Engaging with Rachel's Story

The Nourishing Vocation Project Engaging the Living Word Rachel - Genesis 30:1-24 What is this particular text? ● Family Story o Ancestor story ● Genealogy story ● Conflict story ● Theology ● Promise How does the text function within the scriptural story? ● Moves the covenant promises forward ● Tells of the birth of Jacob’s descendants ● More clearly identifies the rivalry between Leah and Rachel in the names of their sons ● Portrays biblical narrative pattern of barrenness to conception to birth ● Portrays biblical narrative patterns of God working both through and in spite of human beings ● Depicts a God who remembers God’s own How can this text function in the church today? ● Calls the church to remember God’s promises today ● Remember for the church to examine where/how it is present amid human longing and suffering ● Invitation to name our own emptiness, barrenness as church ● Challenge to be intentional about naming who God is calling us to remember today – and then actually lean into/embrace that remembering What does the text do to you? How do you react to the text? What feelings does this text engender in you? ● Evokes empathy ● Reminds of personal suffering ● Reminds of personal times of emptiness ● Frustrates me: life doesn’t always move from emptiness to emptiness fulfilled ● Sadness, Sorrow ● Hope What do you have to say to the text? ● Are Rachel and Leah more than characters in a divine drama? ● Though part of the historical, cultural practice, the use of the slave women is gut-wrenching ● I wish the women could tell their own story ● Barrenness – of a host of kinds – does not always meet with fulfillment ● Family systems – and their dysfunctions – are powerful What do you see through this text from the story itself? ● Suffering is real ● Family systems are hard ● There is a fine line between passively waiting on the promises and being agents that work to fulfill God’s promises What do you see from within your church/community/world? (2022) ● Rivalries amid God’s people are nothing new ● We want quick solutions to our problems, and sometimes take those solutions into our own hands in unhelpful ways ● We sometimes seek to create our own, quick solutions to problems that take time to resolve ● Temptation to reduce the Gospel to theologically empty clichés or tropes o wait on God, and everything will be fine o everything happens for a reason o God will provide if we are just patient enough ● Crises of our current time o Women’s agency over their own bodies o We are an “instant gratification society:” we have no patience for waiting o Suffering makes us uncomfortable What do you see within yourself? ● Times when my hopes have not been fulfilled ● Experiences of conflict within the church ● Times when hindsight was the only way to have insight What is the context – textual and historical? ● Family narrative of Jacob ● Follows Jacob marrying both Leah and Rachel ● Amid the story of favoritism of Rachel over Leah ● Follows the narrative of Laban tricking Jacob into marrying Leah that is reminiscent of Jacob tricking Esau out of his birthright ● Sets up favoritism of Joseph by Jacob over his other sons What questions does this text raise for you? ● How would Rachel and Leah tell their own stories? ● What about those who do not feel like they are remembered by God? ● What does it mean today to be remembered by God? ● Could Leah and Rachel have been anything but rivals? ● Are there any biblical stories about women that are not in some ways “texts of terror?” What words/themes seem of particular import? ● Rivalry ● Barrenness/emptiness ● Promise ● Fulfillment ● Sorrow/hope ● Women – What is the Gospel / transforming Good News within this text? Written by Dr. Rev. Charlene Cox ● God hears ● God remembers ● God’s vision is bigger/broader than our own What is the as-over-againstness of this text? ● Suffering is real ● Emptiness is real ● Not all emptiness is fulfilled ● Family systems can be painful ● Conflict can be generational ● Actions of one really do impact lives of others ● Naming human longings and suffering is not always comfortable ● Sometimes people don’t know how to hold space for others who name their longings/suffering Who does this text say that Jesus is, or if not Jesus, then who does this text say that God is? What does this text say about God? ● God hears ● God remembers ● God acts ● The sorrow of the human experience matters to God What have others said about this text? ● “Her protracted infertility fits into a larger biblical pattern that signals the special importance of the child (Joseph) who finally arrives. In this sense, Rachel’s tragedy is also her triumph.” “Rachel,” by Amanda Mbuvi. What will I teach or proclaim? ● You are not alone in your suffering ● Human longings are real: naming those longings is essential ● God remembers ● God calls us to hear the cries of suffering of others ● God calls us to be the ways that God remembers those who suffer ● Name that emptiness is not always filled – and wrestle with what that means Written by Dr. Rev. Charlene Cox