God said to Jacob,
"Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there. Make an altar there to the God
who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau." So Jacob said
to his household and to all who were with him, "Put away the foreign gods
that are among you and purify yourselves and change your garments. Then let us
arise and go up to Bethel, so that I may make there an altar to the God who
answers me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have
gone." So they gave to Jacob all the foreign gods that they had, and the
rings that were in their ears. Jacob hid them under the terebinth tree that was
near Shechem. (Bereshit / Genesis 35:1-4; ESV)
Last week's message was about Rachel, Jacob's wife,
and how she didn't get caught for stealing her father's idols. There is no
indication in last week's Torah portion, or anywhere else in Scripture that I
am aware of, that her crime was ever discovered or that she suffered as a
result of it. But, as I mentioned last week, I don't think the story of the
stolen idols ends there.
This week's
portion includes Jacob's unusual and dramatic encounter with God in which God
comes to Jacob in human form and wrestles with him through the night. Jacob
emerges from this as a transformed man with a new name, Israel. God then
directs him to resettle in the Promised Land in the town of Bethel and
instructed him to build an altar there. In preparation for that, Jacob directs
his large household to, as we read, "Put away the foreign gods that are
among you and purify yourselves and change your garments." And so they
did. In fact, they gave all their
foreign gods to him and he buried them. This would have included the ones that
Rachel stole from her father and lied about.
There is no
excuse for Rachel's wrong, but better late than never. It certainly would have
been preferable had she owned up when confronted by her father, but at least
she finally got rid of the idols. In case you might be thinking that she should
have made arrangements to return them to her dad, we need to remember that
these were evil objects that were wrong for anyone to have. But for the
purposes of our discussion, that's beside the point. So let's move on.
It must have
been difficult for Rachel to part with the idols. It isn't clear why she took
them in the first place. She might have believed in their power and wanted
whatever benefit she thought they could provide, or it was a little piece of
home to connect her with her past. Whatever the reason, it was clear that she
was willing to risk much to steal them and then to cover up her crime in order
to keep them. It's not easy to part with something like that. But she did.
Note,
however, it took Jacob's directive to bring her to the point of ridding herself
of these destructive items. His instruction to his family to "put away the
foreign gods" tells us that he was aware of their existence within the
clan. Regardless of whether or not he knew that his own wife was in possession
of such things, he knew there were idols in their midst and it was wrong to
have them. We may wonder what took him so long to address this, but he did
eventually. As head of his household Jacob took a stand in order that his
family would be right with God.
That it took
so long for Jacob's family to address their hidden idols should not encourage
us to take our time before addressing ours. On the contrary! That they finally
dealt with such things should encourage us to come clean now regardless of how
long we have held on to our hidden idols. The longer we wait, the harder it
gets. Hidden, secret sins have a way of becoming an accepted part of our lives.
After a while they no longer seem like idols. That's why from time to time we
need people to say to us, "Put away your foreign gods." Perhaps it's
time to do personal, family, and community inventory and clear out any and all
foreign items that don't belong.
No comments:
Post a Comment