"Jacob's Stairway to Heaven"

“Stairway to Heaven”
Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood
First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS
Genesis 28: 10-19a
July 30, 2017 - Ordinary Time

“There’s a lady who knows
All that glitters is gold
And she’s buying the stairway to heaven….”

I’ve learned over the years that when this text about Jacob’s dream of the stairway to heaven comes up in the lectionary, I need to just go ahead and factor in a significant amount of time to lose myself down internet rabbit holes researching Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven. I won’t say exactly how much time is needed, but some versions of the song are more than 10 minutes long, so let’s just leave it at that.

Alternately credited as being one of the greatest rock songs of all time and ridiculed for being so ubiquitously overplayed that it’s lost all meaning, Stairway to Heaven has staying power. Nearly 50 years after its creation, what continues to draw people to this song? You could argue it has a lot to do with Jimmy Page’s expansive guitar solo, and you’d be partially right. But I think it’s about more than that.

There is something about the mythical, dreamlike quality of the lyrics that reaches out and grabs you. There is something about the interplay between melody, production, and storytelling that makes this song timeless.

To paraphrase the refrain: “Oooh...it makes us wonder.”

Robert Plant’s lyrics make a lot of people wonder. There are thesis-length articles on the internet trying to figure out what all the words mean. Surprisingly, I didn’t find a lot of ponderings about the connection between the images in this song and the story of Jacob’s dream in the desert at Bethel. Which is weird to me because the thematic connections seem obvious.

Here we have a young man who is starting out on his own under difficult conditions. A relentless climber, Jacob is not necessarily someone you’d hold up as a stellar model of morality. Through trickery and deception, he has gained his father’s blessing and stolen his twin brother’s inheritance, but he is now essentially on the run. Esau wants to kill him so his mother helps him make plans to leave town - head out to the ancestral homeland down south in Haran - and start anew. Rebekah says goodbye tearfully, hoping he’ll be able to return home soon. Little does she know it will be more than twenty years before he returns.

And so Jacob sets off. He is certainly one who believes “all that glitters is gold” and we can imagine Jacob dreaming of wealth as he makes his way across the desert alone. Does he feel scared out there in the wilderness? Or is he excitedly looking forward to his new life ahead? We aren’t told.

Knowing Jacob, though, he is almost certainly dreaming of that stairway to heaven….the climb. That dream of getting ahead, receiving God’s blessing - and in his mind God’s blessing is likely tied to all the things that glitter - land, livestock, wives, children, a sense of importance.

In his desert wandering, he settles down to rest at night and rests his head on a pillow made out of a rock. Can we pause for just a moment and thank the good Lord that we now have pillows? Yes.

With his head comfortably snuggled into that rock, he drifts off to sleep…
“There’s a sign on the wall,
But he wants to be sure.
Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings.”

Resting securely in his father’s blessing, Jacob probably starts to count the sheep he will someday own. But God interrupts with a different dream. And suddenly the word blessing has two meanings.

In this dream, Jacob sees a literal stairway to heaven. And there are angels ascending and descending this ladder, stairway, ramp-type thing. Up and down, up and down they go.

It’s reminiscent of elevator dreams, which are apparently quite common. You rise, you fall. Sometimes the elevator breaks down and refuses to go anywhere. Sometimes you go so high-high-high in the elevator that you zoom right out of the top of the building. Sometimes you keep going lower and lower but never seem to reach your destination.

Elevator dreams are often said to be a sign we are worried about status. Does anyone love me? Do I have enough? Am I playing the game right? Are my parents proud? Am I getting ahead? AM I OKAY?

“Am I blessed?”

Jacob’s blessing from his father, Isaac, was quite practical - may you have loads of stuff, may everyone think you’re a stand up guy, may people bow down to serve you - that kind of stuff.

But in this peculiar dream, the new blessing from God takes on a different meaning. God arrives - and I think it’s interesting to note that God is not up on top of the stairway to heaven, nor does God call Jacob to climb the ladder - instead God arrives right by Jacob’s side.

God whispers in his ear, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac…” God’s blessing is not about the glitters of gold or the status that comes when our dream-elevator shoots through the roof.

God’s blessing for Jacob is simply presence. I am.

When you weep - I am.
When you rejoice - I am.
When you are alone - I am.
When you are unsure - I am.
When you are in the desert - I am.
When you are starting over - I am.
When you are stuck in the middle - I am.
When you have nightmares of crashing elevators - I am.

I am. I am. I am.

And that is the blessing.

As Jacob begins his life anew, setting out on his own, he must have been filled with anxiety. Traveling to an unknown land, learning to make his own way. Vulnerable, alone out there in the desert. And maybe even a bit ashamed of his own actions - by stealing his brother’s birthright and blessing he has essentially wrecked his own family - pitting mother against son, brother against brother - and now he has been banished.

His escape to Haran is sold to him by his parents as a logical step, “Hey, your brother wants to kill you and I don’t see any women around here who are right for you anyway, do why don’t you go stay with your Uncle Laban for a while and find a good girl to marry?”

But, in reality, the words of Jacob’s grandfather Abraham echo under the surface - and these words about traveling to Haran also have two meanings.

Because when Abraham left Haran, he said he was never going back. God’s promise was that he would be installed in a new land, the old left behind. Grandfather Abraham refused to send his own son Isaac back to Haran to find a wife because he was scared Isaac would get stuck there in the old place. Now here we are two generations later and Jacob is now going back to the place this family wasn’t supposed to go back to. It’s two-steps forward, one-step back. This trip is not a joyous homecoming. It’s a regression. A failure. An embarrassment.

When God arrives, though, he does not speak of any of these things. Instead God simply comes alongside Jacob and says, “I am.” I am here. You are not alone. I am the God of your ancestors - yes. I am also your God - and we will always be together. Furthermore, I am the God of all the generations who are to come after you. They will be so numerous that they will spread from the north to the south and the east to the west like a fine dust that covers the whole earth.

My promise, my blessing, my presence has existed long before you were born, it continues today in you, and it will continue long after you are gone.

I am. I am. I am.

Who among us hasn’t felt like Jacob at one time or another? Left out, banished, cast away. Embarrassed, ashamed, lost. On the edge of growth but unsure where to begin. Leaving everything behind and fearfully stepping out into the world on our own. Alone, confused, anxious. Stuck in the middle, living in an in-between place, wondering which path to take in the night.

I can remember times in my own life where I felt as if I were laying down on a hard rock in the wilderness and waiting for God to show up. I can also identify with these feelings as a member of our wider culture at this particular moment in history.

As I stood out along Anderson Avenue earlier this week with several of you at the protest for healthcare, I thought to myself, “My goodness. I live in a world where we have to protest to get our elected officials to realize everyone should be able to afford to go to the doctor. How bizarre. What is this land I’m living in?”

Or when I saw the news earlier this week of Donald Trump’s tweets about banning transgender individuals from military service, my heart broke as I realized how very painful his words were to people I love. And I thought to myself, “Why is it always two-steps-forward, one-step-back? Why can’t the pathway to love and inclusion be a simple point A to point B line? Why is it so very hard for people to just be kind and love one another? And how many lives will be lost or irrevocably harmed simply because one man so callously woke up today and typed some words onto a screen?”

It often feels as though we are in the desert. Stuck in the middle. Wandering. Running away from a past filled with pain, hopefully and cautiously taking steps towards a better future, only to find ourselves on some serious detours. Painfully remembering our mistakes and wondering how to change course for good.

And in the midst of sleepless nights when we toss and turn on our rock pillows and cannot sleep….in the midst of the darkness when we rest deeply or fitfully….God continues to arrive and stand by our side. “I am,” she says. “I am the God of your ancestors. I am your God. And I will still be God to your children and your children’s children - those whose lives you cannot even imagine. No matter how the world
shakes and changes, no matter the tweets, no matter the pain, no matter the fear and anxiety - I am. I am. I am.”

You know, right in the middle of Stairway to Heaven, there’s this really rocking part with weird lyrics: (spoken)
“If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow,
don’t be alarmed now
It’s just a spring clean for the May queen.”

Somewhere this week I read an interpretation of these lyrics. The person said that since hedgerows function like fences, they symbolize boundaries, the edges. So if there’s a bustle - a commotion, a bit of chaos shaking up the bushes - we don’t need to be worried because it means that there is still life within the bushes, the hedges - perhaps a bird who is building a nest - and that this shaking reminds us of the newness of spring that is on the horizon. The new life that often comes after a big shake up.

Jacob’s dream - and this particular moment of Jacob’s life - reminds me of that. The bushes are trembling - chaos seems to rule. But God is still there in the midst of it all and the promise does not waver. The promise is still Spring, new life, Resurrection, growth.

As he wakes, Jacob has some sense of what has transpired. He knows his life will not be the same. Before he winds on down the road, hastily, he makes promises to God and wonders about the future. Cautiously he begins to trust.

The tune comes to him at last. He begins to understand that heaven can be here and now: “when all are one and one is all.”

He takes the rock he slept on, pours oil on it, and sets it as a marker - this place is holy. God is here.

“And he’s finding a stairway to heaven.”