“Choosing to Serve”
Genesis 29.15-28
July 26, 2020
I don’t know about you, but I am a sucker for sappy rom-com movies.
Yea, you heard me, Romantic Comedies like When Harry Met Sally, The Notebook, Love Actually, or my all-time favorite Rom-Com, Serendipity, bring me a few chuckles, but they make me feel normal. By this, I mean, a romantic comedy is the only genre committed to letting relatively ordinary people — no capes, no spaceships, no infinite sequels — figure out how to deal meaningfully with another human being.
Don't get me wrong. I love Batman and will argue that James Bond is my favorite superhero until the cows come home. However, again, Romantic Comedies, despite some of them having over the top storylines rooted in extreme cheesiness, are ordinary and relatable. They take our primal hunger to connect and give it a story. And at their best, they do much more: They make you believe in the power of communion.
I'm a sucker for a good old-fashioned love story. I'll take P.S. I Love you over Die Hard any day.
In some way, today’s Genesis text is a type of love story. While there are some similarities of modern-day love stories to that of Jacob and Rachel's, some things have changed. Others haven't, such as the plotline full of strong emotions, sibling rivalry, deception, and loyalty—the protagonist doing whatever it takes to win the heart of their desire, which is what is happening in our text today.
We encounter Jacob, having risen from his sleep, heading out to his Uncle Laban's place out east. As he is making his way, he sees a well, then some shepherds, and inquires whether they know Uncle Laban. They say they do, and, at that moment, the shepherds tell Jacob, "[Your uncle is fine.] In fact, this is his daughter Rachel now, coming with the flock."
Now if this were a movie, the scene would have a doe-eyed Jacob staring blissfully off into the distance, behind him the music would swell, birds would sing, and then the camera would pan to a "beautiful and shapely" [see Genesis 29.17] Rachel, tending her flock. The scene would last a few minutes and would conclude with Jacob doing something to impress her, like, rolling a giant stone from the well's opening to water Rachel's flock. It is a scene that captures "love at first sight." Well, kind of. Okay, not at all. While this is one of the only times we see romantic love, it is still one-sided.
The truth is, the text is kind of…problematic.
Which is a good time to remember that the world of the Bible is not the same as the world we know it today. Our cultural practices today are not what they were back in the Ancient Near East. It is essential to know this since the Bible is often used to promote particular ideologies. We will get to this a little later, but in the meantime, remember—the times have changed.
Without asking permission, Jacob kisses Rachel because she is beautiful, and then he weeps. After which, he tells her, "Rachel, I'm your cousin!" Rachel responds by running to tell her dad, Laban, who, upon hearing the news of his nephew's visit, runs to greet his sister's boy. Laban invites Jacob in for some food, they catch up, and Laban says, "Yes, you are my flesh and blood."
The story continues to get…interesting?
After a month or so of being with Laban, he tells his nephew that he doesn't want him to work for free. Instead, he wants to pay him and asks what Jacob wants. Jacob, who knows how to dream, asks for Rachel's hand in marriage because it says in verse 18, "Jacob loved [Rachel]." He loved her so much, Jacob said he would work seven years for her, to which Laban agreed.
Now, again, it is essential to note the problem with this love story. Rachel, or Leah, or the servant women for that matter, have no agency. Up to this point, they are but objects in the story—they have no voice regarding who they would marry. Much about this narrative reveals the distance between the biblical world and our twenty-first-century context. In Genesis, the patriarchal, tribal society assumes that marriage is first and foremost an alliance between men involving the exchange of women, here between an uncle and the nephew he calls "my bone and my flesh" (Genesis 29:14, 19). It is not primarily a commitment between individuals intending to share their lives as today. Thus, when people make claims for ‘Biblical marriage,’ we might want to ask if this is what they mean.
Jacob agrees. After seven years, he will marry Rachel. And they will live happily ever after. Except, like most love stories, it doesn't happen that way at all. Instead, Laban deceives Jacob by giving him Leah instead of Rachel. Perhaps you wonder, "How in the world did Jacob not know it wasn't Rachel?" Fun question—maybe Leah was wearing a veil, but ultimately, it is unclear as to why Jacob didn't recognize her. What is essential to take away from this story is what happened at this moment: there is a reversal to Jacob's roles—originally the deceiver, he is not the deceived. Wherein Jacob's story, the younger brother, replaced the older, the older sister, replaces the younger. And thus, begins another sibling rivalry in this juvenile family of God.
As the story goes, Jacob works seven more years and marries Rachel. Three times throughout our text today, it mentions that Jacob loves Rachel. The narrator is capturing the intensity of feelings we have for people as humans and how complex family systems can be. The essence of this story challenges us to think more deeply about our lives and how God works even through our flawed interpersonal relations and most ordinary activities. Jacob knew betrayal the way his brother Esau did earlier. The jokes caught up to Jacob, and he learned that some times, things don't happen the way we would like.
Here is the truth, friends. Life is hard. We will struggle through it at times. And while we may do our best to portray ourselves as having our lives together, our lives will be messy. And this story affirms that even in our messiness, God is with us. Even in the complexity of emotions, God is with us. Because let's be honest, the story of Jacob and his two wives, Leah and Rachel, gets pretty messy, which is why the Bible is beautiful. It isn't a book of perfect people who have it all together. Instead, it tells the tale of very human people and the complications that come with being human.
Unlike my favorite Rom-Com movies, this story doesn’t end with the two lovebirds sailing off into the sunset with no care in the world.
For instance, Jacob's singular passion for Rachel strands her older sister in the loveless marriage that Laban has orchestrated to provide for his eldest daughter (Genesis 29:26). God favors Leah as the unloved wife by giving her many children (Genesis 29:31; cf., Deuteronomy 21:15), but still, the tragedy continues. Leah names her sons to express her unfulfilled desire to gain her husband's affection through childbearing (Genesis 29:32-24; 30:20). Only with her fourth son, Judah, whose name is based on a Hebrew root meaning "to praise" or” to thank,” does Leah cease her striving to please her husband and give thanks to God instead (Genesis 30:35).
For her part, Rachel envies her elder sister's fertility, as she desperately tries to conceive (30:1). Through their unrelenting jealousy and competition, the two sisters and their servant women raise a large family capable of fulfilling God's promise to Jacob that his descendants would be as abundant as the dust or topsoil, covering the ground in every direction to bless all the families of the earth (Genesis 28:14).
Today's story reemphasizes the narrative thread in Genesis: that God's promises, power, and presence, will continue. Of course, it will only be carried on because of Leah and Rachel. Even amid complicated family dynamics and a love story that ought to make us all a lot uncomfortable, God's covenant will be continued.
Friends, God is with us. Even as we, like Rachel and Leah, struggle with life's complexity, we are not left alone. We have each other. And more importantly, we have God.
The stories of our faith aren’t always neat. But neither are the stories of our lives. Maybe they are more like soap operas and less like Rom-Coms. Either way, we need to recognize these androcentric texts, that is, it is written from (and primarily for) a male perspective, for what they are and liberate ourselves from the idea that we have to be perfect. If the stories we've read so far in our faith's origin book have taught us anything, it is this: God is praised for God's faithful and everlasting covenant to the very people in this narrative. Gospel is present because God keeps God's promises to a sinful humanity. God is faithful when we are busy managing our lives. God is faithful even when God is not overtly part of the narrative. God loves the broken families of the world.
God loves ordinary people like you and me.
And it is a love that is so absurd because it’ll never fade away—which might make you laugh and cry.
May it be so. Amen.
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