The God Who Woos

The Love of the Three is like the Love between Two

Genesis 29

The Old Testament lectionary text is from Genesis 29 this Sunday.

It’s a strange story made all the more strange in that it’s not Ovid or Arabian Nights. It’s the Word of the Lord.

And because God is the Word, this strange story of Jacob’s erotic love for Rachel is God’s self-revelation.

Jacob’s urgent desire and foolhardy gestures and unreasonable commitment— fourteen years he labored to love her— are revelatory not simply of Jacob but of Jacob’s God, the God of Israel. Just as surely as he does atop Mt. Sinai or in Mary’s womb, the Triune God reveals something of himself in this odd, embarrassing, and erotic story. Were it not so, this story would not be counted among the canon.