Who has ever heard of ‘Jacob’s ladder’? Isaac, Abraham’s son, took Rebekah to be his wife, and Rebekah conceived and carried twins who fought each other inside her. Esau, the firstborn, was ginger and hairy all over, and he grew up to be a hunter. Jacob, the second born, came out of the womb grasping his brother’s heel, and Jacob was quieter, staying in the tents, his mother’s favorite of the two men.
Jacob and Easu did not get along very well, and Jacob cheated his brother, not once, but twice, out of his birthright and the inheritance of their father’s blessing. His mother helped him get away with it, but regardless, once the deed was done he fled for his life from the wrath of his bereaved and vengeful older brother. As the story goes (Genesis 27:41) “Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him, and Esau said to himself, ‘The days of mourning for my father are approaching; then I will kill my brother Jacob.’” Rebekah overheard Esau comforting himself with thoughts of revenge, and she told Jacob to get up and run away, and Isaac from his deathbed also encouraged his son to get away. The story (Genesis 28:11ff) continues: Jacob left Beersheba and went toward Haran. And he came to a certain place and stead there that night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, “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 [who will be like the dust of the earth, and will be a blessing]… I am with you and will keep you wherever you go… I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”
Did you catch the reference Jesus made to Nathanael? That ladder, with the angels ‘ascending and descending’ brought Jacob some amazing news while he was on the run from the wrath he had earned. Jacob was as far from home and safety as could be, alone and sleeping on a rock, and this vision reaches him in his sleep with a promise of new life and faithfulness.
Samuel received a vision in the dark, too. Before he even knew what the voice of the Lord was supposed to sound like, when visions were not widespread and there were plenty of other people older, wiser, more deserving of such a responsibility, Samuel heard the voice of the Lord in the dark, by the sacred ark of the covenant where he slept. He confused that voice with the voice of the priest Eli, and it took Eli a few interruptions of his own sleep to finally grasp that it was the Lord calling the boy in the first place. When Eli’s own vision had begun to get cloudy, he still had the imagination to allow for the possibility that God was still speaking. Even in the dark.
Deep in the dark, God formed us in our mothers’ wombs, knitting together those precious and delicate proteins of DNA, molding fingers and toes, shaping hearts and minds, loving every last little piece and the whole process of creation, too. It might be a hard thing to fathom, loving the process of making art every step along the way, regardless of how it turns out in the end. We tend to shy away from crafts we don’t feel competent in because we don’t want to have our finished product laughed at, but you only have to look at a kid with fingerprints to remember how much fun it is just to create. We are all creative people, from Hank’s skills at fixing cars, to Larry’s ability to see detail and get things done, to Linda’s work with the Tag Sale and all of our Sunday School teachers’ work with the kids telling stories and making macaroni and cheese. Being creative is part of how we reflect our creator. And our creator is a master crafter, knowing the ins and outs of the craft - like Betty, who knits dozens of lap blankets even with a broken wrist, or my friend Aaron who can fix store-bought knits without a pattern. That’s the sort of skill that can almost serve as a metaphor for the intimate detail of God’s knowledge of, and love for, each of us.
Which brings us back to the Gospel reading. When Nathanael first hears about Jesus, to say he is skeptical is a nice way of putting it. He’s outright racist about Nazarenes, it seems. “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” he asks Philip. But when Jesus acknowledges him at the more personal level, commenting on the content of his character rather than the color of his skin, Nathanael is taken aback. “How do you know me?” he asks. Jesus replies with a word we can’t really grasp in the English language. Jesus says that he has ‘seen’ Nathanael under the fig tree. Jesus says it in the way that in the movie “Avatar” the Na’vi greet each other with honor and reverence by saying “I see you.” The way we are not truly free to be known until the roles we play and the labels we carry are stripped away and we are seen beyond those things placed upon us. Jesus sees Nathanael, and sees us, in the way only the one who has made us in the secret depths of our mothers’ wombs can see us.
The Gospel reading almost makes it look like Jesus was checking up on Nathanael before Philip called him. But of course there is nowhere we can hide from God’s presence, from God’s love, even from God’s calling. In the years after Jesus’ resurrection, we have been struggling with what this means. The Corinthians, for an example from today’s reading, tried to live double, secret lives, with their religious life separate from their sexual lives. Paul reminds us, and them, that our entire selves belong to God. That body, soul, sexuality, spirit, intellect, joy, sorrow, doubts, wonder, light and darkness, all belong to the God who knit us together, who calls us by name, who sees us. Once that love has seen and called us, Jesus invites us to ‘come and see’ what God is up to in our daily lives, in the lives of our community, in the world around us. God sees you and has always loved you, from the very first. God calls you and has always walked with you, from the very first. God invites you to ‘come and see.’
No comments:
Post a Comment