Baggage Claim (2): Jacob Meets His Match(es), or You Can't Buy Love

2014/10/05
Christ Church, Mountain Top

Prayer,
Psalm 46

Children,
Genesis 28.10-22

Message,
Genesis 29.1-35

As
we ended the message last week, we pointed out that Jacob had been chosen by
God, Jacob had been loved, before he was born, before he had done anything good
or bad. And, once we got to know him, it was easy to see that he was no Eagle
Scout. The fact that God would choose a rascal like Jacob is an act of grace, a
reminder that we are God’s simply because God is gracious – not because of
anything we have done to earn it or anything we are that deserves it. We are
simply loved because God is love.

Today,
we continue the story with this …

Momma’s boy, away from home for the first time

Fleeing his brother

Looking for a wife, to “meet his match”

      Stubborn man, uses a stone for a pillow
“as hard as his head”

            (Michael Card, Genesis 28.11)

            He’s always gotten his way

                  What happens when he doesn’t?

                  When he “meets his match”

Culture:

      Marriage as a match for families – finding
a girl from the “right family”

      Marriage as a financial transaction (bride
price) – not about romance

Deconstructed
centuries later in Song of Solomon 8.7b:

      If one offered for love

      All the wealth of one’s house,

      It would be utterly scorned

You
can’t buy love.

RENT: “I’ll Cover You” (Angel and
Collins, lyrics Jonathan Larson)

I
think they meant it

When
they said you can’t buy love

Now
I know you can rent it

A
new lease you are my love

On
life, be my life

Connections
as commodity, as transaction – TODAY

If
I am totally fulfilled in our sexual relationship, I will be faithful

If
I am totally fulfilled emotionally,

If
you live up to my expectations,

Why
porn, prostitution … not just poverty but also because connection is a
commodity.

Not
just in terms of personal fulfillment and expectation, but even in dealing with
conflict and pain. We practice appeasement – which is a transaction designed to
make someone else feel better without actually dealing with the problem.

      Flowers: what did you do this time?

Jacob:
Turning connection into commodity, transaction

      Jacob to God: If you will bring me back,
then you will be my God

If
God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me
bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my father’s house in
peace, then the LORD shall be my God, and this stone, which I have set up for a
pillar, shall be God’s house; and of all that you give me I will surely give
you a tenth (Genesis 28.20-22).

            This was a 20 year lapse!

      Jacob for his wives (Genesis 29)

      Leah and Rachel over the mandrakes
(Genesis 30.14-18)

            Leah: “I have hired you with my
son’s mandrakes” (30.16)

Jacob
to Esau – “I may appease him with the present that goes ahead of me, and
afterwards I shall see his face; perhaps he will accept me” (Genesis 32.20).

Three
occasions in the Jacob story that God shows up

      Prior to birth, choosing Jacob by pure
grace

      When fleeing his brother and seeking a
wife, the ladder vision, choosing Jacob

      One more encounter to come …