A homily I gave at the Episcopal Church at Cornell, online service, on July 26, 2020.

The late Christian folk singer Rich Mullins wrote a song that touched on the romantic drama—or maybe it’s a comedy?—of Jacob in Genesis 29:15-28*.

A few lines from the song:

“Jacob, he loved Rachel,/ And Rachel, she loved him./ And Leah was just there for dramatic effect./ Well, it’s right there in the Bible,/ So it must not be a sin,/ But it sure does seem like an awful dirty trick.”

Is Leah just there for dramatic effect? She is certainly the twist in Jacob’s otherwise perfect love story.

We want a love story—or any good story—to have a complication. A hero sets out on a quest, encounters an obstacle, and pushes over, under, around or through. He or she comes out the other end a winner. Or at least changed.

That complication is satisfying—when we’re witnessing someone else’s story, someone else’s suffering. But when it’s your own life story that’s not going the way you thought it would, the way you want it to go, it’s confounding, disheartening or painful.

The twist in Jacob’s love story must have frustrated him exceedingly. Seven years is a long time. I’ve always wondered if the second seven years went as fast as the first. The text also plays with time: the first seven years seemed but a few days; the second seven years are referred to as a week.

This reminds me of Psalm 90: “A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night,” and a quote of this verse in 2 Peter: “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise.” These verses tie together the ideas of faith and time for us humans who are bound by time. We can’t get away from time in the same way, perhaps, that we can’t quite get to the reasons for the events that frustrate or hurt us.

As it turns out, Jacob serves his second seven years and finally wins the hand of his beloved, Rachel. This episode of scripture, at least, seems to have a happy ending. I can speculate on the strength, character, and patience Jacob gained during that second seven years that perhaps came to help him later in life, but that’s the storyteller in me, guessing. There is no clear answer about why Laban tricked Jacob like this.

I don’t understand a lot of things. I don’t understand why God would frustrated his “chosen,” as today’s Psalm (105) calls Jacob. I don’t understand why a society like Jacob’s, Rachel’s, and Laban’s treats women as property to be earned and dealt in. I don’t understand why Leah had “beautiful … eyes!” and perhaps not much more to recommend her in a world where humans judge based on appearance and surface qualities—we still do. I don’t understand why God established his covenant on earth—a story that eventually leads to Christ—through this act of deception.

Laban is human. God is not, and I trust that God does not deal in trickery. Today’s scripture passages ask us to do the hard work of trusting a God who transcends human motivations and human story lines.

Still, personal, national and world-wide plot twists are not to be tossed off as “dramatic effect.”

Lately, I’ve been asking:

–Why didn’t key founders of America abolish slavery when they had a chance (as I recently read in a fascinating and frustrating article)? They let the opportunity pass, allowing racial animosity and systemic injustice to take root and grow for centuries.

–Why have the 2020 and 2021 school years been so disrupted for so many scholars and students I know?

–Why are many essential workers forced to choose between taking a chance at getting the virus and feeding their kids? 

–Why has my own life taken twists and turns that were “off script?”

I can only speak for my own experience on this list. In recent years, I’ve gone through painful events that took me off the path I wanted or expected. I can say, for myself, that time has brought clarity—not necessarily about why things unfolded as they did, but about the growth, joy, beauty, and new chances that have opened.

Today’s passage from Romans** speaks of a happy ending: “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” I’ve lived through periods of pain when this assurance was hard to accept, when I read this sentence through gritted teeth—or skipped over it altogether.

More encouraging to me in past struggles and during recent weeks has been another part of this passage: “For we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”

I’m having a hard time expressing what this means to me, especially without tying my thoughts up with an artificially neat bow. So I want to let this passage of Romans speak for itself, the way I trust that the Spirit—God in me—does understand and express things out of time and beyond my ability to know why.

*Genesis 29:15-28 Laban said to Jacob, “Because you are my kinsman, should you therefore serve me for nothing? Tell me, what shall your wages be?” Now Laban had two daughters; the name of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. Leah’s eyes were lovely, and Rachel was graceful and beautiful. Jacob loved Rachel; so he said, “I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel.” Laban said, “It is better that I give her to you than that I should give her to any other man; stay with me.” So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her.Then Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife that I may go into her, for my time is completed.” So Laban gathered together all the people of the place, and made a feast. But in the evening he took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob; and he went in to her. (Laban gave his maid Zilpah to his daughter Leah to be her maid.) When morning came, it was Leah! And Jacob said to Laban, “What is this you have done to me? Did I not serve with you for Rachel? Why then have you deceived me?” Laban said, “This is not done in our country—giving the younger before the firstborn. Complete the week of this one, and we will give you the other also in return for serving me another seven years.” Jacob did so, and completed her week; then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel as a wife.