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In today’s lessons, we listen to story / teaching / and teaching-story. We will bear witness to the God who can make all things-the good, the bad, and the ugly-work together for good. We’ll also learn a prayer secret, and finally, we’ll wonder at what four stories can tell us about the kingdom of heaven.

Genesis 29:15-28-Taken to the Cleaners

Jacob the deceiver gets taken to the cleaners by an even better master of deception in this episode of the Jacob cycle. The story takes on the humor of a bawdy Chaucer tale with two sisters getting their knot tied to the same guy who plays favoritism, being amorous toward one while disdaining the other. This is a story of romance, treachery, surprise, rejection, and one awkward marriage. Jacob falls so hopelessly in love with Rachel that working a seven-year stint for her hand in marriage is but a few days in his mind. Leah is the powerless one, unloved by her husband. And Laban proves that deception is part of the DNA in Jacob’s family. The ultimate story however, is what God is doing through-and despite-the weird twists and turns the story makes. While screw ups and deceptions make this story humorous, know that God is the real Director behind the scene who is about to form a community through which God can bless the world.

Romans 8:26-39-How the Holy Spirit Can Revolutionize our Prayer Life

We’re in the third week of our study of Romans 8; this section moves toward an indicative posture: what the Holy Spirit desires to do through us. It’s almost as if the apostle leads us behind the curtain to see the activity of God in ways that are virtually imperceptible to the eye. In this passage we see the balance between humanity and divinity when the action is prayer: “But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words.” At the very least, we have divine cooperation in the act of prayer that results in selfless and open-hearted praying.

 

Matthew 13:31-33; 44-52-What is the Kingdom like? Well, it’s like this:

This kingdom of heaven is like “. . . a mustard seed . . . yeast . . . hidden treasure . . . a costly pearl.” In these four mini-parables, the writer records without explanation (unlike our first two parables, the Soil and the Wheat and Tares), stories about what the Kingdom of Heaven is like. Individually, they have been dissected and analyzed and allegorized and sermonized. But what would happen if we drew them all together and through the four parables heard an overarching theme or notion about the kingdom of heaven? Such opportunity we have on this Sunday-four shafts of light that converge into and illuminate the Kingdom of Heaven.