If you thought that the Bible was full of people for us to model ourselves after, then think again. Jacob is not one of the Bible's nicer people and yet is key to our faith history. In the scripture passage we heard, we might be inclined to feel sorry for him. All alone, he treks - like a fleeing refugee - to his mother's ancestral homeland. Even if we empathize with him, we certainly wouldn't regard him as a saint.

We know from the Biblical story that Jacob has been shrewd and cunning in looking after his self-interest. For a mess of pottage - a bowl of chunky soup, he "bought" or stole from his famished elder twin brother Esau his birthright.
And then, as the piece de resistance with his mother Rebekah's active support, he tricks his aged and infirm father Isaac into giving him the blessing reserved for the first born. He steals Esau's blessing.

The tragedy is that the parents contributed to this fraternal warfare. Each parent lined up with one of the sons. They've done a good job of turning brother against brother.

The elder twin brother, Esau, is the hunter and outdoorsman. The Bible says: Esau was a hairy man. He was his father's favourite.
Hearing that his blessing had been stolen, he was, needless to say, fit to be tied. The Bible tells us that he harbored and expressed murderous thoughts against his usurping brother. "When father dies, I'll kill you for this."

Jacob (the name can mean "heel grabber" - describing how Jacob was born clutching the elder twin's foot as he was being born) Jacob is, the Bible says, "the mild man who stays in the camp." He's mother Rebekah's favourite.

Here we have in the Biblical story a well-developed case of sibling rivalry and the devastating effects it can have on life in the family.

Jacob is running. Haran his destination is many days away by foot. But he must put distance between his infuriated brother and him.

He takes flight with the blessing that he so deviously sought.
But ill-gotten gains don't give the satisfaction that gifts do. If his father's blessing had simply come to him, he could have traveled with a joyful heart. He didn't earn the blessing, he didn't get it because of his Isaac's true love - and so the blessing weighs heavily and can only be kept with shame and fear. We know about that - when we gains advantage or joy or reward at others' expense, we feel hollow and anxious.

On the road, Jacob camps - doubtless looking over his shoulder to see whether his nemesis is coming after him. But no, he is alone. And he lies down to a fitful rest.

But he isn't fully alone, of course. We are never fully alone - we live in God's world. Where can we go from God's Spirit? Or where can we flee from God's presence? Even if we make our bed in hell or aside a wilderness rock or in the darkest night - even there God is present.

No Jacob you can run away from your brother but you can't escape from God.
We all flee at times - men might be more inclined to run away into distance and solitude; women perhaps more fated to carving out space above the din and clamour of children and household - but no matter how we flee, God is with us.

In this stony place, Jacob encounters God in a dream. It's the Jacob's ladder dream - the primal human dream in which earth is connected to heaven, humanity to the divine.
Who hasn't longed for that immediate sense of God's presence as represented by the Jacob's dream.
Whether you are a Hindu bathing in the holy water of the Ganges; or you are an orthodox Christian who understands incense as the ladder between earth and heaven - the Bible understands this human longing, this desire for the divine in the midst of life.

Let's identify with Jacob's dream by singing the familiar spiritual:

We are climbing Jacob's ladder, sisters brothers all.
Every rung goes higher higher, sisters brothers all.

I don't have to tell you much about the significance and power of dreams. Perhaps Jung is THE dream psychologist, who recognized that in dreams we are in touch with fundamental stuff in our lives and far beyond.
I have found that when I'm vacationing at the cottage that there is a richness and depth to my dreams, unlike when I'm running and hurried during the work year.
We so urgently need to create time and space in our lives for God to break into our living.

The Bible is clear that through this dream, God is speaking to the exhausted and fearful Jacob.
Alcoholics Anonymous has taught us that you really do have
to be totally vulnerable,
to really surrender before you can receive God's grace. Is this the moment of Jacob's surrender? We'll see!

Now the irony in the story is that God's message is pure grace. "Jacob I know you. But I will be faithful to you and bless you, because through you the families of the earth will be blessed."
Sometimes the worst God can do to people is to show up and do something that is totally merciful and gracious.

But what kind of a God is this. Can't God see Jacob's shadows, Jacob's immature self-centredness, Jacob's duplicity and deception. This guy is a cheat, God, and you're giving him a carte blanche - you are totally for him!

Our way would be to distance and to punish, to teach a lesson, to get even. But here is just unexpected and unearned grace, and more than that: God continues to see Jacob as part of a much larger plan for the well-being of the nations.
If you can believe it: through this cad God will bring healing and blessing!

I find that reassuring! In fact, I experience all that as amazing grace - that God can see past my obvious failings and even more subtle shortcomings and still affirm and bless - even me. This God we keep wanting to turn into a stern judge, keep being the gentle and compassionate parent!

Is Jacob changed by this encounter?
Well scripture scholars tell us that what we translate as "Jacob went on his journey", has a much more lively image in Hebrew - the encounter lifted up his legs - or we might say, he traveled light-footed with energy from this place of encounter.

The spirit may be lighter, but unhappily the genes did not change.
Before he sets out, the old Jacob engages in a little horse trading with God:
"well God, I heard what you said in your dream, so if you do all those things:
If you will be with me, if you will keep me on the road of life, if you give me enough bread, and provide clothing - if you keep me fixed up nicely so that one day I can go back home,
then you will be my God and this rock which served as my pillow will be sacred - Beth-El - house of God; and of whatever you give me, I will give you ten percent."

O Jacob, God accepts you as you are, and you're always trying to get advantage. God has blessed you so richly, and you are so miserly; God has given so freely, and you give so conditionally; God has loved you faithfully, and you love so sporadically.

Sound familiar? Can we put our names where Jacob's was?
God's grace doesn't depend on our merit - but on God's freely given generosity.
Living by faith means that in our hearts we know that God will love us even when we can't love like God.
Someone said: faith is what you do between the last time you experienced God and the next time you experience God! The in-between times tend to be the times when we continue doing what comes naturally - what seems to be in our genes. But those moments when God addresses us - they have the potential for transformation and changed ways.

Alas, it took more than a dream to shake Jacob out of his familiar, horse-trading, self-centred ways. So as a model for us, Jacob is a bit of a bust.

The bottom-line message from Jacob's ladder is not about Jacob's virtue. It is instead about God:

God stays with us even when we are not with God.
God blesses even when we don't deserve a blessing.
And God can work through us even when our ways are less than Christ-like.

Let's sing the ladder song one more time.

We are climbing Jacob's ladder….

As a response to the Word, I invite you to rise and join in expressing our share faith:

We are not alone, we live in God's world. We believe in God: who has created and is creating, who has come in Jesus, the Word made flesh, to reconcile and make new; who works in us and others by the Spirit. We trust in God. We are called to be the Church: to celebrate God's presence, to live with respect in creation, to love and serve others, to seek justice and resist evil, to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen, our judge and our hope. In life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us. We are not alone. Thanks be to God.