The Tricky Art of Keeping Promises

Romans 8:26-30

Genesis 29:15-30

  

Most of you already know this, so I apologize.  But sometimes it’s good just to say the most basic things.  So this is rudimentary abc’s to some of you.  But here it is:  God has made a variety of promises to you.

God promises to sustain us, forgive us, heal us, empower us, and accompany us into death.  But we hold these promises through a variety of tests and experiences in life that challenge the promises.  We have experiences that cast the promises into doubt.  Are the promises really in force?  Why do some areas of our lives seem so godforsaken? 

 

The story about Jacob today deals with these kinds of questions.  It’s an amazing story.  So just give yourself to it for a few minutes.  Live through it’s twists and turns, ups and downs and reversals.

We pick up the story of Jacob on a journey from Beersheba, heading Northeast towards Paddan Aram (along the Euphrates, near what is now the border between Turkey and Syria).  It’s not a restful, leisurely, sight-seeing trip for Jacob.  He’s running scared.  His twin brother Esau wants to kill him.  Jacob tricked Esau into signing over the inheritance rights payable to the first born son.  Then Jacob dressed up in animal skins and pretended to be Esau in order to trick his blind, dying father Isaac into giving the family’s blessing of land and descendants to him instead of to Esau.

So Jacob’s mother Rebekah quickly sends him off to her brother Laban’s house in Paddan Aram.  She wants him to get out of town and avoid getting murdered.  She also wants him to stay there awhile, find a wife and start a family.  So off he goes, carrying the burden of a deceptive past and of ruined family relationships.  His first night of sleep is interrupted by a bizarre dream of angels going up and down a ladder, and he hears God promising him many descendants and a land to call home.  Sustained by this dream, Jacob makes his way to his uncle Laban’s house.

29:14b-15

Jacob spent a month living with Laban’s family and working with Laban’s crops and animals, and not a word was said about any economic arrangements.  Apparently neither one wanted to bring up the precise terms of their agreement.  How long would he stay?  How much would he work?  How much should he get paid?

Finally, Laban brings up the awkward situation.  “You shouldn’t be working for free just because you’re my nephew,” he begins.  But notice that he doesn’t suggest the terms of the contract.  Instead he begins negotiating by saying, “Tell me what your wages should be.”  Now before we get to Jacob’s side of the negotiation, the story shifts to give us a fuller picture of Laban’s household.

29:16-21

It just so happens that on this trip to his uncle’s home to find a wife – that his uncle has two daughters of marrying age.  Imagine that!

The older daughter Leah had “weak eyes.”  She’s the kind of girl you describe as “having a great personality.”  That way you can avoid describing her as the homely, frumpy, sad sack, older daughter of Laban.  The younger daughter Rachel “had a lovely figure and was beautiful.”  We don’t get any information about Rachel’s eyes, but apparently they were just fine. 

Their house-guest happens to be their cousin Jacob, but in an ancient culture you can be “kissing cousins.”  And Jacob was smitten with Rachel.  We can only imagine the sibling history between these two: Leah was ordinary, plain, unremarkable looking.  And Rachel was stunning, a head turning knockout.  And Leah has to tolerate Jacob staring longingly at coquettish, demure Rachel, flirtatiously batting her beautiful eyes.

Now back to the negotiations between Laban and Jacob.  Laban has asked Jacob to name his price.  Good negotiators often get the other person to be the first one to name a price for a deal.  If it’s too high, they negotiate it down.  If it’s unexpectedly low, they say, “Deal!”

But Jacob doesn’t negotiate regarding a wage.  He’s come here to get a wife.  And he’s seen the woman he wants.  “I’ll work for you seven years in return for your younger daughter Rachel.” And Laban, trying to hide his delight that Jacob doesn’t want any money, only a daughter, quickly agrees to the terms.

The next seven years get very little attention in the story.  They’re glossed over.  Now for frumpy Leah with the weak eyes, this seven years was agony.  To her, the time ticking by felt like a threatening countdown clock.  She had seven years to find a suitor to marry before being disgraced by her tart upstart of a little sister.

For Jacob, on the other hand, the years flew by as if only a few days, because of his deep, powerful, passionate love for Rachel.  There was a calendar on his wall.  And he was marking off the days to seven years exactly.  And when he’d crossed off that final day, he said to Laban with all tenderness he could muster: “Give me my wife.  Time’s up.  I want to make love to her.” 

29:22-25a

I can remember as a kid complaining to my parents how hungry I was.  This usually happened when we had to wait for a seat at a restaurant.  Or when our order was too long coming.  And my dad would always say, “It’s good to be hungry.  It makes your food taste better.”  That never made me feel any better.  But I suppose there’s some truth to that.

Jacob has worked and waited seven years to wed his beautiful bride Rachel.  From the tone of his language he’d rather just take Rachel back to his wing of the house and make things official.  But no.  This is going to be a village-wide celebration. 

Laban invites everyone he knows for a pull out the stops, load the table with the best food money can buy, keep the wine flowing, all-day affair.  The guests ate, drank, danced and laughed. All day long and into the evening Jacob drank with every servant, neighbor, cousin, and local constable who wanted to slap his back and congratulate him on his wedding day.  Later, his friends haul him back to his bedroom, and notify Laban that Jacob is awaiting his bride.

That night was everything Jacob had been imagining for seven, long years.  Oh, the yearning, the hard-fought discipline of waiting, the long-suffering withholding of himself for this beautiful woman.  But the sweetness of that long-awaited night was delicious for Jacob’s soul (and assorted other parts of him).  After all that celebrating, dancing, drinking, and then the soaring flights of marital pleasure, his body released into uninterrupted sleep until morning.

And then we come to the best line in the story: “When morning came, there was Leah!”  That is the most understated plot twist ever!  Can’t you just imagine the scene?  Jacob yawns, stretches, and drowsily throws an arm across his bride, eyes still too sleepy to even open.  But when Leah says in her unlovely voice, “Good morning tiger!” Jacob sits bolt upright in bed, gathers the covers to himself, and screams, “What are YOU doing in here?” 

29:25b-30

Groggy and confused, Jacob jumps from the bed, pulls on some clothes and runs to confront his father in law Laban.  “What have you done? Why have you deceived me?”

Ah, here now we are getting close to the heart of this story.  Jacob - who tricked his brother and lied to his own father - has now met his match.  Laban is a trickster too. 

Laban’s explanation certainly makes sense.  Yes, we had a handshake deal.  But we also have customs around here.  And our custom is that older sisters get married before their younger sisters.  Finish out this week with your bride Leah.  And then I’ll throw in Rachel as well.  Two for one!  Now you can’t possibly complain about that deal, can you Jacob?

So in the end, Jacob gets a complicated life -- two wives (who happen to be sisters who don’t like each other), and has to toil for fourteen years for a father-in-law he can’t trust.  If this is what it looks like to have God’s blessing, some of us might want to say, “No thanks!”.

Will you permit me to raise some irreverent questions?  Why does Scripture include this tale of troubled, ambitious, scheming Jacob and his equally tricky uncle Laban?  Why should a story of a guy sleeping with the wrong woman and not realizing it until the next morning – a story that sounds a lot like the Canterbury Tales, or Shakespeare, or a Judd Apatow comedy – why is that kind of a story part of what’s been handed down to us as Scripture?

One thing is pretty clear: Jacob is not set before us as a moral hero, a person we should strive to imitate.  The story isn’t advocating that we pursue deception, dishonesty, selfishness, and trickery as a way of life. 

The story isn’t about Jacob at all.  It’s a confession that God practices the tricky art of keeping promises.  All through the story, God is keeping the promise to bless Jacob with land and descendants, but never in the way anyone would have expected. 

When our kids began asking for a dog, we promised to get one . . . later.  We didn’t specify when, and we kept moving the promise out into the future.  When we get out of this small apartment.  When you kids are old enough to take care of it.  But they never forgot our promise.  They were relentlessly persistent, reminding us that they were living with a promised dog, when what they wanted was an actual dog.  We kept our promise, but they had to wait longer than they wanted.

Now come back to the promises God makes to us.  God promises to sustain us, forgive us, heal us, empower us, and accompany us into death.  Yet it often feels to us like God isn’t keeping those promises.  Or at least not keeping them in the ways we expect.  The Bible acknowledges and honors this attitude of doubt.  It’s one of the common struggles shared by all of us as we seek to respond to the love of God shown to us in Jesus Christ.

So if you’re here today wondering whether you’ve been forsaken or abandoned by God, frustrated by life experiences that didn’t turn out as you’d planned -- remember that God will keep the promises made, but not in ways you might expect.  You might be wanting things that in fact wouldn’t be good for you and those around you.  You might be so focused on what God hasn’t done for you yet that you can’t see the many gifts strewn all around you.  Or you might have to endure the inconvenience of waiting much longer for the promise to be kept than you would like.

God might be reliable and trustworthy.  But God isn’t predictable.  God never promised us that we could map out our own lives.  In fact, God has already lavished us with love in Jesus Christ, and provided for us by setting us in this new family where we can learn and grow.  But God refuses to fix our problems in ways that leave us in comfortable places and on settled paths.  God needs your attention and keeps faith with us in ways that keep us on the edge of our seats.