Words for Worship

Ministry Today

Let’s not mince words.

 

Jacob was a crook.

 

From the earliest age,

he was on the make.

 

He bargained a birthright

out of his lame-brained brother

just for feeding him.

 

He tricked his disabled father

into confirming it.

 

He went off

and worked for his uncle Leban

who turned out

to be just as much a crook.

 

 

So Jacob got even

by cheating him out

of best of his livestock.

 

He returned to his homeland

and cunningly evaded Esau’s welcome.  

 

Jacob then is street wise,

knows the angles

and would sell you

brass tacks for gold.

 

And so I say again,

Jacob was a crook.

 

But he was something else –

he is technically

our religious antecedent.  

 

What then stands

between Jacob the patriarch

and the various characters

that we read about

in the crime pages of the tabloids?

 

Only one thing

and that was a place –

a comfortless place

between nightfall and sunrise –

a place between

rejection and the unknown –

a place of abandonment,

loneliness and homesickness.

 

Yet that was also

the very place

where God met Jacob.

 

And despite it

existing thousands of years

in the past

that place

is hugely important to us

too in the 21st Century.

 

For in our readings

in Genesis

up until now,

the stories and characters

have had something

of the fairy tale about them.

 

But Jacob is genuine flesh and blood

and his situations

have an everyday messiness

about them.

 

Therefore, Jacob’s story

has much to tell us

of an all too real God

meeting an all too real man

in an all too real world.

 

For these are also

the actual worlds and bodies

that you and I inhabit –

the very worlds and bodies

that we wish to turn

into holy places.

 

 

 

Lets then make a start

by exploring the components

of that place of encounter.

 

First off, we have the dream.

 

Well, of course, you could

psycho-analysis this away

into the subconscious

over-working

after an appalling day.

 

Nevertheless it still remains

Jacob’s gateway to heaven

and God’s touch down on earth.

 

For just as many a young offender

who was brass faced

in court

must weep the first night in jail,

so had all Jacob’s sassiness

disserted him.

 

On the run for his life,

we was worn out and strung out;

he was panicky and depressed;

he was the scared wee wain

in all of us.

 

Yet it was then

God chose to communicate with him.

 

It was then that God

chose to cast aside

Jacob’s own hand made bed

and open the channel

between murky earth and unsullied sky.

 

Not only that,

but God was then

to use this channel

to make a surprising offer.

 

 A proposal indeed that –

in the words of the most famous

silver screen crook of all –

was an offer he couldn’t refuse.  

 

Here is what God said-

I’ll give you the land you are lying on;

I will go with you

and keep you safe

and  I will never you leave you

until I fulfil my promise.

 

Pretty hearting stuff

to a frightened youth

with no home to go back too.

 

But now notice

one even more astounding fact

about this astonishing promise.

 

It was made unconditionally –

No-,  if you this

I’ll do that.

Just –

I will do what I say

what ever you do!

 

 

Sadly, the non-conditionality

of God promise

in the dream was not lost

on our del-boy Jacob.

 

For, immediately,

he gets back

some of his cheeky guile;

his Mark Cavendish cockiness.

 

And so he responds

not in unalloyed gratitude

but with an impertinent –

let’s see your money.  

 

Because, instead of giving fulsome thanks –

he replies with his own conditions

upon God’s unconditional offer.

 

For he says back –

provided you keep me safe,

give me food,

cloth me

and get me back home

then I will worship you.

 

Jacob then certainly knew

how to drive a bargain.

 

The problem was

he hadn’t realised that God

had already bought him

hook, line and sinker.

 

God was giving him

all he wanted

and a lot more besides.

 

In fact, he was giving him

something that Jacob’s crooked ways

would have otherwise

have denied him.

 

For he was being given

a future

worth remembering.

 

And that rather neatly brings us

to the other component

of Jacob’s place of encounter.  

 

That stone he used as a pillow.

 

Well as you know

that stone has a special significance

for every Scot.

 

Because who here

has not heard of our nation’s legend

that surrounds it.

 

 

 For according to myth,

this is very the stone

that became

the Coronation Stone of Scottish Kings.

 

It arrived here possibly

with the early Dál Riata Gaels

who brought it with them

when settling Caledonia

from Ireland.

 

Or alternatively

it might have been

the travelling altar

used by St Columba

in his missionary activities

throughout this land.

 

Certainly,

since the time of Kenneth Mac Alpin,

the first King of Scots,

at around 847,

Scottish monarchs

were seated upon this stone

during their crowning ceremony.

 

Now at that time the stone

was situated at Scone

and not surprisingly then

it is often referred to

as the stone of scone.

 

Yet it has another name

that is more relevant

both to Jacob and us today.

 

For it is also known

as the stone of destiny.

 

And that is very apt.

 

Because certainly

on that wild woolly night,

Jacob was given by a God –

a purpose, a direction

and a plan for his life.

 

For thereafter Jacob

had a place to go

despite his continuing dishonest behaviour.

 

Since after sleeping on a stone,

he had his destiny to fulfil.

 

And from that night on,

he was to be

God’s new point of contact

upon the earth.

 

He was to be God’s axe

to hew a still unshaped global history.  

 

He was indeed to be

God’s foundation for others

to find their own callings.

 

Yet despite all that,

Jacob still would never be free

of his struggle with God.

 

His fight to stop

looking after number one

and looking out for the main chance;

the struggle to amount to more

than a petty crook

and the wrestling match

to live out God’s calling for his life.

 

However, to some degree

he must have won that battle

for his destiny

over self imposed obscurity.

 

For through blind effort

through a dark night,

Jacob became the father

of the three great faiths

of the world today.

 

Indeed, he became

the one chosen to be called –

Israel.

 

Well the scone stone of destiny

remained in God’s own country

until it was carted off

to England

by Edward the first

in 1296.  

 

Since then it was used

in the enthroning

of the monarchs of these islands.

 

That was up until Christmas Day 1950,

when a group of four Scottish students

removed it from Westminster Abbey.

 

However, in the process of removing it,

they broke it into two pieces.

 

After hiding the greater part

of the stone

in Kent for a few weeks,

they risked the road blocks

on the border

and returned it to Scotland

hidden in

the back of a borrowed car.

 

The smaller piece’s journey

involved a sojourn in Leeds,

where a group of sympathetic students

took it to Ilkley Moor

for an overnight stay,

accompanied by renditions of

"On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at."

 

In the meantime, a major search

for the stone

had been ordered

by the British Government,

but this proved unsuccessful.

 

Perhaps assuming

that the Church would not return it

to England,

the stone's custodians

left it

on the altar of Arbroath Abbey.

 

Once the London police

were informed of its whereabouts,

the Stone was returned to Westminster.

 

In fact, it was only in 1996

that the Government

decided that the Stone

should be kept in Edinburgh Castle

when not in use

at coronations.  

 

And just as the stone of destiny

has a footprint in modern history,

so to does

Jacobs place of encounter with God.

 

For it reminds us

of the unconditional offer of God

to us.

 

The offer of companionship,

protection and ultimate well-being.

 

But, far more encouragingly,

the place of destiny

reminds that

God’s gifts each and every one of us

a unique plan

and a unique calling

and a unique goal.

 

To that end alone,

God offers to help us

to achieve all

that we are capable off.

 

In fact, he willingly descends

from heaven

to ensure our individual fulfilment

in the field of our vocation.

 

And as a result,

we are guaranteed our effect of history

and a long remembered fortune.  

 

If then our lives are to holy places –

places that witness to encounter –

places in remembrance

of God’s overwhelming generosity,

let us not join Jacob in saying –

where’s your money.

 

Rather let us struggle

to give into God’s design

and ascend his ladder

of our given vocation.

 

And if today

we feel the unequal of that fight,

let us

at least

be grateful for our destiny

by praying the shortest

and straightest prayer of all.

 

And that is simply to say –

gee pa ta!

 

Amen

 

Offering

 

HYMN………..

 

 

 

Jacob’s Ladder to Heaven