Bless, O God, the words of my lips and the meditations of our hearts, that they be of profit to us and acceptable to thee, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said "Surely the Lord is in this place - and I did not know it!"
Over the years I have met and become friends with people whom others would consider but little better than the devil himself.
I have known murderers, cheats, thieves, and adulterers, and I have come to one conclusion about all these people who have crossed my path, and that conclusion is that you cannot know what is going to come next, nor can you pin down just where God is and what he is about.
I want you to hold onto that thought today - I want you to hold onto it when you meet people that strike you as evil, and I want you to hold onto it when you feel that you yourselves are out of reach of God. I want you to hold onto it when you watch the television news and when you walk into in a court room to face a judge. I want you to hold onto it when you see the neighbourhood gossip doing her rounds, and I want to hold onto when you encounter an unscrupulous salesman doing his pitch.
We do not know what is going to come next, nor can we pin down just where God is and what he is about.
This is the message of Jacob's story - the Jacob who cheated his brother and stole his birthright - the Jacob who fled to do his father's bidding fled not because he was particularly obedient - but because he feared that he would be killed if he stayed at home.
And as he fled he came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, he took a stone of the place and put it under his head and lay down, and he slept - and he dreamed - and in that dream God came to him - God came to him who was tired and fearful, to him who was alone and thought that he was loved by none except his mother - God came to him who was a cheat and a rascal and goodness knows what else, and God gave to him a vision of a staircase reaching into heaven, of a ladder upon which the angels ascended and descended to do God's bidding and as Jacob looked upon this scene God gave him a promise, the promise made to his grandfather Abraham and to his father Isaac, saying "know that I am with you - and will keep you wherever you go, that I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you."
And Jacob awoke - and he said - and catch this line - he said "Surely the Lord is in this place - and I did not know it!"
Does that fit your experience?
Have you ever been in God's presence and hardly noticed it? Have you ever suddenly realized that God had been with you long before you knew he was there? Have you ever been in exile or in fear only to discover God coming to your aid? Have you ever had your picture of someone completely painted only to discover that the light has shifted - that the person you thought you saw - has completely changed? Changed for the better? Have you ever painted a picture of yourself - a picture in which the colours are all blue - all depressed - all unloveable - only to discover that someone loves you? That someone believes in you? That you are more than welcome in God's presence?
The good news of Jacob's story is not simply that there are links to heaven. The good news is not that God sometimes comes to us. The good news is not that heaven and earth are somehow connected. The good news is not that Jacob was a special kind of guy despite his tricky ways. Nor is the good news simply that we see God keeping - and renewing - his promise to Abraham and to Isaac to raise up a people and to bless them to be blessing.
No - the good news is all but hidden in that single sentence: "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.!"
Do you understand? Do you get it? Do you have ears to hear?
The gospel reading today - the reading about the parable of the wheat and the tares is instructive for us.
It is instructive - not because it prophecies the ultimate destruction of evil doers, - nor because it teaches us that the blights on our lives and the weeds that suck up the nutrition of better plants are afflictions that come from Satan - No, it is instructive for us because it counsels patience -
- patience in the face of situations that seem bad to us,
- patience in the face of attacks by Satan,
- patience in the midst of our urge to go out and fix things and make them right.
- patience in the face of our desire to make judgements about others and to act on those judgements.
We do not know what is going to come next, nor can we pin down just where God is and what he is about. In fact we can't even be sure that the weeds about us will remain weeds and that the wheat will remain wheat.
Consider Moses - a murderer,
Consider David - an adulterer,
Consider the Apostle Paul - a religious vigilante,
Consider the disciple Peter - a hypocrite and a coward.
Who would think that God would work with them?
that God would be present with them?
that God would love them?
that God would make them great?
that God would grant unto them the blessings of his kingdom?.
Consider yourselves....What judgement do you make upon yourself?
Master - say the servants in the parable of the wheat and the weeds - Master, do you want us to go out and gather the weeds for burning - do you want us to pluck out the evil sown by your enemy to try to separate out the roots - to destroy that which is doing harm?
No - says the master - for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Wait till harvest time - wait till the reapers go forth. Wait.
Let anyone with ears hear...
Where is God? What is he doing?
We do not know what is going to come next, nor can we pin down just where God is and what he is about.
But we can be sure of one thing - we can know one truth we can rely on one verity - and that is - God will surprise us.
God will surprise us by embracing us when we feel dirty and unclean, - God will surprise us by turning our greatest afflictions into sources of strength and healing - God will surprise us by taking the lost and lone and making them great lights - God will surprise us by changing the wicked into saints and by casting down those whose righteousness turned out to be only something they wore on their sleeves. - God will surprise us by making sour lemons into thirst quenching drinks - God will surprise us by converting moments of pain into stripes that heal. He will surprise us by changing a time of death into an eternity of glorious life.
Surely the Lord is in this place - and I did not know it.
This could be a cry of despair -coming as it does from Jacob's most unworthy lips, it could be the kind of cry we have all uttered when we have done one thing when we ought to have done another, it could be a cry of despair and a moment of longing for that which is past. But it is not!
For Jacob that cry signals a moment of awakening, a time of opening his eyes and truly seeing, a time of opening his ears and truly listening. A time of coming from the night of uncertainty into the daylight of a holy hope.
For Jacob that cry signals a moment of discovering that, yes, God is here:here even when we do not know it, here even when we think that God can not, should not, will not be here, here even when we are not looking for God to be here.
And in discovering that God is here, it is for Jacob a moment in which he understands that God is here to bless and to heal; that God is here to comfort and to guide; that God is here to change to transform; that God is here to help and to reassure.
And Jacob woke from his sleep, and he said "surely the Lord is in this place - and I did not know it" and yes - Jacob was afraid - afraid not because he had made some mistake, but afraid because he realized just how holy was the place he was in - and as he looked in that fear upon the sand and rock and the dry plants and soil of that place, he said "How awesome is this place - this is none other than the house of God and this is the gate of heaven"
And Jacob took the stone upon which he had laid his head while he slept and he made of it a kind of memorial - a kind of altar, and he poured oil upon that stone upon which he had his vision and he named the place in which he had slept - Bethel - The House of God"
How awesome indeed is the place of God
- the place in which the weeds are allowed to grow up with the wheat
- the place in which all we have for pillows are stones
- the place in which we fear and long for comfort and think we have none
- the place in which the lost are found and the blind given sight.
We do not know what is going to come next, nor can we pin down just where God is and what he is about.
But if we wait - if we let God do whatever it is God does - if we let God move in his mysterious ways - his wonders to perform, we will find ourselves surprised in the most wonderful of ways - we will discover that where we are - wherever we are - is the House of God and that next to us is the gate of heaven.
Lift up your heads, O Gates! And be lifted up, O ancient doors that the King of Glory may come in.
Who is this King of Glory? The Lord of Hosts - he is the King of Glory - Hallowed be his name, now and ever. Amen and Amen.
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