Untitled Sermon

Prayer

Quick word about our Sermon Series - next two Sundays we’ll take a break from making our way through the story of the Old Testament...

Pity for Whom?

I want to begin this morning with a brief encounter that Jesus has on the way of the Via Dolorosa, the way of sorrows, as Jesus carries his cross through the city of Jerusalem toward the outskirts of the city, where crucifixions would take place.

I want you to picture the scene…Jesus has been savagely beaten, with a cat of nine tails, a whip with nine strands in which pieces of glass and metal and rocks have been interwoven - Jesus was beaten with that whip 39 times. 39 lashes against his back, front and legs. He would have been beaten and bruised and bloodied.

Now he’s being paraded through the streets of Jerusalem, carrying the cross with the help of Simon of Cyrene, who’s been compelled by the Roman soldiers to help him. And then we have this encounter as recorded in the Gospel of Luke:

Luke 23:27-28...A large number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him. 28 Jesus turned and said to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children.”

Consider this momentary exchange - Jesus is the most pitiable figure you can imagine - just thinking about what he’s already endured and what he has yet to face - you can see why these women are weeping for him, it’s hard to imagine not pitying him. And yet, Jesus tells them outright - do not weep for me - weep for yourselves and for your children. Jesus tells them to weep because of the time that is coming - the day of God’s judgment.

It just strikes me as remarkable, Jesus’ response here. He is suffering unimaginably, he is in the midst of carrying the cross in order to be nailed to it - after having already been savagely beaten. And his response to these women mourning and wailing - do not weep for me. Hang on to your pity, you’re going to need it later, for yourselves and your children.

I want to talk this morning about pity. And in particular, self-pity. How we respond when we are wronged. When things don’t go our way - when life seems to be mounted against us, when others actively act against us - which is exactly what is happening to Jesus in this moment.

And yet Jesus isn’t preoccupied with himself, his pity is not for what he is suffering - but for those in the crowd. His heart is for them. What enables him to do this, what is it that Jesus knows, his heart, that enables him to endure wrongs and still be for others?

Our story this morning - from the book of Genesis (of course!), as we’ve been making our way through the story of the Old Testament, is full of people being wronged - and how they respond to those wrongs (hint, it’s a lot of self pity).

As usual, we want to recap a bit, so we keep a sense of the overall story of the people of Israel. Last week we were making our way through the generations that followed Abraham.

We saw Abraham’s servant finding (with God’s guidance) a wife for Abraham’s son, Isaac, the beautiful Rebekah. Rebekah gave birth to twin sons, Esau and Jacob. Jacob, with the help of Rebekah, stole the blessing that Isaac was going to give his older brother, Esau.

Esau was bitterly angry about what happened and vowed to kill Jacob. So, under the guise of going to find a wife from among his mother’s family in Paddam Aram, Jacob fled his home. That’s where we left things in Genesis 27.

In Genesis 28, as Jacob makes the journey to his uncle’s home, he has an incredible spiritual experience, an encounter with God, at a place he names “Bethel” or house of God. Jacob has a vision of the angels descending and ascending between heaven and earth, and comes to recognize the presence of God - “Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it.”

It’s in this encounter that God reaffirms the covenant promise he first made to Abraham, then to Isaac, and now here to Jacob - the promise of a great nation, descendants too numerous to count, all the land that surrounds them, and that this nation will be a blessing to all other nations.

Jacob then arrives in Paddan Aram, northwest Mesopotamia, where his uncle Laban lives. And here we have another encounter at a well, where he meets one of Laban’s daughter, Rachel.

Jacob goes to live with and work for Laban, and in exchange for working for his uncle seven years, Laban agrees to give Jacob his daughter, Rachel, whom Jacob has fallen in love with, in marriage.

Jacob works the seven years, but when the time of consummating the marriage comes, Laban tricks Jacob by giving him his older daughter, Leah, instead. But Jacob still wants Rachel as his wife, so he agrees to work another seven years for Laban to earn the hand of Rachel.

This is where we pick up the story this morning. It’s crucial to keep in mind the dynamics of what’s happening here.

This is a family where the uncle has tricked his nephew into marrying the older sister of the woman he really wanted to marry. And Jacob blatantly favors Rachel over Leah and this has created an ugly rivalry among the two sisters.

Not a great way to start a family, but that’s exactly what we’re going to look at this morning, the birth of Jacob’s children through his wives. These sons become the foundation of the twelve tribes of Israel, so this plays a big part in story of the Israelites.

Now, it’s too long a story to read the whole thing, so I’m going to walk us through it - this covers Genesis 29:31-35 through Genesis 30:1-24. As we go through it, I’m going to highlight what the children are named because that tells the story. Names have great meaning in the Bible.

What we essentially have here is a child-bearing battle - who can bear the most sons for Jacob.

Leah longs for the love of her husband and she hopes that with the birth of each child she bears that will help her earn the love of Jacob - you’ll see it in how the story, begins, Genesis 29:31-32:

When the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, he enabled her to conceive, but Rachel remained childless. Leah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Reuben, for she said, It is because the Lord has seen my misery. Surely my husband will love me now.”

The name, Reuben means “see, a son” but it sounds like, “he has seen my misery,” a reference to believing that the Lord has seen my misery. God’s seen my misery and blessed me with a child -now, finally, surely, my husband will love me.

Then Leah conceives and gives birth to a second son, whom she names Simeon, which means “one who hears” because “the Lord heard that I am not loved.”

Her third son is Levi, which means attached, because, as she says, “now at last my husband will become attached to me.” Are you noticing a pattern here?

Finally, she feels good about how many sons God is blessing her with when she gives birth to her fourth child, whom she names Judah, which sounds like praise. “This time I will praise the Lord,” she says.

Leah stops having children and Rachel, realizing that she is way behind in the childbearing count, becomes jealous and angrily demands of her husband, Jacob, “give me children or I’ll die.” As you can imagine, Jacob is not happy with this, after all as he tells her, it’s not as if he’s God and can grant her children.

So Rachel tries the strategy Sarah (Abraham’s wife) used - offering her maidservant to Jacob as a wife in order to bear children on her behalf.

So Jacob sleeps with Bilhah and she bears a son, whom Rachel names Dan, saying God has vindicated me, he has listened to my plea and given me a son. Dan means he has vindicated.

Bilhah bears a second son, whom Rachel names Naphtali, my struggle. Listen to why she names him this: “I have had a great struggle with my sister, and I have won.” Just a little bit of sibling rivalry here.

But Leah isn’t done - two can play this game. She, in turn offers her maidservant, Zilpah, to Jacob as a wife. Zilpah bears Jacob a son whom Leah names Gad, which means good fortune.

The second son Zilpah bears to Jacob is named Asher, or happy. Because Leah is happy, now that she has provided six sons to Jacob. If you’ve lost count, Jacob now has eight sons.

Then we have this strange incidence where Reuben, the oldest, finds some mandrakes out in the wheat fields during the harvest. Now mandrakes were believed to have special fertility properties, so they were very much desired by the women.

Reuben gives them to his mother, Leah - and Rachel asks her for some. Listen to Leah’s response: Wasn’t it enough that you took away my husband? Will you take my son’s mandrakes too?

They make a deal - in exchange for some of the mandrakes, Rachel tells Leah that Jacob can sleep with her that night (think about that what reveals about the dynamics of the marriage, and how much Jacob favored Rachel).

As soon as Jacob comes in from the fields, Leah goes out to meet him - you’re sleeping with me tonight, buddy. So he does.

Bible tells us that God listened to Leah and she became pregnant and bore Jacob a fifth son, whom she named Issachar, which means reward.

Then Leah conceives again and bears Jacob a sixth son, Zebulun, which means honor, because Leah is convinced that now, finally, “my husband will treat me with honor because I have borne him six sons.”

Later Leah gives birth to a daughter, whom she names Dinah.

This brings us back to Rachel and the last of the child bearing battle: Genesis 30:22-24: Then God remembered Rachel; he listened to her and enabled her to conceive. She became pregnant and gave birth to a son and said, “God has taken away my disgrace.” She named him Joseph, and said, “May the Lord add to me another son.” (Which, by the way, he does - we’ll come to that later).

Quick kid count - Leah bore six sons for Jacob (Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar and Zebulun) and a daughter, Dinah. Bilhah, Rachel’s maidservant, bore two sons, Dan and Naphtali. Zilpah, Leah’s maidservant, also bore two, Gad and Asher. And Rachel bore one son, Joseph. Eleven boys and one girl. The family is getting a lot bigger.

If we look at the main characters here, we can see where all of them were either deeply wronged, or had to endure difficult circumstances.

Jacob is tricked by his own uncle! He works seven long years for the hand of Laban’s daughter, Rachel, that was the agreement they made - and then when the time comes, Laban sneaks his older daughter, Leah, in instead.

Well, you can have Rachel, too, you just have to work another seven years. Jacob getting a dose of his own medicine, experiencing what it’s like to be deceived, tricked out of something he really wanted.

And Leah is wronged by Jacob. To be fair, he had no desire or intention to marry Leah, but he could have done the right thing by treating her fairly, by acknowledging that, for better or worse, she was his wife, and he should treat her with love and honor and respect.

But Jacob clearly made no bones about his favoritism for Rachel, leaving Leah to pine away for a shred of love and honor from her husband.

Finally, there’s Rachel - as far as the circumstance of the marriage, she was innocent. Her father wronged her by giving Leah first to Jacob. and then she had to suffer for years not being able to conceive and bear a son - or any child - for Jacob.

I point all this out simply to make clear that the painful circumstances of their lives were very real. They were all deeply wronged. They all suffered. We can pity them in their difficulty of their circumstances.

But here’s where the big question comes - how do we respond when we suffer difficulty? When we are wronged - deeply wronged (as they were)? Or perhaps the suffering is just the result of painful life circumstances (illness or disaster or the like)?

At some point they all moved toward self-pity. Toward bemoaning the difficulties of their lives, dwelling on them to the point that they became the defining story of their lives.

Jacob - I was wronged, I never asked for Leah, I never wanted to be married to her, so he feels justified in mistreating her. I was wronged, I was cheated, I didn’t ask for this (for Leah) - that becomes his story.

And Leah, her whole sense of being is defined by the lack of love by her husband - every child is a desperate attempt to change his heart toward her. Her story of self-pity, the one she tells herself over and over again, I am unloved.

And finally, Rachel - I can’t bear a child. Leah keeps having baby after baby. I am cursed. She is blessed - that’s her story. I have to beat her somehow, I should be the one providing children for my husband, I’m the wife he really wants.

It is amazingly easy to move into self pity. To dwell on our problems, our difficulties, the way we were wronged. It fuels being vindictive, treating others poorly, jealousy.

John Piper makes the amazing insight that self pity is the manifestation of pride. It is the response of pride to suffering: I deserve admiration (or special treatment or whatever the case may be) because I have suffered so much. It sounds self-sacrificing, a sense of unrecognized worthiness.

There is an antidote to self pity - it’s what we see in Jesus. It’s what enabled Jesus to respond to those women weeping and wailing for him in the midst of his terrible suffering - don’t weep for me.

The antidote to self pity - ruthless trust in the goodness of God. What do I mean by “ruthless” trust? To be ruthless means no pity. Someone who is ruthless shows no pity. Idea is that we would be so convinced of God and his faithfulness, his goodness, his presence with us, his mercy - that no matter the difficulty of our circumstances, no matter how badly we’ve been wronged, I have no reason to pity myself.

God is too good. His goodness overwhelms any of the difficulties I’m suffering. God’s inescapable goodness - you can’t get away from it, it’s always there.

Consider how things might have been different if our main characters had exhibited ruthless trust in God and his inescapable goodness: Jacob - though I’ve been wronged, I got tricked into marrying this woman - I trust that God can bring good out of this situation, so I will honor him by loving Leah well, by honoring her fully as my wife. Indeed God did bring good out of this marriage, blessing Jacob with six sons and a daughter through Leah.

Leah - though my father put in this situation of being married to a man who did not want to be married to me, and though I am unloved by my husband, I am loved by God. He hears me, he hears my prayers. He knows my pain. He is for me. Her story would have been rooted in God’s goodness and love for her, as demonstrated by all the children he blessed her with. Her children might have had very different names - names that meant “loved by God”, “his goodness to me” or the like.

Rachel as well. Even though she suffered by not being able to conceive for so long, if she had been rooted in ruthless trust, she would have been able to rejoice for Leah, and birth of all her children, rather than seeing it as a competition she needed to win. The dynamic of their relationship could have been very different - it always is, when we are rooted in ruthless trust of God’s goodness, we are free to be for others - even in the midst of our own sufferings.

Just like Jesus. This is the trust Jesus had - he knew the Father would redeem his sacrifice, bring incredible good (salvation for the world) out of the terrible evil he suffered. Hebrews 12:2 - For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Spiritual Disciplines - How do we nurture a ruthless trust in God and his goodness? How do we not simply know God’s truth, but surrender to it? If self pity is a manifestation of pride, then humility is the antidote, humble reliance on God.

When you consider your suffering, there’s several ways you can deal with it.

One would be to ignore it, pretend it’s not there, you’re not hurting - forge through. You harden.

Another, as we’ve seen here, is to move into self pity. Dwell on it, thinking about how wronged you were, how hard this is.

But there is a third way, the way of Jesus. Look to Jesus, his example of enduring suffering. That’s what the passage in Hebrews is all about, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith...

Story of Corrie Ten Boom and her sister in a Nazi concentration camp...

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18…Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. (This is ruthless trust put into action!).

Let’s finish this morning by putting this into action...