"Dysfuction At IT's Finest"

Dysfunction At It’s Finest

Read Genesis 29:21-30 (NIV)
Read Genesis 30:1-2, 8 (NIV)

Anyone who has ever said the Bible is boring hasn’t read it. Today, I want to walk through this rather surreal story. It’s the story of Jacob, Leah, Rachael and the crew found in book of Genesis, chapters 29 and 30.

“A dysfunctional family” is “a family in which conflict, misbehavior, and often child or spouse neglect or abuse occurs, leading other members to accommodate such actions. Children sometimes grow up in such families with the understanding that such an arrangement is normal.”

A Reality TV show is defined as “a serial life-drama chiefly characterized by tangled interpersonal situations and melodramatic or sentimental treatment.” The story of Jacob’s life certainly contains both dysfunction and a plotline that would rival many of today’s reality TV shows.

In a bizarre case of ’love gone awry’, two sisters marry the same man seven years a part. One has children in a desperate attempt to gain her husband’s love and gleefully parades the children in front of her infertile sister. The other frustrated by infertility, actually instructs her husband to sleep with her maid as a surrogate! The other sister does the same thing and both women claim God is on their side. On the stage, we have the whole dysfunctional family: One Man; Four Wives; Twelve sons and One Daughter and these are only the children we know about!

Let me introduce you to the players in what sounds like a poorly scripted melodrama.

First, we have Jacob: He married two sisters within seven years of each other. As far as I’m concerned, I think he gets all the heckling he deserved for such a move.

Second, we have Leah: Yes, she’s homely or at least a bit delicate but she is the older sister. She’s Jacob’s first wife, but he doesn’t love her at all, and he’s not shy about it.

Third, we have Rachel. She’s brunette, she’s brash and she’s beautiful. Killer looks and a killer attitude rolled into one deadly package. She stole Jacob’s heart and cost him 14 years of hard labor.

Fourth and fifth, we have Leah’s maid Zilpah and Rachel’s maid Bilhah. Surrogate mothers both of them. They have no say in the matter since they are slaves. They just do as their told.

The story here is really a series of small narratives wrapped around the unfolding of God’s fulfillment of the promise to Jacob given in 28:14 “your descendants will also be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south…”

But here again, God has to voluntarily lower himself from a higher to a lower position out of love and compassion and fulfill his promises through weak individuals that fluctuate between some degree of faithfulness and complete depravity. Still, God allowed and used these events to discipline Jacob, that is, to refine his faith, just as God still does in us today.

On our last episode of “Family Full Of Deceivers,” Jacob was touched by angels and assured that God was still near him even though he was traveling a lonely road due to his sinful conniving. Days later, it was obvious that God was still with Jacob because he led the patriarch to where his relatives lived in Haran.

Jacob was well received by his Uncle Laban and began working for him as a shepherd. After a month, Laban insisted on paying Jacob for his work and even invited him to name his wages. This seemed to be very generous of Laban, but Jacob’s uncle was up to no good. Laban knew that Jacob was in love with his daughter Rachel and wanted to marry her. In that culture, however, you had to pay the bride’s father for the privilege of marrying his daughter. Jacob was broke; being a shepherd was his pay.

So by insisting that Jacob set the bride price, Laban knew he could squeeze more work out of his nephew because Jacob wouldn’t want to set the bride price too as an insult. In the end, Jacob agreed to work seven years in exchange for Rachel’s hand in marriage. Just to put that price into perspective, jewelers today suggest spending two months’ salary when buying a wedding ring for the bride.

Although Jacob had agreed to pay an exorbitant price for Rachel, he didn’t mind. We’re told that the seven years seemed like a few days since Jacob was so in love. The long-awaited wedding, however, ended in disaster. After the vows were exchanged and the marriage consummated, Jacob discovered that he had married Leah, Rachel’s older sister!

Leah wasn’t much to look at, but God’s hand was upon her and that’s all that matters! She was different, and she knew it. As we read, we see that Jacob loved and adored Rachel. Imagine for a moment, being in a house where you are always second place, inferior and not shown much affection! Think for a moment of a time where you knew you weren’t important.

In-fact, you were in the room with two or more people, but it was as though you were invisible; you weren’t even acknowledged as a human being. Remember the sting and the pain. This was the case with Leah, always playing second best, not having the good looks, or the smile. After a while, it’s bound to affect the personality and the outlook, but Leah rouse above this maybe through self-talk or by just knowing she was loved by her God.

How could something like that happen? Crafty ol’ Uncle Laban was behind it all. It wasn’t difficult for Laban to pull off the switch since brides in those days wore veils, as is still the case in many Middle Eastern countries today. But what was Laban’s motive? It was simple; he wanted to extort another seven years of work out of Jacob in return for Rachel’s hand in marriage.
In Laban, Jacob had met his match. The deceiver was now the one deceived. Jacob learned what his father Isaac must have felt like when he had tricked him into thinking he was blessing Esau. It’s perhaps for that reason that Jacob agrees, without much arguing, to work for Laban for another seven years to marry Rachel. Was God paying Jacob back for what he had done to his father? No, this was training.

The writer to the Hebrews calls such training, discipline, and had this to say about it: “Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? 8 If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons… 10 Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. 11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:7-11, NIV).

Have there been times in your life when you were treated unfairly and suffered as a result? We may get angry with God for letting us go through a trial like that but take to heart what Hebrews 12 says. God allows hardship because he loves us and wants to refine our faith. That’s what he was doing with Jacob. He was teaching Jacob how hurtful it was to take advantage of others, and that there was no need to do so anyway since God was looking after Jacob. God has promised the same for us.
Although Jacob had been duped by his uncle, he still should not have married two women. This was contrary to God’s plan for marriage. God says that marriage is to be a lifelong relationship between one man and one woman. If God didn’t like what Jacob had done, why didn’t he say anything? Just because God tolerates sin does not mean that he approves of it.

Jacob would learn from experience that ignoring God’s plan for marriage isn’t a wise thing to do. Jacob had marital problems from day one. Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah making Leah desperate for her husband’s love and approval. Although Rachel had Jacob’s love, she was desperate for children since her sister had many and she had none.

Rachel even demanded that Jacob give her a child but what could he do? Only God could grant children. So Rachel decided to take matters into her own hands. She gave her maidservant to Jacob and told him to sleep with her. The child that was conceived was then claimed by Rachel as her own. Not to be outdone, Leah gave her maidservant to Jacob. Now Jacob had four bed partners and became a pawn in the struggle between battling sisters! It wasn’t just Jacob who suffered, his wives were miserable, and his children would grow up to be suspicious and jealous of one another.

What we learn from Jacob’s experience is that when we don’t follow God’s plan for marriage, we shouldn’t expect happiness. It’s not so easy to follow God’s plan for marriage these days. The world, for example, would have us think that we should “try out” our partner before we tie the knot. But even non-Christian sociologists will tell you that couples that live together before marriage are five times as likely to have their marriage end in divorce. Or if your struggling, the world would suggest you find a new partner, someone who is more compatible with you. What the world doesn’t tell you though is that your new partner won’t be perfect either. You might not have the same struggles as you do now, but you will have struggles.

If you are struggling in your marriage, take heart. God has not abandoned you just as he did not abandon Jacob. For starters, God has forgiven all our hurtful acts and sinful outbursts that have stained our marriage like cherry juice on a white tablecloth. These sins have been bleached clean in the blood of Jesus. The Apostle Paul assures us of that when he wrote: “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless” (Ephesians 5:25b-27, NIV).

With forgiveness comes the power to live as God’s children. Own up to the things you’ve said or done to hurt your marriage. Ask your spouse for forgiveness and find out how you can make things right. Don’t wait for your spouse to do this first, just as God didn’t wait for us to say sorry before he sent Jesus to die for us. Live your marriage the way God wants you to as loving and forgiving people and you will be blessed.