Serve For Nothing
Genesis 29:15-28; Matthew 13:44-52

July 28, 2002

Our language is saturated with famous lines and phrases from the Bible, some of them quite odd. A number of years back the British comedy group Beyond the Fringe did a take on an Anglican preacher attempting to manufacture a sermon out of a bizarre verse: “And Esau was a hairy man, but I am a smooth man” (Genesis 27:11). Those of you who have seen the skit probably can’t listen to the Jacob story seriously anymore.

Nevertheless, our Lectionary readings have been marching us relentlessly through the Jacob cycle, and once again we are confronted by what must be one of the all-time great sermon text-verses (Genesis 29:25a): “When morning came, it was Leah!” Even the stately New Revised Standard Version adds the exclamation point. Somebody needed a lamp. Where are all those wise virgins with plenty of oil for their lamps when you need one?

The stories the last few weeks have been colourful, if not just plain odd. The servant of Abraham sent back to the homeland to find a wife for Isaac at a well, followed by a birthright swapped over the cooking of red porridge, and lastly the deceiver receives a vision of a divine ladder for angel traffic.

There is almost a deja vu to this episode. Jacob is fleeing for his life, but at his mother’s suggestion he heads for her family way to the north in Haran. He encounters the woman of his life, his first cousin Rachel, at a well where sheep are given water. He serves her needs and she runs to tell her father Laban. The story is not exactly the same as the finding of Rebekah, but they are close.

Laban is overwhelmed to find his nephew and with traditional hospitality hosts him for a month before getting down to negotiations. Just because you are related to me, should you serve me for nothing? What do you want for wages?

Indentured servants, even into the modern era, usually would serve seven years of apprenticeship. Seven years for the hand of Rachel. It all sounds eminently fair.

What is most significant about this story are the parts we do not hear. Elizabeth SchŸssler-Fiorenza, a feminist Biblical interpreter, wrote about the “hidden histories” of women in the Bible. Despite the focus of attention upon the men, we know there were women mixed up in all these tales, but they seldom get to tell their part of the story.

What we do not hear in the Biblical passage proper are the reactions and reflections of Rachel and Leah, not to mention the maids Zilpah and Bilhah. Their concerns and interests are not academic because the whole story involves how their lives were bargained with by Laban and Jacob. We don’t hear a peep from either woman, but one knows that silence in this case would have been impossible.

Considering the customs of that society, the sisters Leah and Rachel would have been placed in a position of conflict and rivalry during the first seven years of Jacob’s service for nothing. The danger of “hidden histories” is that we can speculate too much and then believe our speculations regardless of the silence of Scripture. Did Rachel as “the chosen one” lord it over her older sister? Or did they both feel abused by a male world that set themselves against one another as pieces of property? It is presumptuous for us to speculate too much, but it is not beyond our imagination and experience that all of the above is the case.

Jacob, of course, gets a taste of his own medicine. One of the main reasons he is in Haran looking for a wife is because he pulled the wool over his father’s eyes to steal the blessing of the elder son from Esau. Jacob and his mother Rebekah counted on Isaac’s very poor eyesight to pull off the stunt, so now is it surprising that Jacob’s poor eyesight in the darkness of the marriage chamber results in the rights of the elder sibling being reaffirmed?

Why have done this to me and deceived me? Time and the flatness of written prose understates the outrage of Jacob. We’ve never done it this way before is the answer, though one wonders why it took seven years to point out the differences in customs. Seven more years is the standard rate to get what you really want.

The writer of Genesis rushes through the second seven year service. The first seven years seemed to Jacob but a few days because of the love he had for her, yet eight through fourteen simply passed. The second seven years took only as long the first seven years, but the emotions and relationships must have been charged and loaded. The Genesis narrative is notably silent, but I wouldn’t have wanted to be in that family.

The patience of Job is often invoked, yet Job was notably impatient with his counseling friends and with God. The model of patience has to be Jacob. Silence is the kindest observation. His persistence and the consistency of his labour put to shame all our petty gripes and injustices. Having been treated unjustly, humiliated terribly, Jacob became a just man.

Yet, the emotions sneak out of the story into the open. Leah, it was later said, was unloved. Are we surprised? Obligated to her, Jacob was naturally resentful to this woman with the beautiful eyes, the embodiment of his being deceived. Yet the Lord God took notice of this unlovedness and enabled Leah to bear children to Jacob, lots of them.

Jacob is the patriarch who is first named Israel. He has twelve sons who become the Twelve Tribes of Israel, and that’s the reason Jesus had twelve disciples. Six of the twelve sons were born by Leah. Two sons apiece were born by the maids Bilhah and Zilpah, and only two sons, Joseph and Benjamin, were eventually born to Rachel, the favourite wife. The lineage of Israel is largely from unfavourite sons. Now is it hard to understand why Joseph was sold into slavery in Egypt by envious and spiteful brothers? God does work in mysterious ways.

Perhaps close to 2000 years later, one of Jacob’s descendants would teach his twelve disciples a couple of parables about how a person who has found a great treasure hidden in a field or a pearl of great value would give up everything else he had to purchase that land and that pearl. What have you given up for that pearl of great price? It’s just years, they pass anyway. Dignity, none of us really have a lot of it. When the pearl is another person, the Word has become flesh, and when you have found the Good News, no other news matters anymore.

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan