‘I can see clearly now’ (Genesis 38)

 

I think most of us work off a system of comparative righteousness.  We try to justify ourselves by comparing ourselves with other people.  ‘I know it’s wrong, but everyone else does it.’  ‘There are people who are far worse than me.’  When we confess to someone, they might unhelpfully say, ‘sure, you are only human.’  A man confessed to his priest, and the priest replied, ‘I hear a whole lot worse, you’ll be fine.’

But we are measured by God’s standard, and He does not simply compare us to everybody else.  His standard is Jesus, and we all fall short.  When we compare ourselves to Him we see our need of forgiveness and grace.

1.       Judah sees and takes (1-11)

‘At that time, Judah left his brothers and went down to stay with a man of Adullam named Hirah’ (1).

This is not the first time we meet Judah.  When his mother Leah gave birth to Judah she praised God.  But Judah does not seem to share her faith.  When Jacob’s sons turned of Joseph it was Judah who suggests to sell him rather than kill him.  Was that mercy, or was that simply a desire for profit?

Judah is probably around sixteen or seventeen at the beginning of the chapter, and as happens many people that age he falls under the spell of bad influence.  He becomes like a Canaanite.

There is an interesting comparison between the brothers Joseph and Judah in these chapters.  While Joseph left the family involuntarily, being sold into slavery, Judah chooses to leave.  Presumably he was leaving his father and his father’s faith as well.

In verse 2 Judah literally ‘saw’ a Canaanite girl—someone who did not know God—and he took her.  There is an echo of Eden here.  Like Eve he sees, he wants and he takes.  Judah and his wife conceive and she gives birth to Er, then Oran and then Shelah.  Jacob takes a wife for Er, her name is Tamar, but Er is evil in the ‘sight’ of the LORD (7), and God puts Er to death.

There was a tradition that when a son died without having an heir the widow would become the wife of the nearest relative and the first son she would have would be considered the heir of the deceased.  But Onan realises that this would not be in his best interests, he wants the share of the inheritance that would go through Er, and so he withdraws before he ejaculates.  His unwillingness to provide a son for Er was evil in the ‘sight’ of the LORD (10), so God puts him to death.

Jacob tells Tamar to wait until Shelah is old enough to marry her.  But he has no intention of going through with this promise because he thinks that Tamar is the reason his sons died.  He is a superstitious man who will not face his own sin and the sin of his sons.  ‘I might not be walking with the LORD, but at least I am not like that Canaanite woman.’

2.       Judah sees and takes, again (12-23)

We have noticed that there is an emphasis of ‘sight’ and saw’ in this chapter.  Now Judah commits evil in a place called Enam, which means either ‘two springs’ or ‘two eyes.’  God sees what we do.

Tamar is desperate.  Shelah has grown up and she now knows that Judah has no intention of going through with his promise of having her marry him.  She is likely to be a childless widow, in a society where that would leave you desperate. 

She seems to know what sort of man Judah is—he is a man who will pay for sex.  He was going off to his sheepshearers.  He has been widowed.  She has a plan.

Lust, and any evil, has a way of making a fool of us.  He does not recognise Tamar, and thinks that she is a prostitute.  He offers her the price of a goat.  As a pledge he gives her his seal, staff and cloak—think wallet, driving licence and credit cards.

In the next chapter we see Joseph resisting the seduction of Potiphar’s wife.  There is a contrast.  Joseph is under great pressure and resists.  Judah very willingly gives in to lust.

3.       Judah has his eyes opened (24-32)

When Judah finds that Tamar is unmarried and pregnant he wants justice.  He calls for her to be burned.  How different he is from Joseph, not Joseph his brother but Joseph and Mary.  That Joseph seems to do everything to show mercy (Matthew 1:18).  Judah has no mercy!

God hates the sexism and double standards that Judah applies.  Look at Hosea (4:14), ‘I will not punish your daughters when they turn to prostitution, nor your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery, because the men themselves consort with harlots and sacrifice to shrine prostitutes—a people without understanding will come to ruin.’

Now Judah has his eyes opened.  Tamar proves that he is the father.  ‘She is more righteous than I am, since I did not give her my son Shelah’ (26).  Judah sees his guilt in an absolute sense.  He is no longer trying to justify himself.  When he compares he sees that others are more righteous than he is.  He would be happy to count himself among the chief of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15). 

You are watching something you should not on your computer and someone walks in; someone exposes a lie that you have been telling; you are overheard saying horrible things about someone, what do you do?  You could make excuses, but you should simply hold your hands up and ask God to forgive you and change your heart.

Judah actually changes.  I looked up the meaning of this chapter on Google and one person explained that this chapter shows ‘how Judah began to transform from an egocentric person willing to sell his brother into slavery, into someone willing to become a slave in the place of his brother Benjamin.’  That certainly is part of this story.

Judah seems to have been reunited with his father and his father’s God.  When they reconnect with Joseph, who is now second in command in Egypt, Joseph tells them to go home but leave Benjamin.  They haven’t recognised Joseph yet.  Judah knows that Joseph and Benjamin were his father’s favourites.  He knows that his father will be heartbroken if anything happens Benjamin.  So, Judah offers himself as a guarantee in the place of Benjamin. 

He sees clearly now.  He has seen his own sin, and he responds to God’s mercy with mercy.

Climax (33-34)

This chapter ends with the unusual birth of two twins.  Tamar gives birth, and Perez is the eldest.  The line from Abraham to Judah to David to Jesus was under threat by Judah’s sin, but God has remained in control.  Tamar, this dodgy outsider is going to be an ancestor of the Christ.  God saw Tamar in her suffering and he cared.  He does not condone her actions, but in mercy he blessed her. 

God also saw Judah, self-centred and carnal, and brought him to his senses.

Can we see clearly now?  There was a line that goes through Judah to Jesus.  Jesus who comes to save his people from their sin.  A line of grace and mercy.  A message that can make bitter people kind.  So, we pray, ‘change my heart, O Lord.’     

When sisters go to war (Genesis 30:1-24)

Sibling rivalry.  The relationships between sisters, and brothers, can be complicated.  Maybe there is a sense of injustice in how you were parented.  You might feel that your sibling was treated as the favorite.  Maybe the way your parents applauded success resulted in you competing for their approval.  Maybe you look at how their lives have turned out and can’t help comparing, making you either self-righteous or bitter.  Being sisters can be complicated, but imagine how complicated it would be if you shared a husband!

Perhaps Leah thought, ‘if only I had Rachel’s looks, then I would be happy,’ or, ‘if only my husband loved me the way he loves her, then my life would be complete.’  If only I had their marriage.  Rachel might have thought, ‘if only I could have children like Leah.’  If only I had their life.  We are on a dangerous road when we start comparing our lives to others.  It is a road marked discontent, and it’s downhill.

Bitterness is an acid that eats its own container.  It rots our bones.  Watch how these two women end up using their children as a pawn in a competition with each other.  It is not unusual for parents to use their children as a tool to try to impress the world and prove their worth.  Rachel’s chief desire, for most of this passage, for having children, was to spite her sister.

Rivalry damages our relationships and ruins our peace (1-13)

‘When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister.  She said to Jacob, ‘Give me children or I die!’ (1).

You are in a bad place when anything in this life becomes so important to us that it feels that life is not worth living without it.  Don’t build your life around getting those grades, grabbing that career, meeting the right person or being the perfect parent.  Remember that in Christ we have been given every spiritual blessing.  Surely if we know God’s forgiveness, realize His acceptance and have the sure hope of an eternity with Him, then everything else is secondary.

But be careful how you say that to other people, though.  They may look at you and say, ‘that is easy for you to say with your life, you don’t have to live in my pain.’  Begin with each other by being aware of the hurts they carry and be willing to mourn with those who mourn.  It is then that you may get the opportunity to show them how to count their blessings.

Jacob seems to be quite rough in his response to Rachel.  ‘It is not me who is stopping you having babies, it is God.’  He is really angry with Rachel.  That is a problem when we become jealous of other people.  Bitterness puts a strain on all our relationships.  Rachel is looking to Jacob for children, not God.  But then Jacob is not like his father, Isaac, who prayed for Rebekah when she was in the same situation. 

The horrible thing is that Rachel’s desire for children is motivated by her jealousy of Leah.  As often happens, rather than wait of God, Jacob and Rachel come up with their own plan, a foolish plan.  Rachel gives her servant, Bilhah, as a substitute wife and Jacob has sex with her.  The resulting child was considered Rachel’s.  Think how cruel all of this is to that servant girl! 

Rachel feels that she has been vindicated.  When her second son is born, she Naphtali, meaning wrestling, and declares, ‘I’ve won!’  She put one over on Leah.  One commentator writes, ‘can a woman get so low that she would hit her sister over the head with a baby?  Rachel did!’ (Barnhouse). 

It is tragic to watch Leah join this competition.  At the end of the last chapter Leah had found her peace in God.  Now that peace is unsettled by sibling rivalry.  Leah though she could have no more children, so she gives her servant Zilpah to Jacob.  Gad and Asher are born.  Asher means ‘happy.’  She gives him this name. ‘For I am happy.  The women call me happy’ (13).  Her focus is no longer God’s goodness to her, but simply what other people think of her life!

Remember that you are a sister or brother with every other Christian.  You are a sister or brother with every believer in your church.  You are a sister or brother with the believers in every other church.  In Christ, you have a heavenly husband who shows no favoritism, and is working out his individual plan in each of our lives.  Don’t compare your life to him or her.  When Peter realized the suffering that he was called to endure for the gospel and asked of John, ‘what about him?’, Jesus replied, ‘what is that to you? You follow me’ (John 21:22).     

Discontent spreads (14-21)

Sadly, things get more pathetic between Rachel and Leah.  Leah’s son Reuben finds some mandrakes.  Reuben is probably about five or six.  He brings them to his mother, and Rachel is desperate to have some.

Commentators aren’t sure what the mandrakes are.  The Hebrew possibly means ‘love flower.’  They were probably rare and precious.  Matthew Henry comments that ‘the Lord of nature has not only provided for our necessities, but for our delight.’  God’s creation is both functional and beautiful.  He not only provides for us, He loves to delight us.

Look how far these women have sunk.  When Rachel asks for some of the mandrakes, Leah erupts in bitterness, ‘Is it not enough that you took my husband, but you must have my son’s mandrakes too?’  (15).  It may be that Mandrakes were thought to induce fertility, which is why Rachel is so desperate for them.  She longs for a child.   

Leah has now fallen back into the trap of her value in Jacob’s assessment of her.  ‘This time my husband will honor me for I have borne him six sons’ (19).  She has enslaved herself to the opinion of others.

Do you the downward progression of discontent?  They had been arguing about a husband and children, now they are fighting over flowers.  The heart grows harder and harder if we let bitterness get the better of us.  So how do we counter-act bitterness?  Ask the Holy Spirit to shape you as you set your eyes of God’s goodness.  My friend Brenda is a lecturer in psychology in the university of Maynooth.  She talks of the positive affects of gratitude.  Practicing thankfulness can actually reorder the neurological pathways of our brains.  Gratitude even strengthens us to face future traumatic events.  My friend Betsy always tells people to work through the alphabet thinking of things to thank God for!

God can soften our jealous hearts (22-23)

‘God remembered Rachel’ (22).  In the Old Testament, when it says that God remembered, it is not implying that He had forgotten.  It indicates that God is about to take a significant action.  He ‘listened to her’.  She has finally turned from blaming Jacob for her lack of children, to praying to God for His blessing.  He ‘gave her a son’.

Rachel has acted appallingly in this story.  But God has not stopped being kind to her.  He does not treat us as our sins deserve but according to His loving-kindness.

‘God has taken away my reproach.’  Fertility was a seen as a sign of God’s favor.  No doubt Leah had often reminded her of this.

‘May the LORD add to me another son’.  Some commentators see this as a declaration of Rachel’s renewed confidence and faith in God.  Certainly, we can see her faith in how she is now referring to God as LORD (Yahweh), the name of the promise-keeping God in relationship with His people, not simply as the more general word for God (Adonai).  There is a tragic sequel to this prayer.  When that son does come she dies in childbirth.  He is names Ben-oni (‘son of my sorrow’).

Every time these two women inflicted pain on each other they were presented with a junction in the road.  They could either chose to respond with bitterness or trust in God.  The same is true for us.  When people say things and do things that hurt us we can either harden our hearts towards them or we can plead with God to help us love them.  It seems that at every point in this story these two women chose bitterness.  But God did not give up on them.  The story ends with Rachel expressing trust in God.  It is never too late to put an end to gossip and a critical spirit.  God still wants to soften your heart and help you overcome.

Climax:

This story is a reminder of the imperfect people God uses to fulfil His purposes.  This is a horrible story of two bitter and jealous women.  This is sibling rivalry at its very worst.  This is moral compromise and hatred.  Yet God uses these two women, in all their sin, to bring about His purpose.  God had promised Jacob’s grandfather, Abraham, that his descendants would be as numerous as the sand on the sea shore and the stars in the sky.  Their rivalry was helping to bring this about.  No-one’s sin stops God’s plans coming into being.  As is seen most clearly on the cross, where wicked men motivated by bitterness and jealousy crucified Jesus, and in so doing made the way for us to become a part of Abraham and Jacob’s spiritual family.

But what about your life?  What about those areas where it doesn’t seem as great as other people’s lives?  You might be content in singleness, but you might not be.  Maybe you never met Mr. Right.  Maybe no one considered you to be Mr. Right.  Maybe you have struggled with your fertility or endured the pain of miscarriages, and the sight of other people’s children pains you.  What about sibling rivalry?  Did your father or mother favor your brother or sister?  Did they fail to met your hopes and do you feel like you have not reached their expectations?  Has your career gone backwards?  Have your children gone wayward?  Has your own bitterness consumed you?

There is always restoration in Jesus to those who will let Him soften their hearts.  Of the eunuchs God said, ‘I will give them a memorial far greater than sons and daughters could’ (Is. 56:7).  Surely the blessings associated with fertility in the Old Testament pointed in part to the uncountable brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, that we have as children of the Living God!  Surely when we feel we have missed out God calls us to remember that we have received every spiritual blessing in Christ.  Surely when we mess up we need to remind ourselves that God wants to soften our hearts and fill us with love.  Behold Jesus, let His love transform you, and let that love flow from us to each other.

The God who sees you (Genesis 16)

Do you ever feel invisible?  Maybe you have sat in church, and no one welcomes you.  Maybe you were welcomed, but not asked how you are.  Maybe they asked you were asked you are, but you weren’t sure that they actually cared.  Or maybe your life is in a bit of a mess at the moment, and you fear that you would simply be judged if you told people about your troubles.

You may seem invisible to people, but you are not invisible to God.  God sees you, and He cares.  He pities us in our misery, even when we have made a right mess of things.  As one commentator points out, ‘his grace does not dry up simply because we have been stupid.’

In Genesis 16 we see a servant girl, Hagar, whose life is in a mess.  She has gone on the run, but God has come and found her.  He loves her and has compassion on her.

1.     The God who doesn’t give up on us, even though we mess things up

One of the first things that struck me when I read this passage is that everyone does things that are wrong.

God had given Abram a promise, that involved descendants, but Sarai lacks faith to wait on God and comes up with a plan that was definitely not God’s will.  Abram and Sarai are not demonstrating faith, as they take matters into their own hands.

Abram, like Adam, goes along with his wife’s foolish plan.  Hagar despises Sarai.  Sarai, like Eve, shifts the blame.  Abraham abdicates his responsibility to care for Hagar.  Sarai mistreats her servant.  This is one big mess, and everyone here has some share in the blame!

How long will God put up with such people?  He will put up with us as long as it takes!  He has always involved flawed and wicked people in the bringing about of his promises and the building of his kingdom.

Maybe other people are responsible for the misery you face.  Maybe you are responsible for it.  Most likely, it is a bit of both, but God has not taken his eyes off you, and he cares about your pain.

2.      The God who finds us, even when we weren’t looking for him

Hagar was an Egyptian.  That is important.  She was an outsider to Abram’s people.  But God had promised Abram that through him all the people of the world would be blessed (12:3).   God will give this Egyptian woman a promise of many descendants, that reminds us of His promise to the patriarch Abram.

Hagar is not looking for God.  She is simply running away from Sarai.  Yet God sees her misery and is moved by compassion.  ‘The angel of the LORD found her’ (7).

Who is the angel of the LORD?  Some people look at Hagar’s words and think that the angel must be God.  She says, ‘the LORD spoke to me … I have seen the One who has seen me’ (13).  Is this Jesus in come as a messenger from heaven? 

Whether the angel of the LORD as mentioned here is Jesus or not, we can say that he is acting like Jesus.  Jesus left heaven and has come to our wilderness, to find.  Jesus said that he has come,’ to seek and save that which is lost’ (Luke 19:10).

3.       The God whose grace is challenging

‘You are to give him the name Ishmael, for the LORD has heard your misery’ (11).  Ishmael means ‘God hears’.

She responds to God’s kindness with obvious love.  She gives God a name, ‘you are the God who sees me’ (13).  She calls the place Lahai Roi, meaning, ‘the well of the living God who sees me.’

But just because God has found her, does not mean that life is going to be a bed of roses.  This son is going to be like a wild donkey, and he will fall out with his brothers (12).  Then there is the fact that God’s love comes with a challenging command, ‘go back to your mistress and submit’ (9).  Sarai had been very unkind to her, but she is going to have to forgive.

I recently read Tim Keller’s book, ‘Forgive’.  There Keller writes, ‘if you believe the gospel – that you are saved by the sheer grace and the free forgiveness of God – and you still hold a grudge – at the very best it shows that you are blocking the actual effect of the gospel in your life, or you’re kidding yourself and perhaps you don’t believe the gospel at all.’

Conclusion

You may feel invisible to people, but you are never invisible to God.  God sees you, he cares about your misery, and he has come to find you.  ‘The LORD watches over your coming and your going both now and forevermore’ (Psalm 121:8).

But sometimes it is hard to believe that he is watching.  I was recently thinking back to a time when I was twenty-two, and my life was in a mess.  I was dealing with crippling anxiety, and I no longer wanted to live.  Where was God?  Why would he have allowed me pass through that?  A friend bravely admitted to me, ‘sometimes I feel bitter, I think to God, “you see my pain.  So why does this happen?”’

I want us to respond to this passage by first of all seeing.  Sometimes we do see what God is doing.  Sometimes the answers to our prayers are obvious, and as we hoped for.  Then we should respond like Hagar with joyful love.

Other times we need to search.  As I looked back at that time of despair, at age twenty-two, I began to see evidences of God finding me.  I don’t know why I had to go through that time, but God did send people who listened to me and cared for me.  One way to see for God seeking us is to develop a life of thanksgiving, where we look for evidence of God’s goodness.

Finally, there are times when all we can do is trust.  The story that centres around Abraham, in this part of Genesis, focuses on faith.  Abram was called to hold on to the promises of God, even when it looked like God was not acting.  In the darkest times we ask God to help us trust the Jesus who cried, 'my God. my God why have you forsaken me', in order that we never would be forsaken, and we trust the Jesus who promised, that he will never leave us nor forsake us (Matthew 28:20).

‘The eyes of the LORD are on those who fear Him, on those who hope in His unfailing love’ (Psalm 33:18). 

Kady was a devote Muslim named after one of Mohamad’s wives.  She relished the annual Hajj when two million faithful people would descend on her home city of Mecca to take the anti-clockwise walk around the Kaaba stone.  Then she started to have dreams in which Jesus appeared to her.  So, she prayed one night, ‘Jesus, if you’re who you say you are … meet me at the Kaaba stone during the hajj.’

During that hajj as she paraded with the great crowd around the Kaaba stone she found herself among a whole group of people who had a vision of Jesus at the same time.  They saw Jesus standing on top of the Kaaba stone with an astonishing, magnetic smile on his face.  A short while later she gave her life to Jesus.

When she told her friend Amina about this Amina felt chills all over.  ‘I’m an accountant, and I don’t have the emotional nature you do.  But what you just old me,’ Amina said to Kady, ‘it warmed my heart.  Do you think that Jesus would ever come to me in a dream?’

That night Jesus did come to Amina in a dream.  He said, ‘Amina, I love you, I am El Roi, the God who sees you.  That is my name.  That who I am.  I hear your cries.  I hear you, and I see you, Amina.’

The next day Amina told Kady about her dream.  That evening there went to a secret church together.  One of the young men there pulled out his phone and explained that the Holy Spirit had strongly put on his heart a reading that they should share together.  It was Genesis 16.  In that passage the angel of the Lord comes to Hagar, the angel of the Lord is Jesus, and Hagar gives God the name El Roi.

Amina leaned against Kady in the secret church meeting and began to cry.  ‘I’m overwhelmed to be here!  First, I had the dream about Jesus, and now I am here with all these people who love one another like family.  My heart has never been so full, Kady …  Because I am a Muslim, I am a daughter of Hagar.  Not only did Jesus come to her; he came to me.  We both wondered if God was seeing us.  And He does see us, Kady.  We’re women, yet He sees us … and He loves us.  In the Qur’an, Allah doesn’t even say Hagar’s name, but in the Bible, Hagar is honoured and loved and even privileged to give God one of His names.  Can you believe it?  My mind just can’t comprehend all of this.  I’m so relieved!  How wonderful that Jesus loves us!