretty amazing happened. Genesis 33:1-4. Even in the last moments, Jacob was preparing for the worst, but he kept going as God led him. When Esau ran to him and grabbed him, it was in love. There was nothing easy about the road that brought them back together, but God brought them to a new place, a new way to be family, to a new home.
We have no hope for tomorrow but in the Lord our God. This world seems to be more and more at a breaking point. We have lost that greater sense of our shared home if we ever truly had it. I would argue that our vision of our success has always been through rose-colored glasses. The future is bearing down on us, but we will not give up. We will not give in. We will resist the evil of this world and the brokenness of our lives in the forgiveness, the compassion, the reconciliation, and the joy of our Savior. It is my prayer that as we make our way, we do so with honesty, humility, and the recognition that God is working something good right here between us and our neighbor. We might have to change more than we want to embrace the future, but if we are open to finding space in God’s home, we will know new life in the confidence of our Lord. There is hope for us and for all of God’s children who find themselves struggling right now. To God be the glory. Amen.