Jacob Encountering Rachel with her Father’s Herds, Joseph Ritter Von Fuhrich, 1836. Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna, Austria.

For Sunday, July 27, 2014
Seventh Sunday After Pentecost (Proper 12)

My intention is to use this blog to share what God is working into my own life in the hopes that it will encourage the work of God in others and bind us together bind us together for the cause of the kingdom.  This week, amidst so many remarkable insights and encouragements, the most important thing to share is the power of the gospel and prayer.

The power of the gospel (the good news of Jesus) is that it so aptly and completely captures our sinful condition while also providing an exit from it.  This week we see Jacob attempting to execute on the scheme of stealing his brother Esau’s birthright, only to be out-schemed by his Uncle Laban (2).  The message?  We’re all a bunch of schemers but God is on to us!  Yet at the same time he loves us deeply: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:38,39).  Amidst the painful brokenness of my scheming he invites me to draw on his strength: “Seek the LORD and his strength; seek his presence continually” (Psalm 105:4).

This is a great reminder as we see brokenness not only in ourselves but throughout our world.  In recent days a Malaysian plane was shot down errantly over the Ukraine and there has been desecration of the human remains.  Awful and abhorrent.  Elsewhere Hamas has been lobbing rockets into Israel, Israel has invaded Gaza, and protests against Israel have sprung up in London and Paris.  Israelis and Palestinians are fighting  over tunnels dug under Israel’s security wall.  Brokenness, horror, suffering, pain.

How do we go about addressing much less solving problems such as these?  The gospel invites us to start with prayer and to remember that the Holy Spirit himself is praying right alongside us:  “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.  And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God” (Rom. 8:26, 27).  As we are forced to acknowledge the strife in ourselves, in our families, in our cities, in our nations, and in our world, this is very good news indeed.

Point to ponder:  
How could prayer be a key weapon in our ministry arsenals this week?

Footnotes:
(1)  http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=54267.
(2)  See Expositors Bible Commentary on Gen. 29:14b-30.