Broken Promise vs The Kingdom of Heaven – Sermon 27 July, 2014

Broken Promises vs The Kingdom of Heaven
Genesis 29:15-28 Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
In my recent trip I had the chance to see some of my friends and seminary boarding mates, which took me back many years; to those days that we spent together as boarding students at the Near East School of Theology. Many memories came from those days, especially we remembered the tricks or the pranks, such as putting smelly garbage been in a friend’s room who used to tightly close the doors and the windows even on warm nights, while sleeping. Or, fully winded old style clock in big empty milk can on the top of a wardrobe and to reach the can, you needed a chair or a table. Or, the time someone getting back from semester break and finding the room furniture totally rearranged. We used to play on our friends. It was quite amusing to do such tricks and was always fun to watch people storm around campus after they had been tricked specially someone who had been doing lots of tricks on others and now finally “they get what they deserve.”
It seems that a similar thing happened to Jacob as we read the story in Genesis chapter 29. After his continuing deceit and treason to his brother Esau, and later to his father Isaac, we see Laban deceived Jacob. Jacob born second in line to his brother came out grabbing at his brother’s Esau’s heel, he tricked his brother and charged a shocking price for a simple bowl of stew and when he dressed up in a costume to trick his own father into blessing the wrong son while lying on his deathbed. And here we see him come storming out of his tent the morning after his wedding realizing that he had been tricked and he was given the wrong wife after seven years of labour. Seven years of his life had he given in exchange for beautiful Rachel, yet he awoke in the morning realizing he had married her sister Leah. We are not sure why he did not realise that Rachel was not the one who spent the night. Whether it was the lack of lighting, or perhaps too much partying and alcohol, we may never know. But somehow, Jacob consummated his marriage, not with Rachel, but with her older sister Leah.
After reading the scripture narrative this morning we can picture the horrified expression on Jacob’s face, who was tricked by his own flesh and blood, his own uncle Laban. Imagine thinking you had married one person and waking up in the morning to discover that you had married another. Imagine having already given up seven years of your life in labour, and now being tricked into spending another seven years of your life in labour so that you can get what you were promised originally.
We don’t know what Jacob thought about, while he was working in the fields and it is not clear what kind of work he did, but probably he might have been herding animals, tending the land, hunting, or any number of other tasks typically performed by Bedouins. Probably during those first seven year he thought about Rachel and time passed quickly for him because he was so deeply in love with her.
On the other hand, Scripture tells us little about what happened during the second set of seven years. We don’t know if time passed quickly or slowly. We don’t know what Jacob’s attitude was, and we don’t know what he thought about during the long hard days of work for his uncle. We can only draw conclusions based upon what we know of Jacob’s life so far. It is fair to suggest that Jacob probably woke up every morning with the insistent reminder that he had been tricked. I doubt a day went by when he didn’t remember his uncle’s broken promise.
There was an interesting thing in Jacob’s life. On the one hand, he had a supernatural experience at Bethel, where he had a dream of a ladder between earth and heaven with angels going up and down. For him, that was a vision of God being there with him. That’s why he erected a stone and called the place Bethel. On the other hand, he had bad experience in Haran, where his dreams of having a beautiful wife was shattered and the promise was broken. He was tormented when he was confronted with the prospect of giving up another seven years of his life in service to his uncle, because of a broken promise.
This exemplifies the actions of people, when they promise to act and do certain things, but instead they often let us down and break their promises. When promises are broken we tend to become more bitter, cynical and disappointed because a promise didn’t come true.
Unfortunately, we live in a society that doesn’t value a promise as much as it used to. Marriages end in divorce, business deals end in lawsuits, partnerships turn bad. Promises are generally broken and we don’t believe anyone can keep their word.
In similar situations what are we supposed to do? Where or to whom should we turn?
We need something reliable, something we can trust in, something which gives us hope, real hope.
According to the scripture the best place to turn to the promise of God and His Kingdom with the conviction that He is always faithful to His promises. As we said earlier we don’t know what Jacob was thinking during those seven years, but we hope he was focusing on the Kingdom of Heaven and His promise given to him at Bethel.
28:13b “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”
The same promise is echoed in Romans 8: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to his purpose….For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, [nor Uncle Laban], nor any powers, neither height nor depth, [nor broken promises], nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord”.
We should think that as Jacob was working for two sets of seven years to get what he desired, he held on to the promises of God with all he had, believing that God would be with him until God had done what He had promised.
This morning, the promises of God are being offered to us. Not the promises of a pastor, or the promises of a church, or a denomination, but the promises of God. When everything around us crumbles and falls, still we have the promises of God. When we’ve been tricked, and deceived, still we have the promises of God. We may not be able to stand on the promises of people, but we can plant our feet firmly on the promises of God; the promises which will lead us to the Kingdom of Heaven.
In the gospel of Matthew we have a series of seven parables about the Kingdom of Heaven. The first two are well known parables, the Parable of the Sower and the Parable of the Weeds, followed by five short parables where the Kingdom of Heaven is likened to a Mustard Seed, Yeast, Treasure, Fine Pearls and Fishermen’s’ Net. It is clear that all these deal with the promises of God. The parable of the Sower makes clear that in order to receive the promises of God we should be like the good soil which gives produces hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown as seeds. The parable of the Weeds reveals that the weeds that grow with the wheat is gathered first and burned, while the good wheat is gathered into the barn to provide the daily need for bread. And the remaining short parables present the blessings of God which are promised to us. All that are promised have a great value or gives more blessings.
The lesson we learn from all this is that we should rely on God and His promises, which are of great value, rather than to rely on the vain promises of people, who could easily disappoint us with their tricks and unfulfilled promises.
God made a promise to Jacob; Jacob the liar, tricker, deceitful and He kept His promise.
God has made many promises to us and He will keep them if we put our trust in Him in all circumstances.

Krikor Youmshajekian