Sunday, February 16, 2014

Sunday, February 16, 2014

Genesis 29:20-35

Before Jacob wrestles God for one night at Peniel, he wrestles God for fourteen years in the lands of Laban. Laban screws Jacob for fourteen years, but Jacob doesn’t mind so much because he gets Rachel after seven. He gets Rachel who is young and smokin’ hot (as one might say), but he also ends up with Leah who is plain and kind of old. Leah is unremarkable; yet she is quite remarkable.

Jacob wrestles; but Leah withers. This is not a story about gender equality. Jacob is a strong and clever man. Laban changes his wages ten times (Gen. 31: 41), but Jacob has power and uses it for revenge. He takes Laban’s flocks for himself (Gen. 30:31-43). Leah is a powerless and unremarkable woman. She receives no wage and has no power to take anything. Leah is rather herself taken and given as chattel. We should find that offensive. But we should give up our eyes to righteous indignation. We should open our eyes and remark Leah. And God.

Leah is eclipsed by her sister. This story does not tell us that true beauty is on the inside. Jacob loves Rachel and suffers Leah. That Jacob suffers Leah means that Leah suffers. Leah wants Jacob’s love. There is no pain quite like unrequited love, or love requited with contempt, especially in a marriage, especially in a marriage where your husband is also married to your sister, your flashy better-looking, better-loved sister. Leah probably cries a lot. Maybe she wears herself out each day trying to forget. Maybe she eats ice cream. Maybe she has cats. Leah is very human. In a Hollywood movie, Rachel would be mean, Leah would get a makeover, and Leah would get Jacob. Or, in a modern twist, Leah would get a makeover then decide that she was too good for Jacob at which point she would leave him and go off to make it on her own. Hollywood likes makeovers. But Leah doesn’t get one. She remains unremarkable. And yet Leah is remarked. The world’s eyes pass Leah over; God’s eyes take her in.

Our God has a special love for those whom the world rejects. Our God is Hope of the hopeless. This is the point of the story. God has pity on Leah and opens her womb. God gives Leah power—the power to conceive. Yet by her third child it seems that Jacob doesn’t love Leah any more than he did before. She is still asking God to “join” him to her. By the fourth child, Leah no longer asks God for Jacob; her only prayer is thanksgiving. Leah now has four babies and less reason—and little time—for a broken heart. She may or may not get Jacob’s affection, but she certainly gets children and a family. For her this is joy. We get a sort of Hollywood ending after all—motherhood rather than makeover. God lifts Leah up and gives her honour and joy in the world. What God does for Leah is remarkable, likewise what He does for us.

Sometimes God gives us a Hollywood ending. Often He does not. Women and men remain homely, lonely, and barren. Our faith is not that God gives us all the children and the life that we desire. Our faith is that God nevertheless gives us Life—that God gives us a Child: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder…” (Isaiah 9:6) We are created beautiful—whether we are old or young, smokin’ hot or rather unattractive—but our sin makes us Ugly. We women and men are barren and yearning like Leah whether we know it or not. As God gives sons to the humble Leah, so God gives a Son to the humble Mary—and God gives Mary’s humble Son to us. This is true gender equality. This is true inner beauty. Like Leah, we are all saved in childbearing—the bringing to birth of Christ in us. May our lives be humble. May our lives be glory. May we too remark and restore the homely, the lonely, and the barren—those the world finds unremarkable.  Amen.

-David Boehmer