In keeping up with all of the cultural shifts that are happening around us right now, it’s hard to keep up with all of the new words, phrases, and slogans swirling around. “Black Lives Matter”, “Defund the Police”, “Make America Great Again”, “Don’t Tread on Me”. These slogans serve to motivate, but they also oversimplify broader beliefs and concerns. One such concept that you may have heard – but often gets lost in the slogans – is the concept of “Social Justice”. Social Justice is the stated concern behind the “Black Lives Matter” movement. By this they mean that they want the systems of our society to have more equity towards black and brown people.
What you may not realize, though, is that this concept of social justice has been hotly debated among Evangelicals for the last three years. There is a significant split that has developed between Evangelicals who believe that the Gospel is a call to social justice (to care for the poor and oppressed) and those who think that the Gospel is primarily a call to repent and believe in Jesus Christ. This divide has become even more pronounced with the recent protests.
The desire for social justice, whether within the church or out on the street, betrays a deep need that we have to be rescued from our current state. In calling for social justice, the BLM protestors and the evangelicals that defend it are pointing out the fact that man can often treat his fellow man with horrible indignity. Regardless of where you stand on the political spectrum, you have to admit that this is true. We’ve seen it from the very beginning of our study in the book of Genesis. God created Adam and Eve to have dominion over his good creation and to subdue it to the will of God. That responsibility was of a king and queen. Right away, they failed to bring God’s rule to bear on creation by allowing the serpent to speak lies about God and lure them into rebellion. Because of this sin, man and woman were dethroned and cursed. The curses that Adam and Eve received wove strife into the very fabric of this fallen world. There would be affliction from Satan and his demons, pain in childbearing, strife in the marriage relationship, and, even the good earth from which Adam was created would resist his efforts until the day that it finally swallowed him up in death.
This affliction and strife continued through Cain, Lamech, and people of Noah’s day. Even within the chosen line of Abraham, we still find strife and affliction. Abraham and Sarah committed adultery in order to get the son that they wanted. Sarah abused her servant, Hagar, and stepson, Ishmael, to the point that Hagar flees into the desert to escape the cruelty. And, we’ve just seen the strife within the next generation, as Isaac and Rebekah pitted their sons against each other by playing favorites, and Rebekah and Jacob stole the birthright and blessing.
Yet, even with all of this strife, God is still merciful to Jacob. We saw in Genesis 28 that God reveals himself to Jacob and extends the promise that he first gave to Abraham, that he will bless him and bless the world through him. In Chapter 29, Jacob continues on his way to his uncle, Laban, so that he can escape the wrath of Esau and find a wife from his own kin. He comes to a well at Haran, and there he meets Rachel. He is so infatuated with her that he commits to working for her father for seven years in order to win her hand, and that is where we pick up in our text. There are three aspects of this story that I want to highlight today.
First, we find in verse 21 that on the day that Jacob completes his seven-year servitude, he rushes to Laban and demands his wife. Laban throws an extravagant wedding feast, gets Jacob good and drunk, and then in the middle of the night, he sends in his older daughter, Leah, to consummate the marriage. Jacob wakes in the morning to realize that he’s been duped and runs to complain to Laban. In this unfortunate story, I want you to notice the poetic justice that Jacob receives. Notice that Laban tells him that, in his country, the firstborn receives honor before the second. Jacob used deception to supersede the natural order of things and steal the birthright and blessing from his older brother. In fact, the tactics that Laban uses here are similar to those Jacob used with his father and brother. In stealing the birthright from Esau and in deceiving his father, Jacob used their appetites against them. Now, Jacob comes panting for his wife and Laban uses this lustful appetite to deceive him. Also, in the deception of Isaac, Jacob used Isaac’s blindness against him, and here Jacob is blinded by alcohol and the darkness of the tent so that he cannot see this deception.
Notice, Jacob has received the blessing and mercy of God, and yet he is still dealing with the consequences of his sin. In the same way, when we come to Christ, we receive salvation, but we may still have to face the earthly consequences of the life we had before Christ. Some afflictions that we face are brought on by the consequences of our sin. Yet, even with all of those earthly consequences, you can still live confidently in the Lord knowing that your position with God has changed from outcast to child.
The second aspect of this text that I want you to notice is the strife that is created as a result of this deception. Now that Laban has gotten what he wanted he allows Jacob to marry Rachel in exchange for another seven years. There is a sad little note in the middle of verse 30: Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah. This spiraling tragedy of deception has led to another broken relationship. And yet, even in all of this strife, God is merciful. Verse 31 tells us that God saw the affliction of Leah and had mercy on her by making her fertile. The one who is despised by her husband is blessed by God with four children. We find from all of the Old Testament that God favors the afflicted. In Exodus 3, he hears the affliction of his people in slavery in Egypt. In 1 Samuel 1, he hears the prayers of barren Hannah and enables her to have a son named Samuel. In the Psalms (like Psalm 25:18, for example), the writers often praise God because he sees and saves those who are afflicted.
Finally, this blessing of God brings Leah from the pit of sorrow to the height of praise. You may have noticed that the first three children she had received names that looked towards her husband. She hoped that her husband would love her and be attached to her. But, with her fourth son, Judah, she simply names him “celebration”, because she wants to praise God for his mercy to her. Though her husband still despised and shunned her, God was enough.
If you just zoom out a bit and look at the broader story of Israel, you find that the story is one of God’s favor on the afflicted. Abraham and Sarah were old and barren, the people of Israel were helplessly enslaved in Egypt, they were harangued by the Philistines in the land, and finally they were taken away into exile by the Babylonians. Yet, even though they are the afflicted that God chose, they still acted with selfishness and despised their fellow man.
By the time of Jesus, Israel had solemnized the act of despising one’s neighbor. The religious leaders attributed birth defects like blindness and lameness to sins that the parents had committed, or even sins that the child committed in the womb. They despised whole groups of people like shepherds, tax collectors, and foreigners, declaring them ceremonially unclean. And yet, Jesus was born as the lowliest of men. And, when starting his ministry, Luke records in Luke 4:18 that he chose to read these words from Isaiah to announce his kingdom: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me and has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.” In John 13, he would assemble his disciples in a room for Passover, and there he would take the towel and wash pan of the lowest of servants and wash their feet, saying that he did not come to be served, but to serve. And even in his crucifixion, he would hang naked on a cross, despised by all who saw him. Yet, even with all of the affliction of the world on his back, he was victorious over sin and death. And, when he rose from the dead, he brought forth a new kingdom and a new humanity. This new humanity, his church, is led by His Spirit. And, in this new humanity, he has broken down every dividing wall so that his church is made of rich and poor, slave and free, Gentile and Jew, male and female, and as Paul says in Galatians 3:26, we are all one in Christ.
As God’s church, the kingdom is manifest in and through us as we live for Christ in this world. In James 1:27, James says that the purest of religions is to care for the widow and orphan in their time of affliction. Hebrews 13:1-3 says that we manifest our faith in Christ through our care for the most marginalized like the stranger and the prisoner.
Just like Leah, God’s mercy has been poured out on us through the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and that mercy should motivate us to praise him. We praise him by serving him, and we serve him by caring for those who are the least among us. The Gospel of Jesus Christ should motivate us to first bring others to know that same Gospel. It should motivate us to show mercy, just as we have been shown mercy. It should motivate us to serve, because we have been served.
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