Parked in the Story of the Patriarchs

“Jacob woke up from his sleep. He said, "God is in this place—truly. And I didn't even know it!" He was terrified. He whispered in awe, 'Incredible. Wonderful. Holy. This is God's House. This is the Gate of Heaven.'” Genesis 28:16-17, Msg

Ever since I was a young disciple, I have sought to read through the Bible once a year and for perhaps 25 years I did just this. But in that last year or so of that quarter century, I found myself skimming more often than not than actually paying attention to the content itself. So, in 2010 I resolved to break with tradition and begin a new one. Instead of reading all 66 books of the Bible I would park myself in just one and meander through it at a leisurely pace. With my Bible open and my Zondervan's NIV Complete Study Bible file on my office computer open as well, I would tap out my thoughts and reflections out into a...yes...a Word file. That year I compiled 165 pages of thoughts, reflections, and quotes from various commentators all from my perusal in the Gospel of Matthew. It wasn't preaching fodder – although I got a message or two out of it I'm sure and a few blog postings as well – it was just for personal devotional purposes.

This year, my intent had been to spend the beginning of the year in the Abraham story (Genesis 11:10-25:11) and then return to the Gospels, say Mark. But the more I read of Abraham and his journey physically and spiritually from Ur the more I found myself wrapped up in the Story of the Patriarchs and just kept reading. As of today, I'm nearly through Chapter 42 which contains the dramatic moment in the Joseph story when suddenly he finds his brothers bowing before him now regent of Egypt in hopes of his good will so desperate they are for food. Joseph had named his oldest son Manasseh as a tribute to how he had forgotten all the trouble he had experienced back in Canaan. But now with his brothers prostrate before him (not knowing to whom they bow) suddenly it all comes back to him - the dream that had incited his brothers to even greater hatred of him when he had been a boy parading about in that ornamental robe of his (Gen 37:5-7). At the present time, I have collected 316 pages of thoughts, reflections, and commentary collected from three major sources. While I wasn't planning on going there, I have spent the better part of the summer and fall preaching the Abraham Story (After 14 installments, I'm not sure I'm going to finish it by Christmas!) and 5 posts to my blog to date have arisen from my stay in Genesis (Before the Wastes of Sodom, The Sins of Sodom, Lot Looked, Leaving Ur and The Company We Keep). In 2012 my plan is to return to the Gospels – Luke, as a matter of fact – and personally, I'm looking forward to returning to a regular focus on Jesus. In saying that, however, that is not implying that I have not benefited from my stay in the unfolding story of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

I'm sure this is how it happened

In the Story of the Patriarchs, I walk away marveling at God – his choosing, his calling, his mysterious working out of his purposes in and through sinful individuals, his providence, his, if you will, big-ness. And while every one of the major players has his day in the sun, the narrator – or narrators as some commentators theorize – won't allow us for a moment to exalt these men or their wives. Frankly, we're given too much dirt to lionize them. Abraham has a penchant for lying and unbelief, Isaac likes venison way too much causing him to prefer Esau over his twin brother, Jacob is a cheat and a schemer of incredible talent and Joseph is the favorite son who is dumb enough to think that his family will applaud the strange dreams that he shares with them in which he is preeminent. These are not one dimensional flannelboard characters that fit neatly onto a felt board. Whatever else may be said of them these are real, flawed people but called of God nonetheless to be conduits of blessing not only for their own household but ultimately for humankind everywhere. At times in the Isaac story, I found that I liked none of them – not Isaac drooling in anticipation of his venison stew, not Esau who demonstrates no sense of responsibility, not Rebekah setting up her son to pull the literal wool over her husband's eyes and not Jacob who is the sharpest knife in the drawer in this bunch but is so self-absorbed that he has no concern of cheating both his brother and his father to get not what's coming to him but simply what he wants. The First Family of Genesis seems to have more in common with reality TV than a lot of the families that attend our fellowship or I would guess, most fellowships. 

 

Still, they are remarkable people: Abraham turns his back on the only life he's ever known for the “frontier” because the Voice calls him to and many years later he surrenders his only son in love for the same Voice. Isaac persists in his father's calling. Jacob wrestles with God and begins his transformation into Israel. And Joseph sees through the trouble he's been put through as the strange workings of God all along (okay, I peeked ahead to chapter 50). But for all this it's their God who appears eminently remarkable. As I near the end of the Patriarch Story my reaction is awe and gratitude and hope and comfort that though I am at times sinful and faithless, God is greater than my sins and the consequences they may produce. As I think on it, my reading of this section of Genesis awakens in me hunger to read in Luke how this descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob fulfills the great promise made to them that through them (and him) one day all the peoples of the earth will be blessed.