“This is how life goes—we send our children into the
wilderness. Some of them on the day they are born, it
seems, for all the help we can give them. Some of them
seem to be a kind of wilderness unto themselves.” I love
these words from Marilynne Robinson’s novel Gilead.
They are written in the voice of an aging pastor writing
a letter to his seven-year-old son. Some of them are a
wilderness unto themselves. I think we know what the
pastor means.
Jacob. He is a man on the run. He’s been a conniver
since the day he was born, born clinging to his brother’s
heel. He convinces his famished elder brother Esau to
sell his birthright for a bowl of homemade stew. And
that’s bad enough, but this time Jacob has gone too
far. You see, a father’s blessing was a big deal in the
ancient world. And irrevocable. By impersonating Esau,
Jacob fooled their elderly father Isaac into giving him
the blessing intended solely for the firstborn son—that’s
Esau. And so, we’re talking family drama in the extreme,
and now Jacob is in serious danger. Rebekah warns her
favorite son that Esau plans to console himself by killing
his brother Jacob. And so, with his mother’s help, Jacob
flees home. His only aim at this point is to survive. That’s
where we find Jacob this morning—on the run, not only
from his brother but from God as well. At least, that is
what he thinks.
A safe distance away and exhausted from the rapid
retreat, Jacob finds a stone pillow (that sounds like an
oxymoron to me, but that’s what it says), and there on
that rock, he closes his eyes to rest. And that’s when
the unexpected happens—the very God from whom
he is running shows up. And, even more surprising,
this God speaks to a broken and terrified young man.
The divine words show no sign of anger or judgement,
no resentment or rejection. Just the opposite. At the
very lowest point of Jacob’s life, God climbs down into
the depths of Jacob’s despair and makes a promise.
“Remember, I am with you…I will not leave you.”
With this voice still ringing in his ears, Jacob wakes up.
And please note that nothing around him has changed—
the same dusty wilderness, the same stone pillow,
perhaps more importantly the same dire and deadly
circumstances. It’s all the same, and yet, for Jacob, it’s
all different now. We know this because of what he
says and because of what he does. He speaks out loud,
as if there is someone who can hear his words in this
deserted place, “Surely the Lord is here—and I didn’t
know it!” Didn’t know it? You hoped it wasn’t true! And
then he turns that pillow into a pillar, rooted in the earth
and pointing toward heaven, and he gives that place a
name. Bethel. The house of God.
In her wonderful book, An Altar in the World, Barbara
Brown Taylor writes, “The first time I read Jacob’s story
in the Bible, I knew that it was true whether it ever
happened or not.” I think she’s right about that. Jacob’s
story is true, true in the deepest sense of that word. True
to our experience. True to the realities of life. Family
dramas. Estrangement. Isolation. Fear. Despair. Jacob
is all alone in that deserted place in the middle of the
wilderness. He is filled with fear and uncertainty, and
as he examines the trajectory of his life to this point,
surely he wonders, “Will I survive? And do I even want
to? Is there any purpose left for me to pursue? Have I
finally squandered the gift of this life before I even had a
chance to live it?” Isolated and estranged, he must have
questioned, “Can anyone, even God, love me now?”
If these are the queries that occupy his troubled soul,
the answers do not arrive in the abstraction of ideas or
the rigidity of laws. Believe this and you will be loved.
Do that and you can be forgiven. No, no, no. Instead,
God just shows up. God enters the wilderness. This too
is true, that God climbs into your deepest despair. This
too is true, that God meets us in the wild within us, even
when we are a wilderness unto ourselves. What God
offers Jacob is no detailed plan or an intricate proposal.
There is no escape route from his brother’s wrath. God
offers presence. I will not leave you. The promise of
that divine presence is both unconditional and utterly
unrestricted. Bound neither by Jacob’s past sinfulness or
by the trappings of religiosity we humans construct.
When you are on the run from God, from an estranged
loved one, from yourself, what you need is not a
roadmap or a to do list because the wilderness is not
out there. The wilderness is in here. What you need
is an experience of holiness. What you require is the
promise that you are loved. What transforms Jacob
in this morning’s story is not some lesson learned or
training received—it is an unexpected encounter with a
holy God. God, who meets this troubled trickster in the
wilderness. The wilderness within.
This story boldly proclaims that the presence of God
is not limited to the places we construct or the time
we set aside to acknowledge it. Jacob named the
place House of God, not because he built a temple but
because God found him there.
And so, I wonder, have you experienced the presence
of God in an unexpected place? Or an unusual time?
Sometimes, those places are physical. Perhaps you’ve
experienced the presence of God in a hospital room,
or on a long car ride, or at a neighbor’s table, or a
public place. But often they are the wild places within
us. The places we most hesitate to go, the depths of
our souls we avoid. We find God in a place of grief
or a time of deep sadness. We experience God in
our anger at injustice. We discover God’s presence
when we are most aware of our own brokenness. God
meets us when we’ve stopped looking for God. Surely
the Lord is in this place…and I didn’t know it! You see,
the wonder of worship is that it happens anywhere
God shows up, any time we still ourselves long
enough to see.
So. You. You who are running from a past you cannot
change. You who have stopped believing in a love
strong enough to hold your broken spirit. You who
are filled with fear for the future. You who wonder if it
can ever be different. You who are weary and heavily
burdened. You for whom God has seemed so distant
for so long. You who need the comfort of a simple
promise. Listen. Here it is. You are loved by the one
who knows you to the deepest places of your heart.
You are held by a power beyond your imagination
and a strength that vanquishes all your fear. You are
precious in the sight of the one who created you. Do
not go in search for God. Do not run away from God.
Stay right here in those places of uncertainty and fear,
and let God come to you in the wilderness within.
Today, our younger son Benjamin turns seven years old.
I am not ready to release him into the wilderness. Never
will be. But that’s what we’ll do. We’ll do it time and time
again. Wilderness after wilderness. The same is true for
all of us. No choice in that. So, here is what I want my
son to know, and you can listen as well. Benjamin, you
never have to run away from God, or from me. Because
that’s what unconditional love means. I will not leave
you. The wild places within you belong to God. They are
filled with a beauty only God can fully see. The promise
is true. God will not leave you. When we stop running
and quit hiding, God will meet us where we are. And
that encounter will not be filled with fear or wrath or
punishment or resentment or anger. It will be grace. It
will be grace. All grace. Always grace. Grace washing
over us. Grace filling us up. Grace enough to carry on
and some to give way.
Because, believe this, God is not distant. Invited or not,
expected or unforeseen, the Lord is in this place, and in
every place where we find our hearts encouraged and
our souls lifted up. That ancient dream showed Jacob
something he could never discover on his own: that God
climbs down. God met him where he was. Jacob slept in
Bethel. He lived in God’s house. And so do you. Amen.