January 31st: Genesis 30 & John 16:1-15

Alastair Roberts

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January 31st: Genesis 30 & John 16:1-15

January 31, 2020

Alastair Roberts

Rachel and Leah, mandrakes and poplar rods. The Spirit convicts the world.

Reflections upon the readings from the ACNA Book of Common Prayer (http://bcp2019.anglicanchurch.net/).

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Transcript

Genesis 30. When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister. She said to Jacob, Give me children or I shall die.

Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel, and he said, Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb? Then she said, Here is my servant Bilhah. Go into her, so that she may give birth on my behalf, that even I may have children through her. So she gave him her servant Bilhah as a wife, and Jacob went into her.

And Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son. Then Rachel said, God has judged me and has also heard my voice and given me a son. Therefore she called his name Dan.

Rachel's servant Bilhah conceived again and bore Jacob a second son. Then Rachel said, With mighty wrestlings I have wrestled with my sister and have prevailed. So she called his name Naphtali.

When Leah saw that she had ceased bearing children, she took her servant Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife. Then Leah's servant Zilpah bore Jacob a son. And Leah said, Good fortune has come.

So she called his name Gad. Leah's servant Zilpah bore Jacob a second son. And Leah said, Happy am I, for women have called me happy.

So she called his name Asher. In the days of wheat harvest, Reuben went and found mandrakes in the field and brought them to his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, Please give me some of your son's mandrakes.

But she said to her, Is it a small matter that you have taken away my husband? Would you take away my son's mandrakes also? Rachel said, Then he may lie with you tonight in exchange for your son's mandrakes. When Jacob came from the field in the evening, Leah went out to meet him and said, You must come in to me, for I have hired you with my son's mandrakes. So he lay with her that night.

And God listened to Leah, and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son. Leah said, God has given me my wages because I gave my servant to my husband. So she called his name Issachar.

And Leah conceived again and bore Jacob a sixth son. Then Leah said, God has endowed me with a good endowment. Now my husband will honour me, because I have borne him six sons.

So she called his name Zebulun. Afterwards she bore a daughter and called her name Dinah. Then God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her and opened her womb.

She conceived and bore a son and said, God has taken away my reproach. And she called his name Joseph, saying, May the Lord add to me another son. As soon as Rachel had borne Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, Send me away that I may go to my own home and country.

Give me my wives and my children, for whom I have served you, that I may go, for you know the service that I have given you. But Laban said to him, If I have found favour in your sight, I have learned by divination that the Lord has blessed me because of you. Name your wages, and I will give it.

Jacob said to him, You yourself know how I have served you, and how your livestock has fared with me. For you had little before I came, and it has increased abundantly, and the Lord has blessed you wherever I turned. But now, when shall I provide for my own household also? He said, What shall I give you? Jacob said, You shall not give me anything.

If you will do this for me, I will again pass to your flock and keep it. Let me pass through all your flock today, removing from it every speckled and spotted sheep and every black lamb, and the spotted and speckled among the goats, and they shall be my wages. So my honesty will answer for me later, when you come to look into my wages with you.

Every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats and black among the lambs, if found with me, shall be counted stolen. Laban said, Good, let it be as you have said. But that day Laban removed the male goats that were striped and spotted, and all the female goats that were speckled and spotted, every one that had white on it, and every lamb that was black, and put them in the charge of his sons.

And he set a distance of three days' journey between himself and Jacob, and Jacob pastured the rest of Laban's flock. Then Jacob took fresh sticks of poplar and almond and plane trees, and peeled white streaks in them, exposing the white of the sticks. He set the sticks that he had peeled in front of the flocks in the troughs, that is, the watering places, where the flocks came to drink.

And since they bred when they came to drink, the flocks bred in front of the sticks, and so the flocks brought forth stripes speckled and spotted. And Jacob separated the lambs, and set the faces of the flocks toward the striped, and all the black in the flock of Laban. He put his own droves apart, and did not put them with Laban's flock.

Whenever the stronger of the flock were breeding, Jacob would lay the sticks in the troughs before the eyes of the flock, that they might breed among the sticks. But for the feebler of the flock he would not lay them there. So the feebler would be Laban's, and the stronger Jacob's.

Thus the man increased greatly, and had large flocks, female servants and male servants, and camels and donkeys. Genesis chapter 30 may be one of the more confusing chapters in the book, with two of the most surprising and difficult episodes within the entirety of Genesis. It continues the story where we left it off in chapter 29.

Jacob has been deceived by his uncle Laban into marrying Leah rather than Rachel. He then takes Rachel, who ends up as a rival wife to her sister. However Leah has four sons, while Rachel is childless.

Rachel was tricked out of her marriage by her father, whereas Leah was tricked into it. And so at this point Rachel envies her sister, and vents her anger at Jacob. Rachel's painful childlessness exacerbates the rivalry that she has with her sister, and even sparks antagonism with Jacob her husband.

And as a result of Laban's trickery, what could have been a fairy tale union is now a miserable situation for every person involved. Like Sarai did with Hagar, Rachel tries to salvage the situation of her childlessness by giving her hand-made bill hat to Jacob her husband. And she names the two sons that she receives through bill hat after her rivalry with her sister Leah.

God has judged me, Dan. With mighty wrestlings I have wrestled with my sister and have prevailed, Naphtali. And like Jacob wrestling with Esau his brother, so Rachel is wrestling with Leah.

Jacob and Esau were in conflict with each other from the womb, and Rachel and Leah have been in conflict since being placed into this marriage situation. These stories of giving birth should not be passed over without attention. The great works of God in history so often begin with women struggling in birth.

They begin at places and with persons that we would not look to, with expectation of some great deliverer arising. It begins with things such as the story of Jochebed and the Hebrew midwives in the book of Exodus and their resistance to the murderous decree of Pharaoh. It can begin with the story of Hannah and her wrestling prayer in the temple.

Or it can begin with Elizabeth and Mary, two figures that would not be expected to give birth. Now, as God's works begin in these places, so in the chapter that we're reading here, we can see the same sort of pattern. The turning point occurs as the women wrestle with God in prayer.

God hears and remembers them. And out of that hearing and remembering comes a change of direction. We've already noted this in the story of Leah, but it happens here in the story of Rachel as well.

When she notices that she has stopped giving birth to children, Leah gives her handmaid Zilpah to her husband Jacob. And Leah, through Zilpah, has Gad and Asher. And at this point we meet one of the stranger stories within the book, which is the story of Reuben and the Mandrakes.

So Reuben goes out into the field at around the time of the harvest and he brings in some Mandrakes for his mother. We don't know exactly what the Mandrakes were. There are speculations.

Some see them as a plant for fertility. Others see them as some sort of aphrodisiac. We don't know what they are.

So what are we to make of them? I think the clue, and it was Rabbi David Foreman who put me onto this, is found in who picks them and for whom. Reuben picks them for his mother Leah. And the significance of this is that Reuben is the oldest son of Leah.

He's only a few years old at this point. And he goes into the field and he picks some flowers to show his love for his mother. And he gives those flowers to his mother as a gift.

When Rachel asks for the Mandrakes then, she's not just asking for the plants or whatever they are. She's asking for Leah's son's Mandrakes. It's important whose they are and from whom they have come.

Reuben has given these to his mother as a sign of his love. And it is precisely this gift that Rachel requests. Now think about Rachel to this point.

Rachel has been wrestling with her sister, envious of her sister, a rival to her sister. She's named her first two sons after this rivalry that God has judged in her case and come out in her favour. In the case of Dan.

And then Naphtali, naming her son after that wrestling that she has with her sister. That she has prevailed finally against her rival. And now she's asking for some of the gift that Reuben has given to his mother.

What's significant about this? Well, what Rachel is doing, I believe, is trying to create peace. She's changing the tenor of the relationship that she has with her sister. No longer is it going to be one of rivalry.

But she wants to share in the love that her sister has for her son Reuben. And no longer see herself as an opponent but as one who's going to share and rejoice with her. However, when Leah's response comes, it's an angry response.

It's a response that speaks of how aggrieved she feels by Rachel's actions. Rachel could have just left the situation alone. She could have allowed Leah to take her husband and mourn the fact.

And yet that's not what she did. She entered the marriage as a rival to her sister. And ended up in a situation where her sister could not be happy.

And had to live as the unloved wife no matter how many children she had. And so Leah naturally feels fairly aggrieved by this situation. What is the arrangement that they come to? And why is that significant? Well, Rachel says that she can have... Leah can have Jacob that night.

That is a significant thing to do because that's what originally was stolen from her. She had her marriage bed stolen from her by Leah. And now she is giving that marriage bed to her sister.

No longer as a rival but as a sister. And in exchange she is going to share in her sister's love for her child. What she is doing is trying to create peace in a situation where there has been a breach.

And as we go through scripture we'll see events that call back to this memory. I think there's a very powerful reference back to this in chapter 31 of Jeremiah which I might get to in a moment. Out of that union that night Leah gives birth to another son called Issachar.

And Issachar she sees as her reward or her wages. Later on in the Bible in Jeremiah chapter 31 God says to Rachel that there is a reward for what she has done. That seems to me that that's a reference back to this event.

That Issachar is named after reward or wages. And in the same way there is an Issachar for what Rachel has done. And what did she do? She healed the breach with her sister.

She formed peace. She pursued reconciliation where there was that tension within the family. And as we look in the rest of the book that tension continues in the next generation.

But in her generation Rachel sought to heal it. At this point God remembers Rachel, listens to her and opens her womb. She bears a son whom she calls Joseph.

And the birth of Joseph is seen to be a transition point. At this point there is a sign that God has blessed. God has finally opened the womb of Rachel.

And now there is a promise of actually moving on. Of returning maybe to the land that Jacob has left. However when Jacob asked to leave Laban asked him to stay on as he has been blessed through the work of Laban.

Again it is important to notice the way that Laban is treating his nephew here. He's not treating him in a proper way. If he were a good uncle he would be sending him away with many gifts and blessings.

But he doesn't do that. Rather he treats Jacob as someone who is just owed any outstanding wages of which there are none. But yet when we look at the book of Deuteronomy chapter 15 we're told that if you have a Hebrew man or Hebrew woman working for you as a servant they should serve for six years and in the seventh year they should go free.

And they should not be let free empty handed. They should be furnished liberally from the flock, from the threshing floor, from the wine press. And as God has blessed them they should actually give on to the person that has served them.

And yet this is completely different from the way that Laban treats Jacob. He is not a good uncle or even a good master. Laban does not treat Jacob as a family member but more as a dishonored servant.

And so Jacob's response to Laban's request for him to stay is a shrewd one. He knows that Laban won't willingly give him anything of real value. So Jacob asks for something that Laban won't value so highly.

It's also something that is easily tested. So Laban would easily be able to tell if Jacob hasn't kept the terms of the agreement because it's the colors of the animals themselves. Likewise for Jacob.

Laban tries to ensure that Jacob won't have as much of the flock to choose from. So he puts most of the irregular colored animals with his sons leaving Jacob with only a small flock to select from. But this in many ways makes things easier for Jacob to carry out his later activities without supervision.

And again we should note the play upon words here. There are white strips taken from the white tree. The poplar tree is one of the trees that's mentioned and that's a tree that plays upon Laban's name revealing the white beneath.

And he's changing the color of the white flocks of Laban. And so Laban, his name connects with the color white. And Jacob is changing the color of the white flocks of Laban using the white tree, white strips and the white that's revealed beneath it.

God is ultimately the one who makes Jacob's unusual plan work as we see in the following chapter. But there are things to be noticed here. First of all again the plays upon words.

We've already observed some of the plays upon words in the story of Esau. Esau is associated with the land of Seir. But he's also associated with hair and with goats.

Both of which are very similar terms to the word for Seir. Likewise he's called Edom just after he's eaten some of the red red stew. And again Edom connects with red and it also connects with Adam.

And so there are lots of plays upon words going on here. Laban has a name that again connects with the color white. Connects with Lebanon perhaps.

Connects with poplar tree. It connects with bricks whereas Jacob is connected with stones. And as we go through we'll see other plays upon words.

Once again it's important to pay attention to the unusual details that are given to us. So why mention that he uses fresh sticks of poplar, almond and plane trees? Why those particular trees? Why not just say some sticks? The fact that specific trees mentioned suggests that those trees are mentioned for a reason. And I think we'll see as we look a bit more closely.

First of all the poplar tree plays upon the name of Laban. The almond tree is named Luz. We've already seen a Luz in chapter 28.

Luz which is the former name of Bethel. And then it's connected with crookedness as well. And then there's the final tree which is the plane tree.

Which is a word that's very similar to that for cunning. The use of those particular trees suggests that maybe there's something more going on here. That these symbolise something.

That they stand for something. Now there may be some parallels between the story of the wives and the story of the flocks. Laban, Mr White, refused to give Jacob his beautiful ewe, Rachel.

Remember Rachel means ewe. But he gave the feeble-eyed or delicate-eyed Leah instead, the less favoured sister. Jacob places the rods at the place where the flocks drink.

And he was deceived after a drinking feast. He symbolically repeats Laban's switch but uses it to become strong. He knows that Laban's not going to give him the well-favoured sheep and livestock.

Rather he's going to give him the weak. He's going to give him the miscoloured. He's going to give him the less favoured.

And so he accepts those and he uses those to become strong. He is symbolically replaying what Laban has done to him in a way that will lead him to prosper. The result is that Jacob increases much as Abraham did in Egypt in chapter 12.

And there are parallels between this story and the story of Abraham leaving Egypt in chapter 12. There will be another extra story in the two chapters that follow. A question to reflect upon.

The curse or judgement of Genesis chapter 3 verse 16 is that women will have pain in childbearing. And this plays out in the story of the matriarchs of Israel who often have difficulty conceiving. Think of Sarai, Rebekah and Rachel all as examples of this.

And in addition to struggle with barrenness, the many other pains and difficulties and dangers that attend childbearing. Rachel is perhaps the greatest example of this. The person who dies ultimately in childbirth.

And her story is a very painful one. Yet the flip side of that pain that recalls Genesis chapter 3 verse 16 is the promise that comes attached to it. That this is the seed of the woman that's going to come forth.

We can think of Genesis 3 verse 15 here. That the woman's seed will crush the serpent's head. And it's precisely those children of promise that require the most suffering to bring forth.

What insight might this give us into the story of Rachel and its importance? And the story of her son Joseph? John chapter 16 verses 1 to 15. I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. They will put you out of the synagogues.

Indeed the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do these things because they have not known the Father nor me. But I have said these things to you that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you.

I did not say these things to you from the beginning because I was with you. But now I am going to him who sent me. And none of you ask me where are you going? But because I have said these things to you sorrow has filled your heart.

Nevertheless I tell you the truth it is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away the helper will not come to you. But if I go I will send him to you.

And when he comes he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. Concerning sin because they do not believe in me. Concerning righteousness because I go to the Father and you will see me no longer.

Concerning judgment because the ruler of this world is judged. I still have many things to say to you. But you cannot bear them now.

When the Spirit of truth comes he will guide you into all the truth. For he will not speak on his own authority. But whatever he hears he will speak.

And he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me. For he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

All that the Father has is mine. Therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. In John chapter 16 we move to a greater focus upon the Spirit in Jesus' farewell discourse to his disciples.

Chapter 14 particularly emphasises the Father. Chapter 15 particularly emphasises the Son. And now we're thinking more about the Spirit.

Christ teaches that the disciples will be excommunicated from the synagogues. Perhaps much as the man in chapter 9. It suggests also a sort of legal context. The rulers of the people and the religious leaders will be casting them out of the assembly.

But there is an ironic reversal here. Although the disciples will be on trial, through the work of the Spirit in and through them, it will be the world that will be on trial. The work of the paraclete or the helper in John is primarily legal in character.

He will convict the world. At this point the disciples know that Jesus is going away and they're very sorrowful as a result. But they've all failed to ask the most important question.

Where are you going? And Jesus has earlier declared that his ascension to the Father will, among other things, demonstrate where he first came from and the entire nature of his mission. The fact that he is going to the Father should be a cause of encouragement and joy for them. Now, it's beneficial for Jesus to depart because this leads to the sending of the Spirit, introducing a new and a greater stage of ministry.

The Spirit will convict the world of sin on account of their rejection of Christ. And it's worth noting the definition of sin that's at play here. That sin is primarily defined not by breaking commandments here and there, but by the rejection of the person, Jesus Christ.

The people have not merely broken a few commandments. They have rejected God's Son, the one in whom the Father is known. And that is a very different sort of thing.

Sin is personal. At its very heart it is a rejection of God himself, not just a few commandments. He will convict the world of righteousness.

And I think this is in part because as Christ goes to the Father, the true character of his mission will be revealed. That he has been sent from the Father and so he goes to the Father. And the fact that he goes to the Father is a demonstration of the truth of his mission.

And after that has been demonstrated, there is a convicting force to that. That this now has very clearly God's imprimatur upon it. And finally, of judgment, because Satan is condemned.

There is a decisive judgment against Satan at the cross. And the Spirit declares that fact to the world. Just as Christ did not act on his own authority but on the Father's, so the Spirit does not act on his own authority.

The Spirit will guide the Church and the Apostles most particularly into all truth. Not least through inspiring the witness of the New Testament. And this will be through taking what is Christ and giving it to them.

And all that the Father has is Christ's. Now again, we're getting at the heart of Trinitarian truths here. We're seeing something about just how tightly connected the persons of the Trinity are within John's understanding.

That you can't separate the persons of the Trinity in Jesus' teaching and in John's theology. A final question to think about. Christ does not come, according to his teaching in John, to judge the world.

But yet the Spirit is associated with the condemnation of the world and the coming of judgment. How are we best to understand the relationship between the ministry of Christ and the ministry of the Spirit in these respects?