Midweek Lenten -- 3 (2026)

Jacob the Heel Comes Home

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ, we have before us tonight another Patriarch of Israel, Jacob, whose name would be changed to Israel, who goes on an exodus away from him home. His brother Esau was angry that the birthright which by birth order was supposed to go to him, had been given to Jacob who had tricked their father, because even though the Lord wanted it to be Jacob that was blessed, Isaac who was blind was determined to give it to Esau who had already showed his contempt for the birthright by selling it for a bowl of soup.

It is surprising that now Esau cares about the birthright, but it is too late and the Lord has given his favor to Jacob, and Esau is prepared to kill him. So Rachel intercedes and persuades Isaac to send Jacob away to find a wife, and Jacob, who is the heir, has to leave the land promised to Abraham and to his father, with little more than the clothes on his back, and go to Haran the land that God had told Abraham to leave. He will end up spending 20 years there waiting to come back to Israel.

At least that’s what it looks like on the outside. He was God’s chosen heir, and even though Jacob’s father was frustrated with him, and his brother was frustrated with him, and he had to leave home, Jacob carried with Him the promise that had been given to Abraham. That through his offspring the nations of the world would be blessed, and they would be more numerous than the stars. His pockets weren’t overflowing as he headed off, but he recognized and believed the promise that God had given him and went on looking to the day that he would return to his father’s house.

As people, this is not exactly what we want to hear. We don’t want to hear about a future promise of blessings, we want our blessings right now, and grumble when they aren’t given to us. We put our trust in our finances, in our bank accounts, and in our possessions and as long as we have those things we believe that we will be ok, but that is not faith in God’s promises, but faith in an idol. The Scriptures warn us that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, and to love it is to serve it and live your life by it. This is where all of us have some trouble.

Why are things going to be ok? When you try to answer this question you find out very quickly where your God is and who you serve. Because we all have an idea of how we want the world to be, and what we want it to look like. We want comfort, we want ease, we want to make sure that we have all the things that we like. Then we will believe that God is with us and so we try to find ways to bargain for it.

In my home parish, in brooklyn, michigan, a guy asked my dad, if he won the lottery would my dad accept a full tithe from it, 10% of his winnings. My dad was on the high school debate team, and he flipped it back on him rather quickly, and asked, well do you tithe right now? The man answered no, and so he asked why his heart was only willing to part with the tithe when he was rich and not when he was poor for didn’t the Lord give him both of those days?

We do this in many ways, we pretend that if we only had more time then we would dedicate more time to godly things, but if they aren’t important enough to make time for when our resources are cramped don’t expect that you will suddenly change when you have an abundance. We will follow the patterns we had set before. God built 7 days into creation that we might have a day of rest to gather before him. We do that we forget the one who gave us these gifts in the first place.

It would be very easy for Jacob to think that God had abandoned him if he looked only at material wealth because he was driven out on this Exodus from the home of his father, and from all that had been promised to him, but the Lord reminded him in this passage of the promises that had been made to him. It would be him and not Esau that received the true blessing of the promised offspring, and that his descendants would be more numerous than the stars.

This didn’t make money appear in his pack, nor did it fill his belly, or even give him a softer pillow for the night having slept on a rock. But Jacob believed the promise and promised to give to the Lord a tenth of all that the Lord gave to him. He didn’t know how much or how little it would be, but he trusted God and responded in kind. But he knew that God would provide for him, and that the blessing that had been given to Abraham, and to his father Isaac had passed now to him, and not to Esau. It took a long time walking away from everything he had, and being taken advantage of by Laban his employer, and be mistreated for 20 years, but he would come back to the land that God had promised to give to him.

But he operated not based upon how his finances were in that moment, but based upon God’s promise that was made to him. He didn’t know how much he would have, or how things would turn out, whether he would be impoverished by the end of his journey or be rich, but he made a promise and it was fulfilled. We don’t know what all of God’s plans are for us as we journey through this life, but we know that we can trust his promises.

So we find that we are like Jacob as believers in this world that have been asked to wait until we come into our full inheritance. We know what awaits us in Jesus’ Kingdom and what he has won for us on Calvary, we know that He will fulfill His promise, and that the land that he promised to give to Abraham, and His descendants will be ours for we are children of Abraham, not by blood, but by faith.

We grow discouraged when we see the labor of our hands fail, or not return an investment like we thought it would. We were joking last week, that I setup a garden, and got 10 green beans. We aren’t talking about how much I spent on seeds last year. But let us not despise the great treasure that has been given to us this inheritance that Christ won upon the Cross. Esau traded it away for a bowl of soup and allowed his passions to rule over him, but God blessed Jacob greatly through this promise that was given to him to sustain him through the rest of his life. God has blessed us as well.

It might be that you have much, and it might be that you have little, but we only have it for a short time and we can’t take it with us. But we learn to be content with what God gives, Jacob set a practice that his family would follow in the years to come as they too would offer up a tithe to the Lord out of whatever God gave them, recognizing that first and foremost that everything they had came from the Lord. That whatever we have been given today is temporary. We don’t get to take our houses, our land, our stocks, our gold, our clothes with us to Christ’s kingdom.

The world serves mammon and believes God’s blessing in shown by mammon’s treasures. God’s blessing isn’t shown in our earthly riches, it’s shown there upon Calvary. God kept His promise to Adam and Eve, to Abram, and to Jacob, and did not withhold His Son. Jesus agreed and laid down His life for you. If we have that, we can be content with just about anything.

Just for a moment, let’s pretend that the blessings of mammon were the evidence of God’s love for you, and not Christ there upon the cross. What does that mean for those who are poor? What does it mean for those who are middle class? What does it mean for the richest? That is why we don’t build our trust in money, but upon the promises of God like Jacob.

So my Brothers and Sisters in Christ, Jacob had to leave everything behind for a time, but He trusted, that is had faith in God’s promises, and the Lord brought him through it. We too have a journey, we don’t know what will happen, and what highs and lows our before us, but we can see the Cross lifted up before our eyes.