Genesis 25:19-34
Maybe we try to clean God up too much. God seems to be deep in the messiness of life in much of the Torah. Here we have the birth of Jacob – the birth of Israel. This is the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham that from him would come a great nation. Jacob will father the twelve tribes. He is God’s chosen. But he is from the beginning the heel-grabber. He is the stealer of birthright and blessing. He is the tent-dwelling conniver. And he is God’s chosen.
Sometimes I think we expect God to be present only in the clean parts of life. We talk about God’s presence when things go well – when a plan comes together – when our lives seem to be well ordered. But in Genesis God is present in and through barrenness and birth, sibling rivalry and reconciliation, the founding and the falling of nations, the failures of the faithful as well as their triumphs. God is present in the messiness and the monumental – the mundane and the magnificent. Perhaps we should look for God even in the messiness of our own lives.
Dan
Teri
Where was God in the German concentration camps during world War 2?
Where was God in the Andersonville prison during the Civil War between the states?
Elie Wiesel in Night tells about a boy being hung on the gallows in a concentration camp. Someone asks, “Where is God?”. Wiesel answers that God is there. Of course, that doesn’t answer the question. What does the answer mean? Is God present to the boy in his suffering? Is God dying or dead there with the boy on the gallows? Or is this the final evidence needed to conclude that there is no God?
I bet I know which answer you would choose, Juanita.