Scripture: Genesis 28:1-22, Psalm 8:12-17, Romans 8:12-17
What are the
places in your life? The
significant places? The places that mean the most to you? May be it is a childhood home, or a vacation
spot that you return to again and again. Maybe it’s a school or even a church
where something very meaningful happened to you? What are the significant
places in your life? And why are they significant? Have you ever gone back to
visit them?
Last
summer, I was away from Church for three months on a Sabbatical funded by the
Lilly Foundation. The centerpiece was a trip to
With Lara,
our youngest, I went to
With Pete, our middle child, who is
now serving our country with the Peace Corps, I went to
Caitlin,
our oldest and I took a different approach. When we moved to
Over the course of three days in late May we
made over 20 stops to visit places. It did have a bit of a whirlwind quality to
it: Sibley hospital where Caitlin was born, Parkwood
School where Caitlin went and the playground which hadn’t changed a bit:
Georgetown Presbyterian where Caitlin was baptized by her grandfather Louis, Andie’s dad; St Albans School in the shadow of the
Cathedral where I spent nine years, and the little sanctuary on the grounds
where I was baptized and later went to chapel every day. National Presbyterian
where Andie and I were married, now thirty years ago, and where Louis was the
pastor, 309 Ayito Rd in Vienna Virginia, the home
from which we moved, the side yard of which we had called “Caitlin’s Garden.”
Then there was Wu’s Garden our favorite restaurant where as a child Caitlin had
been intrigued by and came to love baby corn; 6003 Corbin Rd in Bethesda, my
childhood home and the home from which my parents moved in 2005 after 50 years.
The Westchester apartments where my grandparents Needham lived and where at age
of three I fell headfirst into a pool and fountain that was fed through the
mouth of a stone lion.
On the second day of our pilgrimage, my parents, Nancy and George,
joined us. We visited the graves of the Needhams in
Rock Creek Cemetery, and then my parents’ childhood homes, even gaining access
to my mother’s home, now owned by a family friend, who took our picture, three
generations sitting together on the stairs that my mother in the 1930’s used to
run up and down when she was a little girl.
T.S. Eliot in his wonderful poem, meditation
really, “Four Quartets” wrote: “Home is where one starts from” and he concluded
“we shall not cease from our exploring and the end of all our exploring will be
to arrive where we started and to know the place for the first time.” Four Quartets, Harcourt Inc.,
Well, it was quite a trip.
Why did we
do it and what did we learn? There was, of course, the great poignancy of the
passing of time, it is so fleeting! And perhaps we hoped that we would all gain
a little more insight into who we are as people by
rediscovering our roots. But there was
something else I think, a sense of gratitude and thanksgiving for the blessing
of life itself, and the sense that while perhaps we didn’t know it at the time,
God had been with us in all of those places and in all of the ups and downs of
our journeying though the years.
What about you? What are the
significant places in your life? You know, sometimes we do need to go back in
order to move forward. Sometimes we need to go home again.
John Inge, an Anglican bishop, has written a thoughtful book
entitled A Christian Theology of Place in
which he says this (quoting E. V. Walker, sociologist):
“the totality of what people do, think, and feel in a
specific location gives identity to place.”
(page 26). Inge goes on
to say that “any conception of place is inseparable from the relationships that
are associated with it.” A
Christian Theology of Place, Ashgate Publishing
Limited,
That’s true, isn’t it? It is our relationships
that give meaning to our places.
And this is perhaps especially true
with our relationship with God.
That’s how
it was for Jacob.
In the
Scripture lesson this morning from Genesis 28 we see how a particular place a
barren rocky place became for Jacob became a holy place because of his
unexpected encounter with the Holy One.
It is quite
a story. Jacob the younger of two twins is a fugitive. You may remember, he and his mother Rebekah
tricked Jacob’s father Isaac into giving Jacob his paternal blessing. Isaac,
the son of Abraham was old and blind. He had asked his older son Esau to
prepare a savory meal of game so Esau went out to hunt. In the meantime, at
urging of Rebekah, Jacob, dressed in Esau’s clothes
which had Esau distinctive scent and animal skins on his arms, brings a meal to
Isaac and asks for the blessing which traditionally was reserved for the first
born... The trick works and Isaac, thinking it is the hairier son Esau, gives
Jacob the blessing. When Esau returns from hunting and learns of the trickery,
he is furious and threatens to kill Jacob who at the urging of Rebekah flees by himself to travel to
When the
sun sets that first night, Jacob stops in a barren, desolate place. Taking a
stone for a pillow he sleeps and in his sleeping he
dreams. He sees a ladder or stairway from heaven to earth and God’s messengers,
angels, ascending and descending, the “Jacob’s ladder” The Lord stands beside
Jacob and says:
“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…and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you
and in your offspring. Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you
go, and will bring you back to this land: for I will not leave you until I have
done what I have promised.” (Genesis 28:13-16).
It is the same promise that God
gave to Abraham, Jacob’s grandfather and which is reflected in our stain glass
window. Abraham is blessed to be a blessing, and through him and his wife Sarah
all the families on earth will be blessed. This is the promise that Christians
have for centuries interpreted as being fulfilled in Jesus Christ. In fact, in
the lineage of Jesus in Matthew chapter one, the first three names in the
genealogy are Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
But back to
Jacob.
When Jacob awakes, he is astounded
and awed and even afraid. He exclaims “Surely God is in this place and I did
not know it!” In response to the dream and to God’s promises, Jacob takes the
stone that served as his pillow and sets it up as a pillar, a memorial, a
marker and he gives the place a new name “
“If God will be with me and will
keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to
wear, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then the Lord shall
be my God and this stone which I have set up for a pillar shall be God’s house;
and of all that you give me I will surely give one-tenth to you.”
Walter Brueggeman, Old Testament Scholar, says that through
Jacob’s encounter with God “a ‘non-place’
is transformed by the coming of God into a crucial
place.” Interpretation, Genesis, John Knox
Press,
Brueggeman goes on to say “Jacob came to this deserted
place, fleeing for his life undoubtedly without promise. He departs from this
encounter changed by the only thing that can change, a
word which makes available an alternative future.” (Page
244).
It is a
word that gives hope and courage and elicits a faithful response in Jacob.
Jacob heard
and trusted the promises of God and that made all the difference. And so a
common place became his
What about you?
As you look back on your life do you have a
Perhaps this place where we are right
now is such a place, or can be such a place, for you.
You know,
this place is so much more than just a building. It is a place where we believe
God is present and where week in and week out, our sins are forgiven, the word
and the love of God are proclaimed, our children are baptized, and we encourage
and care and pray for each other. It is a place where we praise God in prayer and
music and we cry out to God in our distress. A place where elders are ordained,
teachers tell the good news, marriage vows are made. It is a place where the
hungry are fed and the homeless sheltered. It is a place where at life’s end we
are commended to God.
It is the place where like Jacob we
hear the promises of God, that God is
with us, that God will keep us, protect us and that when all our journeying is
done God will bring us home.
You may
have come here this morning just like Jacob, discouraged and alone, or running
away. Here, we proclaim and receive the good news of forgiveness and the
promises of God. Maybe God is in this place and you do not know it. Or maybe it
could not be any clearer.
Jacob
received the promises of God. He trusted in those promises. In response, he
vowed that God would be his God and that he would give back to God a tenth of
all he received. How will you respond to the promises of God?
As for
Jacob, God was faithful to his promises. Six chapters later in Genesis chapter
35 and many years after that lonely night Jacob returned to his father’s house
in peace, forgiven by Esau, no longer a lonely and fearful man but grateful and
blessed with a large family, many
children and cattle. On his journey home he said to his family “Come let us go
up to
Friends,
the same promises made to Jacob are made to us today. In Jesus Christ, we
encounter our God who has come near. He is Emmanuel, God with us, and it is by
his grace and Spirit that we can call God “Abba Father.” And it is Jesus who
promises by the Holy Spirit to be with us always, wherever we may go, even to
the end of the age.
As you look back, has not God been
faithful?
Perhaps it is time to trust him
again -- in all the places of your life.
You see,
God is with you, God will keep you and God will bring you safely home.
Thanks be to God!
Alleluia!
Amen.