"My Name Is Now Yours"
#92-11Presented on The Lutheran Hour on November 10, 2024
By Rev. Dr. Daniel Paavola, Guest Speaker
Copyright 2024 Lutheran Hour Ministries
Reflections
Text: Genesis 35:10-11
God's Word for us today is Genesis 35:10-11, "And God said to him, 'Your name is Jacob; no longer shall your name be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name.' So He called his name Israel. And God said to him, 'I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall come from your own body."
What does your name mean? Do you have your grandmother's name or the name of your mother's brother? Are you the second or even the third in your family line to have that name? Is there a special story behind your name? Maybe your parents decided your name long before you were born. Or perhaps, for whatever reason, your name came later. Even after you were born, your parents still didn't have a name for you. Thank goodness, they finally opened the first page of the baby name book, and it worked. You've been Allison ever since.
By the way, my name, Dan, has no special meaning. No one in my family has ever had that name. But it was short; it's easy to say, and my father, a very, very quiet man, wanted something easy to shout out over the sound of a tractor.
But as we read in our Bible text, there is great meaning in the name "Israel." As we continue to study the life of Jacob, we come again to this change in name from Jacob to Israel. Jacob goes from his past of being the deceiver, the one who trips others, to being Israel, the one who wrestles with God. What a change!
But that change didn't come easily. In our longer text of Genesis 34 and 35, we have a sad, bitter story of violence and revenge. What was unquestionably wrong was answered with another deadly wrong. But when we expect that God will bring a complete destruction on these people, He comes with mercy to renew His relationship with Jacob, to rename him as Israel, and to remain with him with the lasting name of "Bethel, the house of God."
Our story needs to start with the sad, sad experience of Dinah, the daughter of Jacob. She was assaulted by Shechem, a prince; she was devastated by his cruelty. When the news of this assault reached her brothers, they were very angry and plotted their revenge. By their plan, the two brothers, Simeon and Levi, killed Shechem and all the men of his city. They were set on revenge so that violence was met with greater violence.
Revenge is a sharp tool that can cause more hurt than we might imagine. It's all a bit like having a child help you in the workshop. Imagine that you are going to build a desk for your five-year old son. Tell him at 9 a.m. that you and he are going to build him a desk. When does he expect that you'll be done with the desk? Well, 9:30 at the latest. But you're not assembling this out of a box. You're making an oak desk and starting with oak boards straight from the saw mill. This is going to take time. So take the little guy down to the shop and start working. After 20 minutes, during which you've measured a board or two and have drawn the lines where you'll cut, the phone rings upstairs. Tell your son you'll be right back and go upstairs.
Now what would be the worst sound you could hear coming from the shop downstairs? The ten-inch table saw starting up. That unmistakable sound grabs you, as a blade with 60 carbide teeth is spinning at 4000 RPM. Drop the phone! Run downstairs and see your five-year old is about to push a board into the saw blade! Just in time, snap off the saw, and pull him back!
When you ask what he thought he was doing, he has a perfect answer. He was building the desk! You weren't getting it done, so he was going to do it. He even knew where to cut on the line you had drawn.
What do you say? Something like this: "I know you want this done right now, but it can't be done that fast. And this saw is way too sharp for you to use. You're only going to get hurt with it. This saw is dad's tool. Trust me, I'll get it done, but remember, this saw is my tool."
Isn't that the message God would give to all of us tempted to take the sharp tool of revenge into our hands? We're sure we know where the cutting should be done, but in the end, revenge can hurt us first and more than it ever reaches someone else. God said, "Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God. For it is written, 'Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, says the Lord'" (Romans 12:19).
That was the warning that was needed but also ignored by the two brothers. After the attack on Shechem and his city, Jacob was in fear that the violence would rebound against him, and he and his family would all be killed. That is when we hear God speak in Genesis 35, calling Jacob to bring his family out to Bethel and to leave behind all the idols that they had accumulated. It was time for God to take the first of three steps to gather Jacob and his family out of the danger that surrounded them.
The first step was for God to renew the relationship between Himself and Jacob and his family. It would have been so easy and understandable if God had turned His back on Jacob and would have let the revenge and violence that surrounded them break over their heads like a fatal wave. But instead of that, God called Jacob to a higher ground of a renewed relationship. Jacob and his family put away their idols, and Jacob buried them. Idols would do them no good if danger came. Only God could protect them, and that all by grace and mercy. They couldn't claim innocence. Blood was on their hands. But God walked with them, putting a fear of them into the people through whom they journeyed. Because of God's protection, they could go forward.
In our relationship with God, we also need a renewal daily. We might not be walking through the territory of our enemies today, but we might well be looking behind ourselves, worrying that our past will catch up with us any minute. While we are looking back, God is walking with us. He renews our relationship every day by His mercy. The psalmist said it so well: "The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. The Lord is good to all, and His mercy is over all that He has made" (Psalm 145:8-9).
This mercy of God that renews us is like a spring that never fails. Isaiah 58:11 gives us a picture of that sort of spring: "And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail." The life-saving gift comes through the work of Jesus who alone can put a spring within us. Jesus told the woman at the well in John 4 that He could give her a lasting gift, living water, saying, "The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." We are not walking through a desert with only the rare oasis to give us water and hope. We walk by faith with the Savior, with the living water of His gift. That living water is His Word with His promises of forgiveness and loving care. He renews us by His lasting life within us.
When we have been renewed by God's life, He also comes to rename us, as He did with Jacob. Our text tells us that God repeated the new name for Jacob, so that he would no longer be the deceiver, but Israel, the one who wrestles with God. God had first given Jacob this new name at the end of the long night of Jacob wrestling with God. At the end, Jacob had held on, asking that God would reveal Himself. God did so by giving him the new name of Israel, the one who wrestles with God. What a shock for Jacob that not only could he see God but that he was allowed to wrestle with Him through the long night. God should be distant and untouchable. But what mercy God had so that He would allow Jacob to wrestle with Him. It is like when a small child wrestles with his father. The father lets himself be twisted and turned, ends up on his back, pinned. The child has won! Yes, but he and his father have both won, winning by making a memory that will only grow over time. The son will go from imagining he could actually wrestle his father to later realizing it was all his father's kindness and restraint that made that memory.
So, God also comes to us, to give us the reassurance that He is near to us as a caring Father. Our situation is likely not as dangerous as was Jacob's. But regardless, we need the same assurance that the Name of God is tied with us. None of us is going to change our name to Israel. We don't need to, as God has already joined His Name to us. When we were baptized, we were baptized in the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, as Jesus commanded in Matthew 28:19, "Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." God has gathered us to Himself, not by any merit or work and certainly not by our winning a wrestling contest. He has called us as His own before we existed. Ephesians 1:4-5, "He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ." God has bound us to Himself by His determined plan. Just as a parent chooses to adopt a child and abides by that choice, God has chosen to adopt us and stands by that decision. It's true that our lives are not perfect, and there is no reason for God to choose us. In that way, we are much like Jacob who was fully aware of how the sins of himself and his family could destroy them all. But God stood by His early choice of Jacob and gave Him again the name, Israel, the one who wrestles with God. So also God gives us His Name in Baptism, and He continues to stand with us. He is the Father who loves us, the Son who has ransomed us, and the Spirit who dwells within us.
With that blessing of His Name on us, we also have the final step of God who remains with Jacob and also with us. Jacob is sent forward to build Bethel, the house of God. What a wonderful name for a place to dwell. Before we turn to Jacob's story, let's think of where we live. Do you have a name for your house? On its best days, when you excitedly first moved in, did you give you house a name? Now this is when everything is working, and the water heater hasn't started leaking yet. On your best days what name would you give your house? Nothing over the top, but more like the names people give a boat. Call your house "The House of Dreams" or "Finally Home" or "Place of Refuge." I'm sure you have better ideas than all those.
But whatever you call your house, how about the name that God gives Jacob? Genesis 35:13-15 reads, "Then God went up from him in the place where He had spoken with him. And Jacob set up a pillar in the very place where God had spoken with him, a pillar of stone. He poured out a drink offering on it and poured oil on it. So Jacob called the name of the place where God had spoken with him, Bethel." Bethel means the house of God. What a wonderful name for that place where God had met Jacob and where He had given Jacob the reassurance of His plan. God's promise was that from Jacob would come a great line, a company of nations and kings. What a place and what a blessing.
When we hear that name, "house of God," don't we wish we could join Jacob in that place? Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a Bethel in our lives? It would be the place where God has spoken and He continues to speak to us. It would be a place not for us only but would be a place with open doors and open windows, the place where the music and message spill out onto the street.
When I was the pastor at St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Butternut, Wisconsin, we had eight beautiful stained glass windows, four on each side of the church. The bottom panel of each window could open for those summer Sundays when we needed some air. There was no air conditioning, of course, we were so far north. But we could open those windows and let the town hear our music, hear our prayers, hear the sermon. And I would love to think that all our churches somehow let the neighbors and those walking by hear us. Walk by and listen; then walk in the door and be blessed. After all, our churches are all Bethel, the house of God.
Besides the life God gives us in His house, the congregation in which we gather, what a wonderful name we might also give to our homes. I don't expect we'll put up a sign over our garage, "Welcome to Bethel." That might just confuse your neighbors who thought your house was 1011 South Main Street. But inside the garage or inside the front door, as you walk in, wouldn't it be great to say, "Here is my Bethel." Here is the place where God continues to speak to us and to bless us. We can see His kindness, whether our home is large or small, new or old. It is the place that welcomes us, protects the gifts He's given, and lets us hear the repeated promises He will remain with us. As Jacob was renamed to Israel, let's call our homes Bethel, the place where God dwells, the place where God speaks to us, and the place where God continues to bless us.
What an abiding gift God gave to Jacob following the sadness and violence of the previous chapter. God renews His relationship with Jacob when it would have been so easy to cut him and his family off. So God also remains with us day upon day. He hears us when we admit we've done wrong again, even though we said we'd be done with that sin. But God hears our call for mercy and renews with us in forgiveness.
God also once more renamed Jacob, giving him again the name of Israel, the one who wrestles with God. We are daily reminded that God has bound us to Himself in Baptism, encircling and dwelling within us as Father, Son, and Spirit. We are more than an improved name when we remember that God has adopted us as His sons and daughters. By that He's given us hope for all time, renamed as the children of God.
Finally, God remains with us so we can point to our congregation as Bethel, the house of God, and so also our homes are those places where God dwells. He speaks to us daily by His Word, and He invites the world around us to hear that Word and join us. What gifts God gives us as He renews, renames, and remains, even with us! Amen.
Please pray with me: Heavenly Father, thank You for Your lasting presence with us. Despite our many failures, You have chosen us before the foundation of the world, and You continue to be with us each day. You fill each place as Your dwelling. Make our homes and our lives a lasting Bethel, the house of God. We pray in Jesus' Name. Amen.
Reflections for November 10, 2024
Title: God's Vengeance
Mark Eischer: You are listening to The Lutheran Hour. For FREE online resources, archived audio, and more, go to lutheranhour.org. Joining us now, here's Lutheran Hour Speaker, Dr. Michael Zeigler.
Mike Zeigler: Hello, Mark.
Mark Eischer: What stood out to you in Dr. Paavola's sermon today?
Mike Zeigler: He gives us these images from life, and it was the saw and how he used that to help us understand vengeance. It puts vengeance as a tool that's God's tool, and it's not for us to use. It's too dangerous.
Mark Eischer: Now, how would you define vengeance?
Mike Zeigler: I think one way to understand it is, think of it as looking backward as payback. He did something to hurt me, so I'm going to hurt him. And of course, it's always I'm going to hurt him worse than he hurt me because I want him to really feel it. And that sort of vengeance, it is a human kind of vengeance, and it always escalates. And it wouldn't be satisfied until it burned the whole world down.
Mark Eischer: Yeah, we see that taking place in the world today.
Mike Zeigler: Exactly. And so, I think, in our more sane and calm moments, we are repelled by that idea of vengeance. But then I think you can go the other way and just say, vengeance is so bad, I just want to turn away. I want to pretend like it didn't happen, just ignore it, or make excuses for the evil thing. And this is what we see Jacob doing in Genesis 34 when this horrible thing happens to his daughter; he just pretends like it doesn't happen, and that only incites his sons, and they're even more bloodthirsty for their kind of a vengeance.
Mark Eischer: So, we shouldn't look away from evil, but we shouldn't seek that vengeance on our own. What to do then?
Mike Zeigler: Well, like Dr. Paavola quoted from Romans 12, there's this phrase, "Leave room for the wrath of God," that is, give space for God to use that tool rightly and to put things right in His time. So God, of course, He doesn't lack the power to use the tool like the way we might want to use it when we're really angry or we're feeling hurt. It wouldn't be difficult for God to just burn the whole world down. But the Bible reveals that God gets angry in a different way than how we get angry. God puts His righteous wrath in service, always in service to a relationship of love. And the crucifixion of Jesus is the high point, the center moment of this. There we see God enacting vengeance and doing justice in a way that wasn't just backward-looking, but forward-looking, ultimately to restore us, to put our sinful ways to death—but also to resurrect us with Jesus. So, God didn't look away at the cross; He enacted justice, but He did it in a way that would renew the relationship.
Mark Eischer: What does that then teach us about how to respond to evil things that people might do to us?
Mike Zeigler: The first teaching is simply that vengeance is God's tool, ultimately. It's His business, not ours. And so that relieves us of the burden of thinking we have to make a final judgment or have the last word on some case or some person. The second thing is that we ought to remember that God does do justice. He enacts vengeance in His way, and He has set up governments and governmental systems and law enforcement systems, and we should take our place in these as best we can, but ultimately, to remember that it's God's business and to leave space for that.
Mark Eischer: Because ultimately only God can set things right.
Mike Zeigler: That's right. And that's what vengeance is about, from God's perspective. And He is going to set things right on the day when Jesus comes for final judgment. And that's going to be a good day, not just because evil will be no more, but we will be fully restored to Him and we will be able to work alongside Him to do what is right in His renewed creation. So, a five-year-old using a table saw is a terrifying thing. But flash forward into the future, and now you've got maybe a 14 or a 15-year-old helping you, working alongside you. And I had this experience this fall. We had to put some new stairs on our front porch, and I asked my son, 14-year-old son, Jude, to help. And I taught him how to use the Skilsaw®, the electric saw. And I was a little afraid of the thought of him doing it on his own, but he got some practice. And you know what? He was better than me at it! He made the perfect straight cuts. I could just let him do that part of the job, and then I installed the boards as he cut them. How much more will God's joy be when we are fully mature in Christ, and we can work alongside Him in the new creation?
Mark Eischer: Thank you, Dr. Zeigler.
Music Selections for this program:
"A Mighty Fortress" arr. Peter Prochnow. Used by permission.
"I Bind Unto Myself Today" arr. K. Lee Scott. From Hope by the Concordia Seminary Chorus (© 1991 Concordia Publishing House) Used by permission.
"Crucifer" by Sydney H. Nicholson, arr. Peter Prochnow. Used by permission.
"Lord of All Hopefulness" From The Concordia Organist (© 2009 Concordia Publishing House) Used by permission.
