Greetings everyone. Our Scripture this Sunday continues the Genesis sermon series with Genesis 29:19-34, but I encourage you to read the whole chapter, from start to finish. Here, Jacob, the trickster, gets tricked by his own uncle, Laban. Jacob wants to marry Rachel, thinks he's marrying Rachel, but instead gets Leah as his wife. Then Jacob is given Rachel as well. The story itself is told with a wink of the eye and is supposed to be seen and heard as humorous. Let's be frank: how dense can Jacob be not to notice he is marrying the wrong sister? But there is a serious underside: the women who are caught up in this lie, used like pawns in a game that becomes misogynistic. The writer Joyce G. Baldwin aisles the question "What the two girls thought of the plan (and their father) goes unrecorded. How did anyone keep Rachel quiet that night?" Why didn't their Mom have an influence or say? What about the maids who become unwilling participants in the story? And all those children the four women will have all in a battle to earn/keep Jacob and God's blessings? The story focuses us on Jacob and Laban, but the true victims, the true voices belong to the women, and their children, who pay the price for the men's game of trickery and deceit.
May God illuminate this message and give us all a new way to think about how our actions affect others.
Blessings, Pastor G
A UCC Pastor's walk through the spiritual waters of Scripture, pop culture and life.
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