MISERY LOVES COMPANY?

 

They say, “Misery loves company,” but I don’t know about that. 

The idea is we tend to spread our pain to others as if by division we can diminish our share of anguish.  I’ve been sad enough to be bitter and make my company miserable, too.  It didn’t help.  For each companion infected with despair, the inverse occurred, and my share of misery multiplied.   My misery does not love present company. 

But PAST company is welcome. 

There is surprising comfort in realizing that my particular distress isn’t particular to me.  Someone else has scars in the same place.  Others have fought the same battle, lost it like me, survived the loss, fought it again, and survived to share the story.

 This is why I love the Bible’s record of failures.  

 Jacob “wrestling” with insomnia because he’s convinced himself that his brother is going to massacre his entire family (Genesis 32).  David starving himself in seemingly suicidal desperation because he can’t fix the consequences his stupid choices have caused for his child (2 Samuel 12).  Elijah in a state of bi-polar depression running away from his greatest success, isolating himself from loyal company, mentally self-abusing, and wanting to just die. “It is enough! Now, Lord, take my life, for I am no better than my fathers!” (1 Kings 19: 4).  

None of those miserable examples of humanity survived that moment unscathed, but each of them survived.  They got up --- limping, grieving, chastised and still angry; but they got up and went on to succeed.   

 It comforts me to be in the company of such a great cloud of miserable witnesses.  

It should comfort our community to open the Bible and read that that we are not  the first community of faith to experience this particular combination of anxiety, anger, hope?, resignation, and cynicism about the possibilities of justice. 

The Korahites had been slaves, leaders, rebels, outcasts, and worship leaders.   One of their songs declares the misery of being citizens of a country defined by sin, led by lies, governed unjustly, and oppressed with impunity. 

Vindicate me, O God,

And plead my cause against an ungodly nation;

Oh, deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man!

For You are the God of my strength;

Why do You cast me off?

Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?  (Psalm 43: 1-2)

 

The sons of Korah pleaded for a sign, for a Word from the Lord that would make all their praise and worship seem relevant in the midst of national misery.

 Oh, send out Your light and Your truth!

Let them lead me;

Let them bring me to Your holy hill

And to Your tabernacle.

Then I will go to the altar of God,

To God my exceeding joy;

And on the harp I will praise You,

O God, my God. (Psalm 43: 3-4)

We don’t know what were the specific issues which inspired the 43^rd psalm. What were the alternative facts delivered by the deceitful and unjust man?  Whose lives didn’t matter to the ungodly nation they nevertheless loved?  What were the systemic tools used for oppression?  We don’t know how or if the complaints in the psalm were justly resolved? 

 

All we know is their misery. 

And we know how they survived, got up, and kept going. 

 Why are you cast down, O my soul?

And why are you disquieted within me?

Hope in God;

For I shall yet praise Him,

The help of my countenance and my God. (Psalm 43:  5)     

 

The Korahites worked on themselves internally. 

Why are you cast down, O my soul?  And why are you disquieted within me? 

They concluded that they could not survive depending on circumstances as the source of their mental health.  They recalled that they, like the miserable saints before could endure and progress if they placed their hope in God. 

Hope in God 

The Sons of Korah decided to reinvest in their praise and worship.  To simply DECIDE that their praise and worship was relevant. 

For I shall yet praise Him

They decided to remember, to believe, to KNOW that God had brought them through every past battle; and, therefore, He would bring them through the next battles, including the battles with their own misery. 

The help of my countenance and my God.  

 These all foreshadowed the greatest story of misery and success. 

JESUS had no form or comeliness . . . no beauty that we should desire Him. . .  He was despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.  He was lonely because we hid, as it were, our faces from Him.  He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.   (Isaiah 53: 2, 3)

Jesus triumphed over death, the grave, Hell, sin, and human betrayal.  This is our God in whose eternal company we have our most precious hope. 

This is the company that misery can love.   

Over and over, the Bible affirms:  You may not feel alright right now, but you will be alright in the long run. 

You will lose sometimes, but you will ultimately win.

God’s people hurt, too.  But God heals His people.   Every time.

May our present anxiety find relief in the great cloud of witnesses who have suffered and triumphed before us.       

 AND GO VOTE ON TUESDAY. 

-  Anderson T. Graves II, is a writer, community organizer, consultant and the pastor of Bailey Tabernacle CME Church 

Email: BaileyTabernacleChurch@comcast.net

Friend on Facebook at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow on twitter @AndersonTGraves 

Support this blog with a donation to paypal.me/andersongraves  or CashApp  at $atgraves or on the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar. 

 

 

 

 

DON'T DIE ANGRY, a lesson from the death of Jacob

Blogging Genesis 48-50

Then Israel charged his sons and said to them: “I am to be gathered to my people; bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite. . .  There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife, there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife, and there I buried Leah. . .  And when Jacob had finished commanding his sons, he drew his feet up into the bed and breathed his last, and was gathered to his people (Genesis 49: 29 - 33).

In his letter to the early church in Ephesus, Paul explained how to live as a good Christian in a world and in a church where other people don’t always live like good Christians.  Drawing on Old Testament advice from Psalms 4:4, the apostle said, “Be angry, and do not sin”: do not let the sun go down on your wrath (Ephesians 4: 26).

As a pastor who’s performed, it seems like, a LOT of funerals I’ve noticed a trend in obituaries where instead of “birth – death” the program will say “sunrise – sunset.”  The image of death as a sunset is beautiful and perhaps comforting but combined with Paul’s advice it’s also challenging.  

Challenging because a fair number of Christians enter the sunset of their lives as Jacob, aka Israel did.  It isn’t a state that negates one’s salvation, but it is a state that can have far-reaching negative consequences.  So, please don’t go out like Jacob did.

Jacob died angry.

And he died often.  Jacob was like that old auntie who sends for the whole family in June because the Lord is calling her home and she gets out of the hospital 2 days later; then she calls the whole family to her bedside in October because the Lord is calling her home and she gets out of the hospital that afternoon; and next August she sends a message that can you fly in because she wants to see you one last time before the Lord calls her home and when you get to the hospital they’ve already discharged her, etc., etc.

Jacob was at death’s door when he first thought that Joseph had been killed

And all his sons and all his daughters arose to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted, and he said, “For I shall go down into the grave to my son in mourning.” Thus his father wept for him (Genesis 37:35).

And, when he reunited with Joseph.

And Israel said to Joseph, “Now let me die, since I have seen your face, because you are still alive” (Genesis 46:30).

And, when he called in Joseph to explain his wishes for his funeral.

When the time drew near that Israel must die, he called his son Joseph and said to him. . . Please do not bury me in Egypt, but let me lie with my fathers; you shall carry me out of Egypt and bury me in their burial place” (Genesis 47:29-30).

And, when he amended his will to include two of his grandsons.

Now it came to pass after these things that Joseph was told, “Indeed your father is sick”; and he took with him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim (Genesis 48:1).

But when the Lord did actually, finally call Jacob home, Israel went out in a blaze of bitterness. 

First of all, he made Joseph’s sons joint-heirs with their uncles.

And now your two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, are mine; as Reuben and Simeon, they shall be mine. Your offspring whom you beget after them shall be yours; they will be called by the name of their brothers in their inheritance (Genesis 48:5-6).

The firstborn son is assigned the double inheritance. So basically, on his deathbed, Jacob-Israel told his 10 oldest sons “I never really liked ya’ll anyway.  As far as I’m concerned, Joseph is my firstborn.”

To Jacob’s credit, he didn’t publicly call out his sons for selling Joseph into slavery.   Joseph had forgiven them and Jacob apparently let that go, too.  But, Jacob did use his dying breaths to go all the way back to the oldest of old offenses that his eldest 3 sons had every committed. 

In his last words, Father Jacob cursed his eldest children.

“Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity and the excellency of power.   Unstable as water, you shall not excel, because you went up to your father’s bed; then you defiled it.  He went up to my couch.

 “Simeon and Levi are brothers; instruments of cruelty are in their dwelling place. Let not my soul enter their council; let not my honor be united to their assembly;  for in their anger they slew a man, And in their self-will they hamstrung an ox.  Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce; And their wrath, for it is cruel! I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel” (Genesis 49:3-7).

Jacob dumped that on his sons and their descendants inherited the emotional baggage of their grandfather’s curse.

Imagine being a Reubenite, Simeonite, or Levite (like Moses) for the next 500-plus years.  Imagine that every time you heard or spoke the name of your nation you remembered that the father of your nation cursed your community ---- with his dying breath.

(Cough . . . cough. George Washington was a slaveowner until the day he died and Thomas “all men are created equal” Jefferson’s will only emancipated 5 of his dozens of slaves and those 5 did not include Sally Hemmings the slave by whom the married Jefferson had at least 6 children . . . cough . . . cough)

That’s a lot of emotional baggage to pass down through the generations. 

You might even expect some of those the descendants to carry some latent rage. 

And a man of the house of Levi went and took as wife a daughter of Levi. ² So the woman conceived and bore a son. . . And when she saw that he was a beautiful child, she hid him three months. ³ But when she could no longer hide him, she took an ark of bulrushes for him, daubed it with asphalt and pitch, put the child in it, and laid it in the reeds by the river’s bank. . . And the child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. So she called his name Moses. . . when Moses was grown. . .  he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his brethren. So he looked this way and that way, and when he saw no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand (Exodus 2:1-12).

You might expect some of those descendants to carry some self-hate. 

Now Korah the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, with Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, and On the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took men;  and they rose up before Moses with some of the children of Israel, two hundred and fifty leaders of the congregation, representatives of the congregation, men of renown. ³ They gathered together against Moses and Aaron (Numbers 16:1-3).

Jacob was an important man whose words of blessing and words of cursing had profound consequences.  But Jacob was just a man.  

No man’s words to you or about you is the final say, not even if they’re your father’s final words, not even if the words are a prophetic declaration. 

God alone has the last say about you and your destiny. 

The descendants of Levi were divided among and scattered across the tribes of Israel, but not as nomads or vagabonds.  God made the Levites the tribe of priests and judges.  Jacob said:  let not my honor be united to their assembly.  God overruled Jacob and gave Levi the united honor of all Israel.

Daddy or granddaddy or founding fathers declare their opinion, preference, and predictions about who you and your people are and can be.   But you don’t have to conform to that.  Those historic men were important, but those men aren’t God.  Prove them wrong.  Succeed anyway. 

Jacob-Israel installed Joseph as his firstborn, intending for descendants of his 11^th son to rule over all the others.  But Judah and his descendants didn’t care. 

Now the sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel—he was indeed the firstborn, but because he defiled his father’s bed, his birthright was given to the sons of Joseph, the son of Israel, so that the genealogy is not listed according to the birthright; yet Judah prevailed over his brothers, and from him came a ruler, although the birthright was Joseph’s (1 Chronicles 5:1-2).

Israel died old-man angry and bestowed an unnecessarily painful legacy on a segment of his population.  Don’t die angry.  Don’t let the sun set on bitter words that God has to spend generations undoing. 

And if you are living in the shadow of an angry parents’ death ----- defy them.  

Succeed anyway.  Define your legacy for yourself.  Prevail.

The Levites defied Father Israel’s curse and gave us the Moses, the Law, and the sacrifices that laid the foundation for the gospel.   The sons of Judah defied Father Israel’s expectations, defined their own legacy, and gave us kings and psalmists and books of wisdom and the Bible’s dirty love Song ---- and Jesus.

Don’t let an angry sunset determine the rest of your days.

--Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama. He writes a blog called A Word to the Wise at www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves 

Click here to support this ministry with a donation.  Or go to andersontgraves.blogspot.com and click on the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

DON'T BE A JERK

Blogging Genesis 37

1 Now Jacob dwelt in the land where his father was a stranger, in the land of Canaan.

² This is the history of Jacob.

Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brothers. And the lad was with the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives; and Joseph brought a bad report of them to his father. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brothers. And the lad was with the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives; and Joseph brought a bad report of them to his father.  

3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age. Also he made him a tunic of many colors. 4 But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peaceably to him . . . (Genesis 37)

Genesis 37: 2 says “This is the history of Jacob.”

By this point Jacob was an old man, the father of 11 adult sons, some with wives and children of their own.  Grandfather Jacob had been to foreign countries, wrestled with angels, and buried the woman he loved. But never mind the previous decades, the history of Jacob, also called Israel, only REALLY begins here with the story of his favorite son: Joseph. 

It’s touching to think how a  child can mark the beginning of its parents’ real story.  But if you have 13 (or more) kids, and your story didn’t get started until the 11^th son, it’s not so much sweet as sad. 

Sadly, Jacob played favorites with his children .  Actually “played” isn’t an adequate word because Jacob seriously loved his two sons by Rachel and seriously disdained all his other kids.  Jacob’s favoritism was apparently so deeply etched into the family history that the written record in Scripture reflects the patriarch’s partiality. 

Or maybe the author of Genesis 37:2 didn’t mean Jacob, aka Israel, the man, but Jacob, aka Israel the nation. 

THIS is the history of  Israel.   

It is a history of jerks.

Jacob was a jerk.  His oldest sons were jerks.  His favorite son Joseph was a jerk.  The mass of their collective buttholery nearly destroyed the messianic line.

Jacob enforced his favoritism with no regard for the harm it did to his children.    When 17 year old Joseph snitched on his siblings, Father Jacob publicly rewarded him by making him

supervisor of the older, more experienced brothers.  

Jacob assigned his 10 oldest sons to life in the pastures.  They  spent months at a time away from their wives and children, exposed to the elements, and in peril from predatory animals and more viciously predatory people.  . They slept under the sky, or in caves, or in tents stitched and re-stitched to keep out the rain.  They clambered up mountain paths looking for that darn stupid goat.   They pulled night watches wrapped in old cloaks, and their father didn’t care, but here came little Joseph, precious Joseph in a brand new coat, expensively dyed in multiple colors.   

. . . they hated him and could not speak peaceably to him (Genesis 37: 4).

. . . they hated him even more (Genesis 37: 5).

Literally, everything Joseph said pissed off his brother more.

And then Joseph started having dreams.

He said, “Please hear this dream which I have dreamed: There we were, binding sheaves in the field. Then behold, my sheaf arose and also stood upright; and indeed your sheaves stood all around and bowed down to my sheaf” (Genesis 27:6-7).

Joseph also dreamed that their parents, represented by the sun and moon and his brothers, represented by 11 stars, all bowed down to him.

Now don’t forget that Joseph’s mother was dead.  So, the moon in Joseph’s dream represented Jacob’s OTHER wives.  Joseph basically told his brothers, “Your mama’s gonna bow down to me.  And your mama’s gonna bow down to me.  And YOUR mama’s gonna bow down to me.”

Now I don’t know if Joseph was insensitive or just stupid.  Seventeen year-old males tend to be both.  His brother were older than him, stronger than him, regularly braved conditions their dad thought were too dangerous for him, had literally murdered an entire city before, and they didn’t like him --- at all.   But, Joseph actually told THOSE dreams, out loud to THOSE men. 

So yeah, next time Joseph came around in his Armani coat “supervising” they seriously considered murdering him.

Now when they saw him afar off, even before he came near them, they conspired against him to kill him.  Then they said to one another, “Look, this dreamer is coming!   Come therefore, let us now kill him and cast him into some pit; and we shall say, ‘Some wild beast has devoured him.’ We shall see what will become of his dreams!” (Genesis 37:18 – 20)

Ultimately they didn’t kill him, but what they did brought about 13 years of suffering for everyone in their family.   13 years of pain because each man involved chose to be a jerk. 

Reuben could’ve stood up to his siblings when they wanted to get rid of Joseph.  He could have been a genuine hero, but he decided to double-cross his brothers and ended up deeper in his father’s disfavor.

But Reuben heard it, and he delivered him out of their hands, and said, “Let us not kill him.”  And Reuben said to them, “Shed no blood, but cast him into this pit which is in the wilderness, and do not lay a hand on him”—that he might deliver him out of their hands, and bring him back to his father. . . Then Reuben returned to the pit, and indeed Joseph was not in the pit; and he tore his clothes. And he returned to his brothers and said, “The lad is no more; and I, where shall I go?” (Genesis 37:21-30).

Judah could have used his influence to redirect his family away from violent dysfunction but he wanted to make money off his little brother’s misfortune so he continued on a path mean-ness and betrayal that his own sons followed to their deaths. 

So Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is there if we kill our brother and conceal his blood?  Come and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him, for he is our brother and our flesh.” And his brothers listened (Genesis 37:26-27).

Jacob could have ended the 3 generation old cycle of parental favoritism and sibling rivalry.  Instead he perpetuated and exacerbated the cycle costing him decades of anxiety, depression, paranoia, and absence.

Then Jacob tore his clothes, put sackcloth on his waist, and mourned for his son many days. And all his sons and all his daughters arose to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted, and he said, “For I shall go down into the grave to my son in mourning.” Thus his father wept for him (Genesis 37:34-35).

And Joseph.  Good ole Joseph.  In later days he would become a great man.  God would take what was meant for evil and use it for good.  But at this point in the history of the family and nation Israel, all they have is the self-inflicted evil.  From this point in the history Joseph spends the next 13 years as a slave and prisoner in the equivalent of solitary confinement in a federal penitentiary because he was obsessed with his favor, his authority, and his dreams with no empathy for the dreams, authority, or needs of anyone else in his family. 

Being jerks cost them more than they could have imagined. 

And the moral of Genesis chapter 37 is:  DON’T BE A JERK.

You may have been bullied and mistreated, but DON’T BE A JERK.

You may have been passed over for a promotion that was rightly yours, but DON’T BE A JERK.

You may have been denied love and forgiveness, but DON’T BE A JERK.

You may have prophetic dreams of a great divine destiny, but that’s no excuse for being a jerk.

It may in the end all work out for good because you love the Lord and are called according to His purpose.    Cool.  But that won’t undo the suffering that your buttholery causes in the meantime. 

Just, DON’T BE A JERK.

 

--Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama. He writes a blog called A Word to the Wise at www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves 

Click here to support this ministry with a donation.  Or go to andersontgraves.blogspot.com and click on the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

TIME & PLACE (blogging Genesis)

Blogging Genesis 35:27 – 36:43

Genesis 35: ²⁷ Then Jacob came to his father Isaac at Mamre, or Kirjath Arba (that is, Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac had dwelt.

²⁸ Now the days of Isaac were one hundred and eighty years.

 ²⁹ So Isaac breathed his last and died, and was gathered to his people, being old and full of days.

And his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.

Time (and geography) has a way of changing your perspective: your personal perspective and our historical perspective.

On a personal level, look at Jacob and Esau.  They were rivals from the womb.  Literally.  But, when their father died, they reconciled and, for a while, even moved their clans together to live on the same land.  However, as had happened with their Grandpa Abraham and Great-Uncle Lot, the brothers’ respective success and the growth of their extended families forced them to split up and look for more land.

Then Esau took his wives, his sons, his daughters, and all the persons of his household, his cattle and all his animals, and all his goods which he had gained in the land of Canaan, and went to a country away from the presence of his brother Jacob.  For their possessions were too great for them to dwell together, and the land where they were strangers could not support them because of their livestock (Genesis 36:6-7).

Time and geography turned the sibling rivals into friends and, for a time, co-heads of their households.   

Time and place have an equally profound effect when you move from the personal to the historical,

Genesis chapter 36 is a genealogy of Esau’s descendants covering several generations well into the next couple hundred years in Canaan.

A history may cover hundreds of years across a region spanning thousands of miles, but it is written in a single place from the perspective of a single historical moment.  The time and place of the scholar skews the perspective and the conclusions of their history.

¹⁵ These were the chiefs of the sons of Esau. The sons of Eliphaz, the firstborn son of Esau, were Chief Teman, Chief Omar, Chief Zepho, Chief Kenaz,

¹⁶ Chief Korah, Chief Gatam, and Chief Amalek.  These were the chiefs of Eliphaz in the land of Edom. They were the sons of Adah.

. . . ³¹ Now these were the kings who reigned in the land of Edom before any king reigned over the children of Israel:  (Genesis 36: 15, 16-31)

Genesis 36 says that Esaus’ descendants became tribal chiefs and eventually kings in Canaan.   Meanwhile his brother’s family relocated to Egypt where their descendants were enslaved and kept in bondage for 400 years.

Imagine if the history of the two sons of Isaac been written by a Canaanite observer living in the time between the end of Genesis and the beginning of Exodus. 

Esau would have been the successful twin.  His offspring, the Edomites, would have been the chosen people, the “superior” nation and some clever historian, looking “objectively” at the historical evidence would have pointed out that the Israelites were descendants of a Jacob the usurper, a known liar.  Therefore, this hypothetical scholar might have argued, the Israelites were a cursed race, genetically predisposed to service, fit only for second-class citizenship, unlike the noble Edomites.

But if you let history run a few more centuries, Israel becomes a great kingdom, Edom is wiped out, and the greatest religion in the world (I’m not even pretending to be objective about that) is literally born from the descendants of Israel.    Now who’s the cursed and who’s the chosen?

Five hundred years ago Africans were colonized and enslaved by Europeans.  Today, the African continent is stereotypically synonymous with famine, poverty, AIDS, and political chaos.  From this history, generations of Eurocentric scholars have concluded that African people and their descendants are cursed, inferior, and genetically suited to slavery and second-class citizenship. 

But imagine if the history had been written by a Spanish observer between 700 and 1492 A.D.  The medieval Spanish historian would have known Africans as Moors, the conquerors and rulers of Spain.  The Moors essentially ended the Dark Ages in Europe by introducing such innovations as personal hygiene (like deodorant and regular bathing), universal education, street lighting, hydraulic engineering, advanced agriculture, the first paper-making factory, and algebra.  A medieval Spanish historian writing in a new library built at the height of the Moorish era might have called Europeans filthy savages who should be grateful that their Black-skinned masters had colonized their backwards land and brought them civilization. 

 http://atlantablackstar.com/2013/10/07/when-black-men-ruled-the-world-moors/

History is the big picture, but depending on which years, which locations, and which events you crop out of the picture ---- the remaining image can make any group of people look way too good or way too bad.

The valid lessons of history teach us about contexts not character.   History doesn’t define certain nations or ethnicities as always good or always evil.  History can only tell us who did what in a given time and place.  In any given time and any given place, the right conditions can push any given people to become either heroes or villains.  The predictive parts of the historical record are the contexts and conditions. 

The Bible is a book for all times and all places.  How can such a relatively small anthology apply universally?  Because God in His infinite wisdom filled Scripture with stories of the contexts and conditions that make a people kings followed by the contexts and conditions that make that same people extinct.  The Bible shows us a people united and that same people divided.  It breaks down how a free community finds itself enslaved and how an enslaved people gets free.   Scripture lays out the contexts that make for great national leaders and the conditions that promote tyranny, corruption, and apostasy. 

Through Scripture, God teaches us to talk less about the TIMES in which we live. 

Do not say, “Why were the former days better than these?”  For you do not inquire wisely concerning this (Ecclesiastes 7:10)

God teaches us to not to define ourselves by our geographical boundaries and national affiliations.

And do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones (Matthew 3:9).

Therefore understand that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people (Deuteronomy 9:6)

Times and places change.  Our actions create the conditions of our time and place and those conditions define how chosen or how cursed our history will be. 

--Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama. He writes a blog called A Word to the Wise at www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves 

Click here to support this ministry with a donation.  Or go to andersontgraves.blogspot.com and click on the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

CROSSED LINES & COURSE CORRECTION

Blogging Genesis 35:21-22

Then Israel journeyed and pitched his tent beyond the tower of Eder.

And it happened, when Israel dwelt in that land, that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father’s concubine; and Israel heard about it (Genesis 35: 21-22).

In every family, there are lines that must never be crossed.   So what happens when EVERYBODY in the family crosses EVERY line?   Let’s see.

Back in Genesis 29-30, Jacob, aka Israel, married Leah, thinking he was marrying her sister Rachel.  Then he married Rachel, too.  As part of their dowries and the custom of the wealthy classes at the time, each of the brides had a handmaiden.  A handmaiden, or maid, was a lifetime servant like the ladies in waiting of European royalty.  Leah’s maid was named Zilpah.  Rachel’s maid was Bilhah. To provide their husband with more children, Rachel and Leah made Jacob marry their maids, too. 

  

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2011/04/waity_katies_ladies.html

Why they did that involves a complex mix of ancient perceptions of a woman’s worth being tied to her ability to give her husband children, legal precedent for higher class women adopting/claiming/ abducting their servants’ children to tweak their fertility stats, and the timeless human tradition of ignoring and repeating the history of really bad ideas (see Sarah, Abraham, and Hagar).  From all that, Zilpah and Bilhah went from maids to concubines.  Concubines were kinda not full wives, but they were definitely fully off limits to any other man, which brings us to Reuben, the eldest son of Israel. 

Reuben did a very bad thing.

“And it happened, when Israel dwelt in that land, that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father’s concubine; and Israel heard about it.” (Genesis 35: 22)

Yep.  Reuben, first of the 12 patriarchs of the Jewish nation, slept with his stepmom who was also the mother of 2 of his brothers.¹ 

His dad found out and nothing.  Verse 23 moves on to a whole other subject and nobody mentions the affair until Israel brings it up on his deathbed 40 years later.   Yep. The oldest son and and his stepmom had sex, everybody knew, and for 40 years they acted like it hadn’t happened.

And this was just the latest line in a long line of lines that no one should ever cross, but they did.

The only sister in this family had been raped and Dad basically did nothing about it.  Her brothers responded by killing every male human remotely connected to the rapist, AND kidnapping all the women in their town.

Dad had 4 wives, but he only loved one, and he didn’t particularly care for the children of  his 3 baby-mamas.  That’s 11 out of 13 kids knowing their Dad who wants them to kick rocks.    And that’s 3 women whose husband has affection-less sex with them.

Now, none of this justifies an affair between a man’s third wife and first son; but in such a broken and ugly atmosphere, when the oldest unloved son and the youngest unloved concubine were likely part of the same generation, Reuben and Bilhah’s affair was not the most surprising development in the family’s history. 

 

Reuben and Bilhah made a choice: a wrong, wrong, eww, wrong choice.  Nobody made them do what they did.  But.  But the culture created by the head(s) of a household define the natural flow of decisions.  In Jacob’s house the current flowed in the wrong, wrong, eww, wrong direction. 

Parents matter.  The culture we create in our homes will push our children toward good or toward evil.   Yes, every child can use their free will to defy the odds either way.  But every statistic in history agrees that it is hard to swim upstream.  And that’s why God gives us rules.

The Law and its more perfect evolution, the Gospel, lay out guideposts for ordering the culture of our families and communities.   In a sense, the Bible is a really long manual for course correction. 

In Genesis, the Lord gave some individual revelations and a few prophetic nudges in the right direction, but for the most part God let people structure family and community according to the dictates of conscience and circumstance. 

Well, we see how well that worked.

Reuben and Bilhah’s affair was one of several relationships that caused so much damage and drama they inspired a whole set of course-corrections  in the Mosaic law:

·         Reuben and Bilhah’s Law.   Leviticus 18: ⁸ The nakedness of your father’s wife you shall not uncover; it is your father’s nakedness.

·         Lot and His Daughters’ Law.  Leviticus 18: ⁷ The nakedness of your father or the nakedness of your mother you shall not uncover. She is your mother; you shall not uncover her nakedness. Abraham and Sarah’s Law.   Leviticus 18: ⁹ The nakedness of your sister, the daughter of your father, or the daughter of your mother, whether born at home or elsewhere, their nakedness you shall not uncover.

·         Judah and Tamar’s Law.   Leviticus 18: ¹⁵ You shall not uncover the nakedness of your daughter-in-law—she is your son’s wife—you shall not uncover her nakedness.

·         Rachel and Leah’s Law.  Leviticus 18: ¹⁸ Nor shall you take a woman as a rival to her sister, to uncover her nakedness while the other is alive.

·         Amram and Jochebed (Moses’ parents) Law.  Leviticus 18: ¹² You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s sister; she is near of kin to your father. ¹³ You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother’s sister, for she is near of kin to your mother.

The children of the newly prohibited relationships often became wonderful, mightily anointed people.  Nevertheless, the relationships that produced them were terrible ideas that were now officially wrong, eww, wrong.   Leviticus 18 was God saying, “Don’t do that mess anymore.”

Now remember, God delivered the Law to the descendants of Jacob’s 4 wives and 13 kids. The Law was also God’s way of saying to the heirs of family dysfunction,  “You can be better.  Here’s how.”

We have the Law, the prophets, and the Gospel.  We have the full manual for correcting the course of our culture.  With the Bible as our guide, we can establish a fresh current that pulls our descendants toward good and not evil, toward happy families not dysfunctional ones.  And yes, each descendant may choose a different direction, but most of them will swim downstream.

¹  The phrasing in verse 22, contrasted to the report of Dinah’s sexual assault in chapter 34, indicates: (1) Reuben’s and Dinah’s hookup was consensual; and (2) they tried to be sneaky but Daddy found out.

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama. He writes a blog called A Word to the Wise at www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com

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