Two weeks after Easter, we began a sermon series on the book of Genesis. Today, as we near the end of our four month journey into this first book of the Bible, we’ll take a look at chapter 49, and then next week, Dan will wrap up the series with the last chapter.

When Dan asked me to preach this summer, I naively hoped for a just a brief moment that perhaps it would be an easy passage, and maybe that a neat three point sermon would instantly pop in my mind.

So I opened out my Bible and quickly read Genesis 49. And then it hit me – nothing seemed intuitively obvious from the passage.

I noticed that much of the chapter was poetry, and as I later learned, this is the first long poem in the Bible…and you have to understand that I’m definitely one of those who is poetically challenged. When I’m reading something and I come to poetry, I automatically skip over it. But I thought I couldn’t very well skip over the entire chapter!

The other thing I noticed about the chapter is this is a deathbed scene – a very unusual deathbed scene. The ailing family patriarch Jacob, who has been renamed by God as Israel, speaks a final word to each of his twelve sons who have gathered around him in Egypt as he prepares to breathe his last. Toward the end of the chapter we’re told that Jacob blessed them, each with “a suitable blessing.” I thought about that phrase “a suitable blessing.” Had I read the chapter too quickly? Where were all of these blessings?

What struck me most were Jacob’s curses of Simeon and Levi, and his anger at his first born son, Reuben. For seven sons that we really know relatively little about from the Bible, he speaks no more than two verses each revealing something about either their history or his predictions of their future, such as “Zebulun shall settle at the shore,” or “Dan shall judge his people,” or “Gad shall be raided by raiders but he shall raid at their heels.” Jacob predicts that Judah’s brothers would bow down before him, a hint at the prominence that the tribe of Judah would assume in the land. But it is Joseph alone among the twelve brothers who is actually blessed by Jacob.

So what does this chapter have to say to us?

One of our challenges in reading the Bible is to unpack it in such a way that we hear what God is saying to us today – to take the story, the teaching, and even poetical deathbed scenes – that are set in a specific historical context – and view them from the larger perspective of God’s redemptive work in calling us to belong to Him.

In many ways, that’s not unlike what our lives are all about. Just as our challenge from reading the Bible is to listen for God’s voice from the pages of history, so too, on a daily basis we seek to understand how our lives are part of the work of God’s kingdom and His purposes for the world, and how He is present in the midst of everyday life.

I’ll be reading two selected passages from Genesis 49. First, verses 5 through 7 about Jacob’s curses of Simeon and Levi – which are not exactly a deathbed love-fest. And then at the other end of the spectrum, verses 22 through 26 in which Jacob blesses Joseph.

Genesis 49: 5-7

Simeon and Levi are brothers;
   weapons of violence are their swords.
6May I never come into their council;
   may I not be joined to their company—
for in their anger they killed men,
   and at their whim they hamstrung oxen.
7Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce,
   and their wrath, for it is cruel!
I will divide them in Jacob,
   and scatter them in Israel.

Genesis 49: 22- 26

‘Joseph is a fruitful bough,
   a fruitful bough by a spring;
   his branches run over the wall.
23The archers fiercely attacked him;
   they shot at him and pressed him hard.
24Yet his bow remained taut,
   and his arms were made agile
by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob,
   by the name of the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel,
25by the God of your father, who will help you,
   by the Almighty who will bless you
   with blessings of heaven above,
blessings of the deep that lies beneath,
   blessings of the breasts and of the womb.
26The blessings of your father
   are stronger than the blessings of the eternal mountains,
   the bounties of the everlasting hills;
may they be on the head of Joseph,
   on the brow of him who was set apart from his brothers.

Curses. Blessings. Twelve sons. Jacob dying after 147 years. In one way, this chapter gives us a snapshot of these twelve brothers and it also illuminates Jacob’s relationships with them.

And since we’re nearing the end of Genesis, I’d like to step back and focus a wide-angle lens on Jacob and his sons by telling their story through some key moments in their lives.

I think when Dan chose the title for this sermon series of “Scoundrels, Doubters and Saints,” he must have had Jacob and his sons in mind for the “scoundrels” portion of the title.

Here’s the track record and story of this very messed up and dysfunctional family, starting with Jacob and continuing through his sons:

• As part of his lifelong quest for power, Jacob conned and manipulated his older brother, Esau, into selling him his birthright.

• Jacob then blatantly lied to his blind and dying father, Issac, and tricked him through a flimsy disguise into blessing him instead of Esau. When things got too hot to handle with Esau, who now threatened to kill Jacob when he found out what his brother had done, Jacob packed up his bags and quickly left town, moving to a safer place at the home of his uncle, Laban.

• Now while there’s a certain poetic justice in Laban then deceiving Jacob by giving his first-born daughter, Leah, in disguise, to Jacob as his wife on his wedding night instead of Rachel, this is a tragic story of Jacob’s emotional neglect and even hatred of Leah.

• By tradition, Jacob’s first born son, Reuben, should have received the blessing. But in verse 4 Jacob calls him “unstable as water” because of a sexual fling he had with one of Jacob’s wives, Bilhah.

• Two of Jacob’s sons were mass murderers. You’ll remember that the incident Jacob is referring to is when Simeon and Levi massacred all of the men in one town in revenge for the rape of their sister, Dinah. These two were then joined by the rest of the brothers in massive plundering of goods and kidnapping of the women and children remaining in the town after the mass executions of the men.

• Another son, Judah, scandalized the family by having twin boys by his daughter-in-law who had disguised herself as a prostitute. Now, surprisingly, the lineage of King David and Jesus is actually traced through this illicit affair.

• And just as Issac had shown favoritism toward Jacob’s brother, Esau while his mother, Rebekah favored him, Jacob decides to carry on this family tradition and shows a clear favoritism to one of his youngest sons, Joseph. This parenting technique of “I love Joseph more than you” doesn’t play real well with Joseph’s jealous brothers who, we are told hated Joseph “and could not speak peaceably to him.”

• And, of course, the dreamer Joseph didn’t help his cause any by his haughty arrogance that so infuriated his brothers that they decided to get rid of this nuisance and make a little money on the side as well by selling him into slavery in Egypt. They then lied their father, Jacob, by telling him that Joseph had been killed by wild beasts.

• Later, when Joseph was ruler over all of Egypt and his brothers came to buy food from him, he toys emotionally with them and accuses them of being spies, as a sort of revenge for selling him into slavery. He sets up an entrapment scheme by having his silver cup hidden in Benjamin’s bags before they depart. There’s still part of Joseph that hasn’t fully forgiven his brothers for what they did to him.

So let’s review the record: deception, conspiracy to commit murder, emotional neglect and abuse, hatred, adultery, mass murder, plundering, kidnapping, revenge, sexual indiscretion and scandal, favoritism, arrogance, human-trafficking, blatant lies and cover-up, entrapment, lack of forgiveness.

Tragically, it sounds like the headlines of today’s newspapers. Jacob and his sons were clearly dysfunctional as individuals and as a family.

But to be fair to Jacob and his sons, despite the seedier side of their lives, we also see examples of how they listened to God and tried to live faithfully.

Time and time again, we see Jacob interacting with God at critical points in his life:

• While in Haran where he had married and raised children, he hears God’s call: “Return to the land of your fathers and to your kindred and I will be with you.” Jacob listened to God, and God promised to be with him – even someone like Jacob!

• As Jacob was waiting to meet his brother, Esau, after 20 years, he humbly prays for God’s protection: “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Issac…I am not worthy of the least of all the steadfast love and all the faithfulness which thou hast show to thy servant…Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother…”

• After Jacob hears God’s call to go to Bethel, he says to his household that it is “God who answered me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone.”

• When Jacob sends his sons, including Benjamin, back to Egypt to appear before Joseph, he pronounces a benediction on them: “May God Almighty grant you mercy before this man.”

• And as the elderly Jacob embarks on the journey with his sons to Egypt, he hears God speaks to him once again in a dream: “I am God, the God of your father; do not be afraid to go down to Egypt; for there I will make of you a great nation.”

Hearing God’s call. Approaching God with humility. Praying for protection. Remembering God’s promises. Recognizing God’s presence in difficult times. Praying for God’s mercy. Hearing God speak. Trusting in God’s purposes.

Is this the same Jacob who conned his brother out of his birthright and stole his blessing? The same Jacob who blatantly lied to his father? The same Jacob who emotionally starved and hated his wife, Leah?

And despite the sinfulness of Jacob’s twelve sons, there are demonstrations of grace and mercy in their lives, showing that they are not scoundrels all the time.

• It was the first-born, Reuben, who argued with his brothers and convinced them to preserve life and not to kill Joseph.

• Judah also argued against killing Joseph because “he is our brother, our own flesh,” even though ironically that didn’t prevent him from being the ringleader for selling Joseph into slavery.

• Joseph shows himself to be a man of righteousness in avoiding an attempted seduction by his master’s wife when he was a slave in Egypt.

• When Jacob refuses to let his youngest son, Benjamin, go to Egypt, it is Reuben who steps in and offers the life of his two sons if he does not bring Benjamin back safely.

• You’ll remember that when Joseph demands that Benjamin stay in Egypt as his slave, it is Judah who steps up to the plate and sacrificially offers himself to be Joseph’s slave instead of Benjamin.

• And after Joseph reveals himself to his brothers in Egypt, he has the perspective of God’s work in his life to tell them that it was not they who sent him to Egypt as a slave, but “God sent me here before you to preserve life.” Joseph demonstrates for us how we are to understand God’s power and faithfulness in all of life, even when life has brought us great tragedy.

So what can we learn from the lives of Jacob and his sons? As I’ve thought about this question, I have three observations I’d like to share.

First, an observation about human nature. Like Jacob and his sons, our lives are messy, filled with tension and turmoil between good and evil. At times, we live our lives faithfully, following and responding to God’s calling, and living lives of righteousness. But we also know all to well that our lives are marred by darkness and sin – our lack of compassion, our surrender to temptations, our covetousness, our selfishness in relationships, our giving first place in our hearts to things rather than God.

We are a painful contradiction of faithfulness and faithlessness, of holiness and worldliness, of righteousness and sinfulness, of dependence on God and dependence on ourselves.

It’s not a new dilemma. Jacob and his sons faced it thousands of years ago. The Apostle Paul lamented in his letter to the Romans that he knew what was right, but ended up doing the evil that he didn’t want to do. This inner conflict is embedded in our DNA. It’s a part of who we are as humans. It’s the impact of living in a fallen world. But it’s not the end of the story.

God in His grace still works in and through us, as messy and as sinful as we are, just as He worked through Jacob and his sons, fulfilling the promise He made to Abraham that He would make of him a great nation.

We are all a work in process, and we all struggle with how to live faithfully in the midst of our own brokenness.

So, first, like Jacob and his sons, we are very human: a mixed bag of good and evil.

Second, an observation about God’s nature. God is not like Jacob. As Jacob lies on his deathbed, he imparts his final words to his sons – words that, except for Joseph – are not blessings. Instead, he dredges up incidents from long ago – from Reuben sleeping with Bilhah, to his curses of Simeon and Levi for their mass murders.

Now certainly, Reuben’s adultery was wrong, and Simeon and Levi should not have executed an entire town of men.

But what I find noteworthy here is that there is no forgiveness in Jacob’s heart, no forgetting, no grace, no acknowledgment and balancing out the sin of his sons with other parts of their character and actions – no blessing.

By contrast, the good news is that God blesses and redeems our broken and sinful lives – even when we don’t deserve it. We are all sinners, both by nature and by the things we choose to do, but God is gracious and forgives us through Jesus Christ, regardless of what we may have done or not done. He welcomes and blesses us. While there are always consequences to our sinful behavior, God reaches out to us to bring healing to our brokenness and sinfulness. Fortunately, God is not like Jacob.

The final observation is about listening – of listening to God’s voice in the midst of life. We’ve had the benefit of stepping back from the canvas of life to see the broad patterns and flow in the lives of Jacob and his sons. That’s the value of hindsight.

But Jacob and his sons were too caught up living in the present to always see the larger context of God’s work. They lived with an uncertainty of wondering how things would turn out for them, of questioning where God was in their lives.

Twice Jacob wondered whether he would even see another day or whether he would be a murder victim at the hands of his brother, Esau.

For all of Joseph’s later perspective in understanding that it was God who had sent him to Egypt, he must surely have wondered why God had abandoned him as his own brothers betrayed and sold him for twenty pieces of silver, and as he trudged along a hot and dusty road into slavery, and as he languished for years forgotten in an Egyptian prison.

In many ways, our lives are no different. Our experiences in life are sometimes confusing as we try to make sense of our journey, as God’s purposes and will unfold and emerge over time.

In the midst of the immediacy of life – of the many hours and days that are filled with ordinary routines, of concerns about our health, of the suffering and pain we experience and observe, of our grieving over broken relationships, of our uncertainty and grappling with how and to what work God has called us – in the midst of the immediacy of life – we often don’t hear God’s voice, or have a clear vision of the canvas of our lives.

The author Frederick Buechner, in his memoir entitled Now and Then has a wonderful quote in which he encourages us to listen for God’s voice in the midst of ordinary life. He writes: “Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is, in the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness. Touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments and life itself is grace."

Like Jacob and his sons, we are a mixed bag, a messy combination of righteousness and sinfulness, a raging sea of internal conflict. It’s part of living in a fallen world.

But God is not like Jacob, who even on his deathbed failed to extend grace to his sons. God blesses and forgives us, and He brings redemption and light even to the darkest crevices of our lives.

God longs for us to listen to Him in the midst of everyday life, to step back from the canvas of our lives and see the new work that He is doing in and through us.

May we be faithful children as we serve this gracious God – who freely blesses us with His presence, who daily extends His hand of grace to us, and who forgives us, heals us, and makes us whole.