Wadhams United Church of Christ
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Sermon by Steve Smith          Order of Service 

Chutes and Ladders
July 20, 2008                                                                     Genesis 28:10-22

        You remember the children’s board game, Chutes and Ladders, don’t you? Some of you might even have a game tucked away for when the grandchildren come, or for hours of delight playing against yourselves. I had to refresh my memory a little bit so I could do a proper job of leading into the sermon today, so I went online to retrieve the rules. According to a website dedicated to better parenting:
“The rules are simple and easy to follow, even for kids who can't read. Players spin each turn to see how many spaces they may move around the board. Colorful illustrations of children playing around slides and ladders indicate when players should "slide down" or "climb up" the board. The kids in the board illustrations are shown either doing "good" deeds such as helping a friend, or "naughty" deeds such as writing on walls. Good children climb up the ladders, while the naughty ones slide down. Playing Chutes and Ladders with your kids is a great way to talk about the differences between "good" and "naughty" behavior.”
Of course, the game was a little more interesting than that at our house, with three rambunctious boys in the mix. Whenever one of us hit a ladder, it was an occasion for a frenetic victory dance, followed by a brief melee while the other two subdued the ecstatic dancer. Landing on a chute provided an opportunity to cuss a blue streak. With my gift for language, I was soon taking words and phrases I had learned from my father, the ex-marine, and embellishing them shamelessly. Eventually, I learned that such language was naughty behavior, and if I did it too loudly, my game piece would slide precipitously toward the unspoken horrors just beyond the bottom of the game board.
Winning the game was often the highlight of our day, and called for a group celebration where each of the losers had to demonstrate good sportsmanship by congratulating the winner. This usually meant a sincere shake of the hand and a good-natured pat on the back, but sometimes our sincerity overtook us, and the handshake became a wrestling match while we tried to pin the winner’s hand in a vise-like grip. The pats on the back, of course, became increasingly enthusiastic as we tried to outdo each other in demonstrating our good sportsmanship with satisfying thumps and blows. It wasn’t unusual for the winner to bear the trophies of our post-game good sportsmanship in the form of bruises and contusions.
I learned some important lessons while playing Chutes and Ladders. While I don’t remember all the specifics, I must have taken those important life lessons to heart, because it seems like I’ve spent the rest of my life climbing ladders toward perfection. A good many of us were raised in families where the approach to God and religion wasn’t so very different from the simple format of the board game: if we wanted to get close to God, we had to learn to be good, or holy; if we indulged in naughty behavior, then we would slide ever farther away from God. Does that sound familiar to you? So we can carry that image of a child’s board game with us as we embark on our journey through the story of Jacob’s Ladder.
The lectionary skipped over the juicy stories where Jacob continued to scam and scheme his way through life, stealing his older brother Esau’s blessing and in general acting like a real jerk. As we enter the narrative, Jacob was on the run from his brother Esau’s fury, a lonely, frightened fugitive far from his family home, so lost that even God couldn't find him--or so he thought. Cold and weary, he came to "no particular place," as the text puts it, and, because night was falling, cleared a spot in the rubble-strewn ground, rolled out his sleeping bag, found a rock to put under his head and lay down. In his misery and exhaustion Jacob soon fell into a deep sleep in which he began to dream. In his dream he saw a ladder or stairway, rising from the stone at his head, connecting heaven and earth.
The term usually translated as ladder actuallysuggests some sort or stairway, and was more likely a stone ramp leading to the top of a ziggurat. Ziggurats were ancient pyramid-like structures with a temple or shrine on the summit. They were popular in ancient Mesopotamia, and served as a focal point for the cities of that region. The city ziggurat would easily be the most conspicuous building in the city, towering above any visitors coming to their city. Therefore the ziggurat was not just a religious center but also a center of civic pride. Any visitor couldn’t help but see the ziggurat. The ziggurats were built on an immense scale: they would sometimes reach the height of 150 feet. It would be like seeing a 15 story building erected in town.
The Mesopotamian ziggurats were not places for public worship or ceremonies. They were believed to be the dwelling places for the gods. Through the ziggurat the gods could be close to mankind and each city had its own patron god. Only priests were permitted on the ziggurat or in the rooms at its base and it was their responsibility to care for the gods and attend to their needs. Ziggurats were built to reach nearer the heavens. This was so the gods could be contacted and worshiped. Obviously the same can be done on ground level, but on top of the ziggurat they would be nearer to their god.
While the Babylonians of that era might have temples to other gods, they would only have a ziggurat to the city god. The size and splendor of the ziggurat would show the city’s and the king’s devotion to the particular city god being worshiped. The bigger the ziggurat, the more devoted they were. The ziggurat with its steep stairway was essentially a symbol of humanity's efforts to get close to God. It was an expression of the soul’s longing to find connection with the forces or deities that governed the universe. In order to get in touch with God one had to climb up a long flight of stairs. It was hard work, but there was no other way. What caught Jacob’s attention, however, was not the stair and the need to ascend it, but something that can easily get lost in translation from the ancient language. Eugene Peterson captures it in his translation, The Message:
Then God was right before him, saying, “I am God, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. I’m giving the ground on which you are sleeping to you and to your descendants. Your descendants will be as (numerous) as the dust of the earth; they’ll stretch from west to east and from north to south. All the families of the earth will bless themselves in you and your descendants. Yes. I’ll stay with you, I’ll protect you wherever you go, and I’ll bring you back to this very ground. I’ll stick with you until I’ve done everything I promised you.
Instead of Jacob having to climb the ladder to get to God, God had come down the stairway and was right there in front of Jacob. That's the point of the dream. Yahweh was present in this strange place, contrary to all of Jacob's expectations, and far, far away from the holy places Jacob normally associated with God's presence. All of those places had been left behind in the cloud of dust he sent up when he left home in fear for his life. "Surely God is in this place and I did not know it!" Jacob declares with wide-eyed, childlike amazement. "This is the house of God and the stairway is the gateway to heaven." Then Jacob made a vow:
If Yahweh is indeed my God, then God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking, and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to my father's house; and if Yahweh will be my God then this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God's house, and of all that you give me I will give you back a tenth.
Jacob is not betraying a grasping, mercenary spirit, bargaining with God for food and drink and then saying, "If I get these things then Yahweh will be my God" (as most translations put it). The phrase "then Yahweh will be my God" is actually part of the string of conditional clauses and should be translated, "if Yahweh indeed is my God...." He is paraphrasing and fleshing out the promise: "I am with you." He is spelling out the implications of the promise that God will be with him throughout the life laying ahead of him.
In reality, Jacob had no idea what lay ahead of him. His scheming, scamming past was about to catch up with him. His years in Haran were going to be brutal, painful, disappointing years, filled with anxiety and grief, as he got to experience first hand what it was like to be on the receiving end of manipulative behavior. Yet God proved to be good to the promise: God was with Jacob every step of the way. That's what rendered Jacob quiet and at ease, despite the difficulties of those long days.
In reality, none of us has any idea what our future holds for us. Sometimes I think that’s just as well. The past has a way of catching up with us, as the truth of who we have been and what we have done comes home to us in a new and different way. Since I was almost always the compliant, obedient child, I was often held up as an example for others to follow. I made a career out of being good, so it’s had a lot of good payoff for me. I’ve come to realize that it took its toll on my brothers. As adults, we begin to recognize the pain we have caused others, and are in a better place to forgive those who have hurt us or wronged us in the past. Sooner or later, we begin to tire of the constant need to climb ladders to live up to someone else’s expectations for our lives.
We grow weary of trying to climb the various ladders of success, like being the perfect employee, or the perfect parent, or the most amazing grandparents in the history of the universe, and start to redefine our lives in more realistic terms. When it feels like God is no longer near, we fall back on the more youthful ways of approaching God, hoping to awaken some of the old, comfortable feelings by doing things the same way we used to do them. It can be pretty unnerving to let go of our view of God through our childlike eyes, as God shows up right in front of us to challenge us to embrace an adult-sized God who will be with us through the thick and thin of life’s demands.
That, in the final analysis, may be the point of life’s unsettling chapters: that God is right there with us, whether we are being singled out for abuse, or running from the pain of the past, or agonizing over an unknown future. God is right there with us when we least expect to find God, because we are so far away from the God of our youth and sometimes feel so lost that not even God knows where we are. God is right there with us when the path seems too steep to take another step and when it seems like the path forward has been swallowed up in the foggy cloud of unknowing.

Order of Service     July 20 , 2008          Back to Sermon
"NC" refers to The New Century Hymnal, The Pilgrim Press (1995)

Welcome, Announcements, Joys and Concerns
A Candle for Peace NC #591
Call to Worship
Leader: Lord, you are our God. You search us and know us. You are acquainted with all our thoughts and ways.
People: We rejoice in the good news, O God, that you forgive our wrongs. In spite of our sinfulness, you invite us to be your children and heirs of your glory.
Leader: We seek you today, after another week of being on the run, of trying to do the right things. It’s so easy to lose hope.
People: Lead us, O God, in the way everlasting. Teach us your hope that shines even in seemingly hopeless situations.
Leader: Open our eyes, Lord, to discern your hidden presence among us, your shining grace and power at work, even in the most shadowed places.
People: Open our eyes to see more fully, more truly. May we be able to say, as did Jacob, “Surely the Lord is in this place.”
Hymn NC #423                Great Is Your Faithfulness
Responsive Prayer
Leader: Lord God, we are thankful for your presence with us this morning, for you have said that where two or three are gathered in your name, you are there.
People: We are thankful for being able to come together as a community concerned for each others welfare.
Leader: Gracious God, we ask you to quiet our hearts and fill them with your love, that your Spirit may guide our prayers.
People:  Teach us to recognize you in our daily lives, trusting that you long to shower your divine mercy and grace on those who turn to you.
Leader: We place ourselves before you, Lord of all blessings, expecting that we may receive the gifts we need, so that we may become the gifts others need.
People: We pray for our world. We pray for victims of injustice, for children who are hungry, for the homeless and the displaced, for people who have been kidnapped and kept from their loved ones.
Leader: We pray for the victims of warfare, as well as for the soldiers who must fight. We pray for all who are discouraged, who need healing.
People: Breathe your new life into places of despair, and restore all people to the wholeness of your love. We thank you for the beauty and grace in your world.
Pastoral Prayer, Lords Prayer      
Hymn NC #292         Breathe On Me, Breath Of God
Psalm 34:11-22, Genesis 28:10-22, John 1:43-51
Sermon                                                    Chutes and Ladders
Offering, Doxology, Dedication
Hymn NC #500       We Are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder
Benediction
Leader: Wherever we may be, may we see the gates of heaven.
People: Wherever we may be, may we turn stone pillows into pillars of God.

Leader: Wherever we may be, may we see God standing in our midst. Go now with eyes and hearts wide open to God’s lively presence. Go in peace and hope, and with the blessing of Almighty God.

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