“Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men who cannot save…” (Psalm 146:3)
“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” (Genesis 9:1)
Everyone knows the sound of fire trucks. It used to be the fire bell! Now it’s an ear piercing, unaesthetic, blaring horn, followed by sirens, and ear deafening noise, as the trucks emerge from the station and race to their destination.
Every kid is fascinated by firetrucks. Some of us still have our first firetruck. That’s why we watch “Chicago Fire!” But it used to be a tv show called “Emergency!” Anyone remember that show? It ran for most of the 1970s. You have to be a bit of a dinosaur to remember it. Any dinosaurs here this morning?
The show would start out the same each week: firefighters sitting around, having a good time, maybe even asleep. The fire bell would ring, and firemen and firewomen would leap up, pull on their boots, run to the big pole, slide down, and jump onto the ladder of the firetruck. Then off to the races: bolting out of the big building and onto the latest scene, where the firefighters would use that ladder to rescue folk from burning buildings, cats from trees, and a host of other life-threatening scenarios.
Wherever the fireman’s ladder was propped against a building, tower, or tree, you knew, someone was being saved. The ladder was their way of rescuing people who were out of reach and often out of ear shot. That person was locked in a burning structure or some smoking edifice. But when the ladder appeared, they knew what to do. The ladder was their symbol of safety, rescue. It was their lifeline and their way of getting their feet back onto the ground when they had been trapped or cut off.
The ladder is the fireman’s “communication” device for signaling the way out of a death trap situation and back into the place of the living. In that sense, the ladder is a relational tool. It connects the saver with the saved.
While the ladder is always extended from the saver, the “needing to be saved” can hop onto it and be transported to safety. When fire is surging all around you, that ladder is a godsend. You see the tip of that ladder rising before your eyes, and despair turns to hope. Ladders are lifelines. Ladders bear an unwritten message that someone out there cares if you live or die. Someone has come through fire and flames to bring you out of the horror of a fiery furnace and back into the light of day.
The ladder is the firefighter’s life preserver. The ladder is also God’s symbol of saving intervention --God’s lifeline that signals us that God’s presence is here, that God cares what we are going through and is about to intervene in our lives in a big and powerful way.
Sometimes we think God isn’t listening or can’t hear what we are enduring. Then all of a sudden, that ladder –that saving grace of God—appears before us, as if out of nowhere, and you realize, God was with you all the time.
Anyone know what I’m talking about?
We learned that from Jacob. From our scripture story for today.
Jacob was on his way to Haran, when he stopped for the night. With a stone for a pillow, he laid down to rest. No doubt he was worrying about his journey. No doubt he was still plagued by his deceit of Esau. Alone on the road in dangerous territory, afraid for his life, he was ridden with distress. But out of nowhere in his dreaming, he saw a vision of that heavenly ladder of God, declaring that he Jacob would be about God’s mission, and that his descendants would spread throughout the earth. And God vowed to be with him, no matter where he went.
When Jacob woke, we hear those famous words he said, “surely God was in this place, and I did not know it!” He called the place Bethel, House of God.
At Bethel, his pillow of rest became a pillar of sacrifice and service, praise and purpose. God’s saving grace and presence had changed the course of Jacob’s life and would direct him from here. God’s providence, participation, and presence in his life would bless his journey from that day forward.
The ladder from then on would become a symbol of God’s presence and providence in his life and in the lives of others. Notice: a ladder is not confined to one single place; a ladder is not fastened securely to the ground. A ladder is portable, moveable, and accessible. God extends that heavenly ladder of divine providence, participation, and presence to us no matter where we are, in any time or any place.
God comes out of nowhere in our times of distress;
in our times when we’ve gotten lost,
in our times when we’ve gotten confused,
in our times when we’ve wandered away --away from God, away from our mission,
in our times when we’ve lost touch of who we are, our identity as disciples,
in our times when we’ve been caught in fires of destruction and despair.
God’s presence appears to us like that saving ladder of hope…..leaving us only to say, “God was here with me all the time….and I did not know it!”
God is our Bethel. And we are the House of God….all of our generations of followers of Jesus from the time of Jacob to the time in the present, spread throughout the world.
The House of God is not a place, but a presence.
Bethel is not a building, but a relationship –a ladder of salvation, a means of communication from God to us. Call it revelation, prayer, incarnation, intervention, communication –the ladder of God is a symbol of God’s initiative in reaching out to us in connective and redeeming grace. God seeks us out with outstretched hands to rescue us from our own devices and to return us in our distress to a place of soundness, groundedness, sacredness, and connectedness.
Most of all….to save us from ourselves. Some of us grew up hearing the phrase, “Don’t be a Nimrod!” or “You Nimrod you!” Nimrod was portrayed as an exemplar of things we didn’t want to be or things to avoid. But what does that mean?
Nimrod, King of the land of Shinar (southern Babylonia), led the effort to build the city of Babel those many years ago in eastern Mesopotamia, an enclosure defined by thick impenetrable walls of brick and mortar, which sealed it off from the rest of the world.
The name Nimrod itself says a lot. Nimrod means “rebellious” or “rebel” and is related etymologically to the Babylonian god Marduk, a pagan religion antithetical to the monotheistic worship of YHWH. Nimrod was feeling rebellious to God when he built that unholy tower.
We don’t have to read far in scripture to know that Babylon becomes quite a unhappy word in the history of God’s story. Later references to Babylon and Babylonia are linked to “Babel.” It all starts here….this Nimrodian tendency to shut ourselves up and off and away from God’s mission; this Nimrodian notion that we can do things all by ourselves.
These are a people who turned from God, were disobedient to God, and in fact, tried to shut God out. They were in the habit of building “ziggurats” in Babylon –tall towers for the worship of the Babylonian deities. Ancient Babylon was a center for science, art, and culture, complete with wealth and beautiful hanging gardens. But it was also a center of idol worship. And the tower was an altar.
Unlike the rough stone of the altar of Jacob, the tower of Babel was a manmade façade, symbolizing the efforts of humankind, strutting their excellence, strumming their pride. Manmade walls don’t just block people out, they brick people in. No longer would humankind “multiply and be fruitful and fill the earth.” In Babel, they would not be planters, but bricklayers. They were not living stones of the portable House of God, but their hearts were rooted and cemented in the Temple of Marduk.
The people of Babel were stuck in a burning building, aflame with wickedness. But guess what? God comes to the rescue and sets them free.
God’s decision to “confuse” the language of humankind in the eastern land of Shinar pretty much says, “I am God, you are not.” It’s akin to God wiping away humanity in Noah’s flood. It’s akin to God’s voice bringing down the walls of Jericho through Joshua’s “shofar.” It’s akin to God setting the altar afire as Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18). It’s akin to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah or the later fall of Babylon. As in all of these cases, it’s akin to God’s saving grace to all who accept God’s healing presence, who grab hold of God’s salvation ladder of grace. Noah, Rahab, Elijah, Lot, and now, the people of Babel.
Cause in any confrontation between alien “gods” of our own making and the One True God of Israel, God always wins!
This is the Story of scripture: God is God, and we are not! And when things get to a state of “emergency,” God intervenes and rescues humanity. Over and over again.
God’s symbol of intervention ….is the ladder. We call it “Jacob’s ladder” –the sign that tells us “God is in this place.” The ladder is a sign of God’s saving grace, healing salvation, and loving intervention. When the ladder appears in the midst of our lives, things get set right. The ladder means, “God is with us.” Later, the gospel writer John will just call Him …Jesus. "I tell you the truth, you will all see heaven open and the angels of God going up and down on the Son of Man, the one who is the stairway between heaven and earth" (John 1:51).
We can get trapped into doing a “Nimrod” in our own lives just like we did back in the time of Babel. We may not worship other gods or follow pagan rites and rules. But we can get in the habit of shutting God out. We can get in the habit of shutting ourselves in. We can get in the habit of strutting our stuff.
When we shut ourselves up, and shore ourselves in –inside our church walls, inside our biases and traditions, inside our own tiny little worlds --we lose our ability to connect with others; and we lose our focus on who God is calling us to be.
And who is God calling us to be?
What is our identity as followers of Jesus?
We are God’s firefighters.
Like Jacob, we are the people of God, sent out on God’s mission to be “fruitful and multiply God’s covenant throughout all generations.” We are the people who point to Jesus, especially to people trapped in burning buildings and cut off from God. We are God’s firefighters, who recognize God’s saving “ladder” wherever it appears in the world and in other people’s lives. God’s mission is not about staying in our buildings, safe in our ivory towers and cathedrals, but about jumping onto God’s ladder of hope and going wherever hurting people need to see God’s saving presence, providence, and participation.
The House of God, the True Bethel, is wherever God’s saving ladder drops down and intervenes within the world to touch the hearts and heal the burns of a lost humanity.
We are God’s firefighters. We hop on board God’s ladder truck wherever it may take us. Like Elisha’s altar, God puts out the consuming fire of the world’s hurts, and replaces it with healing fire, the holy healing flame of the Holy Spirit.
The House of God is not an enclosed building with walls that keep people out, or walls that keep us safely in, focused on one way, one habit, one “language,” or one group of people. The House of God is an Open House with an everlasting invitation –one made for all God’s creatures, generations before us and generations to come.
We are the House of God. For we are the people of God.
Based on the Story Lectionary
Major Text
The Building of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9)
Minor Text
Jacob’s Ladder at Bethel (Genesis 28)
The Blessing of Ephraim and Manasseh (Genesis 48:12-20)
Micaiah’s Prophecy of God’s Deliverance (1 Kings 22)
The Prophet Isaiah Tells of the Lord’s Sovereign Hand Over Stubborn Israel (48)
Psalm 110: The Lord Shall Sit at God’s Right Hand
Psalm 118: The Right Hand of the Lord Almighty
Do Not Exalt Yourself in the King’s Presence but Wait to be Invited (Proverbs 25:6-7)
John’s and James’ Mother’s Request of Jesus (Matthew 20:20-28)
John’s and James’ Request of Jesus (Mark 10:35-45)
Parable of the Place of Honor and the King’s Dinner (Luke 14)
Peter’s Sermon on the Sovereignty of Jesus Sitting at God’s Right Hand (Acts 2)
The Sermon and Stoning of Stephen (Acts 7)
The Building of the Tower of Babel
Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar.
Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”
But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building.
The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
So, the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world.
From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.
Jacob’s Ladder at Bethel
Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Harran. When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep.
He had a dream 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.
There above it stood the Lord, and he said: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying.
Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.
I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”
When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.”
He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”
Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. He called that place Bethel, though the city used to be called Luz.
Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to my father’s household, then the Lord will be my God and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth.”
Image Exegesis: Seat of Honor / Open House
“If you make an altar of stones for me, do not build it with dressed stones…” (Exodus 20:25)
“Any man who must say I am the King is no true King.”
(Twyn and Joffrey Lannister, Game of Thrones)
Throne in Revelation and in other apocalyptic literature is an image that goes back to the stone pillar altar of Jacob’s ladder / Jacob’s well. The stone of the altar and well….is the pillar / pillow (traveling altar of God). Bethel is not a place but a condition. And as living stones, we are called into mission. We are people of the land and field….and our obedient mission given by God is to “bear fruit and multiply.” God must always have a people. We are to spread through the land. This is the promise to Jacob….east, west, north, and south….his descendants are to spread throughout all generations and places. This “spreading” theme comes up for Jesus many times.
John notes that Jesus is the “ladder” of God. Jesus becomes the “way” for God to be “with us” intervening in our lives with a salvation gift of love and grace to bring us out of sin and into life.
Jesus is God With Us in the flesh. And like the metaphor of the ladder, He is the “altar”, the “well” and “living water” and the connection between God and humankind that facilitates redemption.
Jerusalem is not a place but a relationship status. Likewise, Jesus is not rooted to one place or people, but goes in the world to wherever there are hurting people in need of the salvation power of God.
Jesus tells us that our greatest command is to love God and one another. And to this end, we are bade to “go out” and like mustard seeds to spread God’s redemption over the earth. As people of Jesus, we see Jesus in the world in the lives of people as the “ladder” of God’s mercy.
All people in our world are our parishioners. And we are bound, says John Wesley, to spread “scriptural holiness” across the land. We are people of the field, and we are on God’s mission to seed and plant hope, while we are proclaiming God’s saving hope in Jesus.
In Hebrew, the word for “house” can mean both a “house” or a “household,” meaning the genealogy of many generations of a people, ie the House of David, or the House of Jacob. We are not to build our own “house” in which to keep God in or shut ourselves in or keep God out or keep God’s people out. We are to be the “household of God,” to be God’s people wherever God’s ladder of hope is needed in the world in any place or time.
Jacob’s stone/rock/pillar reminds too of Jesus’ proclamation that He is the new Temple. That the old Temple will be destroyed (much like the tower of Babel), but that He is the spiritual Temple of which we are all living stones.
This “Bethel,” this Temple, this Jerusalem exists relationally wherever God’s “ladder” of hope manifests itself in the form of Jesus’ holy presence and power. In Jesus, we are “connected” to God in an irrevocable and beautiful covenant.
The ladder is God’s power in the world, and God initiates that ladder’s presence. We receive it. We perceive it. But our relationship with God is an invitation.
And we see that in our other scriptures about Jesus’ dinner conversation, in which the last will be first, and the first last. That we are seated at God’s table by invitation. We don’t attain a place. But God “saves” us a place.
Invitation into a relationship in which we are freed by our willingness to surrender.
We must as the Church not make our church or our buildings an “ivory tower” of our own righteousness, or a place in which to hide from the world. Jesus calls us, like God called Jacob, out of the place where we are and into new places. And God will go with us wherever we go. Jesus’ “way” is not our quest but God’s intervention.
Salvation doesn’t happen by building the best programs, or accruing the most money, or by building the biggest buildings or congregations. But it happens by recognizing the “ladder” of Jesus’ presence and hopping on board God’s mission to be the people of God for a world created in love by God.
When we embrace the invitation of God to enter into newness, we become a new creature –in our churches, in our marriages, in our relationships, in our attitudes, in our communities. For living a “righteous” life we learn from these scriptures, isn’t about following rules of order or building the right towers. But living a righteous life means trusting in the saving grace of God!
Righteousness is relying on the saving power of God.
The Hebrew word sedeq (righteousness) is a covenant word, a relational word, expressing God’s saving action and deliverance (Psalms and Isaiah). It emphasizes God as Truth, forgiveness, faithfulness, love, loyalty, and the rightness of God’s saving action, because God is God and we are not.
As “children” of righteousness as expressed by Paul, we understand the saving activity of God to be part of God’s divine nature, Jesus’ gift. It’s not about works. It’s about righteousness and Jesus’ power of salvation. God’s justice and righteousness is kind, patient, and impartial. And God’s promise of redemption is revealed in Jesus’ sacrificial gift to all who participate in Christ.
We are called to be children of God’s righteousness –to recognize Jesus and His saving activity in the world. This is what it means to be a righteous people of God.