A sermon on Genesis 28:1-19a and Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43 by Alison Sampson

Some of the more common ideas about Christians are that we’re all rather bland and nice, and possibly idiots. ‘Love one another’ becomes ‘do not cause any offence’. ‘Turn the other cheek’ becomes ‘let everyone stomp all over you’. Having faith means turning off your brain and never doing anything that might cause a fuss. Nice Christians avoid conflict, mind their manners, don’t think too much, and sing pleasant songs on a Sunday. At least, this is what many people I meet seem to think.

Those of us who actually are Christian know better. Because anyone who thinks faith is about being nice and polite, and possibly being a bit thick, hasn’t been reading their Bible. Or if they have, they haven’t been paying much attention.

Let’s look at one of the granddaddies of our faith: Jacob. What sort of man was Jacob? Well, a few weeks ago we heard that he was so eager to receive a blessing that he covered his forearms with goatskin to impersonate his hairy older brother. Then he took a special meal into his ageing dad, whose sight was failing. With his fake hairy arms, he pretended to be Esau and fed the old man, then tricked him into giving Jacob the blessing that was meant for Esau. Once given, the blessing was non-refundable. When Brother Esau found out, he was justifiably furious. He vowed to kill Jacob; and so tonight we meet Jacob on the run.

So one of the forefathers of our faith is a trickster, a liar, and a thief who stole his brother’s blessing. Full of chutzpah, he’s a real no-goodnik. He’s a crafty asylum seeker with a price on his head.

We meet this manipulative schmuck as he settles for the night and rests his head on a stone. While he is sleeping, he sees a stairway reaching between heaven and earth, and angels going up and down the stairs.

Then the Lord appears to him and promises him land, and descendants, and his continued presence. The promises aren’t conditional. God makes no comment on the way Jacob tricked his brother and father. God makes no judgement. God asks nothing of Jacob in return. Instead, God meets Jacob right where he is, fleeing, vulnerable, and possibly quite unrepentant about his earlier behaviour!

When Jacob wakes, he renames the place Bethel, or House of God. And so we see that a striving, conniving, ordinary bloke snoozing in a rocky and ordinary place can be touched by God, and can wake up to God’s presence in the world.

Even so, Jacob didn’t become what we think of as nice. He went on tricking and plotting – though he almost met his match in his uncle.

Of course, Jacob was not a Christian. But he was a faithful person, and one of Christianity’s ancestors, and the point holds. That is, faithful people aren’t always nice or polite; and God is not asking that of us.

So why do people think that Christians should be nice?

One reason is that ever since the fourth century, when the emperor Constantine realised Christianity could unite his empire, Christianity has been co-opted by the powerful. As the nominal religion of the dominant culture, in our country it has become confused with the dominant class. And so Christianity is linked with middle class values: a non-confrontational politeness, and respect for authority.

A second reason people think Christians should be nice arises from a misunderstanding of love. In our world of Hello Kitty and pink love hearts, romantic comedies and pop music and no fault divorce, love is nice. This love is about romance and self-fulfilment and feeling good. And when it begins to cost too much, we move on. Such love is associated with warm fuzzy feelings and a vague ambient wafting of general goodwill rather than with something direct, costly, and difficult.

Christians are called to love, and many people confuse this with feeling uncritically squishy towards the world. And so it’s no wonder that we Christians are seen to be nice, mild, naïve idiots – when we’re not seen to be total hypocrites!

It’s not just people outside the church who make this mistake. Those of us in the church also fall for it. We often hold our tongues. We let people ride over us or treat us with contempt, and then we grizzle behind their backs rather than challenge their behaviour. We avoid conflict rather than engage in the slow, hard work of making peace. We don’t say what we really think for fear of the opinions of others. We avoid politics, pretending they are separate from faith. In the worst cases, we ignore warning signs and overlook behaviours that are later found to be abusive. We all can be waaaaaay too nice.

But what is the alternative? For I am not suggesting that we roll up our sleeves and go it hammer and tongs whenever we disagree with someone. Nor am I saying that we should react every time somebody steps on our toes or does the wrong thing. As Jesus’ parable of the weeds and the wheat made clear, we are not to weed out the sinners from among us. If we even tried, we’d damage the whole crop, good wheat and all.

Instead, we are to love. But not in a squishy Hallmark way. Instead, we are to love with integrity and truthfulness. There are times when learning to live with love will feel quite delicious, as some of us experienced last night at table church. But often it will require a clear, unflinching gaze. Love involves decisions of the head, not the whims of the heart. We choose forgiveness, we opt for kindness, we recognise our fear and refuse to let it drive us. Love talks back to power, when power fails to protect the vulnerable. Love holds us accountable, not with malice, but with a desire to see each other grow into maturity and life in abundance.

Love comes at a cost. As Paul knows through representing victims of clergy sexual abuse, love means being weighed down by horrific stories and having your name slandered by religious authorities. As Samara found when protesting our government’s treatment of asylum seekers, love means being threatened with arrest. And as people in other parts of the world experience every day, speaking love back to power can mean jail, death threats or even summary execution.

Love is hard work. As parents learn, love means setting clear expectations and boundaries, and enforcing them gently but firmly over and over. As people in committed relationships discover, love means dealing with one’s own baggage and letting the loved one deal with theirs. As church leaders find out, love includes recognising and naming destructive behaviours and calling people to account, and being willing to be held to account ourselves.

Love like this isn’t about being nice and polite, or avoiding conflict, or colluding with the authorities. It not about feeling benign, or parking one’s brain at the door. This love, real love, demands intelligence and courage and the willingness to hand everything to God: our gifts, our resources, our good names, our pride, even our shadows and the weeds in the field. God sowed the good seed and God will reap the harvest, taking what is a blessing and burning away the rest.

Of course, none of us will ever love fully. Only Jesus, the New Human, managed that. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. Jesus was the pioneer and perfector of our faith; we are his disciples; and so we follow him in the way of love.

And as we learn to love more and more, we will grow into fullness of life, maturity and health. But we won’t become bland plastic people, super nice and super polite. As we see in the story of Jacob, even after his encounter with God Jacob was still Jacob. The man who tricked his father went on to trick his uncle. The younger son who stole a blessing continued to subvert the natural order, granting the largest portion of his estate to a younger son, and the greater portion of his blessing to his youngest grandchild. The story of Jacob shows us that people of faith are flawed, complex, and consistently themselves.

Jacob also embodies another important aspect of faith: that God will always confound our expectations and turn everything on its head. The younger son shall be granted the blessing. The first will be last. Blessed are the poor, the sick, and those who weep. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. Love your enemies as you love yourselves.

Such a story, such a faith, should be deeply shocking to those of us who are nice and polite, who work for our rewards, who think that love can be earned. Because the story of Brer Jacob, the granddaddy of our faith, shows us differently. For all his trickery and striving, he received the ultimate blessing not when he was grasping for it, but when he was asleep. In the same way, there is nothing we can do to earn God’s presence or God’s blessing or God’s love. But when we let down our defences, when we give up striving, when we are vulnerable, then who knows what might happen?

In some rocky place we too might dream of angels, and wake to the presence of God. And it may fill us with awe, or courage, or fear; it may overwhelm us with gratitude; it may flood us with love. But one thing I can guarantee you: it will not make us nice.