Sex, Lies, and
Standing Stones: Year A Proper 12
Genesis 29:15-28; 1 Kings 3:5-12; Psalm
105:1-11, 45b; Psalm 128; Psalm 119:129-136; Romans 8:26-39; Matthew
13:31-33, 44-52
The Elves’ focus on the
patriarchs and the ancestral stories leading to Jesus misses the best
parts of the Abraham saga. But to be fair, the reconstruction by
the biblical writers of these foundational myths only hits the
highlights. For a midrash between the lines of Genesis chapters
29-35, see the now classic novel by Anita Diamant: The Red Tent.
If we confine ourselves to the Elves’ selection, Jacob is a hopelessly
romantic naif. But if we read the whole story, Jacob begins to
look more like the first practitioner of non-violent resistance.
After 20-plus years, two wives, two concubines, and 8 or 10 children,
he finally has had enough. He declares his intention to return to
his own country. Rachel grabs the family icons. Jacob tells
off evil uncle Laban for all his cheating shenanigans. Laban
capitulates (after being intimidated off his search of Jacob’s tents by
Rachel’s claim that “the way of women is upon me”). Together
Jacob and Laban create a cairn of stones and a menhir to mark their
agreement never to trespass on one another’s land again.
For those who want to cut to the chase without getting bogged down in
all the sex, deception, and pagan magic between the portion of the
story chosen for proper 12 and the portion chosen for proper 13, the
Elves offer a snippet from 1st Kings. After the death of the
great King David, Solomon asks for wisdom rather than wealth, and of
course as we all know, he gets both. What a relief. No need
for magic spells in order to assure that God’s promise will be
fulfilled.
But Jacob, Leah, and Rachel have a more basic connection with the realm
of God. They are people of the earth and practitioners of earth
magic. When Leah’s son Reuben brings mandrakes from the field, Rachel
pleads with Leah to let her have them so she can use them herself and
end the infertility she has suffered from. Leah trades them for a
night with Jacob, which of course produces yet another son. But
apparently the mandrakes work for Rachel, because at last she has a
son, and that son is Joseph – the first savior of the Hebrew people.
Jacob does his own magic in order to assure the safety of his flocks of
sheep and goats. He agrees to prolong his stay with Laban if
Laban will pay him with black, and speckled and spotted sheep and
goats. Laban promptly removes all of those from his herds and
sends them off three days distance. Jacob then retaliates.
He carefully takes branches from sacred trees: poplar, almond,
and plane, and carves the bark to make poles that are striped and
spotted with white. He plants them in the ground beside the watering
hole whenever Laban’s stronger flocks are there. When Laban’s
weaker sheep and goats are at the watering hole, Jacob takes the poles
away. He separates his own flocks from Laban’s. When
Laban’s stronger sheep and goats see the striped poles, they produce
black and white offspring. The storyteller is gleeful: “Thus
[Jacob] grew exceedingly rich, and had large flocks, and male and
female slaves, and camels and donkeys!”
Which is the greater wisdom? Solomon’s wisdom, which is based on
the written law, or the wisdom of Jacob and his people, which is based
on their relationship with the natural world in which they live?
Solomon – in all his glory – is defined by his piety and his strict
adherence to the law. Jacob relies on his covenant relationship
with God. Solomon is also a King – subject to all the temptations
of Empire and the normalcy of civilization, despite his great
wisdom. Neither Jacob nor Laban is interested in creating an
imperial alliance. Jacob’s honest cleverness has defeated Laban’s
selfish deception. The stone pillar marks their territorial
boundary, and neither one will cross it.
Contrasting the imperial wisdom of Solomon’s settled civilization with
the tribal wisdom of a primordial people can only serve briefly as
metaphor. The differences produced by the evolution of
consciousness are too great. By the time Jesus walked the earth,
the forces of Empire had become firmly established, and the struggle
between the distributive justice-compassion of Covenant with God and
the injustice inherent in human law had been documented and
debated for thousands of years. Still, Jesus’s parables
call all who have ears to hear back into the covenant relationship with
the wisdom and the realm of God.
The version of the mustard seed metaphor in Thomas 20:1-4 is thought to be
closer to the original as told by Jesus because it has no
interpretation attached to it: “[Heaven’s imperial rule is] like a
mustard seed. It’s the smallest of seeds, but when it falls on
prepared soil, it produces a large plant and becomes a shelter for
birds of the sky.” The tiny secret to the Kingdom of God is
hidden in plain sight. God’s Realm is not the big imperial
power. As the Jesus Seminar scholars put
it, “God’s domain . . . was pervasive [like the mustard weed] but
unrecognized, rather than noisy and arresting.”
The parable of the leavening in the flour describing the nature of
God’s rule is thought to have come directly from Jesus because whether
it occurs in Matthew Luke or Thomas, there are no modifications or
explanations. When was the last time one little packet of yeast –
even if it was Fleischman’s Rapid Rise
– was enough to leaven 50 pounds of flour? But 1st
Century people – rich or poor – did not get their leavening from little
foil packets. Perhaps the“leaven” was a kind of sour dough starter. To use
sour dough starter, you take a small amount and mix it in with the
other ingredients and allow it to “leaven” the whole batch. The
Jesus Seminar scholars point out that the leaven is “hidden,” not
“mixed.” “Hiding” a bit of starter in 50 pounds of flour is an
apt metaphor for the power of justice-compassion. Because it is
not seen, acting with distributive justice-compassion – radically
abandoning self-interest – as Jesus taught, at first seems ineffective
and lost in the imperial injustice that holds sway among oppressed
people. But eventually the movement grows until the whole
population is involved, and liberation is won. As Victor Hugo
said, “nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”
As the man in charge of devious uncle Laban’s fields, Jacob could have
done something similar to the one who found treasure. A farmer,
in danger of losing his own land to the tax collector is forced to farm
land adjacent to his own that belongs to the occupier. In the
process of plowing the adjoining acreage, he discovers a buried
treasure. He does not tell the land owner about the
treasure. Instead, he covers it up, and sells his own land to buy
that field. How is this kind of cheating representative of God’s
imperial rule? It is a perfect example of subversion of empire in
the name of the common man.
The pearl of great price is actually worthless to the one who sells
everything to get it. In order to live in the normalcy of
civilization, he would need to sell it. But nothing is needed for
living in God’s Realm.
Jacob’s evil uncle Laban, like 21st century multi-national
corporations, concedes defeat without admitting error, and invites a
covenant with Jacob (Genesis 31:43-44). “May
the Lord watch between you and me, when we are absent one from the
other,” he says. It is not a blessing. It is an invocation
of God’s judgment, should either one break the covenant represented by
the cairn and the standing stone. But God’s realm is not about
judgment, despite the threat from Matthew’s Jesus that “God’s
messengers will go out and separate the evil from the righteous and
throw the evil into the fiery furnace . . .” Matthew is stuck on
fiery furnaces and payback, completely missing his own point.
God’s Kingdom is not about Solomon’s piety, war, victory. The way
into the Realm of God is Covenant with God. Rachel did not need
to steal the household gods from Laban. God’s part of the bargain
with Jacob – marked with the cairn and the standing stone – is to be
with him regardless of where he goes.
The Apostle Paul is talking about the same secret. If God is for
us, who can be against us? Who can separate us from the love of
Christ? Indeed, Paul says, nothing can separate us from God’s
love. Nothing can keep us from God’s kingdom, realized in the
life of Jesus, and in the lives of anyone who signs on to the
Covenant.
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