Baking with God - a short talk on Genesis 27:1-40.
A talk on Genesis 27:1-40.
Has anyone ever made cookies with young children? As a mum of four I’ve baked with my children hundreds of time, and it honestly doesn’t get any easier. I’m never more aware of my control freakery than when I’m in a hot kitchen with very young children. I’m a very good baker and I have high standards for cookies. Children do not. They like to merrily toss in too much flour. They LOVE lots of sugar. They don’t want to cut them into nice neat shapes, they prefer to make monstrous creations that aren’t uniform and aren’t tidy. In short, they just do it all wrong.
Appreciate if you will then, the self-control (the main fruit of the spirit that still regularly eludes me) I must employ in order to let them just get on with it. I like to think this is a mere snippet; a teeny snap-shot of how God must feel when he sees us bumbling about, messing it up, constantly getting it wrong and making a mess of it all. We always think we know best, don’t we. Like over-confident children, we think we can do it all on our own.
Our story today is a classic example of people who think they know better than God. We have the story of a scheming mother of twins, who plays favourites in order to achieve God’s will. If we go back a few chapters, to the story of the twins birth, we read that Rebekah has been given a prophecy by God – chapter 25: “The older will serve the younger.”
She has knowledge that Jacob and Esau and Issac don’t have. She knows that God’s purposes are going to be fulfilled through Jacob, the younger brother, but rather than waiting for God’s plan to play out, she schemes to make it so. And so it came to pass: the 12 tribes of Israel all stem from Jacob, including the tribe of Judah, which Jesus himself is descended from.
The question I want to ask, and which I encourage you all to ask as well, is this: would God’s purposes have been fulfilled without Rebekah’s involvement? In other words, does God require trickery, underhand behaviour, lying, in order for his will to be done?
The bible is littered with examples of unrighteous behaviour; unrighteous people, who never the less, are used for the ultimate good of God’s kingdom. Moses, who murdered. Abraham, who lied. David, who lusted. Paul, who persecuted. Judas, who betrayed. Rebekah, who schemed.
These characters are a comfort to us aren’t they? We use them as examples to say, “See? If God can use even these people, then he can also use a sweary, bad-tempered, moody, intolerant person like me.”
But I don’t think that’s the point. What if God’s purposes aren’t achieved because of bad motives, but in spite of them?
I’d like to think that if Rebekah hadn’t taken matters into her own hands, then God’s plan would have come to fruition anyway, some other way. She may have been acting out of love, but God does not require us to compromise our integrity in order to carry out his will. What this story tells me is that actually, nothing is impossible for God. No wrong turn. No bad decision. No poor choice. Think of the worst thing you’ve ever done; the stupidest or lousiest decision, and THAT, even that, is not too ridiculous for God to redeem and to create something good from.
So what must we do? We must trust. We must be patient. We must bide our time, and like an interfering parent, desperate to step in and do things our way, we must wait and bite our tongue, and trust that God knows what God is doing. Like the spare bits of cookie dough that are left over after you’ve cut the shapes out, nothing with God is wasted.
My kids’ cookies are misshapen. They don’t look like what they’re supposed to look like. But if I leave them to their own devices, to just get their hands mucky and mould and shape to their hearts content, they eventually make something good.
Let’s pray:
Creator God, you are the baker and we are the cookie dough. Mould us and shape us into who you need us to be. We ask for the courage to trust in your will. The patience to let your plans unfold. And the self-control to wait in obedience for your purposes to play out. In your Holy name we pray. Amen.
Has anyone ever made cookies with young children? As a mum of four I’ve baked with my children hundreds of time, and it honestly doesn’t get any easier. I’m never more aware of my control freakery than when I’m in a hot kitchen with very young children. I’m a very good baker and I have high standards for cookies. Children do not. They like to merrily toss in too much flour. They LOVE lots of sugar. They don’t want to cut them into nice neat shapes, they prefer to make monstrous creations that aren’t uniform and aren’t tidy. In short, they just do it all wrong.
Appreciate if you will then, the self-control (the main fruit of the spirit that still regularly eludes me) I must employ in order to let them just get on with it. I like to think this is a mere snippet; a teeny snap-shot of how God must feel when he sees us bumbling about, messing it up, constantly getting it wrong and making a mess of it all. We always think we know best, don’t we. Like over-confident children, we think we can do it all on our own.
Our story today is a classic example of people who think they know better than God. We have the story of a scheming mother of twins, who plays favourites in order to achieve God’s will. If we go back a few chapters, to the story of the twins birth, we read that Rebekah has been given a prophecy by God – chapter 25: “The older will serve the younger.”
She has knowledge that Jacob and Esau and Issac don’t have. She knows that God’s purposes are going to be fulfilled through Jacob, the younger brother, but rather than waiting for God’s plan to play out, she schemes to make it so. And so it came to pass: the 12 tribes of Israel all stem from Jacob, including the tribe of Judah, which Jesus himself is descended from.
The question I want to ask, and which I encourage you all to ask as well, is this: would God’s purposes have been fulfilled without Rebekah’s involvement? In other words, does God require trickery, underhand behaviour, lying, in order for his will to be done?
The bible is littered with examples of unrighteous behaviour; unrighteous people, who never the less, are used for the ultimate good of God’s kingdom. Moses, who murdered. Abraham, who lied. David, who lusted. Paul, who persecuted. Judas, who betrayed. Rebekah, who schemed.
These characters are a comfort to us aren’t they? We use them as examples to say, “See? If God can use even these people, then he can also use a sweary, bad-tempered, moody, intolerant person like me.”
But I don’t think that’s the point. What if God’s purposes aren’t achieved because of bad motives, but in spite of them?
I’d like to think that if Rebekah hadn’t taken matters into her own hands, then God’s plan would have come to fruition anyway, some other way. She may have been acting out of love, but God does not require us to compromise our integrity in order to carry out his will. What this story tells me is that actually, nothing is impossible for God. No wrong turn. No bad decision. No poor choice. Think of the worst thing you’ve ever done; the stupidest or lousiest decision, and THAT, even that, is not too ridiculous for God to redeem and to create something good from.
So what must we do? We must trust. We must be patient. We must bide our time, and like an interfering parent, desperate to step in and do things our way, we must wait and bite our tongue, and trust that God knows what God is doing. Like the spare bits of cookie dough that are left over after you’ve cut the shapes out, nothing with God is wasted.
My kids’ cookies are misshapen. They don’t look like what they’re supposed to look like. But if I leave them to their own devices, to just get their hands mucky and mould and shape to their hearts content, they eventually make something good.
Let’s pray:
Creator God, you are the baker and we are the cookie dough. Mould us and shape us into who you need us to be. We ask for the courage to trust in your will. The patience to let your plans unfold. And the self-control to wait in obedience for your purposes to play out. In your Holy name we pray. Amen.
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