Jacob's Return and Renaming (Genesis 35:1-15)

“Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship… is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.”

—David Foster Wallace, “This is Water”

Jacob's Return and Renaming (Genesis 35:1-15)
Rev. Nathan Barczi

An Outrageous Act (Genesis 34)

“And that is the wonder of all wonders, that God loves the lowly…. God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings. God marches right in. He chooses people as his instruments and performs his wonders where one would least expect them. God is near to lowliness; he loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak and broken.”

—Dietrich Bonhoeffer

An Outrageous Act (Genesis 34)
Rev. Bradley Barnes

Presumption of the Orphan (Genesis 31:17-55)

“St. Thomas, for instance, says: ‘That God wishes to give to someone... grace and glory proceeds from his sheer generosity.’ … [T]o someone, to some person at whom we can point. To someone, to you, to me, this very day.” — Henri de Lubac

“True faith is not only a certain knowledge, whereby I hold for truth all that God has revealed to us in his word, but also an assured confidence... that not only to others, but to me also, remission of sin, everlasting righteousness and salvation, are freely given by God, merely of grace, only for the sake of Christ's merits.” — Heidelberg Catechism, Question 21

“Read the words ‘me’ and ‘for me’ with great emphasis. Print this ‘me’ with capital letters in your heart, and do not ever doubt that you belong to the number of those who are meant by this ‘me.’ Christ did not only love Peter and Paul. The same love He felt for them He feels for us. If we cannot deny that we are sinners, we cannot deny that Christ died for our sins.” — Martin Luther

Presumption of the Orphan (Genesis 31:17-55)
Rev. Nathan Barczi