On Sunday, July 30, 2023, I gave a sermon at Shalom Community Church. This is an adaptation of the sermon. Here is an audio version.

Leah and Rachel

Scripture

Genesis 29:9-32 (The Inclusive Bible)

[9] While he talked to them, Rachel arrived with Laban’s sheep, which she tended. [10] The moment Jacob saw Rachel, daughter of Laban, his mother’s brother, with her sheep, he went to the well, removed the stone and watered Laban’s sheep. [11] Then he kissed Rachel, and he was moved to tears. [12] When he told her he was Rebecca’s son and was related to her father, Rachel ran to tell Laban what had happened.

[13] As soon as Laban learned about jacob, Rebecca’s son, he ran to the well, and embraced and kissed Jacob, and welcomed him to their house. Jacob told Laban of all that had happened, [14] to which Laban replied, “Truly, you are my flesh and blood!”

[15] When Jacob had been with them for a month, Laban said, “Why do you work for me without wages just because we are related? Tell me your worth, and I’ll hire you.”

[18] Now Laban had two daughters: the older one was Leah, and the younger one was Rachel. [17] Leah was near-sighted; but Rachel was lovely and graceful, and [18] Jacob was in love with her. He said, “I will work for seven years for the hand of your younger daughter, Rachel.”

[19] Laban answered, “I would rather that she marry you than give her hand to another. I accept this offer.”

[20] So Jacob worked for seven years for the right to marry Rachel, but to him it felt as if it were a few days–that was how much he loved Rachel. [21] When seven years were up, Jacob said to Laban, “I have worked for you for seven years. let me now marry Rachel.”

[22] Laban brought together all the local people for a wedding feast, and there was a great deal of drinking. [23] That night, however, he brough his daughter Leah to Jacob, and jacob slept with her. [24] Laban also hgave Leah his maid Zilpah, to attend her that night.

[25] In the morning Jacob woke up–and it was Leah beside him! Jacob said to Laban, “What is this you have done to me? Didn’t I work for you for seven years for Rachel’s hand? What have you deceived me?

[26] Laban answered, “It is not our cuson here to let the younger child marry first. [27] Finish this wedding week with the elder, and I will let you marry the younger for another seven years’ work.” [28] Jacob agreed to finish the wedding week with Leah.

When the week was finished, Laban allowed Rachel and Jacob to marry.

[29] And Laban assigned his maid Bilhah to Rachel. [30] So Jacob lay with Rachel too, and he loved her more than Leah. Then Jacon worked for Laban seven more years.

[31] Seeing that Leah was unloved YHWH granted her a child, while Rachel remained childless. [32] Leah conceived and gave birth to a son. She named it Reuben–“See, a Son!”–for she said, “God saw my humiliation, but now Jacob will love me.

Sermon

Some of you know that Ashley and I, and Leila and Clay, have recently gotten into birding. Apparently, it’s the thing to do since the Pandemic, when it surged in popularity. (NYTimes) One Sunday evening earlier this year, in the spring or maybe early summer, we went with the kids on a special trip to Barton Pond here in town to see if we could spot a Common Loon for the first time. They don’t usually hang around here in Southeast Michigan, but, thanks to the Audubon app and a good citizen who’d reported a sighting, we knew that we might find one who’d “stopped over” as it migrated back north for the season. We all piled in the car and drove to Barton Nature Area, made the short hike past the boat launch to Barton Pond, turned the corner past the dam, and sure enough… we saw one! It was unmistakable: black head and boldly checkered back, red eyes (for the summer), a thick bill that’s like-but-not-like a duck’s because of what they eat–mostly small fish–and how they forage for them–by diving and swimming underwater, propelled mainly by their feet (which we also saw it do). It was a particularly fulfilling outing for me because we did it as a family and because, well, it’s not actually very common to see a “common” loon around here.

Fe and ABJ

If you go a little further north, though, Michigan is home to one particularly impressive PAIR of Common Loons, a pair that’s made up of both of the oldest known Common Loons in the world. (The Oldest Known Common Loons) Since 1997, “Fe” and “ABJ”–as they are affectionately known–have been meeting up, breeding, and raising young every summer at the Seney National Wildlife Refuge in the Upper Peninsula. Gradually, “FeBJ”–get it, it’s like “Brangelina”… I made that up myself–became the birding world’s own celebrity superstar couple. As it turns out, they’re not only the oldest documented Common Loons in the world, but also–after 25 consecutive years as a breeding pair–two of the most productive, with 32 hatched offspring. Even though Common Loons don’t typically mate for life, these two old birds seem…ed to be in it for the long haul.

Or, at least, they did, until 2022, just last year, when, after a few seasons of less than “productive” breeding behavior, the pair broke up. Over the past four years, they hatched and fledged only one chick–even though they had averaged 1.4 chicks/year prior to that–and there were suggestions of a weakening bond. Fe and ABJ gradually started hanging out in different pools, Fe preferring the north, and ABJ the west, until eventually Fe left ABJ for an upstart, unbanded (unlike FeBJ), and unnamed male loon, with whom she fledged one chick during last year’s nesting season. I know, it’s scandalous. It’s like a birding world love triangle. When we got into birding, we never knew there was going to be so much drama…

Tricky Laban and the Switched Brides: The Bibles Original “Love” “Triangle”

Enter tricky Laban and this story of the switched brides, which we read today. It’s a story that’s got its own kind of drama and its own kind of “love” “triangle.” To summarize: Jacob “loves” his cousin Rachel, and his uncle Laban, her father, agrees to allow him to marry her if he works for him for seven years (although interestingly the question of paying him for his labor doesn’t come up for a month!). Jacob does, but on their wedding night, Laban switches the brides and tricks Jacob into marrying his eldest daughter, Leah.

There’s this National Geographic article that refers to this whole story as the Bible’s original love triangle. Which is cute, but also problematic when it comes to both the “love” bit and the “triangle” bit. First of all, “love” triangle is kind of a funny way to put it. Jacob’s attraction to Rachel isn’t exactly romantic. What the text says instead is that Jacob got interested in Rachel when he saw her, the daughter of Laban, his mother’s brother…with… “LABAN’S SHEEP.” Laban, apparently, was a rich man, and Jacob seems to have fixed on this right way. The narrative seems to be hinting that this, as much as her comely appearance, is what pushed Jacob to his exertions on her behalf. “Though Laban is certainly nasty and Jacob is certainly not,” writes one biblical scholar, “the two are nevertheless blood relatives–and when it comes to trickiness, they are not so terribly different from each other” (James Kugel, How to Read the Bible, p. 155 or so).

We might also wonder, “did Rachel love Jacob back?” And, we’re not really sure because–surprise, surpise!–we don’t have Rachel’s voice here (or Leah’s, or their female servants Bilhah’s or Zilpah’s… maybe you’re starting to notice the pattern here when it comes to whose voices are heard and whose aren’t…). That said, many feminist readers who examine the text from the womens’ perspectives have tried their hand at imagining Rachel’s feelings anywhere on the spectrum between devotion (Jacob… I will wait for you!), to passion (Laban! I will get you back!), or even indifference (It’s fine… I never cared about you anyway). (Faithful Femenists) With Jacob’s interest in wealth and the lack of any definitive evidence that Rachel (or even Leah) loved him as well, love may not have had much to do with it, after all.

In any case, I also feel like calling it a love “triangle” underplays the patriarchal society in which it’s set. It’s not as if Leah and Rachel were operating on the same “plane,” so to speak, as Jacob, or especially of Laban. This is much more so the case for the other two MATRIARCHS OF ISRAEL named in the story, Bilhah and Zilpah, their female two female servants. There are several different commentaries that make this story about sibling rivalry or Leah and Rachel’s turbulent relationship… and–IMHO–I would just say to watch out for those because they ignore this important context; they lose the forest (the patriarchy), for the trees (the exciting competition between two women, sisters no less, for one soon-to-be very powerful man).

(I guess what I’m really getting at here is that calling this story a love triangle is probably about as accurate as calling the story of FeBJ a love triangle… so, I am guilty as charged.)

Anyway, Jacob’s “love” for Rachel gets frustrated… and maybe Rachel cared, or she didn’t. Tricky Laban substitutes his “near-sighted” (or, in other translations, “weary”) older daughter Leah for Rachel on their wedding night. Jacob wakes up, “and in the morning, behold! It was Leah” (Gen 29:25).

OK, But What Does It Mean?

The story of the switched brides has been remembered, and puzzled over, by generations and generations of Bible readers. First of all, it’s kind of ridiculous. It’s like the plot of the movie The Hangover. I mean really… how could Jacob not know who was in his bed that night? The text does say “there was a great deal of drinking,” so maybe he was a bit too drunk. Maybe Leah was heavily veiled. Maybe it was quite dark in the bridal chamber. These are all things people have said to try to explain what happened.

Future Tribes

It’s fun to speculate, but that might all be missing the point. Perhaps it’s just a way–if you really lean into the family drama bit, which is basically what all the latter half of Genesis is, an extended, pseudo-mythological family drama–perhaps it’s just a way to say how Jacob ended up with two wives and ultimately 12 sons. Tricky, greedy Laban makes Jacob work a further seven years before allowing him to marry Rachel, who had been his first choice in bride from the beginning. So, he does, and ends up marrying both the sisters. As a kind of bonus, he also “acquired” Bilhah and Zilpah, their two female servants, who were ultimately given to him as concubines. The result was a very large family indeed: these four matriarchs and their husband, Jacob, produced twelve different sons (plus a daughter, Dinah), the future twelve tribes of Israel.

(In the end, Jacob also ended up tricking the trickster Laban and getting those sheep.)

God ultimately rewards Jacob with more women, lots and lots of children, and the accumulation of profit and power. Nice. It’s like a proto-prosperity gospel.

Such an interpretation, of course, glosses over the extreme emotional distress that both Leah (and Rachel) must have suffered during the marriage, so much so that later in Leviticus (of all books), Yahweh clarifies that, actually, we learned this one the hard way: it’s not a good idea to “marry both a woman and her sister” (18:18). It also might not explain that much. If you care about this kind of thing, it’s also very likely that the twelve tribes of Israel did not actually descend from these four matriarchs and their husband Jacob. There are a lot of historical and actually very interesting anthropological reasons for this that I won’t get into, but I think we can all see why retrospectively claiming a common ancestry might help unite various groups as putative relatives. Such a notion can be an important factor when unity is crucial–for example, it can persuade people to accept a common leader or to go to war together.

One thing I don’t like about focusing on this particular “meaning” of the story, like it’s a JUST an explanatory text, though, is that it doesn’t give any agency to these matriarchs. Instead, they are only in it to make babies, literally. In fact, as I was researching this sermon, I was unexpectedly struck by the way that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service kept talking about FeBJ as a “productive” (or not) breeding pair; it’s the same way that many commentators (and, actually, the Bible itself) talk about the women in this story. Within this context, it can make passages like (using the NRSV here because it helps make the point) “when the Lord [sic] saw that Leah was unloved, he [sic] opened her womb” sound kind of gross, like a “male” God controlling female fertility; likewise, passages like this one, after Leah gives birth to Reuben, so named “because the Lord [sic] has looked on my affliction, surely now my husband will love me” making it seem like all she could care about is to make babies or be loved by her husband. It can feel somehow disappointing.

Relocating Agency

If it does, something else we might think about here is who betrays Jacob into marrying Leah instead of Rachel. Of course, the text definitely presents Laban as the mastermind. He’s greedy, trying to milk Jacob’s affection for Rachel for all it’s worth: 14 years paid labor (and one month of unpaid labor, and, actually, if you read on, more than that). And yet, there are other perspectives where we could see Rachel and Leah in on the deception, possibly even deceiving Laban himself and coordinating the surprise marriage on their own, sister-to-sister. And this isn’t just a modern take; there’s actually some pretty old precedent for it. One Rabbinic text all the way back from ca. 300-500 CE offers this further, pungent explanation:

All night he kept calling her “Rachel” and she kept answering him, “Yes.” But “in the morning, behold! It was Leah” [Gen. 29:25]. He said to her, “Liar and daughter-of-a-liar!” Leah answered: “Can there be a schoolmaster without any pupils? Was it not just this way that your father called out to you ‘Esau’ and you answered him [by saying ‘Yes’]? So when you called out [Rachel], I answered you the same way” (Genesis Rabba 70:19).

Earlier in Genesis, Jacob, you’ll remember, is said to have bought his brother Esau’s birthright and, with his mother’s help, deceived his aging father to bless him instead of Esau. So, in this telling of the story, Leah has a whole lot of agency and she uses it to give Jacob exactly what he had coming to him. Good for her! At least, I think so.

And the Moral?

So. How are we to understand the moral of this story? Is it about revenge? Is it that Jacob got what was coming to him that night? That Laban would eventually get what was coming to him in the end? That the solution to relocating agency in the story is to have women like Leah rather than the men in the story exact that revent? To use, as Audre Lorde cautioned against, the master’s tools to dismantle the master’s house? Is that even fair? I don’t know. But, I kind of hope not. As Christians, I don’t think we should necessarily be looking to build more crosses, or be more inclusive when it comes who gets to build them. The God we worship doesn’t build crosses. Period.

But maybe it’s also true that the Labans of this world are numerous, and the paths of decent people are always beset with encounters just like that of Jacob and his scheming, more powerful uncle. If there’s a part of me who doesn’t like all this revenge stuff, there’s another part that really likes it when the Labans of the world ultimately get there’s.

(Not in sermon: Donald Trump’s trial date was recently set for May next year. I would love to see that guy go to prison, and as an archivist, I would love to see that be because the National Archives drew unusual attention over its monthslong effort to retrieve public records that he kept at his Florida estate and club, which led to criminal charges against him (How to Preserve Priceless Documents at the National Archives). (On top of all his misogyny.))

In searching for a moral, we have to remember this is just one of many, many stories in the Hebrew Scriptures that reflect a great trajectory of mutually intersecting differences between people (Think and Let Think). Esau is the older and favorite son of Isaac, but it is Jacob (the younger brother) who receives the birthright and the true blessing. Yet, God doesn’t abandon him. Jacob loves Rachel more than Leah but Leah still ends up playing an active (or maybe very active!) role in the history of the Hebrew people. Ruth–another Biblical matriarch I’ve preached about–would later bless her and call her a “builder of Israel.”

Rachel, who may or may not have loved Jacob back, eventually gives birth to Joseph. And Joseph, though rejected by his older brothers and sold into slavery is intimately connected with the future of God’s people and the brothers (though treacherous) are not abandoned to the famine but are instead forgiven and brought into the land of Egypt. And so on and so forth throughout the Hebrew and Christian scriptures and to this day.

Epliogue on FeBJ and the Moral(?) of the Story

Fe and ABJ actually reunited earlier this year. They met briefly at their old stomping grounds up in the UP, but ABJ was gone just as quickly as he’d come, when this brief reunion dissolved into further birding drama. The next time he was spotted a week later, his bill was broken, presumably injured during a battle with Fe’s new partner. Wildlife biologists say that doesn’t necessarily mean he won’t be able to eat, and that his bill will regrow, but, they say, he won’t be mating “productive” mating material for a while.

So, is there a moral to either of these stories? Maybe not. I definitely don’t think there’s a moral to the loon story, just to be clear. I think we can all see we’re anthropomorphizing a bit here. If there’s any moral to that story, it’s maybe something like: keep the wilderness pristine. Stories like the one we read today, though, the ones handed down to us, part of the tradition we belong to, are meant to be stories that really SHAPE us. But they’re confusing. They’re stories about tricksters who are always ready to get even, always concerned to get the best stuff, always interested in saving their own skin.

Truth be told, though, these stories written about the founders of Israel are kind of like the stories we might write–if we are honest (and that’s the important part)–about our own families or our own people–those are strong bonds!–or even ourselves: they would be, above all, about people, trying to make their way in this life, trying to love God and love their neighbor. Things would get complicated, though, and there would be drama. They would do some good along the way, but also some bad. We might be able to learn a few lessons from them, but that doesn’t mean that they HAVE to be models for us to emulate.

The moral, then, isn’t: “Be like Jacob!” or “Be like Leah!” or “Be like Rachel!” It is maybe something more like “You are like Jacob. And you are like Leah, and you are like Rachel.” Maybe Bilhah or Zilpah. And sometimes, yeah, you are like Laban (Patheos). Warts and all. And yet… and, if you were here last week, this is what I believe-slash-am trying to help us, God willing, to manifest: that God, through Jesus, a man who had his own warts–at least according to this world–gives us grace, and is luring us into a divine story that began in the Hebrew Scriptures and that continues to this day. It’s a story that will ultimately TRANSFORM THIS WORLD into the kind of world we can’t even imagine on our own, the kind of world where there’s no need for such a transactional, tit-for-tat economy like the one we see playing out in this story. And, just like Jacob and Leah and Rachel, may we respond to that call.

Amen.

Categories: talks