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She did not go into detail, but I knew Wanda had once hit bottom. She told me about her grandmother who had always prayed for her, and a church that loved her and helped her find her way back to God. Have you ever hit bottom? Have you ever been so low, you felt there was nowhere to go but up? How did you get there? Where do you look from the bottom? What do you see? For Jacob in today's story, bottom was a wilderness road, alone at night, running for his life to escape the wrath of his brother, sleeping on a stone pillow. How did Jacob get here? Where did he look? And what was his view from the bottom? Jacob, you remember, was the son of Isaac and Rebecca, the grandson of Abraham and Sarah. I mention his ancestry because wherever we are in life--at the bottom or at the top--we are always affected by where we came from. Some aspects of Jacob's heritage offered great promise and blessing, and there were obstacles to be overcome. The promise in Jacob's family was first given to Abraham by God, and could only be received by trusting God and acting on faith. For God had called Abram to "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you." And though Abraham and Sarah were childless in their advanced years, God promised, "I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and . . . in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." Isaac was the son of promise, and Rebecca, the wife God chose for him to carry on the covenant. Jacob's mother, Rebecca, was a strong-willed woman. Maybe she was just what Isaac needed, because Isaac appears to be the weakest character among the patriarchs. There was tension between the parents from the day Jacob and Esau were born. Isaac favored the older Esau, who loved the rugged outdoor life of hunting. Rebecca favored the younger Jacob, who preferred the comforts of domestic life. The twin brothers had fought in the womb even before they saw the light of day. Jacob came into the world grasping his brother's heel. Twice Jacob usurped Esau's natural privilege as eldest son. One day, after a long hunt, Esau staggered into the house famished, and Jacob was cooking dinner. He stirred the stew with vigor filling the tent with enticing aromas. Sensing Esau’s desperation, Jacob offered him a bite to eat--but only if he would forfeit his birthright. Feeling he could soon die from hunger, Esau surrendered the precious birthright for a bowl of stew. Rebecca devised the second plot against Esau. Isaac, feeling acutely his advanced age, planned a feast to pronounce his dying blessing on his eldest son. Rebecca could not fathom Jacob deferring to Esau. While Esau hunted venison for his father, she offered Jacob his brother’s best clothes, covered his smooth skin with goat hair, and sent him to Isaac with a savory goat stew, saying he was Esau. Jacob feared he would be discovered and receive from his father a curse instead of a blessing! Rebecca prevailed, and in a scene filled with pathos, the bewildered Isaac bestowed on Jacob the coveted promise of superiority. When Esau came in from the hunt, the truth became known, but the blessing could not be revoked. In the ancient world, words were believed to have their own power; once spoken, they could not be taken back. Esau was enraged and vowed to kill Jacob. We are considering how Jacob got to the bottom. I mention his family environment, because we all live in some situation or other, none of them perfect. We are not responsible for the tensions and conflicts we are born into, but we are accountable for our own words and actions in response to every situation. The danger Jacob was fleeing on the wilderness road was of his own making. Yes, his mother invented the scheme to deceive his aging father--to pose as Esau, and receive his father's dying blessing. (Rebecca might have felt she was doing God's will, as revealed to her before the twins were born, that the older would serve the younger.) But there comes a time in every young adult's life when it is appropriate to question what one has been taught by one's parents. No parent is perfect. Programmed responses are like repeating tapes in our minds. Sometimes people need to learn to play new tapes. How many times do we say something without thinking, and wonder where that came from. We are shocked to realize we sound just like our parents. Especially if we thought we never wanted to act like that. It would not have pacified the raging Esau if Jacob would have said in his defense, "my mother made me do it." No, Jacob is the one who cooked the goat and said it was venison, put on his brother's best clothes, and went to his blind father with goat hair on his arms saying he was the hairy Esau. Jacob did obtain the coveted blessing, and now he would face the consequences of his actions. The view from the bottom begins with an honest look at one's own behavior. Jacob could not change his surly brother, or his weak father, or his scheming mother. What Jacob could change was how he related to these people, and he could use some help. Jacob knew where to look for help from the bottom. The stone he placed under his head was believed to be sacred. Jacob went to sleep under the stars expecting an oracle from God. The view from the bottom was toward God. And God did not disappoint. Jacob saw a glorious vision of a stairway from earth to heaven, with angels ascending and descending on it. It is significant that the stairway to heaven met Jacob on earth, at the bottom, where he was. The psalmist said, even "if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there." Once Jacob looked up toward God, even as he dreamed on that stone pillow, he was no longer alone. God sent angels up and down that stairway to heaven to help Jacob on his way. Can you imagine what messages were exchanged that night, as Jacob began his life of communion with God? In the Bible, angels always serve as messengers for God, and I thank God for all the angels among us today. Wanda had her grandmother who prayed for her everyday, and told her of God's love and power that could transform her life. Maybe you had a grandmother or two that modeled God's love for you, as I did. There might have been a Sunday School teacher, or youth director, or boy scout leader, or neighbor, or friend that helped you to understand you could never earn God's favor, but you could open your life to receive forgiveness and healing power, and follow God's direction to fulfill God's purpose for your life. Maybe you are a grandmother or grandfather, or teacher, or mentor, and seem like an angel to someone you love. At the end of his glorious dream, the Lord himself stood beside Jacob revealing the purpose of his life. First, the Lord had to introduce himself as the God of his father and grandfather, for Jacob had never had a conversation with God before. In God's plan, Jacob was chosen to be the one to carry on the great covenant made with Abraham. He would be blessed with a great multitude of descendants who would inhabit the Promised Land, and through them all the families of the earth would be blessed. And Jacob would never again be alone. The Lord assured him, "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 you." When Jacob awoke, he knew he had experienced an epiphany. This was no ordinary dream. His reaction is typical of persons who discover the presence of God in their lives for the first time. They realize that God has always been around, even though they have not always known it. Jacob exclaimed, "Surely the Lord is in this place--and I did not know it!" Jacob's reaction to all this was understandable--he was afraid. It is an awesome thing to stand in the presence of the living God. Jacob appropriately responds to God's revelation with worship and commitment. He made an altar out of the stone pillow and poured oil over it. Jacob vowed that if the Lord would be with him and keep him, and give him bread to eat and clothes to wear, and allow him to come to his father's house in peace, then the Lord would be his God, and he would give God a tenth of all that he was given. Jacob settled in the land of Haran, married, raised children and acquired great wealth. After twenty years in exile, he would go home again. With fear and trembling, prayers for protection, and abundant peace offerings, Jacob returned to his estranged brother, Esau. It is a transformed Jacob that bowed to the ground seven times before his brother. Jacob's view from the bottom--of himself, and God, and others-- had changed his manner of relating. The psalmist said, "search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." Such honest soul searching, if we stay around long enough to listen for God's answer, can be the beginning of a new way of living. Iyanla Vanzant had her own view from the bottom. In her recent book, Yesterday, I Cried, she tells how when her mother died she lived with her grandmother. Only Iyanla's grandmother was no angel. For her the hands that God intended for love and comfort were instruments of abuse and suffering. The emotional scars lasted longer than the physical scars. Iyanla grew into a young woman who did not know she was precious in the eyes of God, "fearfully and wonderfully made." Only a child herself, she became a parent. Somehow in her young adult life, Iyanla was able to glimpse a view up from the bottom and see God. Angels in the form of wise men and women helped her to look at herself and see how she was making destructive choices. Women of God like Maya Angelou helped her to understand that God had a purpose for her life--a ministry of healing. Iyanla needed to sort out what she had been told by adults growing up, for in a sad contradiction, her abusive grandmother was a notorious church lady. Old habits of thinking die hard, but Iyanla needed to begin playing new tapes in her head. She was not responsible for conditions in the home she was raised in as a child, but as an adult she could learn new constructive ways of relating to people. And just like God promised to be with Jacob, and keep him wherever he went, Iyanla was not alone in her efforts to live a transformed life. She did not have a dream of a stairway to heaven like Jacob, but once she began looking and listening, Iyanla Vanzant did see and hear God's guiding voice in a multitude of ways--sometimes even in her dreams. The view from the bottom is up toward heaven, where God is waiting to be a transforming presence in your life. |
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