Genesis 28:10-22

Am I going to make it?

Am I going to get through this difficult time?

Will my life ever be good again?

Sooner or later everyone asks questions like these.

Maybe you are asking them today.

These questions tempt us to cave into despair.

These questions give voice to the unsettling fear that God just doesn't care.

Certainly we are not—you are not—the first to ask such questions. These are ancient questions. Women and men of faith have asked them for thousands of years.

We turn to the scriptures and discover others who have been in extreme situations. We discover others who, facing fear and isolation, have had to decide between hope and despair.

We discover people like Jacob.

Jacob is on the run. And we might say rightfully so.

Recall the story of Jacob, the son of Isaac and Rebekah, the grandson of Abraham and Sarah.

He was born struggling with his twin brother, Esau, his hand gripping Esau’s heel. So he was named, “Jacob,” which means, “He takes by the heel,” or “He supplants.

Quickly a strained family dynamic developed. Genesis says Isaac loved Esau…but Rebekah love Jacob. You know there are going to be problems.

Jacob got to work at “supplanting” his brother. He managed to get Esau, in a moment of weakness, to give over his birthright. In exchange for some pottage Esau gave up his right as the eldest to lead the family and to receive a double share of the inheritance.In case that wasn't enough, when Isaac was near death, Jacob tricked his blind father into blessing him and not Esau. Remember, like an arrow shot toward its goal, a spoken blessing released a power that could not be retracted.

Last week the new White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci spoke about his relationship with chief of staff Reince Priebus: “If you want to talk about the chief of staff, we have had odds,” he said. “We have had differences. When I said we were brothers from the podium, that's because we're rough on each other. Some brothers are like Cain and Abel. Other brothers can fight with each other and get along.”

In case people didn’t get the reference, one report elaborated, saying: “In the Book of Genesis, Cain killed Abel.”

Cain and Abel. Scaramucci and Priebus. Jacob and Esau.

You get the picture.

We turn to scripture and find Jacob, part liar, part cheat, part trickster—someone whose story might shine new light on our own.

Jacob has left home now, in part to find a wife, in part because Esau is after him: Esau hated Jacob for what he had done. And we can’t really blame him.

Jacob’s mother Rebekah comes to him. “Your brother Esau is consoling himself,” she says. “Your brother Esau is consoling himself by planning to kill you.” That’s a special kind of consolation, isn’t it?

Jacob has left home and ends up—well, nowhere. He comes to “a certain place,” the Bible says—a place with no particular name. It could be anywhere. A hunted man decides to stay there for the night because the sun has set.

Call the place forsaken. Call the place abandoned.

We all come to such a place at some point. The death of someone we love, the breakdown of a relationship, illness—all can bring us to that “certain place,” actually a place of doubt, of despair. At such a place we discover the stuff that our faith is made of. When life is good, faith is easy. When things go our way, it must be that God smiles upon us.

Can we still have faith in a place where God seems nowhere to be found? Can we still trust in God’s goodness when we feel hounded or deserted—when our dreams have been shattered?

Will Jacob be able to sleep?

Or will fear of his brother, Esau, lead Jacob to keep one eye open through the night?

Will guilt over his lies and deceit lead Jacob to keep both eyes open through the hours of darkness?

No. Jacob takes a stone from that nameless place for a pillow, closes both eyes, and falls asleep.

Jacob not only sleeps, he dreams. He dreams of a ladder reaching from the earth to the heavens. The angels of God—not winged creatures but the royal messengers of the Sovereign God—the angels of God ascend and descend on this ladder.

The wakeful world of Jacob was a world of fear, terror, loneliness, and, no doubt, unresolved guilt. In his dream he enters another world. This dream is not a morbid review of his shameful past. This dream is, instead, the presentation of an alternative future with God.

Things are not as they first looked. This nameless place is not abandoned after all. In spite of all appearances to the contrary, there is traffic here between heaven and earth, between the divine and the human. And if that is the case here, then it might be so everywhere.

Earth is not left to its own resources. Heaven is not the remote self-contained realm for impassive gods. The God of heaven is with us. This world, our world, is a place of possibility because it is not cut off from the sustaining power of God. Our individual lives, too, are places of possibility because we are connected to the sustaining power of God.

Will God come in a way that transforms our often bleak and hopeless reality? The dream, the ladder, the angels all answer “Yes.”

Jacob came to a deserted place, fleeing for his life, without promise or little hope for the future. He departs from this encounter with the divine changed by the word of God that makes a new future possible.

All sorts of gods might appear. But this one speaks:

I will give you this land.

Your descendants shall be like the dust of the earth.

By you and your descendants all the families of the earth will bless themselves.

Jacob hears ancient words, familiar words. The promises of God to Jacob are the same ones spoken to Abraham and Sarah, the same ones spoken to Isaac and Rebekah.

But Jacob also hears something new. In earlier translations, it is announced with that great word of the Bible, “Behold.” Pay attention! “Behold,” says the living God, “I am with you and will keep you wherever you go.”

That is, of course, the point of the ladder between heaven and earth. This is a promise not only for Jacob but for all of us—and it is a central part of biblical faith.

“I am with you . . .” It refutes all the despairing judgements about human existence. We are given a fresh understanding of God that delivers us from the hopeless analyses of human existence made by pessimists or those who call themselves “realistic.” God is committed to us in our emptiness. You have not been abandoned by God.

Let me repeat that. You have not been—and never will be—abandoned by God. No matter how dark your situation may seem.

This is the promise of God to the fugitive Jacob. It is also the promise of the risen Christ to those early followers at the end of the gospel of Matthew: “Behold, I am with you always.” Behold—pay attention. Remember this.

Dream, ladder, and angels all set the stage. But finally, Jacob—and all of us who come after him—Jacob is left with a word: the promise of God’s presence and protection.

The promise comes in a dream. But the response of Jacob is made in wakefulness. The promise of the dream is more convincing, more real than the old world of fear and guilt.

Awakening Jacob comes to the awareness: “God is in this place and I did not know it.” Which is generally the case. We don’t recognize the presence of God. How often are we are aware of the holy One in our midst?

“How awesome is this place,” Jacob continues. “This is none other than the house of God and this is the gate of heaven.”

This abandoned, unknown “certain place” does have a name after all: it is Beth-el, the house of God—and with Jacob we are always standing at the gates of heaven which wait to swing open when we least expect them.

Jacob worships the God whom he encountered in a dream. The stone that was his pillow becomes the marker for a sacred space. Certain of God's providential care, he commits himself to giving a tithe—one tenth of all he receives—back to God.

Of course, like us in a way, Jacob puts conditions on his response to God's promises: “If God will be with me, 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. . .” In contrast to God's unconditional binding covenant promise, Jacob—and we—say “If.” Yes, it’s a genuine act of faith. But Jacob will be Jacob. And we will be the people we are. Even in this solemn moment Jacob sounds like a bargain hunter.

Still, God is faithful.

Still, when we are stretched to the breaking point,

when we ask “Will I make it through this?”

God responds. God is present.

Ladders are constantly being lowered into our lives when we have almost despaired of finding an exit—we might not see winged angels on them. But look—behold!—the form of teachers, friends, family, opportunities.

And when a ladder appears, we have to do the climbing, one rung at a time from where we are. Being created in the image of God means that we have the intelligence and imagination—indeed the obligation—to transcend our doubts and emerge from whatever pit of despair we have dug for ourselves.

In your despair, when you question the present and the future, listen. Listen for the word of God, speaking to you. Offering promise, offering hope.

And look. We find ourselves, in the words of the old spiritual, climbing Jacob's ladder. Every round goes higher, higher—children of our God.