I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and where you made a vow to me. Now leave this land at once and go back to your native land. – Genesis 31:13

Today’s Scripture Reading (June 16, 2015): Genesis 31

Two weeks ago, Vice-President Joe Biden lost his son to cancer. For Biden, this has to be yet another “watershed moment” in his life – a moment where, after this, everything is changed. The truth is that we are not supposed to bury our children, they are supposed to gather around our gravesides and bury us. Something seems to have gone terribly when it happens the other way around. And for Biden, who is entering into the final months of his vice-presidency, this is not the first time. His career actually started with another “watershed moment” – a car accident and the death of his wife and daughter. Biden recently told a graduating class at Yale that as much as they might try they will not be able to control their fates. He told them that “reality has a way of intruding.” Joe Biden would know, reality has intruded repeatedly in his life.

But “watershed moments” are not just something that happens in the lives of the rich and famous. Our lives all contain “watershed moments” – moments that change everything. Looking back over my life I can identify a few – moving 2000 miles away from my childhood home, and all of my relatives, when I was eight; being held at gun point in my first apartment after I left home; business failure – all of these were moment in my life that changed everything – reality had intruded.

Jacob had his own watershed moments, but maybe one of the biggest happened at Bethel. In a moment when Jacob had to be questioning his life and his ability to survive alone in a hostile world - in that moment after he had taken his both his brother’s birthright and his blessing and then had run away from home like a scared child, in the moment when Jacob was finally too tired to take another step and he had stopped running and laid down to sleep; in that moment he dreamed of God. And when he awoke from his slumber he believed that he had stumbled onto a holy place, and he placed a marker as a reminder that this was what the Irish would call a “thin place” – a place where the boundary between earth and heaven seems to almost touch. And then he named the place – Bethel or “House of God.” But everything had changed. God had come to him and knowing his own character even Jacob was probably at a loss as to the reason why. But God’s coming meant that maybe there was a future for him, maybe in this moment he just couldn’t see it. But Jacob knew this, his life had changed and nothing would be the same again.

And now it was about to once more. The time that Jacob had been waiting for had finally arrived. It was time to go home, and that message came directly from God. Interestingly though, God does not introduce himself as the God of Abraham and Isaac – God wants a more personal moment with Jacob. So he introduces himself as the God of one of the major “watershed moments” in Jacob’ life. He told him, I am the God of Bethel.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Genesis 32