That's Not Fair (New Beginnings UMC)

Well, let's jump in here. That's not fair.

Anyone heard that phrase anytime recently?

You know, if you have children, What's that?

You have a teenage daughter. You probably hear it maybe

hourly then. Yeah.

Yes. OK.

Yeah. That's not fair.

I, I, I sadly have uttered that phrase more times than I care to

admit, particularly when I was a child.

I think I've gotten a little bit better as an adult, but it's not

fair. It's, it's something that that

we hear a lot. I've got three stories I want to

share today around this theme of, of that's not fair.

The first story is, Oh, I see. I, you still have to turn it on.

No matter how many times I use the remote, it doesn't work if I

don't turn it on. First story is the strangest

wedding story you will ever want to hear.

I'm not sure exactly how this worked.

I got to think alcohol was involved and and how this played

out. But here's Jacob.

Jacob again fleeing from his brother, whom he robbed of his,

who swindled out of his birthright and then robbed of

his blessing, is now living with his uncle in a faraway land.

And we're going to ignore the fact that this is a love story

where the people or cousins and just kind of pretend that's not

their cultural thing that that we're not going to get into.

But living with his uncle falls in love with Rachel, his uncle's

younger daughter, not Leah, the older daughter.

And Jacob says to Layman, I want to marry Rachel.

Layman says, well, that's going to cost you.

You need to work for me for seven years and Jacob says yes

this is a long term commitment. This is he's serious about this.

Rachel is apparently serious as well.

He works seven years for his uncle.

The wedding time comes they have the festivities during the day

that night again one would assume alcohol must have

involved been involved maybe some veils as well.

But Laban, instead of sending Rachel into the tent for the

wedding night with Jacob, sends Leah into the tent for the

wedding night with Jacob. And that leads to what has to be

one of the funniest verses of the entire Scripture.

When we read when the morning came, there was Leah, Jacob

says. This is not the person I wanted

to marry. I wanted to marry your sister.

That's not what you want to hear.

On the morning after your wedding, Jacob goes to Laban and

says, this is not fair. You deceived me.

Now, many folks at this point, knowing the whole story, might

say, well, you know karma, but karma's not a Bible thing.

The Bible talks about the principle of sowing and reaping.

So we have a less elegant phrase than just saying karma as you

reap what you sow And Jacob had dealt deceitfully with his

family of origin and now his marriage family is dealing

deceitfully with him. Jacob still says this is not

fair. I want to marry Rachel, not

Leah. Laban says, well, you know

tradition around here is you can't marry the younger daughter

off until you marry the older daughter off.

So you got Leah instead. Jacob, I'm sure said something

to the effect of you should have told me that before the wedding.

We could have worked something out maybe.

But Layman says I tell you what, work 7 more years, commit to

working seven more years, and after your bridal week with Leah

is over, you can marry Rachel as well.

And that's what they agreed to. So Jacob marries Rachel the next

week and then work 7 more years for Layman.

We're also told in this that Jacob loved Rachel more than he

loved Leah. I got to think that somewhere

along the way, Leah was saying, this is not fair.

This is not fair. I didn't ask for this.

I didn't plan for this. I don't want, I get, I don't

want that conversation was like, I got to think that we're

supposed to read these chapters a little bit comedically, maybe

even a lot comedically. And that's not to say that this

this subject is trivial. The best comedy deals with very

serious things in a way that allows us to laugh and so kind

of process and Mull through the serious things.

So that's not to say that these are trivial.

These are not trivial matters at all.

This is sibling rivalry. This is family deception.

This is infertility. And, and those kinds of

struggles are very, very serious and, and gut wrenching kinds of

struggles. And so, but there is the way the

story is told, there is an element of humor in it that I

think is there to help us kind of process some of the serious

stuff. I think Mary Poppins had it

right. A spoonful of sugar helps the

medicine go down. And sometimes when we laugh, we

can work through some difficult things that are even harder when

we're not laughing. So, so here's Leah.

I would not have wanted to have been part of that conversation

when dad shows up on the wedding night.

By the way, I got someone distracting your sister, Rachel

Outback. You go in with Jacob.

I wouldn't want to been there for that conversation.

But Leah went. She went in and now she's

married to someone who prefers her sister to her and who loves

her sister more than her. And I got to think Leah was

saying that's not fair. Simple reality is that's not

fair. It's not fair.

The other reality is this life is not fair.

It isn't. I think this is one of the most

important lessons that we can teach our children is that life

isn't fair. And the way social media blows

up on so many different things. I, I, I get the feeling there is

a large chunk of the population, at least the social media

literate part of the population that really somehow is convinced

that life ought to be fair. But as much as the Scripture,

and God in the Scripture makes it so clear that God is deeply

concerned with justice, justice for the poor, justice for the

vulnerable, the orphans, the widows, the foreigners among us,

justice for those folks, the Bible seems remarkably

unconcerned about fairness. And, and there's a lot of

unfairness in the Scripture. And God isn't indifferent in our

unfairness, but the unfairness is there.

Life is not fair. Life is not fair, but God sees

and God is faithful. The situation for Leah was not

fair at all. How much choice she had, we

don't know, but she was in a bad spot, spending the rest of her

life married to someone who preferred her sister and sharing

that person with her sister. God sees, God is faithful.

We're told this when the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, He

enabled her to conceive extraordinary thing here is God

saw Leah in her situation. Leah a female in a culture and

civilization that devalued women that had men at a much higher

level of value and importance. Women often in those in that

part of the world in, in, in the ancient times were, were

socially invisible. And if you were a man, you

couldn't even speak to a woman. If you're a woman, you couldn't

speak to a man that you weren't related to in public.

You were socially invisible. But Leah was not invisible to

God. Leah, this unloved daughter

pushed into a marriage by her father with a husband that

doesn't love her, but God sees her and God blesses her and she

conceives. She's pregnant now and that

again, it's a cultural thing, but that was a huge honor for

Leah. It, it, it was, it was a source

of pride. It was a source of personal

honor and public honor, reputation in public.

And not only was she pregnant, but she gave birth to a son.

First born was a son. God blessed her, and then God

kept blessing her and she conceived and she conceived and

she conceived and she conceived. Four sons in a row.

Leah had before and Rachel still hadn't been pregnant yet.

Television and movies compress time on things a lot, and they

make things appear to happen quicker than they do.

You can't compress 4 pregnancies.

You just can't. We're talking four years here at

least, or close to it at least that Leah's having baby boys.

Rachel's not having any babies. Rachel says, all right, all

right, I got to get on this too. This is not fair.

It's not my fault that God or the God that late, my father

that Laban made my sister marry or or or stuck my sister in to

marry my husband. It's not my fault.

She knew that Jacob and I loved each other.

She knew all. It's not my fault.

Why am I not having any children?

So she gets her servant whom her father gave to her, her, her,

her, her maid and, and says, hey, you want to have a baby

with my husband? And Bill Ha's like, yeah, sounds

good to me. I've got to think Jacob was good

looking. I don't think this story works

if Jacob's not good looking. And so Bill Ha goes in and, and

by her servant, her slave, having a baby with her husband,

the child is Rachel's child. And so she's she can take credit

in some way for this baby. It's not quite the same, but but

she's still providing a son to her husband.

And so Bill goes in, she sleeps with Jacob, she gets pregnant,

she has a son. Then she gets pregnant again and

she has another son. And so now Jacob has six sons by

two different women. And roughly six years or more

have passed five to seven years. You know, it's been a long time.

It's been years. Leah stopped getting pregnant.

And so she says, this is not good.

I don't want to lose my status here.

So she says to her maid, Zilpa, hey, you want to have a baby

with my husband? So it was like, OK.

And she goes in and she gets pregnant, and she has a son, and

she gets pregnant again, and she has another son.

Now Jacob has eight sons by three different women.

Rachel still hasn't had a baby. At this point, we get an

interlude in the story and Leah's oldest son, Ruben, has

been out in the fields and he discovers Mandrake plants and he

brings them home. Now, don't panic if you're a

Harry Potter fan and Harry Potter, you can't pull out

mandrakes. They'll kill you.

Those are Harry Potter fantasy mandrakes.

These are real mandrakes, but they were believed, and this is

well documented, that in the ancient times and that region,

it was believed that Mandrake roots were both an aphrodisiac

and an aid to fertility. And Rachel, he's got four sons

of her own and two more through her servant.

She's got the Mandrake plants. She's got the aphrodisiac and

the fertility aid. And Rachel does not.

Rachel says that's not fair and she goes to Leah and says make

your son give me his Mandrake plants, which gives rise to what

might also be one of the funniest verses in the Bible,

which is Leah's response to Rachel.

When Rachel demanded that you give me tell your son to give me

his mandate plants. But she said Leah said to her,

wasn't it enough that you took away my husband?

Will you take my son's mandrakes too, Is Leah's reply.

But Leah has compassion and she has an angle.

She says, I tell you what, Rachel, I'll tell Reuben to give

you his mandate roots. But I get Jacob tonight.

So Jacob comes home out of the fields.

He sees his wife, Rachel. Leah walks up and says, hey,

you're sleeping with me tonight. I bought you with Mandrake

roots. It's right there in the Bible.

Read it. That's what she says.

So Jacob goes with Rachel. Yeah, I'm sorry.

No, Jacob goes with Leah and Leah gets pregnant again.

Rachel uses the Mandrake roots, doesn't help her.

Leah gets pregnant again, has another son, gets pregnant again

and has another son, Ten sons now Jacob has by three different

women. And again, we're looking at at

least a decade here, and Rachel still is infertile.

And she says this is not fair. And it's not fair.

She didn't ask for this. She didn't look for this to have

a it's great that her husband loves her, but she doesn't have

the status, the honor of bearing children of her own or providing

a son of her own for her husband.

She certainly doesn't like the fact that her sister Lords it

over her, which she does. And then we see this.

Then God remembered Rachel. He listened to her and enabled

her to conceive. God saw Leah.

God saw Rachel. God remembered Rachel.

God sees. God doesn't forget.

He doesn't forget the unfairness.

He doesn't forget our heartache. He doesn't ignore us.

We're not invisible to him. When life is unfair and life is

hard, God sees. God remembers and God bless us.

No, it's important not to trivialize this.

It's important not to oversimplify this just, well,

you know, God closes the door, he opens a window or, or, or, or

particularly to someone in the throes of a, of a, of a tragic

kind of situation, whether it's it's a, a person who wants to be

pregnant but can't get pregnant and fertility or some other

stress or strain on their life. And, and just to pat them on the

shoulder and say, well, God will bless you in other ways.

That doesn't help. That doesn't help, but it is

important for us to know and to remember that life is unfair.

In that unfairness, God is not indifferent.

God sees, God remembers, and God blesses.

And so when life seems really unfair, these scriptures invite

us to look for God's blessing. That blessing can take a long

time, can take a long time and and and we can't rush it.

Rachel gave birth, she had a son.

The son was Joseph. Joseph that Joseph, Joseph with

the multi colored cloak. Joseph, Joseph the dreamer.

Joseph who saved his entire family after he was sold into

slavery in Egypt. Not fair, but found himself in a

position of power to save his family because of that second

story in this unfairness. It's the story.

Well, you know the story. The story of the prodigal son.

Another great story of unfairness in the Bible.

Jesus told that story. Father had two sons.

The older son, diligent, loyal, faithful, hard working and

responsible. The younger son, a knucklehead

who's greedy and wasteful and and the younger son gives the

ultimate insult to his father when he says, I want my

inheritance now, saying to his father, in effect, I wish you

were dead. You're more valuable to me dead

than alive. I don't want you.

I just want your money. The father gives him his and

share the inheritance. He leaves, goes to a foreign

country, squanders it all, finds himself in abject poverty during

a time of famine and saying I would be better off as an

employee, a servant in my father's household.

I'll go back and throw myself at my father's mercy.

And he walks back and you know the story.

The father sees him from a distance, and he runs to meet

him, and he welcomes him and he smothers him with hugs and

kisses. And he takes his robe off and

puts it on him. He takes fingers off his own

hands and puts him on his son's hands.

And he calls for the fatted calf to be killed.

And he throws A tremendous feast to welcome the son home.

And while the feast is happening, the older son comes

in from the fields and he hears the party and he finds out

what's going on. And he says to his father,

that's not fair. That's not fair.

I've worked my whole life for you.

I've been faithful to you. I've been loyal to you.

You've never done anything like this for me.

But this knucklehead brother of mine comes home after wasting

all of your money, and you throw a feast for him.

The father says you don't understand the son.

He was lost, but now he's found. He was dead, but he's alive

again. I have to celebrate that.

The story's left open-ended. We don't know whether the older

son goes in and joins in the party or stays outside and

pouts, but we know that he thought it just wasn't fair.

Part of the reality of life not being fair is that it works to

our advantage ultimately in our relationship with God.

It works to our advantage because if God were fair to all

of us, none of us would get much good, if any, if God were fair

to all of us. One of my favorite movies, this

is the third story, is the the movie Unforgiven.

Do you know that movie? It's Clint Eastwood movie.

I think it's wonderful. If you haven't watched it, watch

it. Clint Eastwood plays the main

character. His name is Will Money.

He's an antihero, which is to say he's the main character.

But he doesn't really act like a hero ought to act.

In his younger years, he'd been a very bad man.

His wife helped you get straightened out.

He became a farmer. He has two kids.

Then his wife dies and he's raising his kids on his own.

And then the pigs start to die and the rain stopped to fall and

he's going to lose everything and he doesn't know what to do.

And he finds out there's a bounty on some other bad guy's

head. And he goes with a friend to do

one more bad thing to make enough money to take care of his

family. Goes to this town, and the

sheriff of the town is Little Bill.

Little Bill is supposed to be a good guy, but he's not either.

He's built 2. Main things Little Bill's

concerned about is stopping anyone that's coming to claim

the bounty and building his house.

He's very proud of the fact that he's building a house.

In the process of events, Will Money's friend gets killed.

Will blames Little Bill on a dark and stormy night.

He decides to take revenge and he goes into town where Little

Bill and his posse are in a bar, and he walks into the bar and he

shoots the bar up and he kills everybody except there's Little

Bill lying wounded on the ground.

He's lying there wounded, as Will Money reloads his shotgun.

And he walks up and he stands over him and he points that gun

in his head. And Little Bill looks at him and

says it's not fair. I was building a house.

It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair.

Little Bill was not a worse man than Will Money.

They were both pretty bad. They both had some good

qualities, had done a lot of bad things.

It wasn't fair Little Bill was going to die and Will was going

to live. And then one of the most cold

hearted and deeply truthful lines that I've ever heard is

what Clint Eastwood Will Money delivers.

Little Bill looks up at that shotgun and at Will Money and he

says it's not fair. I was building a house.

And Will Money says to him, fair's got nothing to do with

it. And then he shoots him in the

head. Now can we agree that that's not

a Jesus thing to do? We we're all in agreement on

that, right? Revenge is not a Jesus thing.

But Will Money was not a Christ figure.

He was not a hero. He was an anti hero.

He is the mirror image of Jesus on the cross, the mirror image

Jesus hanging on the cross put there by people whom Jesus

created and who and, and Jesus created them, gave them life,

breath and strength, sustained them.

They used that gift from God to kill God's Son, God in the

flesh, Jesus himself. And Jesus hanging there on the

cross does the most unfair thing imaginable.

And he says, Father, forgive them.

They don't know what they're doing.

That's not fair. How's that fair?

They're killing Jesus, the most wonderful, the greatest, the

most good human being to ever draw breath, and they're

disgracing, torturing, brutalizing, humiliating and

killing him. And Jesus prays for their

forgiveness. That's not fair.

But you can almost hear Jesus saying from the cross, fair's

got nothing to do with it. It's got nothing to do with it.

I'm not after fairness, I'm after relationship.

I'm not bent on fairness. I'm bent on love and care and

compassion and forgiveness. And so even though it's not

remotely fair, Jesus forgives. Even though it's not remotely

fair, Jesus forgave those people who crucified him.

Even though it's not remotely fair, he forgives us.

No matter what we've done or what we failed to do, no matter

the wrongs we've done, the mistakes we've made, Jesus

offers us forgiveness. God has the ability to do an

extraordinary thing that I'm convinced only God can do.

As much as we're created in God's image, I don't, I don't

know that Scripture says that, that we can even come close to

being God. Like in this way.

We can love, we can serve. Jesus loved and served, but

there's something that Jesus did that we can't do.

Jesus, God has the power to take a person who has done or

experienced an awful thing and make their life after that awful

thing better than it would have been had the awful thing never

happened. The word we use for that is

redemption. That's what redemption is.

Redemption is not just setting the scales right.

It's not just mending what was broken.

It takes the thing that was broken and makes it better after

it were broke. It was broken than it ever would

have been if it had never been broken to begin with.

I have a hard time wrapping my mind around that concept.

A person who experienced great brokenness and great heartache

and great stuff, great suffering, first shared that

insight with me. And they were on the other side

of the horrible, traumatic thing that they've been through.

And they said, Scott, I'm, I'm convinced, I'm convinced that

God's going to make my life better now than it would have

been if that awful thing had never happened.

And it was an awful thing. I don't know how God does that.

I don't know how, but that's the resurrection.

That's the, our life after the resurrection will be better than

our life here would have been had we never sinned and never

needed a Savior. I don't know how God does that,

but that's the promise that we have in Scripture.

It's not fair, it's not fair, but it's the blessing that God

offers to us. Life is not fair.

Life is not fair. And that means we will, in the

course of our lives, experience pain, heartache, and trauma,

sometimes, maybe often far in excess of anything we really

deserve from the people around us and the world around us.

But it also means that we will experience grace and mercy and

forgiveness and redemption far in excess of anything we ever

deserved or have ever earned. That's the hope and that's the

promise that we have in Jesus. In Jesus name, Amen.

Amen.