Sunday, July 18, 1999

AN APPRENTICE PEOPLE
Rev. Linda Carder

One of my favorite books of prayer is entitled Soul Weavings, a Gathering of Women’s Prayers. One of the prayers in that book beings, "Thank you Lord for apprentice people." What a relief! There are many times I have felt like an apprentice person, or at least an apprentice person of faith. Perhaps if I go on, you might be able to relate.

Have you ever felt guilty? Are there things you wish you had done differently? Maybe you even blame yourself. I remember a time when I was lamenting with a friend the details of my inadequate parenting. Perhaps I trusted her because she had three more children than I did. In my mind, I suppose, that made her some kind of expert. When I was finished, she looked me in the eye, smiled and said: "To be a parent is to be guilty." I was thusly welcomed into the guilt club.

Have you ever felt inadequate? Perhaps you have had that dream about being center stage, regaled in a most elaborate costume and to your horror you discover that you have never in you life had even one look at the script!

Or do you wish you lived a more peaceful life? Does the chaos and conflict of life seem to pursue you like a pack of hounds after the fox.

Or perhaps your spiritual life is not what you would like it to be or the way others see God just does not fit for you. The other day I opened a brand new book written by an old friend. The book contains designs to help persons develop their spiritual lives. I know well of the author’s competence. I know well of her faith. Yet, the first words in the book were a statement of her struggles with her own spiritual life.

Well, if you can relate to some or all of these feelings or situations, then you are going to love the story of Jacob!

The story begins much as the Abraham story began. As Sarah was barren, so too is Rebecca barren. Then, according to God’s promise, she conceives. This time, it is not just one son, but two that are on the way. We discover even before Jacob and his twin brother Esau are born, that God is about the purpose of inversion of the very old and fundamental conviction of society, primogeniture. That is, that the first born male is the primary inheritor of his father’s estate and the next head of the family. This is also the one through whom the family lineage is to be traced, making him the next patriarch.

So, even though Esau is born first, Jacob is the one who will be a part of God’s promise.

Then we are told the story of Jacob, with the help of his mother Rebecca, tricking Esau out of his birthright. It is a drama in four scenes. 1. The father prepares to bless the older son, 2. The mother schemes for her younger son, 3. The younger son deceives the father, 4. The father grieves with his older son. Throughout this narrative is the juxtaposition of blessing and duplicity. The family is very preoccupied with this notion of blessing, as though it matters more than things visible. The blessing is thought to combine all the primitive power of a spoken word with the high theological claim of special vocation for the one being blessed. Blessing thus understood has a genuine and abiding power and is a life changing and even world changing activity. Yet even though the blessing has such power and importance it is also fragile, since it can be gotten through deception and intrigue. And so, Jacob, the trickster, the second born, walks away with the much-cherished blessing.

Where we pick up the story today, Jacob is a fugitive now outside all the protections of tradition and social guarantees. Indeed Esau is pursuing him. But even more than that, he is fugitive from all the usual claims of family, tradition and propriety. He is a fugitive from the well-ordered way of life. His world can not tolerate persons who seize blessings and use trickery or deceit to claim a birthright. And so Jacob is banished.

Shakespeare has given us eloquent words to describe the horror of such banishment:

Ha, banishment! Be merciful, say "death;" For exile hath more terror in his look, much more than death. Do not say "banishment."…. There is no world without Verona walls, But purgatory, torture, hell itself. Hence banished is banish’d from the world, and world’s exile is death. Then "banished," Is death mis-term’d; callingdeath "banished" Thou cut’st my head off with a golden axe, And smilest upon the stroke that murders me. (Romeo and Juliet, Act III, Scene III)

And so this Jacob, this trickster, comes to a place he has never been before. It is a nothing place, a place of absolutely no significance. His life is a world of chaos, conflict and fear even unto terror. He falls asleep, and at this time of vulnerability, God comes to him in a dream. The message of the dream is that there is activity between God’s world (heaven) and this world. The ladder is probably not a ladder as we would envision, but refers probably to a Mesopotamian Ziggurat, a temple with steps on all four sides. The angels are not winged creatures but messengers of God who act to do God’s bidding. These creatures intro duce a new reality into Jacobs life.

But the real agenda is God’s speech: "I am with you." That of course is the message of the vision. But the words make it clear that any analysis of this life as hopeless has no foundation. It is a promise of presence to one who is banished, lonely and discourage. The second promise is one of action: "I will keep you." This is a promise of protection, to one who is being pursued. This is a promise not needed by those who do lead their lives in the midst of conflict. It is a promise not needed by those who live calm ordered lives. But it is the promise Jacob needs. And while he too is promised land and lineage as was Abraham and Isaac, his promise goes beyond theirs.

Jacob’s response is twofold. He marks the place as a holy site. This place that was a no place, this place between places, has become a sacred place. Jacob then makes a promise to God, which is almost line for line echoed in Psalm 23:

The appearance of God leads Jacob to a deeper commitment. He can no longer stand by and be an uninterested observer of this life. This guilty, unacceptable trickster, this person who had not developed any relationship with God, discovers that God has been faithful to him and promises further faithfulness. These promises made back and forth between God and Jacob must not be seen as cliches. They speak of the deepest yearning of Israel. To be held and kept by God, to be known and loved by God, to have a deep sense that there is some power at work that can some how invert this world’s order that automatically puts some before others is a deep yearning of all of us. To know, without a doubt that God can come to even you and me makes all the inadequacies, terrors, and guilt manageable.

Jacob is an apprentice person. Jacob will carry on. He will continue to be Jacob. There will be more conflicts, and more deception. You heard this morning that even as he commits to God he qualifies the statement with an "if". And he will have another and perhaps an even more powerful encounter with God. But he has, at this point in his chaotic life, been apprehended by God and has been assured of God’s activity in his life.

Perhaps we are all apprentice people. We are people who are encumbered by guilt, inadequacy, chaos and conflict, while we search for a deeper spiritual life.

Many years ago, I was ordained in this association. That was not an easy decision for me. I had focused on Christian Education in my seminary years and thought that I would pursue that career as a lay person. But a year after graduation, and a year or two of serving the Chesapeake and Potomac Associations, I felt more and more drawn toward ordination. Well, really, to be very honest, many of my colleagues were encouraging me if not badgering me toward ordination.

I found myself one day in my kitchen, with a friend. I was in tears as I contemplated the prospect of ordination. I was frightened, and I always cry when I am scared. I told her that I could not figure out what God could possibly want with a coal miner’s daughter in the pulpit. She looked at me kindly and said: "Haven’t you read your Bible?" Well of course I had, I told her. But what was her point? "You know," she said, "All God’s people are like that. They are never persons who are born into the upper classes of society. There was something wrong with each of them, and they were never the persons others expected to lead."

It is good to know that God can and does work with apprentice people. That not only feels good, but it is life giving, because there are lots of Esaus out there. God will come to us when we are vulnerable. By learning meditation skills, we can become more vulnerable. But we do not have to earn God’s love or God’s presence. God seems perfectly willing and happy to visit, to protect, to care for and to use for ministry apprentice people like you and me and Jacob.

This sermon relies heavily on Walter Brueggemann’s book Genesis. Volume 1 in the Interpretation series.

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