Monday, July 10, 2023
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Jacob and the woman who was dripping blood
Lineage leaks bile and honey. My lineage and yours, we all participate in this bath of good and evil, because just as everyone before us, we are fallen. Our children too, they catch hold on the edges of the well and cry out, but we cannot help them and they fall in just as we did.
Oh, Lord, lift us up by our hair, by the skin of our teeth, and rescue our perishing foolish selves.
So the stories in Genesis continue. Jacob has only begun his deceptions, but he too will be deceived, and then eventually (in chapter 33) he will be blessed and forgiven by Esau, of all people. The brothers are both growing up. God works in mysterious ways.
Jacob stopped for the night, and taking one of the stones from the shrine, put it under his head. Then he had a dream.
I laid down on my soft bed with a pillow to my right and to my left. Jacob did not have pillows, so he removed a stone from a shrine and used that. Jacob cut a lot of corners. But God was in the shrine, and God was in the stone.
Jacob had a dream. A stairway reached up to the heavens, and God’s messengers were going up and down upon it. And then there was the Lord standing beside him.
Jacob may not have known what God told Abraham two generations ago. So God told Jacob too.
I am the God of your grandfather Abraham and your father Isaac, and I will give you the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be as plentiful as the dust of the earth, spreading east and west, north and south. In you and your descendants all the nations of the earth shall find blessing.
Isn’t that what God told Abraham as well? But what blessing? The descendants of Jacob (the nation of Israel) have been a thorn in the side of their neighbors forever. Still, what God says is never false. And with God, a thousand years are like a day.
Jacob took the stone on which he had laid his head, set it up as a memorial stone and poured oil on top of it. He renamed the site BETHEL, which means “house of God.”
Our retired neighbor’s nickname is BETHEL. He walks three miles most mornings down Jollyville Road and back. He is quiet and friendly, and I think glad to have his nickname. One day I’d like to ask him about this Jacob guy, who even though he recognizes the presence and promises of God in his dreams, still attaches conditions to his allegiance when he awakes:
If God remains with me, to protect me on this journey I am making and to give me enough bread to eat and clothing to wear, and I come back safe to my father’s house, the LORD shall be my God.
What would Jacob have said to the woman who could not stop bleeding? In The Chosen a well-dressed Jew receives his laundry and shakes the laundress’ hand, but then he sees blood dripping on her feet. He throws the laundry back at her and wails that he’ll have to go wash himself. Unclean! Unclean!
Later, Jesus encounters her, she touches him and he asks, “Who touched me?” In her fear she does not speak, even though she knows she has stopped bleeding.
Jesus turned around and saw her. “Your faith has saved you!”
On the way to the house of Jairus, Jesus expands the stories of Genesis into generosity even to Gentiles, even to the Unclean, even to … everyone. God’s reputation grows and grows, as Jesus re-invents the Jewish wheel and demolishes everything but solidarity, forgiveness and love.
He will rescue you from the snare of the fowler, from the destroying pestilence. Our Savior Jesus Christ has destroyed death and brought life to light through the Gospel.
(Genesis 28, Psalm 91, 2 Timothy 1, Matthew 9)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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