“THE
CON WHO HAD A CONSCIENCE”
GENESIS
32:1-31
32:1 Jacob went
on his way, and the angels of God met him.
2 And when Jacob
saw them he said, “This is God's camp!” So
he called the name of that place Mahanaim.
3 And Jacob sent
messengers before him to Esau his brother in
the land of Seir, the country of Edom,
4 instructing them,
“Thus you shall say to my lord Esau: Thus
says your servant Jacob, ‘I have sojourned with Laban and stayed until now.
5 I have oxen,
donkeys, flocks, male servants, and female servants.
I have sent to tell my lord, in order that I may find favor in your sight.’”
6 And the messengers
returned to Jacob, saying, “We came to
your brother Esau, and he is coming to meet you, and there are four hundred men
with him.”
7 Then Jacob was
greatly afraid and distressed. He divided
the people who were with him, and the flocks and herds and camels, into two
camps, 8 thinking, “If Esau comes to the one camp and attacks it, then the
camp that is left will escape.”
9 And Jacob said,
“O God of my father Abraham and God of my
father Isaac, O Lord who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your
kindred, that I may do you good,’
10 I am not worthy
of the least of all the deeds of steadfast
love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with
only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps.
11 Please deliver
me from the hand of my brother, from the
hand of Esau, for I fear him, that he may come and attack me, the mothers with
the children.
12 But you said,
‘I will surely do you good, and make your
offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.’”
13 So he stayed
there that night, and from what he had with
him he took a present for his brother Esau,
14 two hundred
female goats and twenty male goats, two
hundred ewes and twenty rams,
15 thirty milking
camels and their calves, forty cows and ten
bulls, twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys.
16 These he handed
over to his servants, every drove by
itself, and said to his servants, “Pass on ahead of me and put a space between
drove and drove.”
17 He instructed
the first, “When Esau my brother meets you
and asks you, ‘To whom do you belong? Where are you going? And whose are these
ahead of you?’
18 then you shall
say, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob.
They are a present sent to my lord Esau. And moreover, he is behind us.’”
19 He likewise
instructed the second and the third and all
who followed the droves, “You shall say the same thing to Esau when you find
him,
20 and you shall
say, ‘Moreover, your servant Jacob is behind
us.’” For he thought, “I may appease him with the present that goes ahead of
me, and afterward I shall see his face. Perhaps he will accept me.”
21 So the present
passed on ahead of him, and he himself
stayed that night in the camp.
22 The same night
he arose and took his two wives, his two
female servants, and his eleven children and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.
23 He took them
and sent them across the stream, and
everything else that he had.
24 And Jacob was
left alone. And a man wrestled with him
until the breaking of the day.
25 When the man
saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he
touched his hip socket, and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled
with him.
26 Then he said,
“Let me go, for the day has broken.” But
Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
27 And he said
to him, “What is your name?” And he said,
“Jacob.”
28 Then he said,
“Your name shall no longer be called Jacob,
but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have
prevailed.”
29 Then Jacob asked
him, “Please tell me your name.” But he
said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him.
30 So Jacob called
the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For
I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.”
31 The sun rose
upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because
of his hip.
32 Therefore to
this day the people of Israel do not eat the
sinew of the thigh that is on the hip socket, because he touched the socket of
Jacob's hip on the sinew of the thigh.
Everyone has a
conscience. It’s just that some
people listen to their conscience more than others. People who do listen end up with a strong and healthy
conscience like the grandmother who went to the post office one day to mail a
Bible to her grandson. When the
man behind the counter asked her, “Is there anything breakable in the package?”
the grandmother replied, “Yes. The Ten Commandments!”
Some people have a strong and
healthy conscience and some people have a weak conscience. Take the man, for
example, who sent an unusual letter to the IRS. In the letter the man wrote: “I’m writing to confess that I
cheated on my tax return last year and my conscience is killing me. I can’t
sleep at night and my stomach is tied up in knots. So, please accept the enclosed check
for $500. P.S. If my conscience
still bothers me I’ll
send you the balance.”
Some people have a strong and
healthy conscience. Some people
have a weak conscience and some people, like Anders Behring Breivik, have no
conscience at all. Anders Behring
Breivik, of course, is the man who shot and killed all those teenagers over in
Norway.
What he did wasn’t just sinful. What
he did was downright evil. Sinful
is when you do something wrong and you know that it’s wrong. Evil is when you
do something wrong and you’re convinced that what you did was actually good! That
only happens when your conscience
is dead and fortunately, that doesn’t happen very often.
So, how about you? How’s your
conscience these days? Would you
say that you have a strong and healthy conscience? Maybe your conscience is a little weak. Then again maybe your
conscience is a
little too strong. That was
the problem that Jacob had. Now
that probably doesn’t make any sense to you at all. After all, Jacob was a conniving little weasel. I say that
because we know that he
stole from his uncle Laban. He
cheated his brother Esau out of his birthright and his blessing and he did that
by lying to his father.
Jacob was a con man and now,
14 years later, he was on his way to be reunited with his brother. That reunion
didn’t look like it was
going to be a Kodak moment either.
So, let’s go back and do a quick synopsis of happened.
Jacob is on his way to meet
his brother Esau and he’s worried.
So, he sends messengers to
let his Esau know that he, Jacob, is now a wealthy man. At this point he
doesn’t offer anything to his brother.
He just lets him know that he’s a wealthy man and the implication is
that their reunion could be beneficial for Esau.
So, what happens next? The
messengers come back and report that Esau is indeed on his way and he’s bring
400 men with him.
Now Jacob is really shaking
in his sandals. He turns to God and begins to pray. Actually, what he really did was bow his head and whine
about his predicament. Then, just
in case God doesn’t come through for him, Jacob rounds up a bunch of cattle, sheep
and mules and sends them ahead. He
does that so that he might quote “appease” his brother. So,
it’s obvious. This isn’t a peace offering. It’s a bribe.
Everything that Jacob does
here leads you to one conclusion and one conclusion only. It leads you to the
conclusion that
nothing has really changed. Jacob is still that conniving little weasel who
stole his brother’s birthright and blessing 14 years earlier. When you come
right down to it Jacob is the Eddie Haskell of the Old Testament. Do you remember
Eddie Haskell? He was Wally’s friend in the television
show “Leave It To Beaver.” He’d
stand there in the living room and say, “My, Mrs. Cleaver, that’s a very pretty
dress you’re wearing.” Then he’d go up to the bedroom and say, “Hey Wally. Let’s
go smoke some cigarettes behind the barn.”
Jacob was a conniving little
weasel and you might think that he has a really weak conscience but then he has
that wrestling match with God and you learn something else about Jacob. You learn
something about him that is actually
a problem for a lot of people; something that may be a problem for you too.
So, let’s go back and take another look
at what happened that
night. Jacob wrestles all night
and then his opponent says, “Let me
go, for the day has broken.” In other words, “Okay Jacob! Time’s up.
I’ve got things to do and it’s time for you to go and meet your
brother.” There’s only one
problem though. Jacob isn’t ready to meet his brother. So, he refuses to
let go and says, “I
will not let you go unless you bless me.”
Now Jacob
doesn’t say that because he feels he’s entitled to another blessings that he
doesn’t deserve. He says that
because he’s absolutely, positively terrified. Don’t forget.
This is a man who is convinced that he might be dead in a couple of
hours. This is a man who is
convinced that he’s about to meet his Maker and his conscience, the same
conscience that he’s been ignoring all those years, is screaming at him. His
conscience is telling him that he
really is a conniving little weasel and that he’s in big, big trouble.
That’s
why Jacob refuses to let go. In
doing that Jacob is basically saying, “LORD, I’m not going to let You go
because I need to tell me that you still love me because it’s true. I did steal
from my uncle. I did cheat my
brother out of his birthright and blessing and I did lie to my father. So, I
probably deserve the punishment
that is waiting for me but before I face the music I need to know that You
still love me. I need to know that
no matter what happens You will always love me because right now I don’t feel
very loveable at all.”
Sometimes
people get into trouble because their conscience is too weak and sometimes they
get into trouble because their conscience is too hard and harsh. Their conscience
tells them they’re so
bad that no one including God could possibly love them. Do you ever feel
that way
yourself? Does your conscience
ever beat you up to the point where you feel like no one including God could
possibly love you?
That’s the way Jacob felt but
then came that grace filled moment.
After wrestling with him all night God blesses Jacob and actually pays
him a compliment. God says to him,
“Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but
Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have
prevailed.”
In that blessing God sends
Jacob a very clear message. God
basically says to Jacob, “My son, when you do what is right my love for you
will be full of joy and when you do what is wrong my love for you will be full
of pain but one thing will never change.
The one thing that will never change is that I will always love You and
You can always come home to me.”
What you see in this story
then is that your conscience can be a tricky thing. If your conscience is too weak you’ll end up drifting
away from God’s goodness, glory and grace. On the other hand if your conscience is too hard and harsh
it will drive you away from God’s goodness, grace and glory. So,
how do you find that sweet
spot when it comes to your conscience?
You find it by doing the same thing that Jacob did that night.. You find
it by letting God wrestle with your conscience. If you’re not sure about that let’s go back and see what happened
the next day when Jacob and Esau finally came face to face. It’s right
there in the very next
verse.
“And Jacob lifted up his eyes
and looked, and behold, Esau was
coming, and four hundred men with him. So he divided the children among Leah
and Rachel and the two female servants. 2 And
he put the servants with their children in front, then Leah with her children,
and Rachel and Joseph last of all. 3 He
himself went on before them, bowing himself to the ground seven times, until he
came near to his brother.
4 But Esau ran to meet him and embraced him and fell on his neck and
kissed him, and they wept…8 Esau said, “What
do you mean by all this companythat I met?” Jacob
answered, “To find favor in the sight of my lord.” But Esau said, “I have
enough, my brother; keep what you have for yourself.” 10 Jacob
said, “No, please, if I have found favor in your sight, then accept my present
from my hand. For I have seen your face, which is like seeing the face of God,
and you have accepted me.”
What a wonderful ending to the story. In that grace filled reunion Jacob left the conniving little
weasel behind and became the man God wanted him to be, the man God created him
to be, the man God knew he could be.
You see if Jacob was still that conniving little weasel he would reacted
differently when Esau refused to accept that herd of cattle, sheep and mules. If
Jacob was still that conniving little
weasel it would have taken him less than two seconds to say, “Okay Esau. If
you insist.” The he would have looked up to the
heavens and said, “I hope you’re paying attention here LORD. I tried.” Jacob didn’t do that though. Instead, he insisted that his brother take the herd of animals
and said, “For I have seen your face, which is like seeing the face of
God…”
When it comes to your conscience it’s a little
like “Goldilocks
and the Three Bears.” This
porridge is too hot. This porridge
is too cold. This porridge is just
right. What you want is a
conscience that isn’t too weak or too hard and harsh. What you want is a conscience that is just right; a
conscience that brings you into the presence of God’s goodness, grace and glory.
Amen.
Rev. Dr. Richard A. Hughes
July 31, 2011
