Sermons

Fourth Sunday after Trinity
Sunday 4 July 2004 at 6.30pm
Simon Cowling

Readings Genesis 29. 1-20; Mark 6. 7-29

There's something rather touching about the thought of Jacob being so much in love with his cousin Rachel that he agrees to work seven years for his uncle Laban in return for her hand in marriage; and if we read on a little further from the point at which tonight's Old Testament reading ended we'll discover that Jacob ends up having to work a further seven years for Rachel because he's initially tricked into marrying her sister Leah. But before we warm to Jacob too much it's worth reflecting on the fact that there is a high degree of moral ambiguity about him. Remember how Jacob takes advantage of his elder brother, Esau's, hunger and agrees to give him a bowl of soup in exchange for his rights as the firstborn; remember how he and his mother Rebecca then trick the elderly and almost blind Isaac into giving Jacob the blessing that, by rights, should have been Esau's; remember how Jacob is fearful at the prospect of meeting his wronged brother Esau when he returns to Canaan with Rachel and Leah and has contingency plans in place in case the reconciliation goes wrong. Yet despite this moral ambiguity it is Jacob who, after his strange night-encounter where he wrestles with God at the river Jabbok, is renamed Israel and becomes the ancestor of a whole nation that is called to be holy to God. Not Abraham, not Isaac but the deeply flawed and enigmatic Jacob.

In the wider context of scripture we should not, perhaps, be surprised. The Bible, both Old and New Testament, is full of individuals whose calling has been at odds with what we already know about them or with how they subsequently behave. Moses, who kills a man in anger and has to flee for his life; king David who arranges to have Uriah killed in battle so he can marry his wife; Peter, who boldly proclaims Jesus to be the Messiah but who subsequently denies him publicly three times; Paul, who begins his adult life as an eager persecutor of the Church he subsequently served with such energy. God's call was to all these individuals, and between call and response there was what one writer has called "an ambiguous and paradoxical relationship."

What is true in the scriptural record is surely also true in our own lives, the lives of those with whom we worship in community and the lives of any who profess themselves to be Christians. I guess it would not take very long for any of us to think of people whose calling as disciples of Jesus seems to be at odds with what we know of them; and, if we're brutally honest, it would not take very long, either, for any of us to realise that within each of ourselves there lies moral ambiguity, moral cowardice, moral failing. God sees those parts of ourselves, just as he saw the failings of Moses and Jacob, David, Peter and Paul. God called them, and he calls us, as whole people in all our complexity, our wilfulness, in all our moral ambiguity. God calls us not because of our special qualities, but because he loves us. To paraphrase John Keats: that is all we know on earth and all we need to know. Amen.

© St Edmund's Church, Roundhay - Charity Number 1131904