"Fit to Be Tied"
#92-06Presented on The Lutheran Hour on October 6, 2024
By Rev. Dr. Michael Zeigler, Lutheran Hour Speaker
Copyright 2024 Lutheran Hour Ministries
No bonus material MP3
Text: Genesis 30:8
If you're going fishing with small children, you should accept upfront that your first order of business will not be fishing. Mostly you'll be occupied with other important tasks. Pulling out snags, retying lures, unseating hooks from hard to reach and sometimes tender places, but mostly untangling knots. Knots, great rats' nests of glistening line that suddenly appeared out of nowhere the moment you had your back turned, spaghetti'ed in the spool of their reel, tangled inside the tackle box, tracing back to the tips of their stubby little fingers. Like seagulls to a beach picnic, knots are drawn to children, whether it's with fishing gear, kite string, or Christmas lights. Any parent or grandparent who has involved their children in activities with lots of strings attached knows that you can either choose to keep your things nice—or choose to keep inviting the kids to come along. But you can't choose both. Because there will come a time when your gear is so tangled up that you'll just have to cut the proverbial Gordian Knot.
The Gordian Knot. You remember that phrase, where it comes from? I had to look it up. Turns out, there was this town in ancient Greece called Gordium. One day, Alexander the Great, the general, he was passing through Gordium with his army. It was still early in Alexander's conquest, so he wanted to see this so-called Gordian Knot. Apparently, there was a wagon hitched to a yoke, and the hitch was tied with such a wicked knot, such a "spaghetti'ed" mess that you couldn't tell where the rope started or where it ended, and people in those parts said that whoever could untangle it, whoever could untie it, would be destined to rule all the surrounding kingdoms. The story goes, Alexander, who was intent to be such a ruler, wanted to see this knot. He took one good look at it to study it, and he took out his sword and chopped it in two. And then he left town to go conquer the world, which he did mostly, and then died at 32 (see Arrian, The Anabasis of Alexander, 83).
The Gordian Knot has come to represent an unsolvable problem that may require some clever or forceful thinking to address. But sometimes cutting the knot causes more problems than it solves.
In the study of organizational management, there's a technical term, a "wicked problem." Wicked in this context doesn't necessarily mean evil, although it could. But the emphasis is that the problem is highly resistant to resolution. Wicked problems don't have a single source, a single cause, but multiple causes, and they're hard to define. And when you chop at them, they're like the heads of the Hydra monster. You cause more problems than you solve. Consider the epidemic of loneliness in our time. Chronic loneliness due to social isolation is one of our culture's most wicked problems. Sometimes people try to hack away at this problem with well-meaning phrases like "You just got to find your people."
"Find your people," we're told—the people who get you. Move out to the country, find a better neighborhood, somewhere walkable, tighten your circles, join a small group, shop local, invest in a village, because it takes a village. Many Americans are sick with loneliness because we're so cut off from our neighbors. We're told to take a tip from earlier times or cultures that weren't or aren't so isolated, like Bible times or quaint little villages in Italy, or that mythical bar where everybody knows your name. "Find your people," so goes the advice. That'll undo the epidemic of loneliness—which is true, but the solution isn't so simple, is it? Because you can't just cut the knot. Because if and when you find your people, you will be sorely disappointed in them, too. You'll remember why our cultures work so hard to get away from people, to be self-made, independent and sometimes miserably lonely people.
Of course, Christians will cite Bible times as better times, right? These people weren't so individualistic; they weren't so isolated. They did life together, and their parties lasted for days. True, but they had other problems: people problems. People problems that we can't even begin to fathom because of our social isolation. Take, for example, the life of Abraham's family, recorded in the book of Genesis. Now, this was a family that knew how to find their people, but God, as we're introduced to Him in the book of Genesis, is counter-cultural. He tells Abraham, leave your people. "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land I will show you," God says to Abraham in Genesis 12. Abraham goes, but he never forgets his people, especially when it comes time for his sons to get married. "Don't marry any of these foreign women," he says to Isaac. "Go find a nice girl from our kind of people," and that's how Isaac and Rebecca got married.
Then that's what they told their son, Jacob, "Go meet a nice girl from our people." Now, in Jacob's situation, it was a little bit more complicated than that because Jacob was also running away from home because he had stolen his brother Esau's blessing and his brother wanted to murder him. You know, standard family stuff. Jacob runs away and his father Isaac tells him, "Don't marry one of the women from around here. Find someone from our people." So Jacob goes to his uncle Laban's house, 500 miles away, and he falls in love with his cousin, Rachel. Uncle Laban says, "Sure, you can marry my daughter...if you work for me for seven years." Jacob does, but when the day arrives, his uncle tricks him. Instead of sending Rachel into the bridal tent, he sends her sister Leah. Jacob wakes up in the morning next to his wife, and it's Leah, not Rachel! Jacob says to his uncle, "What?" His uncle Laban makes some lame excuse and tells Jacob, "Well, you can have Rachel too; just work for another seven years because, hey, you do for family, right?" Jacob ends up with two wives, but really only loves one of them. And that is just the beginning.
Listen to how it goes for Jacob and his family after he finds his people, but also listen to how God is at work with them—despite them—in Genesis 29 and 30.
Now, the Lord God saw that Leah was unloved by her husband, Jacob, and so God opened her womb. But Rachel, her sister, was barren. Leah became pregnant and gave birth to a son, and she named him Reuben, which means "See, a son," because she said, "It is because the Lord has seen my misery. Now, surely my husband will love me." Then Leah conceived again and gave birth to a son. And she said, "Because the Lord has heard that I am still hated, He gave me this one, too." She named him "Heard," that is, Simeon. Again, Leah conceived and gave birth to a son, and she said, "Now my husband will be attached to me because I've born him three sons." And so, she named him "Attached," that is, Levi. Leah conceived again and gave birth to a son, and she said, "This time I will praise the Lord. She named him "Praise," that is, Judah. Then Leah stopped having children.
Now, Rachel, when she saw that she was not bearing any children for Jacob, she became jealous of her sister, Leah. And she said to Jacob, "Give me children or I'll die!" Jacob was angry with Rachel, and he said, "Am I in the place of God, who has kept you from having children?" Rachel said to Jacob, "Here, take my maidservant, Bilhah, and sleep with her, so that she will have children on my behalf and through her, I too will build a family." Rachel gave her maidservant Bilhah to Jacob as his wife, and he slept with her. And Bilhah conceived and gave birth to a son. Rachel said, "God has vindicated me because He has also heard my cry and has given me a son," so she named him "Vindicated," that is, Dan. Again, Rachel's servant Bilhah conceived and gave birth to a son, and Rachel said, "I have had a great struggle, a struggle of God against my sister, and I have won." She named him "Struggle," that is, Naftali.
Now, Leah, when she saw that she had stopped bearing children, she gave her maidservant Zilpah to Jacob to be his wife. Zilpah, the maidservant of Leah, conceived and gave birth to a son. Leah said, "Oh, what good luck has come," and so she named him "Lucky," that is, Gad. Again, Leah's maidservant Zilpah conceived and bore Jacob a son. And Leah said, "Oh, how happy I am because the women have called me happy." And so she named him "Happy," that is, Asher.
Now, during the wheat harvest, Leah's oldest son, Reuben, went out to the fields, and he found some mandrake plants, mandrakes, which were said to induce fertility. And he brought them to his mother, Leah. And Rachel said to Leah, "Please give me some of your son's mandrakes." Leah said to Rachel, "Wasn't it enough that you took my husband away? Now you'll take my son's mandrakes, too?" Rachel said to her, "Fine, he can sleep with you tonight—in exchange for some of your son's mandrakes."
That evening when Jacob was coming in from the field, Leah went out to him and said to him, "You must sleep with me tonight. I have hired you. I've paid your wages with some of my son's mandrakes." And so he slept with her that night. And God heard Leah, and Leah conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son. And Leah said, "God has given me my wages for me giving my maid servant to my husband." She named him "Wages," that is, Issachar. Again, Leah conceived and bore Jacob, a sixth son. And she said, "God has given me a precious gift. This time my husband will honor me because I have born him six sons." And so she named him "Honored Gift," that is, Zebulon. After this, Leah gave birth to a daughter, and she named her Dinah, which means "vindicated." Then God remembered Rachel, and He listened to her and He opened her womb. And she conceived and gave birth to a son, and she said, "God has taken away my shame. He has added to my honor." And so she named him "Add," that is, Joseph. And she said, "And may God add to me another son."
That's from Genesis 29 and 30.
Maybe you've heard of the 12 tribes of Israel. Well, this is their origin story. This is the people the Creator of the Universe chose to bind Himself to. God bound Himself to this people because He has a plan to bind Himself to all people. See, that's how God solves the human problem, not by cutting the knot, but by tightening the bonds. God chose to do it this way because this is who He is. God isn't a lonely individual. The Bible reveals the Creator to be the Father with His Son and the Spirit of love who binds them together from eternity, Three in One. God's being is relational. God cares about relational bonds. He doesn't just cut us off. God knows we can't live without Him. Instead of cutting the knot, He tightens the bonds, and He is binding Himself to all people through Abraham's people. And what people they are!
They're like the rest of us. Like children with fishing gear, they create complications. They gum things up, all the nice things. The story of Abraham's grandson Jacob is Exhibit A. Now, God had a plan to bless Jacob, to grow his family so that all the families of the earth can be blessed through Jacob's line. But Jacob and his people make a rat's nest of the whole thing along the way. Jacob won't wait in faith for the blessing, but instead steals it from his older brother with lies and tricks. Then when Jacob meets Laban, he meets his match because the deceiver becomes the deceived, and Uncle Laban adds more knots into the system, complicated by Leah's insecurity and Rachel's jealousy and Jacob's passivity, and then poor Bilhah and Zilpah get tangled up in the whole thing. Even when they're picking baby names, they're entangling future generations with their dysfunction, so that the whole knotty story plays out again and again and again.
But that's only half the story. Because threaded through all that dysfunction, hidden in the isolation and the loneliness, God is at work. Because in every human relationship and every human life, God is at work. Rachel seems to almost grasp this in one of her comments, in Genesis 30: 8. Many translations render it something like, "I have struggled with my sister with a mighty struggle." But some translations say, "I have struggled with my sister in a struggle of God." That's because the Hebrew text can be translated either way. The Hebrew word for God can also mean "great" or "mighty." In other words, their struggle—Jacob's struggle, your struggle, my struggle—is ultimately a struggle with God. Abraham was called into this struggle, the struggle to trust God even when that meant leaving His people for a time. Because our struggle to feel loved and safe and known and not so lonely ultimately ties back to God.
Jacob's unloved wife, Leah, gets this. The names of her seven children reflect her struggle to let God be God for her, to let God's love define her and secure her. The names she picks are an index of her hopes and prayers and insecure questions. "Does God see me? Does He hear me? What about when I'm unattached? Can I still praise Him—not only when I feel happy and lucky, but bought and sold and manipulated and hated? Will God still give good gifts then? Will God vindicate me?" Leah is learning that if you let God be enough for you, even without finding your people, you will find God at work in all the people. Jacob's family is fit to be tied, but they're also a family of faith. Faith isn't a virtue here. It's just a flat out, sometimes miserable, hopeful, desperate struggle to depend on God.
Faith is a gift that God gives because He's bound Himself to us. He's given us His Word. He's given us His Son. God's Son Jesus willingly got tangled up in our human mess. God's Son was born in Jacob's dysfunctional family. God's Son became a human son, the single knot, the master point that holds the whole system together. Even when all His people cut out on Him, even when they abandoned Him, denied Him, and betrayed Him, when they bought Him and sold Him, traded and hated Him, crucified Him—even then, Jesus held fast, bound to God and tied to us, and He rose from the dead to hold us together, forever.
See, knots can do two things. They can snag and they can hold. A good knot in the right place unifies the system. That's why it's called the master point, because it holds all the parts together. You know that when knots form in the wrong place at the wrong time, they can cause some wicked snags. And sometimes the best you and I can do is cut the line. There are probably some people that you've had to cut out of your life for a time. And there are probably some people who've cut out on you. Even when you find your people, they'll bring wicked problems with them, too.
Christian author Jennie Allen, in her recent book titled Find Your People, says it well: "You will never find perfect people because those people don't exist. You will always be doing community with sinners," and that includes you, because the problem of sin "is inside all of us. It was, and it is and will continue to be until Jesus returns."1 Only Jesus can forgive sin. Only Jesus can sort out this mess that is us. And one day He will, because He alone is the Master destined to rule all things. But He doesn't want to work alone. He wants to work with you and your people, all people. He chooses to keep us around and not just to keep His things nice. Amen? Amen.
Please pray with me: Dear Jesus, You gave yourself into death and You rose from the dead to tie our future to Yours. So also bind me in self-giving love, closer to the people You bring into my life. Amen.
Endnote
1 Jennie Allen, Find Your People: Building Deep Community in a Lonely World. Colorado Springs, Colorado, WaterBrook, 2022, 53, 100.
Reflections for October 6, 2024
Title: Fit to Be Tied
No reflection segment this week
Music Selections for this program:
"A Mighty Fortress" arr. Peter Prochnow. Used by permission.
"Oh, Blest the House" arr. Henry Gerike. Used by permission.
"Crucifer" by Sydney H. Nicholson, arr. Peter Prochnow. Used by permission.
