A Dream, a Dedication, & a Deal - Genesis 28:10-22

Bible Study Lesson for March 3

As Jacob goes into exile, away from his father’s house, he must have had the anxiety of an exile or a refugee. Anyone who has been sent to the household of a relative during a time of crisis will know something of Jacob’s emotional state. My father sometimes talks about a time he had to go stay with his aunt and uncle in Saint Louis for a while during his mom’s cancer. In England during World War II children were relocated outside of London in order to get them away from the bombing. Many had to go and stay with complete strangers whose patriotic act was to take in the children of Londoners in order to save them from the Nazi blitz. In Genesis 28, Jacob as a young man leaves to go to his ancestral homeland to find a wife and escape the aggression of his brother.

Up to this point in the story, Jacob has no explicit, personal relationship with the God of Abraham. In the beginning of the chapter, Isaac wished a blessing over Jacob, that God would bless him with the “blessing of Abraham.” But it is up to every individual to decide for themselves how they will relate to God. Will Jacob serve God? Will Jacob have faith? Will Jacob be faithful? Or will he go his own way, never concerning himself with this strange God who called his grandfather out of Ur and out of Haran? Jacob has shown himself to be something of a schemer. Perhaps he will merely try to wheel and deal his way through life and never seek out this God. Blessedly, in this story God intervenes and Jacob encounters the God of his father and mother directly. This story has three major parts: the Dream, the Dedication, and the Deal.

The Dream v. 10-12

As the story begins, Jacob is on the move. He is between Beersheba and Haran when he decides to set up camp for the night. He has a dream that has become one of the most famous stories in Genesis. Jacob sees a ladder to heaven, and angels are going up the ladder and down the ladder. Scholars are quick to point out that the word for ladder in most of our Bibles probably refers to a ramp. The image seems to be a ziggurat, which were the pyramid-shaped temples that were popular throughout the Ancient Near East and Middle East. In later Babylonian religion, the ramp on a ziggurat was for the king to ascend to go and speak to a god. In Jacob’s dream, however, Jacob is not invited or expected to climb the ladder; the angels use it as a pathway to heaven and the Lord comes to stand beside Jacob.

Throughout the Bible, God does not expect us to reach heaven or enlightenment on our own. We do not deal with a God who waits for us to figure it all out. Instead, God consistently makes God’s self known to people, some of whom are seeking, but also to others who are just traveling on their way, like Jacob. God approaches Jacob at his most vulnerable. He is under the stars, in the darkness on a wilderness way, and he is asleep. The Bible doesn’t mention anyone else being with him, which heightens this sense of vulnerability. Jacob doesn’t do a thing to get God to appear. God does it completely and surprisingly, breaking into the life of God’s people.

When has God unexpectedly broken into your life? Perhaps it was a big thing, like a family emergency or a sudden calling to a ministry or service project. I began to discern my call to ministry at the age of 17 at a youth conference in Richmond. That’s where we want that sort of thing to happen, but I had been to a number of youth conferences before where I hadn’t “experienced God” in that way. And honestly I’ve come to learn that more often than not, we don’t get that sort of clarity. A small way I sometimes experience God is in my morning Bible studies. Most days I don’t hear from God in any real audible, life-shattering sense, but I make myself available, vulnerable, and assume a listening posture in case God wants to speak. If we do that consistently, maybe we too will have a dream like Jacob’s.

The Dedication: God’s Promise v.13-15

When God comes to stand beside Jacob in his dream, it is to make a promise. First God takes care of introductions: “It’s me, the Lord, the God of your father Isaac and his father Abraham.” Next, God outlines the offer of a promise to Jacob. The promise in verse 13-14 is roughly the same as God’s promise to Isaac and Abraham.  God promises Jacob

1.  Land

2.  Numerous offspring

3.  The blessing of the nations through his family

All of these promises have been listed many times since Abraham first encountered the Lord.

In verse 15, God addresses Jacob’s specific need. God promises to be with Jacob, keeping or protecting him on his journeys, and bringing him back to the land God has given him. God’s promise for the People of God is place (land), people (offspring), and calling (blessing the nations). The promise to Christians is the Heavenly New Jerusalem, the Church, and the job given to the Church of being a blessing in the world. But God also meets each individual in their specific need and specific struggle. If Jacob had not needed to leave Beersheba, perhaps God’s promise to him would have been different.

If you imagine reading this story during the time of the Exile in Babylon, the promises of God to Jacob take on a new life. In the ancient world, there was a strong belief that a god was tied to a place. Jacob might have thought, at first, that this God was bound to the promised land, somewhere around Beersheba and Bethel. The people of Judah in 587 BC tended to think of God as inside the Temple. To both Jacob and the Exiles, God promises, “I will go wherever you go.” And also, to both God promises, “I will bring you back.” Sometimes it is necessary for us to leave the places where we have known God. This is hard. It is painful. But it also keeps us from getting confused. God is not confined to one place. God is everywhere and always on the move, and God moves especially with those who trust in God. We have to decide to trust God and then we have to make a commitment.

The Deal: Jacob’s Response v. 16-22

16-17 Recognizing Holiness

Waking from his dream, Jacob could have thought: “What did I eat to make me dream that?” Or he could have psychologized: “Well obviously that was a projection of my superego and my subconscious need.” Instead, he responds to God in faith. He realizes that he went to bed in a place where God was! This is a treacherous place, but in God’s grace God came to Jacob with an offer of relationship. Jacob’s commitment to God begins with his recognition that he is dealing with God. He’s punching way above his weight class. He names the place, “House of God,” in Hebrew beth-el. Bethel later becomes the second most important city in the religion of Israel, behind Jerusalem. Jacob’s experience of God at Bethel leads to the necessity to set it apart as a holy city where holy things happen.

20-22 Making a Commitment

In committing to God, Jacob first names the promises God has made. I think we would be wise to spend time doing this from time to time in our worship. God promises us an Eternity with Christ in the New Jerusalem. This is a much more vivid and Biblical way of talking about our final destination: not a heaven in the clouds but a Holy City in the Presence of God. God promises us a Church, promising that the gates of hell will never overcome it. In spite of all our handwringing about the future of the church in America and Europe, we can rest in the promise that our fellow church members are more numerous than the dust of the earth. There have been Christians beyond counting and God will not lack a witness on the earth. Finally, God promises us  that we will be a blessing to others. Jacob glosses over this part of the promise, instead showing characteristic self interest in focusing on the parts that benefit him. God still has work to do with Jacob and with us.

Jacob commits three things to God: allegiance, memorial, and a tithe. We have already discussed the memorial Jacob built, establishing the town of Bethel around the stone pillar he set up to remember his encounter with God. Jacob’s confession is our confession: because God has promised us these things, the Lord will be our God. This represents total allegiance. But total allegiance without concrete commitment often means nothing. So Jacob commits to tithe one tenth of his material blessings to the Lord. His description of his future wealth reminds us that for those who believe, all that we have is “all that you (God) give me.” We tithe because we believe ultimately that everything we has belongs to God, from whom all blessings flow.

Conclusion

At some point in all of our lives, we must decide whether we are committed to God. For most of us, honestly, we have to make that decision a number of times. When things get hard, when we face new challenges, it can be helpful to remember what God has done for us and what we have committed to God. The most visible reminder of a covenant in our society is probably the wedding ring. When I look at the third finger of my left hand, and I see that ring, it reminds me of the covenant that I made with Katie ten years ago: to stay together, to love each other, and to help each other find our way. We need symbols like that in our life with God. We need the holy places where we have experienced God, not as idols, but as reminders of what God has done and promised to do. And of who we have promised to be in response to God’s grace working in our lives. What symbol might you set up in your own life in order to better remember and embody your covenant with God?