“Why have you deceived me?” - When God Lets Us Down - a sermon

“Why have you deceived me?” - When God Lets Us Down

Rev. Alison Longstaff, Aug 10, 2014

Fryeburg Church of the New Jerusalem

Genesis 29:14-30, and Luke 11: 5-13; DP 221

‘So Jacob said to Laban, "What is this you have done to me? I served you for Rachel, didn't I? Why have you deceived me?"’

Who can hear the story of Jacob and Rachel and not feel indignant on Jacob’s behalf?  Jacob worked seven years for Rachel, the beautiful woman whom he loved, and yet the morning after the wedding, he discovers that it is Rachel’s older, less attractive sister Leah in his marriage bed and not Rachel.

(Okay, let’s not get into how Rachel felt about this arrangement, or the little cultural detail of women being property that can be promised, earned, swapped, and/or given away. Or how Jacob didn't even notice the little switcheroo until the next morning—how drunk was he?  Let alone how Leah felt about the whole thing!  Stinks to be Leah!  BUT, setting aside all that, and identifying with Jacob as we are intended to do…)  

Who can hear this and not feel indignant on Jacob’s behalf?

Jacob did everything he was supposed to do, and yet didn't get the reward promised to him. It was a bait and switch.  Yes, he got Rachel in the end, but this whole story just leaves a bad taste in the mouth.  Why is it in the Bible?  What lesson are we supposed to learn from this story?

Are we to learn that we can do everything right and still not have our prayers answered? Are we to believe that God is fickle and arbitrary and we are simply at the Divine whim and mercy?—that God can pull a bait and switch on us, and that is just the way God is? 

No.  That is not what we are to learn.  This story is about persistence in the spiritual journey. This story is teaching us that sometimes we shoot for a goal and fall short, and that we are to keep trying until we hit the mark.  This story is about God’s mercy and loving kindness in not granting us something we desire until we, not God, are absolutely ready for it.

Take a look at this law of Divine Providence:

“The means by which a person is led by the Lord are what are called the laws of the Divine Providence; and among these is this, that a person is admitted interiorly into the truths of wisdom and into the goods of love only so far as he or she can be kept in them right on to the end of life.”  (DP §221)

Note: it says a person is granted these good things “only so far as he or she can be kept in them right on to the end of life.”  That means that God won’t allow us to achieve any spiritual milestone or earn any spiritual truth or goodness until we can hold on to it without backsliding—until we are spiritually mature enough to maintain it from that moment on to eternity.    That is a key thing to remember when studying our text for today.  In the spiritual sense of the Bible, this story is about how God does grant us our dream come true, in its right time, and what that process looks like.

The Bible is always about the spiritual journey—yours, mine, and that of the whole human race.  So though the stories are cloaked in physical/natural images and sometimes include some unpleasant content, the inner story is always about spiritual and eternal values and point to our greatest happiness.

The story of Jacob, Leah, and Rachel, highlights the value of our own persistence, and the necessity of absolute trust in the Lord’s leading.  We don’t know when we are spiritually ready for something, no matter how we may feel personally, and it is a kindness, not an insult that God allows us to achieve new spiritual states only when we are completely ready.

God’s perspective always includes details that we cannot see.  God ALWAYS says yes to every prayer, if it is regarding our own or anyone else’s spiritual well-being.  We often cannot see how God has said yes to our prayer until much later.  And in the mean time, it often looks like God has said “no” and even sometimes puts massive setbacks in our path as well. 

Things can and do go wrong from our perspective, so much so sometimes that we find ourselves looking at God, as Jacob looked at Laban, and saying, ‘“What is this you have done to me?”’

So let’s look at the Jacob story a little more closely.

Swedenborg takes the Jacob and Laban story sentence by sentence, and sometimes word by word explaining the internal meaning in his book Arcana Caelestia (or Secrets of Heaven). Just this one story goes on for pages and PAGES!  Today I will give us all a very condensed summary, in as plain speech as I am able.  Swedenborg’s abstract way of talking can be pretty heady, but I’ll do my best.  So…..

“Laban” is the part of us that parents our various levels of spiritual love.

'And Leah's eyes were weak' means that our first capacity to see and respond to the Lord’s truth is relatively short-sighted.  It is not a very beautiful form of spirituality, but it is a necessary step in our journey and cannot be bypassed. 

'And Rachel was beautiful in form and beautiful in appearance' is saying that the more developed spirituality (in which we have a deep love for the Lord and therefore a much deeper understanding of life and truth) is a much more desirable spirituality. Rachel is where we all want to end up.  She is beautiful for good reason.

However, our first understanding of truth and what living a truly good life means is fairly shallow.  It tends to be simplistic and more about rules.  That’s Leah.  Leah comes first because that is what we do first as spiritual beings—we can’t help it.  Beginner violinists sound like beginner violinists and every one of us starts out spiritual life relatively short-sighted and spiritually dense.  However, every aspect of what we learn in our “Leah” state of spirituality provides an essential foundation upon which God can build in us the more beautiful and mature “Rachel” spirituality.  It is Rachel that we long for, and Rachel that God intends us to have.

There are so many great gems of wisdom in this story. I am skipping over so much so that we can get out of here before 10:00, but I want you to know how much there is I’m not even telling you!  For example, Swedenborg has a whole section on the difference between Leah and Rachel as they manifest in our lives, basically illustrating the difference between a “spiritual life” as guided by poor judgment vs. one guided by a much deeper wisdom and understanding.

Then there is a very beautiful section about the love Jacob has for Rachel.  This is the strong desire God implants in each of us to seek an ever more wise understanding of God because of the tremendous comfort and beauty this wisdom brings to our lives. 

Then we come to the discussion of finding Leah in the marriage bed instead of Rachel.  Here Swedenborg tells us that to the extent that we continue to be attached to and care about materialistic and earth-bound values, to that extent the Lord will not allow us to attach to deeper, spiritual values, even though we want to.  This is not a judgment on us but a protection.  We don’t allow small children to play with the fine art and breakables, nor have access to the sharp knives, etc. because little children are not mature enough to use them properly.  They could do great harm out of ignorance and clumsiness.  It is the same with us and the great spiritual tools and treasures that God so desperately wishes us to have.  God is wise enough to keep us and them safely apart until we are ready.

And so periodically we, too, wake up to ourselves and realize that we are nowhere near where we wish to be spiritually.  This is a deeply disappointing discovery and is represented by Jacob’s indignation.

So we come to the key lines that inspired me to dig into this subject matter: 'And he said to Laban, “What is this you have done to me? And why have you cheated me?”'

This whole story seemed so unfair that I had to know what was going on in the internal sense. It fascinated me to realize that the angels also feel similar feelings when they hear this story, though they understand it on a much deeper level.

We read in Swedenborg:

“There are two parts to the internal sense of the Word—affections and subject-matter. The affections lying within expressions of the Word are not visible to humans but are hidden away deep within. Nor can they be visible since a person during life on the earth is governed by earthly and bodily concerns, which have nothing in common with the affections present in the internal sense of the Word. That sense contains a flow of feelings which belong to spiritual love and to the most heavenly love—feelings which people are scarcely able to imagine because they are so rare on earth. These affections that belong to spiritual love and to the most heavenly love manifest themselves in loving-kindness towards the neighbor and in love to God. These are the tender feelings which, in great variety have been stored away in the internal sense of the Word, residing not only in every sentence but also in every expression, indeed in every detail. And they reveal themselves to angels when the Word is read by humans from a state of simple goodness and innocence.”  Heavenly Secrets 3839

When we read the Word, the angels read it too, but hear it on an entirely different level.  Perhaps that is why we can feel so comforted by it, even when we don’t understand it.  The angels who are with us when we read the Word do understand it and are filled with delight, for the spiritual meaning is always full of hope and promise.  We may not understand it, but simply reading the Word still does a great deal of good. Even reading stories as strange as this one about Jacob and Laban, Leah and Rachel.

So now when we read that Laban said, ‘It is not done that way in our place,’ can you understand the meaning in a whole new way?  This isn’t about an ancient custom of not allowing a younger sister to be married before an older one, nor is it sanctioning polygamy, nor is it sanctioning betrayal and dishonesty.  In the inner meaning it is simply saying, “On the spiritual journey, you must pass through all the preparatory stages of spiritual growth before you achieve the highest and most blessed spiritual states.”

Well that seems fair and sensible.

In the natural story it is neither fair nor sensible, especially to our modern ears.  But the inner meaning is telling an entirely different tale.  It is the tale of God’s very wise and careful preparation of us for heaven.

So Laban commands Jacob, 'Complete this week' which represents God urging us to continue in our diligent pursuit of a truly spiritual and heavenly life.  Yes, we wake up to our failings, and project our failings onto God, while God encourages us to keep trying.

This is where I must mention our quirky New Testament parable.  It is a parable that basically says, “If you are irritating enough, God will answer your prayers.”  A man has come late at night and is bothering his friend for help, knocking and knocking on the door until the homeowner gets up.  Picture the homeowner opening his upstairs window and yelling at the man to go away in not so very gentle language.  But the man just keeps bugging the homeowner until he gets what he needs.  The quote from Luke is this: (11: 8) “yet because of the man's shameless audacity he [the homeowner] will get up and give him as much as he needs.” The word “shameless audacity” in the Greek is “Anaideia” which could also be translated impudence, persistence, or insolence. Essentially the quote says, “Yet because of the man's impudence, persistence, and insolence, the homeowner will get up and give him as much as he needs.”

What a funny parable!  It implies that God is overwhelmingly busy and tired, and if we want to get our needs met, we must make pests of ourselves!  What this text is really about is the necessity of our own persistence in the spiritual quest.  WE are served by our own persistence.  Our diligent labour towards something we desire teaches us on a cellular level how valuable is the goal.  The harder won any prize is, the more cherished it will be, yes?  God knows this and uses this for our benefit.  And so, despite disappointments, we must persist.

'And he gave him Rachel his daughter for his wife' means the joining of the goodness achieved (so far) with the affection for deep, inner truth. We read in Swedenborg:

“The reason these shallow affections (Leah) are the means by which truth is joined to good is that not one single truth of doctrine, nor indeed any item of knowledge, can find a home in anyone except by means of affection or feeling. For affections hold life within themselves, but truths which belong to doctrine and knowledge cannot hold any life within themselves apart from those affections.”  

Haven’t we all experienced this?  We simply cannot learn or retain any knowledge unless there is some motivation or passion driving us to learn.  So God makes sure that these deep inner truths will be joined up with good affections, and that takes time.

Genuine deep affections do arrive in the process of time, but not until a person is ready.

'And he came [in] also to Rachel' means finally we come into a genuine affection for deep inner truth. 'And he loved Rachel also, more than Leah' means we love that deep inner truth much more than the shallow, more external truth. And we are told, this love for genuine, inner truth is “holiness itself.”

What I’d like to leave you with is this: God never lets us down. Life throws a lot of stuff at us that looks pretty rotten, but God has a bigger picture in mind: God makes sure we are fully ready for our own intoxicatingly beautiful “Rachel”-spirituality before “she” is granted. God asks us only to persist, and reminds us that there are no short-cuts, no matter how impatient we may be.

God’s plan is always bigger than we think.  God has plans for a future more beautiful than we dare dream. Our part is to persist in the journey and insist on God’s help.  Life does let us down sometimes.  People and circumstances can seem to be radically unfair sometimes.  So trust in God’s plan, for God will never let you down.  Amen.

Originally preached Aug 1, 2010: Church of the Good Shepherd, Kitchener, Ontario

The Readings

Genesis 29: 14-30 After Jacob had stayed with him for a whole month, ¹⁵ Laban said to him, “Just because you are a relative of mine, should you work for me for nothing? Tell me what your wages should be.”

¹⁶ Now Laban had two daughters; the name of the older was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. ¹⁷ Leah had weak^[a] eyes, but Rachel had a lovely figure and was beautiful. ¹⁸ Jacob was in love with Rachel and said, “I’ll work for you seven years in return for your younger daughter Rachel.”

¹⁹ Laban said, “It’s better that I give her to you than to some other man. Stay here with me.” ²⁰ So Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her.

²¹ Then Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife. My time is completed, and I want to make love to her.”

²² So Laban brought together all the people of the place and gave a feast. ²³ But when evening came, he took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob, and Jacob made love to her. ²⁴ And Laban gave his servant Zilpah to his daughter as her attendant.

²⁵ When morning came, there was Leah! So Jacob said to Laban, “What is this you have done to me? I served you for Rachel, didn’t I? Why have you deceived me?”

²⁶ Laban replied, “It is not our custom here to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older one. ²⁷ Finish this daughter’s bridal week; then we will give you the younger one also, in return for another seven years of work.”

²⁸ And Jacob did so. He finished the week with Leah, and then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel to be his wife. ²⁹ Laban gave his servant Bilhah to his daughter Rachel as her attendant. ³⁰ Jacob made love to Rachel also, and his love for Rachel was greater than his love for Leah. And he worked for Laban another seven years.

Luke 11: 5-13  ⁵ Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; ⁶ a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ ⁷ And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ ⁸ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.

⁹ “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. ¹⁰ For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

¹¹ “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead?¹²  Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? ¹³ If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

Divine Providence 221. The means by which a person is led by the Lord are what are called the laws of the Divine Providence; and among these is this, that a person is admitted interiorly into the truths of wisdom and into the goods of love only so far as he or she can be kept in them right on to the end of life.