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Links for today’s readings:

Read: Genesis 29 Listen: (4:45), Read: Mark 7 Listen: (4:28)

Scripture Focus: Genesis 29.9-14

9 While he was still talking with them, Rachel came with her father’s sheep, for she was a shepherd. 10 When Jacob saw Rachel daughter of his uncle Laban, and Laban’s sheep, he went over and rolled the stone away from the mouth of the well and watered his uncle’s sheep. 11 Then Jacob kissed Rachel and began to weep aloud. 12 He had told Rachel that he was a relative of her father and a son of Rebekah. So she ran and told her father.

13 As soon as Laban heard the news about Jacob, his sister’s son, he hurried to meet him. He embraced him and kissed him and brought him to his home, and there Jacob told him all these things. 14 Then Laban said to him, “You are my own flesh and blood.”

Reflection: Laban’s Flesh and Blood

By John Tillman

Laban exclaims to Jacob, “You are my own flesh and blood.”

This could mean, “You are my kin,” but Laban did not say this when he met Jacob. He said it after hearing Jacob’s story of manipulation, deception, and trickery. It seems more likely Laban recognized a kindred spirit.

Game recognizes game.

No one appreciates a con artist like another con artist and Laban’s whole family had skills. Laban, Rebekah, Jacob, and Rachel all chalk up victories gained by deceit.

We probably think we would never use deception like Laban, Rebekah, Jacob, and Rachel, but we all have a little Laban in us. We like to get the better of situations. We want to get our way. We like to win. We hate to lose. The old sports truism, “If you aren’t cheating, you aren’t trying,” is baked into our culture and into our hearts.

If we asked these tricksters why, they’d probably say they had no choice. Laban might say, “I was defending Leah’s honor.” Rebekah might say, “I was saving my son’s life and fulfilling God’s promise to me.” Jacob might say, “It was the only way to escape Laban’s unfair treatment.” Rachel might say, “I was protecting our family from my father’s gods.”

We might not be Laban’s “flesh and blood,” but we all have fleshly, sinful desires that grow stronger under stress. When threatened, a little bit of Laban may come out. Moral relativism creeps in holding fear’s hand.

But didn’t God use these things for his will? Yes. However, God’s use of a person or deed does not equal God’s endorsement of that person or deed and God’s will is not so fragile as to require our moral compromise to bring it to pass.

Beware those with Laban-like hearts. They will tell you, “We can’t afford to lose.” They will say “This is the only way to win.” They are wrong on both counts. God’s most glorious victories aren’t achieved by human deception, cheating, or schemes. In Christ, we can afford to lose anything for his sake and all things have been won on our behalf.

How Laban-like is your heart? How much do you hate to lose? What are you willing to do to win? We don’t have to give in to those Laban-like tendencies.

Instead of being recognized as Laban’s flesh and blood, let us be recognized by kinship with Christ.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence

Show us the light of your countenance, O God, and come to us. — Psalm 67.1

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Read more: No White Hats

Jacob sinned by resorting to deceit and theft to gain what had already been promised by God.

No White Hats

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Links for today’s readings:

Read: Genesis 28 Listen: (3:17), Read: Mark 6 Listen: (7:23)

Scripture Focus: Genesis 28.16-17

16 When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” 17 He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”

Reflection: When Liars Meet The Truth

By John Tillman

Rebekah is sometimes overlooked in the story of Jacob and Esau.

Early in her pregnancy, a disturbed Rebekah consulted God, who revealed to her the prophesied destinies of her sons. (Genesis 25.21-26) Perhaps, this is why she subverts the process of inheritance to fulfill what she heard from God. Her dishonest methods are used by God to overturn the cultural traditions.

After the con, to save Jacob’s life, Rebekah masterfully uses an unrelated family crisis to invent a reason to send Jacob away to Laban. His trip has a cover story, but Jacob is undeniably fleeing for his life.

Perhaps Rebekah learned deception from her brother, Laban, the master con artist of the Bible. After all, they both pass off one sibling as another. (Genesis 29.21-28)

Jacob’s flight to Laban would save his life, but was also used by God to humble him. Jacob was suffering for his sins through the consequences of his actions. On the run as an outcast, Jacob is rich on paper but penniless by practical means. He’s promised the land he is lying on but possessed only the dust adhered to his clothes and skin.

With Laban, Jacob would be schooled in what it feels like to be tricked, cheated, and deceived by family. Yet, even on the run, Jacob finds God is with him. The liar meets the truth. As alone as Jacob was, and as outcast and alone as we may feel, “God is in this place” even if we don’t realize it.

Jacob is an example of our position in this world. We are children of the promise now, but we do not hold the promise yet. Jacob’s life shows us that even sinful, insecure, fearful people can be used by God.

Jacob shows us that God does not always pick the mighty, overly-masculine Esaus of the world. Those considered “less manly” or just “less than” by their culture are still called and used by God.

Whatever situation we find ourselves in or however the world views us, we can be assured that God’s presence is near. The distance we may feel from God is usually one of our own making.

When we humble ourselves and come to him, he will show himself to us and enter our lives to make us a blessing for others. Even those rightly called “Jacob” can be changed to be called “Israel.”

Divine Hours Prayer: The Greeting

Deliver me, O Lord, by your hand from those whose portion in life is this world. — Psalm 17.14

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Read more: Schemers and Dreamers

Jacob will fall under the full force of the manipulative deception Laban was capable of and not escape for over 14 years.

Schemers and Dreamers

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Links for today’s readings:

Read: Genesis 25 Listen: (4:18), Read: Mark 3 Listen: (3:41)

Links for this weekend’s readings:

Read: Genesis 26 Listen:(4:31), Read: Mark 4 Listen: (5:01)
Read: Genesis 27 Listen: (6:25), Read: Mark 5 Listen: (5:21)

Scripture Focus: Genesis 25.24-34

24 When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb. 25 The first to come out was red, and his whole body was like a hairy garment; so they named him Esau. 26 After this, his brother came out, with his hand grasping Esau’s heel; so he was named Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when Rebekah gave birth to them.
27 The boys grew up, and Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the open country, while Jacob was content to stay at home among the tents. 28 Isaac, who had a taste for wild game, loved Esau, but Rebekah loved Jacob.
29 Once when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the open country, famished. 30 He said to Jacob, “Quick, let me have some of that red stew! I’m famished!” (That is why he was also called Edom.)
31 Jacob replied, “First sell me your birthright.”
32 “Look, I am about to die,” Esau said. “What good is the birthright to me?”
33 But Jacob said, “Swear to me first.” So he swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob.
34 Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentil stew. He ate and drank, and then got up and left.
So Esau despised his birthright.

Reflection: No White Hats

By John Tillman

The Bible is not a melodrama. It’s complex.

We often oversimplify it, heroizing one and villainizing another. There are people who do heroic things and people who do villainous things, but often they are the same people!

One commonly oversimplified story is Esau despising his birthright. We can imagine it as a silent Western melodrama:

Esau, wearing a big black hat and sporting a long, evilly curled red mustache kicks open the doors of the saloon and swaggers in. Jacob, in a glowing white hat and matching outfit is innocently stirring stew at the bar. Esau slams his fist down on the bar demanding stew. Jacob wisely and calmly tricks him into giving up the deed to his inheritance! The villain stumbles off, drunk, overfed and sleepy and collapses in the gutter. The hero celebrates his new-found prosperity.

Is Esau the villain or the victim? Is Jacob getting revenge on a bully or bullying his brother when he is weak? (There’s no biblical evidence that Esau ever did anything wrong toward Jacob prior to his acts of deceit.)

Who gets the white hat? Neither of them.

Oversimplifying the Bible makes it easier to moralize. We cast ourselves in heroic roles and those around us in villain roles. But it doesn’t give us a sufficient picture of God, our flawed world, or our flawed selves.

We need to understand what grace from God the “villainous” missed and what mercies of God the “heroes” failed to carry out.

Esau sinned by giving up something of great significance for temporal satisfaction. His momentary need overcame any degree of patience, reason, or prudence. His let his “flesh,” his feelings and emotions, rule.

Jacob sinned by resorting to deceit and theft to gain what had already been promised by God. Esau caved to the temptations of physical appetites. Jacob’s appetites were not for food, but wealth, power, and glory. Esau despised his birthright. Jacob despised his brother.

Not only that, but Jacob despised his own birthright and even his identity. To further secure what he stole from Esau, he had shed his identity, disguising himself as Esau to steal Isaac’s blessing.

Esau and Jacob each despised God’s providence and acted faithlessly in their own ways. Those ways are ones we can easily fall victim to today. May God have mercy on us when we fall in their same steps.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons

For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. — 2 Corinthians 4.6

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Read more: Stretch Out Your Hand

In Jesus’ day and in ours, those who are wounded or who suffer in life are often viewed with suspicion by the religious, the comfortable, or the wealthy.

Stretch Out Your Hand

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Links for today’s readings:

Read: Genesis 24 Listen: (9:42), Read: Mark 2 Listen: (3:55)

Scripture Focus: Genesis 24.50-59

50 Laban and Bethuel answered, “This is from the Lord; we can say nothing to you one way or the other. 51 Here is Rebekah; take her and go, and let her become the wife of your master’s son, as the Lord has directed.”
52 When Abraham’s servant heard what they said, he bowed down to the ground before the Lord. 53 Then the servant brought out gold and silver jewelry and articles of clothing and gave them to Rebekah; he also gave costly gifts to her brother and to her mother. 54 Then he and the men who were with him ate and drank and spent the night there.
When they got up the next morning, he said, “Send me on my way to my master.”
55 But her brother and her mother replied, “Let the young woman remain with us ten days or so; then you may go.”
56 But he said to them, “Do not detain me, now that the Lord has granted success to my journey. Send me on my way so I may go to my master.”
57 Then they said, “Let’s call the young woman and ask her about it.” 58 So they called Rebekah and asked her, “Will you go with this man?”
“I will go,” she said.
59 So they sent their sister Rebekah on her way, along with her nurse and Abraham’s servant and his men.

Reflection: Schemers and Dreamers

By John Tillman

Rebekah’s family were schemers. Genesis 24 is our first glimpse of them. Later, Rebekah will use her deceptive talents to help Jacob steal Esau’s blessing. Fleeing to Laban, Jacob will fall under the full force of the manipulative deception Laban was capable of and not escape for over 14 years.

Abraham was a dreamer. When Abraham left, he was called Abram. He was childless. He was directionless. He was not yet wealthy. He followed an invisible God, with no images or idols made of him and no priests or temples to serve him.

This God promised Abram paradise but called him into desert wilderness. God promised children numerous as the stars or the sand, but as Abram waited those promises seemed like shifting sand and as untouchable as the stars. Eliezer’s visit was the family’s first glimpse of Abraham’s blessings.

Now Eliezer tells them, the dreamer has prospered. The wanderer wasn’t lost. The one who seemed foolish, is proved wise. This “God” he talked about must be real. “This is from the Lord,” Bethuel and Laban admit.

But respect for prophets in their hometowns is limited and the family Abraham left wasn’t shy about holding out for a bigger slice of the pie. They seem nice enough at first. They start with wining and dining you, but then detain you, haggle with you, and cheat you if possible. Stay longer. A few more days. Why rush off? If you weren’t careful, they’d convince you to stay longer than you like and take more from you than you want to give.

Not everything in scripture is a moral metaphor for our lives, but Eliezer’s faithfulness and wisdom is worth considering. So is the recurrence of familial and cultural patterns of sinfulness.

Be careful about patterns in your life that come from culture, family, or tradition. It is unlikely that they are also of God.

Eliezer is hip to the game—innocent as a dove and wise as a serpent. He recognizes that Abraham left for a reason. He refuses to press pause on his mission. He tactfully pulls the eject handle and evacuates.

Is someone trying to delay you or detain you from God’s purposes or calling in your life? Is there a sinful pattern that you need to move on from? Are you settling in when you should be putting those patterns in the rearview mirror?

Be a dreamer.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence

For God alone my soul in silence waits; truly, my hope is in him. — Psalm 62.6

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Read more: Test Results

Are you headed for a mountain of testing? Is your church? Is your nation? Think about what you have been trusting.

Test Results

Read more: Righteousness on Credit

Abram’s righteous deeds did not outweigh his wicked ones to make him righteous and neither will ours.

Righteousness On Credit

Links for today’s readings:

Read: Genesis 23 Listen: (2:34), Read: Mark 1 Listen: (5:05)

Scripture Focus: Genesis 23.3-4, 19-20

3 Then Abraham rose from beside his dead wife and spoke to the Hittites. He said, 4 “I am a foreigner and stranger among you. Sell me some property for a burial site here so I can bury my dead.”

19 Afterward Abraham buried his wife Sarah in the cave in the field of Machpelah near Mamre (which is at Hebron) in the land of Canaan. 20 So the field and the cave in it were deeded to Abraham by the Hittites as a burial site.

Reflection: Haggling for the Abrahamic Covenant

By Erin Newton

Genesis 23 holds tension between the depths of grief and the levity of a business deal. Abraham mourns at the side of his wife, likely rending his clothes and lamenting loudly.

He needs to bury Sarah; it is customary and cathartic. It would bring closure to this phase of his grief. But despite being affluent and well-respected in the community, Abraham declares that he is, in fact, a foreigner and a stranger. He had settled down in the area, raised his family (and caused some trouble), but he didn’t even own land to bury his wife.

Abraham could have chosen to go back to his ancestral land. He had roots in that old community. He might have had a choice of burial caves without any costs. But ancient burial sites meant generations would be laid to rest there. Although it marks the end of one life, it becomes the roots of their future. Can he go back to his old home, his old life now?

God promised seed, and Sarah bore a son. God promised land, and Sarah died. The two events seem unrelated, but it is her death that helps continue the story of the land.

As often happens in the aftermath of grief, a moment of laughter and levity breaks the heaviness around him. In comes the haggle.

Back and forth Abraham goes with the local leaders. Generous offers are made; polite refusals are returned. In the end the land is purchased without a second thought. After all, the seller proclaims, “What is that between you and me?”

With this price paid, Abraham secures a resting place for his family and generations to come. The downpayment on the promised land was made.

We often forget that Abraham was a foreigner in the land. He had been among the people for so long, they even respected him as a prince. (Genesis 23.6) We read the story as if the land was “all but a done deal” as soon as he stepped foot on the soil. But he knew differently.

God’s plan does not unfold without pain or complication or even a dose of adulting. (You know, all the mundane tasks to keep life going.) The land purchase is nothing more than an old-fashioned day in the office. Sure, there are some miraculous episodes like sea partings or wall toppling. But God works most often in everyday things, even in a business deal.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence

Let my cry come before you, O Lord; give me understanding, according to your word.
Let my supplication come before you; deliver me, according to your promise. — Psalm 119.169-170

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle.

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