go up to Bethel

This morning, reading again a very familiar passage, I noticed something I’d just blown by before.

Here’s the setting: Jacob is running from that encounter with his brother/rival Esau, and God tells him to go build an altar and live at Bethel. Jacob doesn’t know it, but when he gets there God is going to renew with him the covenant He made with Abraham.

What I noticed this morning is what Jacob did first. He demanded that his entire group give up their foreign Gods. “So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods they had and the rings in their ears, and Jacob buried them under the oak at Shechem.” Genesis 35:4.

What a powerful picture of what it means to answer God’s call! Before I start, I have to get rid of any worldly thing that’s going to hold me back.

It makes me wonder about my rationalizations for wallowing in worldly culture. Some of the movies I watch and computer games I play and books I read and music I listen to serve modern day religions like humanism and atheism and relativism. In suggesting that my own happiness should be my first concern, they tempt me from God’s call. In promoting violence as a solution they mock the Prince of Peace. When they offer intimacy with anyone who attracts me as a source of joy, they destroy the marriage institution that is the model for Christ’s relationship with His church.

I think maybe I need to dig a hole under the oak tree. If I can’t bear to toss in my TV set and iPad, maybe it will at least remind me to make better choices about what I do with them.