Engaging the Living Word

December 6, 2022

What is the particular text?

How does the text function within the scriptural story?

Moves the covenant promises forward
Tells the birth of Jacob’s descendants
More clearly identifies the rivalry between Leah and Rachel in the names of their sons
Portrays biblical narrative pattern of barrenness to conception to birth
Portrays biblical narrative patterns of God working both through and in spite of human beings
Depicts a God who remembers God’s own

How can this text function in the church today?

Calls the church to remember God’s promises today
Remember for the church to examine where/how it is present amid human longing and suffering
Invitation to name our own emptiness, barrenness as a church
Challenge to be intentional about naming who God is calling us to remember today – and then actually lean into/embrace that remembering

What does the text do to you? How do you react to the text? What feelings does this text engender in you?

What do you have to say to the text?

Are Rachel and Leah more than characters in a divine drama?
Though part of the historical, cultural practice, the use of the slave women is gut-wrenching
I wish teh women could tell their own story
Barrenness – of a host of kinds – does not always meet with fulfillment
Family systems – and their dysfunctions – are powerful

What do you see through this text from the story itself?

Suffering is real
Family systems are hard
There is a fine line between passively waiting on the promises and being agents that work to fulfill God’s promises

What do you see from within your church/community/world? (2022)

Rivalries amid God’s people are nothing new
We want quick solutions to our problems, and sometimes take those solutions into our own hands in unhelpful ways
We sometimes seek to create our own, quick solutions to problems that take time to resolve
Temptation to reduce the Gospel to theologically empty clichés or tropes
- Wait on God and everything will be fine
- Everything happens for a reason
- God will provide if we are just patient enough
Crises of our current time
- Women’s agency over their own bodies
- We are an “instant gratification society:” we have no patience for waiting
- Suffering makes us uncomfortable
What do you see within yourself?
- Times when my hopes have not been fulfilled
- Experiences of conflict within the church
- Times when hindsight was the only way to have insight

What is the context – textual and historical?

Family narrative of Jacob
Follows Jacob marrying both Leah and Rachel
Amid the story of favoritism of Rachel over Leah
Follows the narrative of Laban tricking Jacob into marrying Leah that is reminiscent of Jacob tricking Esau out of his birthright
Sets up favoritism of Joseph by Jacob over his other sons

What questions does this text raise for you?

How would Rachel and Leah tell their own stories?
What about those who do not feel like they are remembered by God?
What does it mean today to be remembered by God?
Could Leah and Rachel have been anything but rivals?
Are there any biblical stories about women that are not in some ways “texts of terror?”

What words/themes seem of particular import?

What is the Gospel/transforming Good News within this text?

What is the as-over-againstness of this text?

Suffering is real
Emptiness is real
Not all emptiness is fulfilled
Family systems can be painful
Conflict can be generational
Actions of one really do impact lives of others
Naming human longings and sufferings is not always comfortable
Sometimes people don’t know how to hold space for others who name their longing/suffering

Who does this text say that Jesus is, or if not Jesus, then who does this text say that God is? What does this text say about God?

What have others said about this text?

Her protracted infertility fits into a larger biblical pattern that signals the special importance of the child (Joseph) who finally arrives. In this sense, Rache’s tragedy is also her triumph.” – “Rachel,” by Amanda Mbuvi

What will I teach or proclaim?