Genesis 31:17-32:12
When I was a kid, I remember the ladies of the church ending their gatherings by reciting the Mizpah Blessing. When I got older and actually read the passage in Genesis whence it comes, I was astonished. Either the ladies had been given some really bad advice about what this blessing or covenant was, or they secretly hated each other. I am tempted to think it was a combination of the two.
Mizpah is a place named by a promise Jacob and Laban made to each other when they parted ways after twenty years. Their relationship had deteriorated of late and the final parting was not one of sorrow or loss but a wary cessastion of ties and a sneaking suspicion about the motives of the other, especially of revenge. In a sermon written almost eleven years ago, Jon M. Walton says:
That Mizpah blessing is probably the first blessing I ever learned in Sunday School, years ago. Isn’t it one that almost all of us know by heart? “May the Lord watch between you and me when we are absent one from the other.” I am told that the Eunice Circle here at Westminster uses this blessing as a parting benediction whenever they meet.
But when you know the story this way, you realize that it is not all sweetness and light. It is blessing borne of mistrust, bound by the need to make peace between two of God’s children who have fundamental disagreements and good reason to want to keep an eye on each another. It settles only that the two of them will not hurt or scheme against one another any longer and that all the rest shall be entrusted to God’s watchful eye and care.
It is not well resolved, this tension between them. And their predicament reminds us that sometimes on earth there is no way to settle a disagreement so fundamental between two people other than to call a truce, and accept that the cost of continuing the battle is a price neither party is willing to pay.
Both Laban and Jacob use words in their own languages to name the pile of stones they set up as a physical reminder of the covenant between them. Laban calls it “Jegar Sahadutha” and Jacob calls it “Galeed”. The first means “pile of testimony” and the other means “heap of witness”.
I find those names intriguing and wonder what life would be like if we were to erect monuments to the tremulous relationships we have in our lives. What would our “heap of witness” or “pile of testimony” look like? Would they be artwork, a legal document, or even a group of people we engage to bear witness and testimony? How would we act when we see them and are reminded about the promise we made by erecting them with the intention of putting the unresolved issues in God’s lap? How would our world look if we truly left our hurts and grudges in God’s care?
