"Stairway to Heaven" July 23, 2017

Genesis 28: 10-22 Matthew 13: 24-43 Several years ago, a friend asked if I could come to their church to preach, and these were the passages. Looking for an illustration, and uncertain what I would find there, I went to Marcellus Hardware for “Nightingale’s Best Mixture” of Fescue, Rye and Blue. I did not need pounds of the stuff for a sermon prop, asking for a few pinches of seed, they charged me only 10 cents and separated this into two baggies one for good seed one for weeds that looked just the same. Arriving at Security, the Homeland Security Guard asked “What’s in the Baggies?” And I replied “2 Nickel Bags of Grass and Weed!” which made him jump up off the stool he was sitting on. He said “What?” and I responded “Jesus has this parable in Matthew about Grass and Weeds, so I was bringing along my own weed.” Which did not improve matters… So I switched to the Old Testament Passage from Genesis, and Jacob’s Dream of a Ladder to Heaven. The last several weeks as we have reflected on Genesis, we have come to know Abraham Sarah and Isaac who married Rebekah, and they had twins Jacob and Esau. I’ve always thought, Jacob makes it hard to love to him. Last week we read of how Jacob was born grasping at the heel of his brother, trying to be first. While Isaac favored his son Esau, Rebekah made certain Jacob was always her baby. Like being bribed by your brother to eat his vegetables, or choosing the largest dessert, Jacob bought Esau’s birthright for a bowl of Soup, the insult of which is that a person of faith is to always demonstrate hospitality, giving soup to a stranger. Then Jacob tricked their aged, blind father, sick in bed into giving him everything the father had to him in an irrevocable blessing. This morning, Rebekah is saying to her husband, “You know we have to launch Jacob, marrying him off to a nice girl. Not one of those trashy Hittite girls like his brother Esau married, but a good girl from the families in our hometown… Maybe my brother Laban knows some nice girls…” With that, Jacob is sent off to live with Uncle Laban, but it’s a long way to walk back to Ur of Chaldea, so on the way, Jacob lays down with a rock for a pillow. During the night he dreams dreams and visions. The Irish describe “Thin Places,” much like Skaneateles Lake, a natural place filled with emotions, a point where Heaven and Earth meet almost to touch, and Angels go back and forth between. At that time, Houses of worship were built in the shape of a beehive, called a Zugarat with stairs going up the outside. The size of the House of worship was not determined by the size of the congregation, but by how big and how high up in heaven was your God. For me, those thin places, connections between the reality of Earth and Heaven have not so much been places, as points in life, summers at the lake, mission trips, falling in love, being Ordained, the Baptisms our Children. Jacob did not awaken completely converted. The Hebrew has a wonderful word, to describe Jacob, he awakes “Over Raw” not Overwrought, but so exceedingly raw, there has to be another word for the experience. Jacob recognizes this as the Doorway to the House of God, so names the place “House of God”, Beth-el. He does not yet claim The Lord of his ancestors as being his God. He wants more. To some extent, Jacob is like the couple who desire to be married in their parents’ church, not their church, not their God, but the God who was faithful to ancestors, whom they will give a token if God will show them all the blessings they desires as well. There is no explanation or interpretation about the dream, all of that has come over time, by other people. Rarely do we hear the promise of Jacob to God. I think, that may be because it is too much like us, with flaws and weaknesses as well as strengths. When he awakes, Jacob makes an altar out of the pillow he dreamt upon… Except in typical fashion for Rebekah’s baby, Jacob still wants to barter and make deals for himself… Much like Scarlet O’Hara in Gone with the Wind, he defiantly raises his fist to Heaven: “IF God will be with me, and IF God will keep me safe in the way I go, and IF God will give me bread to eat, water to drink, and clothes to wear, and IF I come to my father’s house again in peace, THEN the God of my ancestors will be my Lord, this rock shall be an altar to God and out of all that is given me by God, I will return 1/10th.” 40 years ago when I graduated High School, Led Zepplin’s “Stairway to Heaven” was at the Top of the Charts, though it was never released as a single. According to the History of Rock & Roll, “Stairway to Heaven” is the 3rd most requested, recognized song in history! “Stairway to Heaven” was the theme for our Homecoming and our Prom, everyone knew that Guitar Solo by Jimmy Page and Robert Plan. But what I find amazing is how well the words describe Jacob’s Mother, Rebekah… “There’s a lady whose sure, All that glitters is gold, AND She’s BUYing a Stairway to Heaven! When she gets there she knows, if the doors are all closed, with a word she can get what she came for. There’s a sign on the wall, but she wants to be sure, ‘cause you know words can have 2 meanings.” She believes in material things, and that possessing it all, is her stairway to heaven; even if when we get there all the doors are closed to her. The point this morning is that Heaven is not a place we built for God to dwell in, separate from earth with all our resources. All the universe belongs to God, the world is not left on remote control distant from God. These two realities, this life and the life-everlasting are intricately intertwined and inter-dependent. I grew up in a minister’s family, we went to church every Sunday, because it was what we did, in part because at that time there was nothing else on Sunday’s… but at a number of different points in life, I gave up the faith of my father for my own faith in God. God confirmed that this life, our lives are heaven and hell on earth.