We are climbing Jacob’s Ladder
I remember watching the movie The Truman Show a number of years ago. If you remember, the show depicts a young man named Truman who has grown up within a carefully controlled studio set designed to create the illusion of real life. All of the people inhabiting this world were actors except Truman. His whole world was false, but to him it seemed real.
How often I have gone through the moments of my life as if I were Truman. I think and act like what I am seeing is all there is. There is nothing beyond the reality of my immediate senses. When I do something within the world of my immediate experience, I expect a particular cause to result in a particular effect. Although I am well aware that many factors impact how my own plans play out, in general I act as if the poem Invictus by William Henley were accurate. “I am the master of my fate,” intones the poet.
As an American who grew up in the era of “Cowboy” movies, I learned from a young age that to be a man was to solve your own problems. No one else was going to do things for you. Heroes were those who did hard things and didn’t count on the help of others. If the bad guys were to be dealt with, you had to do it yourself. Just as Gary Cooper couldn’t count on the town’s residents to help him in High Noon, real men depended only on their own wits and courage.
In my Bible reading for this morning, the forefather of the Jews, Jacob (who would later be named “Israel”) finds himself running from his brother. Sometimes with the help of his mother, he has schemed to advance his own self-interests at the expense of his twin brother. He used the leverage of hunger to grab his brother’s inheritance. And then he deceived his aged, blind father in order to secure the blessing intended for his brother.
Jacob was a man of few moral scruples, willing to do what it takes to ensure his own success. Then, while running for his life from his irate brother, he has a dream. Like Truman, he had assumed the world he saw was all there was. In that world, he was the “Captain of his soul.” But the dream expanded his understanding of reality. While he was sleeping he had a vision . . .
“in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.”
Genesis 28:12, NIV
When I was a kid in Sunday School I often sang the song, “We are climbing Jacob’s ladder.” I had no idea what the song was about but it was fun to sing. Looking back, I’m not even sure the song gets at the point of Jacob’s dream. I really think what God was trying to help Jacob understand was that this world we inhabit is not a closed system. We aren’t on our own. Instead, there is a clear connection between God and the places we live, and work, and play. Even we, say we believe in God, may act much of the time like Truman. We think there is nothing beyond our little patch of ground. If anything is to be done, we have to do it.
Though we may deny it, much of the time we act like “deists.” We believe God created all things and got things going, but for the most part He’s not very involved. At some point, we need to be shaken like Jacob until we can say with him . . .
“Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.”
Genesis 28:16, NIV
Lord, give me the grace today to live in the reality that you are present and active in my world! When I am tempted to believe I control my circumstances and destiny, remind me that You are the one in control, and let me rest in that understanding.