Breaking and Entering
Scripture lesson:
Genesis 28:10-19a
“Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place,
And I did not know it.”
Genesis 28:16 (New Revised Standard Version)
Jacob is one of the great scoundrels of the Bible, a man who cheated his brother and deceived his father to gain his way. And yet God had a peculiar affection for him, as God seems to have a peculiar affection for all those whom the world defines as lost, or beyond help, or not worthy of forgiveness.
The story of Jacob is about the ways that God will find to embrace a person or nation, and Lord knows, Jacob did not leave much of a chink in his emotional armor through which God could enter his heart. In fact, God had to break into and enter Jacob’s life through the back door of his dreams, and speak to him there the good news that the lines of communication between heaven and earth are always open. So not only does God know where we are, but God comes to be with us, a fellow traveler and guide in our journey to be fully human.
Who knows how God will come to us and speak a word of truth and love, until we realize, like Jacob, that God is with us and for us? Surely the Lord is in this place, in a grief we bear, in the meeting of two strangers by a bus, in bread and water, in the new day dawning: beckoning us to rise up and be alive!
We give thanks, O God, for your gracious presence in the common things of life; awaken us to your joy in the ordinary moments, so that we may live with extraordinary vitality, as Jesus did. Amen.
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