Have You Come to A Certain Place?

Text:  Genesis 28:10-19a

Theme:  “Have You Come To A Certain Place?”

6^th Sunday After Pentecost

July 20, 2014

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

+In the Name of Jesus+

10 Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Harran. 11 When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. 12 He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13 There above it stood the Lord, and he said: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. 14 Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. 15 I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

16 When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” 17 He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”

18 Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. 19 He called that place Bethel.

Abraham, Isaac, and?  (Fill-in-the-blank)  Jacob!  That’s right.  It’s always Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  People tend to get lumped together in one way or another.   Recently, a billionaire got lumped together with a Beatle.  Warren Buffett was sitting next to Paul McCartney on a bench in Omaha.  A young boy was there to get a picture of it that has gone viral.   With these guys it’s not wealth or fame that connects them, it’s a generational lumping.  Jacob’s dad is Isaac; Isaac’s dad is Abraham.  That makes Jacob Abraham’s grandson.  Three generations. 

The Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob collection of stories comes from the first book of the Bible:  Genesis.  It goes way back.  And immediately, we moderns might legitimately wonder what we can get, what benefit can be derived, from dwelling on these ancient tales. My goodness!  They didn’t have Pinterest and Instagram back then.  There were no cell phones.  One notes the complete absence, in these accounts, of high-definition televisions in the family rooms.   Obviously, it was a different time and a different culture, so it’s easy to dismiss the stories as being woefully out-of-date and just plain irrelevant. 

This past week, I came across this lovely little exchange.  There’s someone out there in the world by the name of Reddit.  Reddit answers questions.  One question went like this:  “If someone from the 1950s suddenly appeared today, what would be the most difficult thing to explain to them about life today?

Here’s how Reddit answered:  “I possess a device, in my pocket, that is capable of accessing the entirety of information known to man.  I use it to look at pictures of cats and get in arguments with strangers.”  We’ve come a long way, haven’t we?

Back to Isaac’s son and Abraham’s grandson, Jacob.  Jacob wasn’t out to take pictures of cats.  Neither did he wish to get into any arguments – although he was having a bit of a problem, some dysfunctional family drama, with his brother, Esau  (That’s another story.)  Actually, he was away from home and out on a journey in order to get a wife.  Having a wife sets it up for the possibility of a newborn child, a fourth generation.  By the way, it was Joseph – who ended up in Egypt – that turned out to be Jacob’s son, Isaac’s grandson, and Abraham’s great-grandson. 

One of the great takeaways from the Old Testament is that the Lord is into having a family.  Yes, it’s a blood family.  But it’s also a blended family and an adopted family.  God’s family is all kinds of family, but they are all God’s family. 

Jacob comes to the end of the day; the sun is beginning to set.  It’s time to rest.  It says he “reached a certain place.”  The name isn’t mentioned, so we can assume he’s out there in the middle of nowhere.  There’s nothing about a tent, or a Coleman grill, or continental breakfast in the lobby. 

He lies down, and employs a rock for his pillow.  He has a dream while asleep.  It features a stairway.  Angels, those messengers of God, are going up the stairs and coming down the stairs.  Earth is connected to heaven.  

The Lord stood at the stop of the staircase, we are told.  From that point, he made promises to Jacob.  One of them was this:  “Through you and your offspring, all peoples on earth will be blessed.” 

When Jacob got up the next morning, he thought:  “Surely, the Lord was in this place and I did not know it.”  We are told that the dream scared him.  But it wasn’t a self-centered fear.  It was a godly one.  He exclaimed:  “How awesome is this place!  This is none other than the house of God and the gate of heaven.” 

Again, it was right out there in the middle of nowhere. 

He took the pillow/rock and set it up as a monument – out there in the middle of nowhere.  He poured oil on it in an act of consecration and worship.  He called that place “Bethel” (meaning:  “house of God”).  That’s where the Lord caught up with him – out there in the middle of nowhere.  That certain place became, for him, the house of God.  He would never forget it.

Where has the Lord caught up with you?  Like Jacob, have you ever come to a “certain place” where you’d least expect the Lord to show up?  Can you look back upon your life and think:  “The Lord was with me in that place, and I didn’t even know it.”  Have you arrived at a certain place that has become your Bethel?

You may have been lost and all alone.  But something dawned upon you; something happened to you that reassured you that you were found and you were not alone.  You weren’t disconnected.  With the image from Jacob’s dream in mind, God was only a staircase away.  Angels came down with God’s messages for you, and angels went back up the stairs with your prayers.

Without a certain place like that, without a Bethel, we may be resigned to looking at pictures of cats and getting into arguments with strangers.  In other words, without connection to God there is the prospect of endless existential despair.  There is no Bethel; there is no staircase; there is no connection.  We’re out there alone and dangling and disconnected – from God, from others, from family.  Life is about looking out for number one – no one else will.  You’d better make the most of it now because you might be fertilizing daffodils tomorrow.  “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.”  If there is a god, god is good only insofar as he dulls our pain receptors.  At least give us a comfortable pillow and not rocks to lay our heads on at night. 

Years after Jacob came to his Bethel, a promised offspring of Jacob’s family – generations removed – said:  “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man has no place to lay his head.”  His Name was Jesus.  To one of his followers named Nathanael, he said:  “You shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”  Said differently, you aren’t disconnected now and you won’t be disconnected in the future.  You are family.

That descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that Son of Man and Son of God named Jesus, went to great lengths – all the way through cross and grave – to assure and reassure us that we are God’s family. 

Join me this summer Sunday in remembering, in treasuring, in cherishing those moments in life where we have come to a certain place.  And there in that place, sometimes out in the middle of nowhere, we are reminded that we are not alone.  We are God’s family and we are blessed.  Oh, what a beautiful morning!  Welcome to Bethel.

Amen.