Pentecost 18 (NL4) John B. Valentine
Genesis 27:1-4, 15-23; 28:10-17 September 26, 2021

“PLAYING FAVORITES”

I’m going to go out on a limb here ... folks ... and assume that most of you have a cell phone.

Now ...

• I know that some of you don’t have a cell phone because you’ve decided you’re too old to learn how to make a cell phone work ... and

• I know that some of you don’t have a cell phone because ... at least by your parents’ perception ... you’re too young to handle all that responsibility ...

But I suspect that most of you know what a cell phone is and ... roughly speaking ... how such a gizmo can be operated.

Now ... on my phone ... an iPhone 12 for those of you who are keeping score ...

If you tap on the phone button that lies resident on the bottom of the main screen ...

It will take you to the screen labeled “Contacts” ... inviting you to select just whom you would like to call ...

And from there you can select between ...

• Your Recents ... i.e. “Everyone you have called recently” ...
• Your Contacts ... i.e. “Everyone in your directory of contacts” ...
• Your Favorites ... i.e. “Those whom you have identified as your ‘Favorites’” ...
• And the keypad ... in case you want to punch in the number yourself.

Now ... if you think about it ... there’s a sort of unspoken hierarchy as to those options ... isn’t there???

Furthest out ... there’s the keypad.

That’s for dialing numbers that you’ve never dialed before ... folks with whom you have no prior history.

Then ... a little bit closer in ... there’s the people in your contacts list ...

Those are the people whom you know ... or whom you’ve contacted before ... or whom you’ve decided are important enough to you to have access to.

Then ... moving a little bit closer in and one icon further to the left ... there’s the “Recents” button.

That’s a quick way to access all the people you’ve talked to fairly recently and whom you may need to contact again ... which ... for me ... right now is the easiest way to contact the contractor whom we’ve hired to renovate our backyard.

And furthest to the left ... there’s that button that says “Favorites”.

Those are the people ... those friends and family whom you’ve identified as people you want to access easily ... and those whom your phone has determined are oft-used ... the sorts of people whose calls you might even permit to ring through when your phone has been set to silent.

But now ... just for today ... what I want you to think about ... is this: “WHOM DO YOU IDENTIFY AS YOUR ‘FAVORITES’???”

Really ... how do you decide:

• Who is going to be a ‘Favorite’ on your cell phone ... and
• Who is just a ‘Recent’ ...
• Who’s a ‘Contact’ ...
• And who is just a ‘Number’???

+ + + + +

Actually ... I was looking at the names in my phone who I’ve identified as “Favorites” ... and the list is pretty short.

• There’s Bethany ... obviously ...
• There’s my dad ... still with the same phone number we had when I was a kid ...
• There’s my siblings ... my brother and my two sisters ...
• There’s our four kids ...
• And there’s Pennini’s Pizza ... because ... well ... sometimes you just need pizza!!

That’s my ‘Favorites’ list ... that’s IT!

• Not my best buddies from high school or seminary days ...
• Not my co-workers ...
• Not the people on the Church Council ...

Don’t be offended ... but at least for me .... it’s family .... and pizza!

But I’m not to only one to whom this applies ... folks. Think for just a minute about who is on YOUR ‘Favorites’ list!

• Who measures up?
• Who makes the grade?
• What are their qualifications or credentials?
• Who has access to you when nobody else does???

+ + + + +

Now .... hold on to that image of contacts listed under the “Favorites” button for just a moment ... and consider this morning’s scripture lesson ... that amalgamation of texts from Genesis 27 and 28.

It recounts a snippet of the story of a fellow named Jacob ... one of the sons of Isaac and Rebekah ... a grandson of Abraham and Sarah ... an inheritor of the label “child of God”.

Now ... if we were to name everything that has been revealed about Jacob to this point in the story ... what would our list highlight?

• That Jacob was one of the twin sons of Isaac and Rebekah ...

• That ... even in the womb ... Jacob was bickering with his twin brother Esau ...

• That his brother was named Esau because ‘Esau’ means ‘red ... and because when Esau was born ... he came out covered with fine red hair ...

• That he himself ... Jacob ... was named “Jacob” because Jacob means “grabber” ... or maybe “he who takes what doesn’t belong to him” ... because when Jacob was born he came out grabbing his brother’s heel.

• That ... as they grew up ... Esau was a manly man and a skillful hunter ... while Jacob was a momma’s boy.

• And that Jacob seems forever set on getting one over on his brother ... so much so that one day he even connives Esau into swearing away his birthright for a bowl of stew.

Now ... in the first part of the story that we read ...

Jacob does something that ... by any account ... is just plain wrong. Despicable even!

You see ... his dad is dying ... and Pops wants to offer his blessing to manly man Esau before he passes away.

But aided and abetted by his mom ... Jacob pretends to be his brother ...

• dressing like him ...
• talking like him ...
• acting like him ...
• lying to his face ...

And steals his father’s blessing in a way that can’t be undone.

Such that ... by the end of chapter 27 ...

Esau is plotting how to get his birthright back by killing off his conniving crook of a sibling ...

And Jacob ... with his mom’s help ... is trying to figure out how to get out of Dodge.

+ + + + +

So ... in Genesis 28 ... the second part of our lesson ... Jacob is a man on the run.

• He’s fleeing his brother.
• He’s fleeing his parents.
• He’s fleeing his homeland.

On the road ... in search of a safe haven ... and maybe in search of a wife ... in a land far away.

To harken back to that earlier image ... it would be safe to say that ...

• Jacob’s pretty darn certain that he’s not on his brother’s ‘Favorites’ list at that moment.

• He’s fairly presumptive that he’s not on his dad’s ‘Favorites’ list either.

• And ... given his litany of misbehaviors ... it would be fair to assume that Jacob presumes that he isn’t on God’s ‘Favorites’ list.

But then ... one night on the road ...

He sets up camp for the night and takes one of the stones that he finds and uses it for a pillow ... and he lays down to sleep ... and proceeds to have a dream.

And what he dreams is this:

“That there’s a stairway on the ground that reaches all the way up into heaven ... and that angels of God are going up and going down on it.

And that God appears before him and says “Jacob ... I am God, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac.

• I’m giving the ground on which you are sleeping to you and to your descendants.

• Your descendants will be as the dust of the Earth ... and all the families of the Earth will bless themselves in you and your descendants.

• I’ll stay with you ... I’ll protect you wherever you go ... and I’ll bring you back to this very ground.

• In fact ... I’ll stick with you until I’ve done everything I’ve promised you.”

And then Jacob wakes up from his sleep and declares:

“God is in this place - truly. And I didn’t even know it!”

And ... with awe-struck wonder ... swears:

“I don’t understand how ... and I don’t understand why ... but it seems as though I’m on God’s Favorites list in spite of myself! If God will be with me ... and will keep me in this way that I go ... and sustain me on the journey ... so that I come again to my father’s house in peace ... then God shall be my parents’ God ... but my God too!”

What this story from Scripture seems to be telling us ... at the heart of it ... is that Jacob discovers ... despite of all that he has done and MUCH to his surprise ... that he is still on God’s “Favorites” list.

+ + + + +

You know that song “Amazing Grace”??? That was penned by a fellow who was stunned to discover that he was on God’s ‘Favorites’ list ... too.

That God would dare to love him even though he was perceptibly unlovable???

That God could right to make him right even though he’d done so much wrong???

This Jacob character ... in a certain way ... it sounds as though he was the first person in the Bible to get that he was a recipient of that same ‘Amazing Grace’.

And so maybe the key point of this story is simply this.

You know the word “gospel” that we bandy about each and every Sunday morning when we stand for the Gospel reading??

Gospel is derived from an Old English word that means “Good News”.

And you know the word “evangel” ... as in Evangelical Lutheran Church in America ... the denominational structure of which we are a part??

Evangel is an old Greek word that means “Good News”.

But what is the Good News that is at the heart of who we are and what we do around here??

Maybe simply this ... THAT YOU ARE ON GOD’S ‘FAVORITES’ LIST ... that you have unfettered access to the love and grace and goodness of God ...

• Not because of anything you’ve done or failed to do ...

• Not because you’re so innately lovable or irresistible or anything like that ...

• But simply because God put you on that ‘Favorites’ list ... because after all ... you ... like Jacob all these years ago ... are family.

And for that we can only say “Thanks be to God!”