Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 11: July 23, 2023: Genesis 28:10-19a; Psalm 139: 1-11, 22-23; Romans 8:12-25; Matthew 13:24-30,36-43
Our readings today begin with a dream. Jacob is traveling and stops for the night “because the sun had set”. He used a stone for a pillow, and went to sleep. He dreamed of a ladder connecting earth and heaven, with angels going up and down the ladder. And in his dream, he received a promise from the Lord, promising him the land he was lying on, and promising that his descendants would be “like the dust of the earth”, spread in all directions. When he woke up, he recognized the place as “the gate of heaven”.
Jacob’s ladder is a marvelous image, and has inspired people all over the world. The medieval masons carving the front of Bath Abbey in England framed the west entry is decorated with an illustration of Jacob’s Ladder: angels are climbing up it, and demons are heading down. Some centuries later, enslaved people in the American south used the image as a metaphor for spiritual growth: “we are climbing Jacob’s ladder“. The image of Jacob’s ladder is a reminder that the deep longing for connection with God has a long history.
In biblical sources, that longing is sometimes a hope, sometimes more of a certainty. The writer of Psalm 139 suggests that the Lord is always there, in a way that may be terrifying and may be comforting. On the one hand, there is nowhere they can “flee from your presence”; on the other, it is protective:
If I take the wings of the morning /and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, / Even there your hand will lead me and your right hand hold me fast. (Ps. 139, 8-9)
The psalm ends with a request to be led “in the way that is everlasting”. Like Jacob, the journey to heaven is a goal. Jesus, in today’s reading, makes that more difficult. In the second parable of the sower, Jesus notes that the good seed is mixed with weeds, and the weeds need to be gathered first and burned so that the wheat can then be gathered.
This parable is not particularly comforting: the saved and the damned are all mixed up together. Jesus tells us that the Son of Man will send his angels and throw the evildoers into the furnace, where there is “wailing and gnashing of teeth”. The righteous, on the other hand, “will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their father”. How do we know which we are?
The concern with being saved, and how we can be sure we are saved, has a long history among Christians, going back to the letters of Paul. Today’s letter offers a more generous reading: if you are led by the Spirit of God you are children of God. But this is hope, and “in hope we were saved”.
Jacob’s ladder is an image of ongoing effort, climbing. Paul sees us having made a choice at a defined moment. However it comes, both remind us that the longing for connection to the divine is part of our lives.
