Text: Genesis 27:1-4, 15-23; 28:10-17

In the 1993 classic movie, Jurassic park there is a scene in which the Dr. Ian Malcom, played by the iconic Jeff Goldblum, says a line that has resonated through the ages.

Ian Malcolm: If there’s one thing that the history of evolution has taught us it’s that life will not be contained. Life breaks free. It expands to new territories, and it crashes through barriers. Painfully, maybe even dangerously, but, uh, there it is.

Dr. Wu: You’re implying that a group composed entirely of female animals will breed?

Ian Malcom: I’m simply saying that life, uh, finds a way.

Life finds a way. But as I was thinking about the text this week, full of complicated family relationships, schemes and promises, a flight into the wilderness and a dreamy (or was it a dream?) encounter with heaven, I thought of this scene and speech and I wondered if “life” could be replaced with “God.” In the singular cadence of Jeff Goldblum. “God, uh, finds a way.”

God finds a way to be present in all circumstances – to crash through our barriers, as it were. And God finds a way to deepen and build toward a deepened and renewed covenant relationship. That’s the new territory.

There are no ‘female dinosaurs’ trying to breed in this story, of course. But there is a pretty ferocious lady named Rebekah, who will also very surely find a way to get sh*t done according to her desired outcome.

There are two parts of this story. (There are more but we hear about two/maybe three of them). The first part is within the family life and the second out in the wilderness. The story for today begins like a soap opera or reality TV series, with this sense of dramatic irony in the audience knowing what the characters do not – the deception and lies, the disguises, the theft!

It actually started at the birth of the two brothers – twins – when their mother Rebekah hears God’s voice in prophecy. An ambivalent prophecy as it happens. Since in Hebrew it could be translated either, “The elder will serve the younger” or, “the elder, the younger will serve.” 

Well, Rebekah and the rest of the history understood it the first way and she went ahead and decided not to take any chances. When she heard that her husband was ready to pass along the inheritance and birthright, she took charge. I know I have often wondered what the big deal is here – like, couldn’t Isaac have just reneged? Given a different blessing? 

But no, I don’t think we have a modern equivalent, but I think it was kind of like if there are official documents signed – the wedding has concluded and the vows said, the papers signed. It’s done. Or maybe in this case, as if a father has decided to retire from the farm and sign the business over to the son and when the documents are signed it would be a whole thing to unwind. This verbal blessing has real and physical consequences once it’s been offered.

But even in the midst of this deception, there are moments of connection and tenderness and even Divine presence. God does find a way to be known.

In each encounter with his sons, even though Isaac seems confused and even though Jacob is wearing an Esau suit, we hear that word we encountered last week: Hineini. That response that indicated complete focus and presence to the other. The sons and the father are locked in to this relationship, as fraught as it is. We have a hint that God is doing something here.

Isaac is suspicious. What hairy arms you have! What delicious stew you made! But unlike Red Riding Hood, he doesn’t come to the realization that he’s being deceived. Except maybe he does, but he goes ahead with the blessing anyway. Surely he could have waited. But Isaac has known God to work through the unexpected, the unusual, and he offers the blessing.

God finds a way to extend blessing. The methods of Jacobs are extremely sus. Esau becomes extremely angry – murderous even – but he actually does still receive blessing. A blessing for one does not mean a curse for the other. Esau is able to thrive, marry local wives, gain wealth and influence. While he doesn’t gain that special birthright, God does still continue to bless him and his descendants. 

Maybe God would have blessed Esau as Jacob was blessed, but God found a way to work through these circumstances. God will find a way to bless the earth – to expand into new territory – through Jacob the younger.

And so we come to part two of the story. The dream sequence.

In a podcast I listen to regularly, the Judge John Hodgman Podcast, people bring their small and silly disputes to before a fake internet Judge. He may be familiar to many as the “PC” in the Apple commercials from 20 years ago. He hears the cases and makes a decision, often finding a poignant or meaningful crux in the petty arguments of friends, siblings and spouses.

On last week’s episode two friends who are part of a writing group debated whether or not dream sequences should ever be allowed in any narrative writing. One friend occasionally uses dreams in her writing as a way to explore something about a character. The other argues that dreams are boring and annoying and never serve the story. No one ever wants to hear about dreams. He was ruled against.

And good thing too, because the narrative of the Bible would be lost without dreams! Jacob’s dream is where God gets it done!

There is one stream of interpretation in Judaism that says that Jacob was so determined to get away from his chaotic and dangerous home situation (that he made!) that he was traveling without stopping. God tried to put things in his way to slow him, to get his attention – flowers in the desert, surprising animals – but he does not stop. So God makes the sun so that Jacob will need to stop and rest.

It is in this time of darkness and rest that God takes the moment of tension, anxiety, fear – breaks in, finds a way. Creates a connection between earth and heaven. Reiterates the covenant that until now had only been made with Jacob’s forbears and deepens and broadens it. There is a turn in this story. In the moment of deceit between Jacob and his father Isaac, he calls God, “the Lord your God” but now, God is claimed as his own.

When he wakes, in awe, he declares the land holy. But it’s just the same piece of land he was on before he slept. He just didn’t know God had been there all along! God can make a way in any place, break into any moment.

I don’t believe that ‘God has a plan.’ I especially don’t believe that if something bad happens that it must be “a part of God’s plan.”  God doesn’t want bad or traumatic or violence thing to happen to people. But I do believe in God’s dream. 

God’s dream is language I borrowed from Desmond Tutu. In his children’s book by that name, Tutu says, 

God dreams about people sharing. God dreams about people caring. God dreams that we reach out and hold one another hand and play one another’s games and laugh with one another’s hearts. But God does not force us to be friends or to love one another.

What Rev. Tutu is talking about is the Reign of God – a vision of wholeness and reconciliation and connection, the kind which humans are created for.

I also believe that God invites and directs and points toward this dream in every circumstance. And even in this story, though it takes many years, a piece of God’s does come true: Esau also receives blessing – much later, Esau and Jacob reunite. 

God’s dream finds a way in the scripture and God’s dream continues to find a way here and now. I believe it even though I am heartbroken about the ways that people seems to be working hard to undermine it. It is certainly not a part of God’s plan or God’s dream for violence against marginalized people to increase, for safety of medical system to become precarious with loss of access to vaccines, for more and more weapons to flow to Israel, world to become more militarized

But God’s people are also scheming, Rebekah like, to enact the promises and dreams that God does have for us. Building courage and community and resistance and resilience. And God is at work in ways we cannot yet imagine. Jacob had no idea that he stood on holy ground until his eyes were opened to it. God wants us to open our eyes, see the opportunities and walk toward the dream of caring and sharing and reaching out.

God (and life) will find a way. I pray that we will (uh) be a part of it in every way we can.

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