Observation: Oh, so many observations. I guess we'll start with the culture shock...the fact that Jacob is asking Laban for permission to take his wives, children and slaves, all of whom he sees as his property, along with his livestock back to his home country. Or we could go on to discuss how both Jacob and Laban, even by their own cultural standards, are engaging in shameful trickery and trying to defraud one another of livestock, Laban by taking the speckled and spotted goats out of the flock after promising to give them to Jacob, and Jacob for placing striped poplar rods where the goats breed so they give birth to speckled babies...honestly. I don't know where to start.
Application: Wow. Sometimes when folks tell me they can just dig into the Bible anywhere and find inspiration and motivation, I have to wonder what Bible they're reading. I find I can't get very far into my Bible without finding stories like this: stories of humans being humans. Lying, cheating, stealing, exploiting one another, knowingly and unknowingly. And yet part of the point of the book of Genesis (especially the parts of the book we tend to skip over) is just that. That human beings act trashy to each other, all the time, and yet at some point God makes a decision to work with and through the trashy things people do to each other, to make the world a better place, rather than clear the board again and start fresh.
The thesis statement for the book of Genesis, I think, comes near the end, after Joseph forgives his brothers for selling him into slavery (which, long story short, puts him in a position to save the whole family from starvation). Joseph says, "Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today." In the end, God has to beat us at our own game, and essentially con us into accidentally helping one another. Genesis may take a long time to get there, but the take-away for me is that though humans are really great at screwing up, God is smarter than we are, and can get a check-mate for love while we're still counting pawns.
Prayer: God, fool us into loving one another today. Amen.
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