Returning

Returning

Question of the day:  If you could go back to a place, where would you go back to and why?

Good morning class.  Today we are studying a couple chapters, so we will be brief in our reading and spend more time in discussion.  I want us to keep in our minds, the idea of returning.  

So to start off we are in Genesis chapter 33.  This is a beautiful chapter of returning.  It is about Jacob finally meeting up with Esau on his journey returning home.  Remember Jacob has just had the amazing or terrifying night where he wrestles with God.  He is even more vulnerable now since he was crippled in the encounter with God and yet he has just had an encounter with God which must have given him strength and hope.  This chapter starts with, "Jacob looked up and there was Esau."  and it wasn't just Esau, like a solitary individual walking down the road toward them, it was Esau, in all his warrior glory, and 400 men.  So it was an army coming toward them.  

Have you ever had a moment in your life where you look up and see doom headed your direction.  Can you imagine what he must have been thinking?

What do we do in those moments?

Sometimes we retreat.

Sometimes we hide.

Sometimes we take action.

Sometimes we fight (before we even really know what is going on.)  

Can you imagine what would have happened if Jacob had sent his men as an army to fight Esau? 

What did Jacob do? 

First he organized his family by those he liked most being the most protected.... (no issues there for his children and wives...) But then he went out to meet the army.  Crippled Jacob went alone to face his brother and 400 men.  

Jacob Meets Esau

33 Jacob looked up and there was Esau, coming with his four hundred men; so he divided the children among Leah, Rachel and the two female servants. 2 He put the female servants and their children in front, Leah and her children next, and Rachel and Joseph in the rear. 3 He himself went on ahead and bowed down to the ground seven times as he approached his brother.

He went out and then bowed down to the ground seven times. 

Jacob was bowing down. 

No running, no hiding, no confronting, just humbly meeting it face down.  

What strength this must have taken? 

I don't like conflict.  You all know that.  I love being able to work things out, bring people together, say yes, etc.  Well recently there was a project I was working on and an individual who was part of the project was not getting the vision or listening to my requests.  I made a couple feeble attempts at stating what I wanted, but nothing happened.  Then after encouragement from some friends and team mates I set out to "confront" or assert that the changes had to happen.  

I can not begin to tell you how much I wanted to crawl in a hole, hide, or just let it go.  I kept telling myself, "was it really that big a deal."  maybe I could just let it be instead of asking for the change.  

I was terrified, and that is putting it mildly.  However, just like Jacob I moved forward and faced the fear and....

So Jacob bows and Esau....

4 But Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him; he threw his arms around his neck and kissed him. And they wept.

My story didn't end with us weeping but it was equally as good, and as opposite as I had feared. 

How many times do we fight, run or hide against something that if we would just humbly face, would turn out in a hug instead of a battle?  

I know we need to fight at times!  God calls us to fight! I need to learn to fight when asked.  However sometimes the biggest part of the fight is just facing that army.  If we are willing to face it, maybe we will find that what we are facing isn't an army at all but a welcoming committee!

What gave Jacob the strength to go out and face his brother and bow down seven times?

If you remember he had just spent time with God and God had blessed him.  Remember the hanging onto God and not letting go until God had blessed him.  Jacob sees his brother and his brothers army approaching after he had been in the presence of God and he had received a blessing from God while in his presence.  

Being in presence of God is how Jacob knew how to approach, to bow instead of fight etc. When we are facing difficult times, there is no other way to navigate it successfully except to spend time in the presence of God.  Even if it means some sleepless nights wrestling with HIM!  

If you are struggling with anything in your life, small or huge, spend time with God.  Cling to him! Hold on and keep begging for that blessing! Hang on! 

The next chapter is quite a story.  Not one we usually hear about in sermons or as part of children's stories.  It is a rough story for sure.  I have included the scripture here for you to read.  We will not read the whole story.  

Dinah and the Shechemites

34 Now Dinah, the daughter Leah had borne to Jacob, went out to visit the women of the land. 2 When Shechem son of Hamor the Hivite, the ruler of that area, saw her, he took her and raped her. 3 His heart was drawn to Dinah daughter of Jacob; he loved the young woman and spoke tenderly to her. 4 And Shechem said to his father Hamor, “Get me this girl as my wife.”

5 When Jacob heard that his daughter Dinah had been defiled, his sons were in the fields with his livestock; so he did nothing about it until they came home.

6 Then Shechem’s father Hamor went out to talk with Jacob. 7 Meanwhile, Jacob’s sons had come in from the fields as soon as they heard what had happened. They were shocked and furious, because Shechem had done an outrageous thing in[a] Israel by sleeping with Jacob’s daughter—a thing that should not be done.

8 But Hamor said to them, “My son Shechem has his heart set on your daughter. Please give her to him as his wife. 9 Intermarry with us; give us your daughters and take our daughters for yourselves. 10 You can settle among us; the land is open to you. Live in it, trade[b] in it, and acquire property in it.”

11 Then Shechem said to Dinah’s father and brothers, “Let me find favor in your eyes, and I will give you whatever you ask. 12 Make the price for the bride and the gift I am to bring as great as you like, and I’ll pay whatever you ask me. Only give me the young woman as my wife.”

13 Because their sister Dinah had been defiled, Jacob’s sons replied deceitfully as they spoke to Shechem and his father Hamor. 14 They said to them, “We can’t do such a thing; we can’t give our sister to a man who is not circumcised. That would be a disgrace to us. 15 We will enter into an agreement with you on one condition only: that you become like us by circumcising all your males. 16 Then we will give you our daughters and take your daughters for ourselves. We’ll settle among you and become one people with you. 17 But if you will not agree to be circumcised, we’ll take our sister and go.”

18 Their proposal seemed good to Hamor and his son Shechem. 19 The young man, who was the most honored of all his father’s family, lost no time in doing what they said, because he was delighted with Jacob’s daughter. 20 So Hamor and his son Shechem went to the gate of their city to speak to the men of their city. 21 “These men are friendly toward us,” they said. “Let them live in our land and trade in it; the land has plenty of room for them. We can marry their daughters and they can marry ours. 22 But the men will agree to live with us as one people only on the condition that our males be circumcised, as they themselves are.23 Won’t their livestock, their property and all their other animals become ours? So let us agree to their terms, and they will settle among us.”

24 All the men who went out of the city gate agreed with Hamor and his son Shechem, and every male in the city was circumcised.

25 Three days later, while all of them were still in pain, two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, took their swords and attacked the unsuspecting city, killing every male. 26 They put Hamor and his son Shechem to the sword and took Dinah from Shechem’s house and left.27 The sons of Jacob came upon the dead bodies and looted the city where[c] their sister had been defiled. 28 They seized their flocks and herds and donkeys and everything else of theirs in the city and out in the fields. 29 They carried off all their wealth and all their women and children, taking as plunder everything in the houses.

30 Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have brought trouble on me by making me obnoxious to the Canaanites and Perizzites, the people living in this land. We are few in number, and if they join forces against me and attack me, I and my household will be destroyed.”

31 But they replied, “Should he have treated our sister like a prostitute?”

So what do we do with this story.  We can sit here and debate the question that ends the chapter.  Is this one of those times when justice was necessary or justified?  

The woman in me wanted to scream reading this story.  To give her as the bride to the man who raped her as long as the men were circumcised was absolutely inexcusable!  So when I got to the part where the brothers killed all the men, though I was cringing, and wishing they had only killed the ruler and the son who was the guilty party, there was a part of me that was glad she was rescued and vindicated.  

Can you imagine being Dina.  First raped, then "sold" to be the wife of your rapist by your family, then rescued and to realize your brothers had all the men associated with her rapist circumcised and then murdered, to return her to her home, to safety.  Wow!  Can you imagine that trip back home.  The trip home, after three days of being in the home of your rapist, knowing that as soon as he healed you would be used over and over, must have been remarkable.  I am sure she was still broken, hurting, afraid, yet with hope.  To be in the safety of her brothers who had been willing to avenge her honor.  

If you have been harmed, attacked, or raped, I pray that there are people around you who are willing to fight for you!  I pray that you experience God through a family willing to fight for you. 

I know I don't like fighting, but sometimes we need to fight!  Fighting for those who are wronged is one of those times!

Are you willing to fight for those who have been wronged? 

Am I?

However, the brothers though their hearts were in the right place, may have taken it too far? 

There is such a cultural divide that we will not answer what they should have done except to say, when we fight it must be with a surrendered heart to God!  If we don't first go to God and get His guidance, our sinful anger will prevail instead of righteous anger.  

Interesting, that Jacob had a huge fight, but he fought with God and then God worked the rest out.  The brothers fought with man, and caused a great wake of destruction.  

Perhaps we should take on a motto or vow to always wrestle with God before wrestling with man.  

So what did God have to say about all this? Well....

Jacob Returns to Bethel

35 Then God said to Jacob, “Go up to Bethel and settle there, and build an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau.”

2 So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you, and purify yourselves and change your clothes. 3 Then come, let us go up to Bethel, where I will build an altar to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone.” 4 So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods they had and the rings in their ears, and Jacob buried them under the oak at Shechem. 5 Then they set out, and the terror of God fell on the towns all around them so that no one pursued them.

God tells Jacob to return to Bethel.

What was Bethel?

What does Bethel mean?

So God's response to all this is to tell Jacob to take everyone to "the house of God." 

Perhaps the most important returning of this lesson is this! 

Return to Bethel.  

Return to the house of God or get back to God!

There was potentially no coming back from this!  No coming back from the destruction. From the heart ache that now plagued the house of Jacob.  Not only was there all the issues that started with the two wives, the favoritism, but now they had all the wives and children whose husbands had just been murdered with them.  This was an incredibly broken society.  A broken group, where sin, destruction, pain, was permeating every corner, so what do they do? 

Go to God.  

When ever we are in a situation where there are no winners, no way out, no coming back from, our only answer is always go to God! 

Return to God! 

6 Jacob and all the people with him came to Luz (that is, Bethel) in the land of Canaan. 7 There he built an altar, and he called the place El Bethel,[a] because it was there that God revealed himself to him when he was fleeing from his brother.

8 Now Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, died and was buried under the oak outside Bethel. So it was named Allon Bakuth.[b]

9 After Jacob returned from Paddan Aram,[c] God appeared to him again and blessed him. 10 God said to him, “Your name is Jacob,[d] but you will no longer be called Jacob; your name will be Israel.[e]” So he named him Israel.

11 And God said to him, “I am God Almighty[f]; be fruitful and increase in number. A nation and a community of nations will come from you, and kings will be among your descendants. 12 The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I also give to you, and I will give this land to your descendants after you.” 13 Then God went up from him at the place where he had talked with him.

14 Jacob set up a stone pillar at the place where God had talked with him, and he poured out a drink offering on it; he also poured oil on it.15 Jacob called the place where God had talked with him Bethel.

Returning!

Today will you return?  Will you return to Bethel? If you need to fight or surrender, or humble yourself, return to Bethel! 

Return to the House of God.  

Return to Him.  

KNOW LOVE.

LIVE LOVE.

SHARE LOVE.