God and Dreams
Genesis 28: 10 -14
The Rev. Sara J. (Sally) Hughes
July 20th, 2014
That is some wild dream that Jacob has! A ramp or staircase stretching from heaven
to earth, angels ascending and descending, and God in the midst of all that activity—
oh, and Jacob. There’s Jacob, dreamer of this dream, his head on a stone because in
the ancient world, it was believed that if one slept with one’s head on a stone, one
would receive divine guidance or catch a glimpse of a divine presence. And Jacob
certainly could use a either—or both.
Remember that last week Will said things with Jacob would get messier? Well, they
do. We heard about how Jacob was able to convince Esau to swap out his firstborn
birthright for a “mess” of porridge (we’ll overlook the fact the Esau doesn’t display
much intelligence in this instance); we’ll fast forward in the story to the part where
old Isaac, Esau and Jacob’s father, is getting on in years and has decided that it’s time
to bestow the family blessing on his firstborn son, Esau. Esau and Jacob were twins,
remember, but Esau came out first with Jacob clinging to Esau’s heel. So in the
natural course of family matters—even if Esau forfeited his birthright years
earlier—the father’s blessing went to the firstborn son.
It’s a patriarchial society, remember, so all things are going from father to son, but
never underestimate the power of a woman! In this case, Rebekah, Isaac’s wife.
She’s the mother of Esau and Jacob but we are told—in true Smothers Brothers
fashion—that Mom always liked Jacob best.
She helped Jacob play a trick on old, blind Isaac—strapping some animal skins on
his arms so that he would smell gamey like Esau, getting him to offer his father a
hearty bowl of stew like Esau, and deceiving Isaac into blessing Jacob instead of
Esau. How low can a person go—deceiving his father, breaking the trust of an old
man, tricking a blind guy! This is pretty messy.
But it got worse when Esau discovered what Jacob had done, and declared that once
his father was dead, Jacob would be a dead man as well.
Again, never underestimate the power of a woman, even in—especially in—a
patriarchial society! Rebekah hurried to old Isaac and complained about all these
foreign wives, and introduced the “fear factor” that Jacob might just marry a foreign
woman if Isaac didn’t do something fast. So old Isaac sent Jacob off to Rebekah’s
home town of Haran.
It’s kind of interesting to note that generations earlier, under God’s promise that he
would be a great nation, Abraham set off from Haran; now Jacob was making his
way back to Haran—but not by choice, by necessity. In order to save his life, he had
to make a run for it.
One could not call this a pilgrimage or even a spiritual journey—it’s more like a clip
from The Fugitive. God is not what’s on Jacob’s mind; self-preservation is. He
walked and walked and walked—maybe he even ran a little!—until he got as far as
Luz, which some Biblical historians claim was a sacred site for other religious
groups.
Maybe that’s when Jacob got the idea of sleeping on a stone. In the ancient world,
sleeping on a stone was considered to be a way to receive divine guidance or even
see a divine presence. Certainly God had not popped up in Jacob’s mind before now,
but here in this place—unable to return home, and uncertain of what lay ahead—
Jacob had nothing to lose and everything to gain by stretching out with his head on a
stone and falling fast asleep.
And there, in Jacob’s dream, God appeared.
Now, friends, surely we have to wonder, “What was God thinking?” Making an
appearance to this sorry excuse for a human being—a sneaky man who swindled his
brother not once but twice, a deceitful son who deceived his old, blind father, a
cowardly man who runs for his life. Surely this man is the least likely candidate to
be the recipient of a dream about God. About Jacob, Dr. Sibley Towner, Old
Testament professor, writes, “Overall, [Jacob] comes through as a rather
unattractive personality. This theophany at Bethel is the first time we hear Jacob
acknowledge any personal connection with God. It is as though until this moment
he has not known about God or encountered God.. . .we have no evidence that he has
had any training in the faith at all.”
Regardless, God appeared in Jacob’s dream. Actually, God completely occupied
Jacob’s dream, taking up all the space around where Jacob lies and edging out
everything else around and above Jacob. A divine ramp or staircase or ancient
ladder appears, stretching from earth to heaven, with angels actively climbing up
and down, moving from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, lots of holy motion in
the ocean.
Google “Jacob’s dream” sometime and look at all the images that have been created
through the ages. Look at Marc Chagall’s interpretation of Jacob’s dream. Imagine it
for yourself—sometimes that’s the best way to understand the meaning of a dream,
not by analyzing it but by imagining it. God filling the sky, filling the entire
atmosphere, God standing on earth, beside Jacob, beside you, beside me, showing
ongoing, never-ending activity between heaven and earth, earth and heaven.
Let’s face it, even if someone has led an exemplary life, that person couldn’t have
dreamed up anything this amazing, this wonderful, this awesome. And to the far
from perfect, less than admirable person of Jacob does this dream come.
If we learn anything from Jacob’s dream, we learn that we don’t have to have it all
together theologically, morally, ethically, personally in order to catch a glimpse of
God or to receive a visit from God. We don’t even have to be seeking God in order
for God to find us. We don’t have to find a sacred place, set our weary heads on a
magic rock in order to encounter God. That’s the good news. That’s the gospel.
While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Whether we are in darkness or in
Sheol, God is there for us. Waking or sleeping, close to God or far from God, Christ
calls us, God’s presence surrounds us, the Spirit’s power follows our going on and
our coming in.
That’s not a formula, though. It’s not “well, if I’m deceitful like Jacob, God will come
to me,” or “if I’m obvious to God like Jacob, God will make an appearance.” Jacob’s
dream is intended to teach us that God’s presence and love are on God’s terms, not
ours. We don’t conjure up God like rubbing on a lamp and conjuring up some genie;
God appears to the faint of heart as well as to the faithful in heart. God appears to
the disobedient as well as to the well-behaved. God appears to the cowardly as well
as to the courageous. God sappears to the self-serving as well as to the selfless.
And God appears with promises in hand. To Jacob, God promises, “I am with you, I
will keep you, and I will bring you home.” Those aren’t short-term commitments,
but life-long assurances. I am with you, God assured Jacob. The ladder from earth to
heaven and heaven to earth shows that God isn’t just up in heaven, but on earth as
well. Here in the Old Testament, the ladder that convinces Jacob that God is with
him; later, it’s a man called Jesus, Immanuel, God With Us, who convinces us that
God is with us.
And God will never leave Jacob’s side, even as Jesus promised that the Spirit, the
Comforter would never depart from God’s people. The Psalmist described it this
way, “If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If
I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there
your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.”
“I will bring you home,” is God’s promise to Jacob and with that comes relief—where
are we going in this life? We are going to God, following God home even if the route
seems circuitous and sometimes unfamiliar, even if way seems dark and frightening
at time, even if we aren’t 100% sure of our destination. The God who is with us,
who will keep us, is the same God who will bring us home.
Very few—if any of us—have dreams this amazing: God-filled dreams full of
promises and comfort, courage and hope. Maybe that’s why this dream was
recorded: for generations yet to come, that even when we feel far from God or lost
or afraid, you and I can believe in Jacob’s dream when God appears and glimpse
God’s promise. Maybe what’s as important as the dream is what happens when
Jacob awakens from the dream. Walter Brueggeman writes that “the promise comes
to Jacob in a dream but the response of Jacob is in his wakefulness.”
Because when he awakens from his dream, Jacob worshipped God and named what
he thought was a God-forsaken place into Bethel, “Surely God is in this place.” Jacob
awakened from the dream and realized that nothing in life or in death was greater
than God. Nothing could separate him from God’s love, God’s protection, God’s
guidance, God’s care. Upon his awakening, Jacob knew that all the days of his life—
and even after his life was over—God would be with him. It wasn’t a dream, it was a
reality. God is greater than any problem or situation that we face in this life. God
can appear to us even in the least likely place, even when we are not at our best.
Even when we have forgotten all about God, God has not forgotten about us. It’s a
promise. It’s a dream come true.
The world is the place of such meetings with God. “Surely God is in this place” Jacob
declares—and that place is where we have sinned, where we are lonely, where we
are afraid, where we doubt, where we grieve, where we worry, where we have
failed, where we are confused.
God appeared in such a decisive way to someone like Jacob, who came from a messy
situation. That is the wonder and mystery of Jacob’s dream. And so God appears to
each one of us in our messy lives, the deserving and not-so-deserving, the sincere
and false, the righteous and the wicked, the confident and the unsure, the hopeful
and the discouraged, searching for God or oblivious to God.
We may rest our heads upon a stone, hoping, like Jacob, to catch a glimpse of God or
get a bit of divine wisdom. But wherever we rest our heads, may we rest our hearts
in the knowledge that no matter where we are, no matter how far we roam, no
matter what we have done or who we are, God is there with us, and will keep us
wherever we go.