Our reading today starts with a journey. A journey home. A journey to the place of Bethlehem where Jacob had left abandoned fleeing from a feud with his brother. But it wasn't a journey soothed along the way with nostalgia. It would be fraught with danger and tragedy. Jacob and his family got ready to return to Betel, and as they prepared to leave he gave them instructions. Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you, and purify yourselves and change your clothes.

Next week we hope to receive new folk into membership of the church. In the same way as the folk of Jacob's household were required to put on outward symbols to signify their intentions we look to our members to make their pledges public as they offer to share their talents, practise discernment and in turn encourage and support others on their journey of faith.

The folk of Jacob's household were being told to prepare not only for the journey and the move but also for religious service. Living in another land, they had taken to worshiping idols. I imagine the slide would have been a slow one, a little charm here a little prayer there until eventually it turned out that their home was full of superstition and wishful thinking. Jacob ordered his household to bring out all of their idols and talismans so that he could dispose of them. Their journey home it seemed was not just going to be a physical one - it was their spiritual journey back to worshiping their God in honesty.

Through all of this, it's worth noting that God still chose to speak to Jacob - he would have seen the statues and images within his house - and yet God was still ready to speak to him - many times we can look at the old testament, especially some of the books like genesis and ask ourselves what possible relevance are the stories to our world, to our lives?
Here the character of God shines through. God perseveres with us. Even when we feel we are far away from the presence of God - when we think our behaviour must surely have excised us from his affection and care - God is still persevering with us.

When we make our commitments to God - he renews his commitment to us - to love us and offer us his guidance and his love. For Jacob, about to face the journey back to betel he really needed to know that he was in God's care. Danger and threat lurked in every settlement that they passed - the Canaanites were angry with Jacob for their use of the people of Shechem, - and there he was taking the woman he loved, a woman who gaining her hand in marriage had been traumatic enough in itself - Rachel would be making the journey along with him - but God continued to protect them so no one had the opportunity to take revenge.

Rachel, Jacob's favoured wife had not had an easy time of it - forced to look on as Jacob's other wife Leah had children while she did not. She cried her tears of despair - but were they tears for her children or for herself, was she hoping to glorify herself through the lives of her children? Have you ever known someone who just never seems to be happy, no matter what goes right in their lives? I have. I can think of a number of people who I work with who can moan at positively Olympic level. If they get a Christmas bonus, it's never enough. Part of me looks at Rachel and wonders whether or not she's so wrapped up in her own self-pity that she can't hear any good news. She can't feel happier because she's too busy enjoying her moaning for anyone to comfort her. Whatever she was really like - we know that before their journey was complete, her tears would return.

Upon the return to a place called Betel where God had once spoken to him - Jacob built an altar to God - symbolising that this return was not only a physical one but a spiritual one.
Symbols though they can be important - are not enough in themselves. The churches we build have to be places that are filled with God's presence - otherwise they are just empty buildings.

Our reading has it's first tragedy - Deborah who was Rachel's nurse dies, it doesn't take much to imagine the impact this would have had on them - she would have been a part of their life and the loss would have been acute.

But even in the midst of this tragedy - God reaches out to Jacob again to bless him and remind him of his presence in his life.
When we are challenged by life - by things that seem out of our control, things we cannot change, people we cannot persuade, we have a choice to look despair in the face or to turn to God and ask what should we do?

God reached out to Jacob and renewed his covenant to him - for us God continues to do this every day through the love of Jesus.

Jacob was instructed to be fruitful and multiply - would he have assumed that everything would be okay with his wife's pregnancy?

Sadly for him, it wasn't to be.

Rachel his wife - who had cried out 'Give me children or I die!' went into labour and it soon became apparent that everything was not well. She began to have difficulty. Now I don't for a minute think Jacob was what we consider to be a 'modern man' would he normally have been there at the birth and during the hours of labour that preceded it? Probably not normally, but I find it hard to think that when it became apparent that she was in difficulty that he was not at the side of the woman he loved.

The midwife tells her not to worry that she has another son, Joseph - perhaps suggesting that her life may be saved, but Rachel gives birth, as she cradles her newborn son in her arms she names him 'Ben-Oni' which means 'son of my trouble' - shortly afterwards Rachel died.

For Jacob, left behind his head must have been full of conflicting emotions - the terrible loss of his beloved wife at an early age and the birth of his new son. In the midst of this emotional roller-coaster he renames his son Benjamin - which means 'son of my right hand'.

And there Rachel's story ends - but it is not the last time she is mentioned in the bible, as we approach the season of advent and begin to retell the gospel stories of Jesus' birth - her name receives it's final mention in the gospel of Matthew. As he tells the story of Herod's obscene attempt to get rid of Jesus, we hear the mother's of Bethlehem weeping and the writer reminds us of Rachel's tears.

Through all the troubles and worries that this family faced - God was persevering with them - in the midst of death was new life - when they strayed from the path God was always ready to welcome them back and guide them. If we are wrapped up in our own problems, if we are enjoying being unhappy then God cannot reach out to us and comfort us. But when we reach out with hope in our hearts and a desire to be different, then our God, the God of Jacob and his family, reaches out to us to wipe away our tears and offer us new life.

(Dan Joseph)

This sermon was first preached in the Metropolitan Community Church of Manchester. Click here for further information.