Sermon Summary: Dealing with Trauma in the Midst of Blessing

Key Bible Reference: Genesis 34

Sermon Overview

Jonny delves into the complex narrative of Genesis 34, a chapter marked by significant trauma and challenging moral dilemmas. He highlights the stark contrast between the blessings promised to Jacob and the devastating events that unfold involving his daughter, Dinah. The sermon explores themes of trauma, violence, and the human tendency to seek self-preservation and revenge.

Key Points

1. The Impact of Trauma: The sermon underscores the profound impact of trauma, not only on the individual but also on families and communities. Dinah’s experience of sexual assault is a stark reminder of the destructive power of violence.
2. Conflicting Worldviews: The chapter reveals a clash between two distinct worldviews. Shechem and his father, Hamor, represent a culture that prioritizes self-interest, power, and control. In contrast, Jacob’s family, though flawed, embodies a divine promise of blessing and redemption.
3. The Role of God’s People: Jonny challenges listeners to consider how God’s people should respond to trauma and injustice. Should they remain passive or take matters into their own hands? The actions of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, raise questions about the limits of human justice and the importance of divine intervention.
4. The Power of Prayer: The sermon emphasizes the power of prayer as a means of wrestling with God and seeking divine guidance. It encourages listeners to turn to God in times of suffering and trust in His ultimate plan.
5. The Example of Jesus: Jonny points to Jesus as the ultimate example of responding to trauma with love, forgiveness, and grace. He encourages listeners to follow Jesus’ example and seek to bless others, even in the face of adversity.

Conclusion

The sermon concludes with a call to action, urging listeners to engage with God in prayer and to seek His guidance in navigating life’s challenges. By embracing a Christ-centered worldview, individuals can overcome trauma and experience the transformative power of God’s love.

Transcription

Good morning everybody! Can you hear me okay? Great. We’re reading Genesis chapter 34 today.
It’s not going to be easy introduction or a light-hearted anecdote to start this one.
There’s nervous laughter going around and not least for myself because depending on
what translation you have of this Bible, there’s some really, really tough language
used in the introduction to this chapter and there’s some really, really difficult themes.
And the title that I gave it and when I was writing this talk was Dealing with Trauma
in the Midst of Blessing. Last week, Karen was speaking about this journey that Jacob
was on and his family in seeking the blessing of God in their lives, in seeing that blessing
coming in to reality in the midst of where they were, that Jacob had left his home with
nothing, that he’d spent a night sleeping with a rock for a pillow with nothing but
the clothes on his back, and that he’s on this return journey now to the place that
he had left in his younger life with flocks and herds with a family and children. So much
blessing that God has poured out upon him. And in the midst of that, we get this story.
There’s one chapter here and in the midst of it, it seems very jarring in the narrative
of the story. And it’s a story of what happens to his daughter and what happens as a result
of these circumstances. So I’m going to read this and hopefully share what God has put
on my heart about it. There’s some really, really difficult issues involved in this and
I think we can all agree that life is full of difficult circumstances and that some people
will find reading passages like this really, really hard and really difficult. Some of
us will read about the trauma that this family experiences and think about the trauma that
we’ve been through in our life, difficulties, hardship, pain, loss. These are all realities
of life that we all have to deal with and how we deal with them is the Christian experience.
This is what it means to follow Jesus. It means to stand in the midst of real life looking
at real events happening around us and figuring out how is this part of God’s plan? How is
God bringing blessing right now? And where is God bringing blessing right now? So we’re
going to read this together. I’m going to stop a few times as I read through it, but
we’re reading through Genesis chapter 34. And in fact, I’m going to actually go back
to Genesis 33 because there’s a couple of verses that gives a little bit of context.
After Jacob had met up with Esau, the last few verses say this, for a hundred pieces
of silver Jacob bought from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, the land of ground
where he pitched his tent. And there he set up an altar and called it Elohe Israel. So
this is the first time that he’s actually purchased land in the place where God has
sent him. And right now, this is the end of his journey as a traveler. He’s actually bought
the piece of land that he’s pitched his tent on at this point in the story. And then this
next chapter is about a relationship between him and the surrounding nations and how they’re
going to deal with each other, how these people are going to form a community. Remember that
those blessings that were given to Abraham and then to Isaac and now that Jacob has taken
on, God promised him all nations of the world would be blessed through you and through your
offspring. And then this story comes along. Okay. Now beginning of chapter 34. Now Dinah
the daughter Leah had born to Jacob went out to visit the women of that land. And when Shechem,
son of Hamor, the Hivite, the ruler of that area, saw her, he took her and raped her. His
heart was drawn to Dinah’s daughter of Jacob. He loved the young woman and spoke tenderly to her.
And Shechem said to his father, Hamor, get me this girl as my wife. When Jacob heard that his
daughter Dinah had been defiled, his sons were in the fields with their livestock. So he did
nothing about it until they came home. It’s a really tricky start to a chapter to look at that
and to say, what do we do with this? When we read this, how do we understand a God who wants to
bless his people, who wants to bless the offspring of Jacob? And then we read this story. And it
follows on from what we just read at the end. He’s bought this land. He’s pitched his tent. He’s
wanting to settle and bring blessing to the nations around him. And it starts by saying the
very first verse mentions that Dinah goes out to visit the women of this land. And this is when
this horrible thing happens. It can’t be understated, can it, just how awful this kind of
event is. Rape is a real tragedy in so many ways. And it can’t be understated enough that what was
done to Dinah is awful. And she actually takes a really back seat in the rest of this chapter. We
don’t hear much from her point of view, but it cannot be understated what a tragedy it is when
women are abused, when women are taken advantage of, when women are used by men. And it’s so
terrible to see in the midst of this chapter a really backwards approach to how things should be.
And this comes out a bit later in the chapter. But you see right here in verses two, three,
and four, this is how Shechem, this man, responds in this situation. Yet again, we see a pattern
that we’ve seen since the very beginning of the stories of Genesis. Chapter three of Genesis in
the fall, it says that Eve and Adam see something that they desire and they take it for themselves.
And then right here it says in verse two, Shechem, son of Hamor, he saw her and he took her and he
raped her. So this is exactly what happens when human beings live for themselves. This is the
human condition in itself that when we see what we desire and we take it for ourself, we bring
destruction and we bring pain and suffering, that we break God’s good world. And the trauma and the
devastation and the impact it has on those that we mistreat is huge. It’s undefinable, isn’t it?
That it’s just one verse that you read here, but any of us who know people who’ve been through
those kind of issues, people who’ve been through this themselves know one event and one terrible
tragedy can affect your entire life. It doesn’t go away. It’s deep wounds that can impact
generations, not just one person, not just a family, but whole communities can be affected by
these terrible tragedies. And it’s really hard for us to have a look at that. It’s really hard for me
as a man to read this and say, I know so much of what is going on here. I can’t relate to that
kind of trauma. I’ve got no experiences of that myself. I’ve been so privileged in my life. And
yet, what we’re called to do is to see and to understand the trauma that that has, not just on
that young lady’s life, but on their whole family, that this impacts them deeply. As we read on, we
see the impact that it has. And yet, the first thing that we’re told that her father does, in
verse 5, when Jacob heard that his daughter Dinah had been defiled and his sons were with their
livestock, he did nothing about it. Reading on in verse 6, then Shechem’s father Hamel went out to
talk with Jacob. And meanwhile, Jacob’s sons had come in from the field. As soon as they heard what
had happened, they were shocked and furious because Shechem had done an outrageous thing in
Israel by sleeping with Jacob’s daughter, a thing that should not be done. Isn’t it terrible they
have to put that verse in to make that point? This is not the way that things should work.
And yet, as we see the story goes on, this is a story about vastly differing world views trying
to mesh together. The approach that Shechem takes is first, he takes this woman and he rapes her,
and then he falls in love with her, and then he seeks to marry her. And that this narrative,
as you see, he and his father enter into a conversation with Jacob and with Jacob’s sons,
they say, this is the way things work around here. And maybe we can seek each other’s benefit here.
Maybe we can be a blessing to one another. And this becomes the narrative of this story.
And yet, isn’t it terrible that this is what they have to point out? This is not the way that
things should be. And yet, this is a reality of our world. And wouldn’t it be great for us to
think things aren’t like this anymore? But I think we all know the broken world of views
that see things in the opposite way to the way God sees them, where love is a low priority,
where peace and thinking of others and seeking the benefit of others first and above ourselves
is not the way the world sees things. Isn’t that a tragedy that we have to point that out
and remind ourselves of that? But what are we going to do about it?
In this story, they respond in a really peculiar way, you might say. So here’s what happens in the
rest of the story. Verse eight says, sorry, yes, his sons had come. I’m reading from verse seven.
Meanwhile, Jacob’s sons are coming from the fields as soon as they had heard what had happened. They
were shocked and furious because Shechem had done an outrageous thing in Israel by sleeping with
Jacob’s daughter, a thing that should not be done. But Hamor said to them, my son Shechem has his
heart set on your daughter. Please give her to him as his wife. Intermarry with us. Give us your
daughters and take our daughters for yourselves. You can settle among us. The land is open to you.
Live in it, trade in it and acquire property in it. Then Shechem said to Dinah’s father and
brothers, let me find favor in your eyes. I’ll give you whatever you ask. Make the price for
the bride and the gift I am to bring as great as you like and I’ll pay whatever you ask me.
Only give me the young woman as my wife. They’re making an offer to Jacob and to his sons
that this can be prosperous and beneficial for us. Isn’t it terrible that circumstances that seem
so traumatic at the beginning, the people who perpetrated it are the ones who are saying,
maybe this can work out for everyone’s benefit. And here’s how the sons of Jacob respond. Verse
13, because the sister Dinah had been defiled, Jacob’s sons replied deceitfully as they spoke
to Shechem and his father Hamor. They said to them, we can’t do such a thing. We can’t give
our sister to a man who is not circumcised. That will be a disgrace to us. We will enter into an
agreement with you on one condition only, that you will become like us by circumcising all your
males. Then we will give you our daughters and take your daughters for ourselves. We’ll settle
among you and become one people with you. But if you will not agree to be circumcised, we’ll take
our sister and go. So they respond deceitfully offering that same offering to accept the offer
that they made. And it’s interesting. They say right there that the sons of Jacob, as they’re
lying to these people to their face, say we could become one people. That this is the thing that
they’re seeking, that the people of Shechem and Hamor and his sons, what they’re wanting is
prosperity for themselves and for their own family. And they see when a huge group of people
like Jacob and his sons arrive on their doorstep, they say if we bring them into our culture,
if we incorporate them into our lifestyle, if we become one people with them, we’re bigger and
we’re stronger and we’re better for it. Surely that is good. And they make that happen through
raping and abusing a girl. And that this is the offer that they make. And this is their desire.
They want these two groups of people to become one group of people. But what they really want
is Jacob and his sons to adopt their worldview, to see things from their point of view.
And they say that’s blessing. We’ll be bigger. We’ll be stronger. We’ll be richer.
We’ll be better off for it. That’s the worldview that they sell.
And that kind of deceit can be really pervasive in our culture, can’t it? Saying that if we
compromise, if we give in, if we do nothing like what Jacob did in the beginning of that verse,
if we do nothing and we just go along with what the world says, is that going to be better for us?
Is that how we’re going to become rich and prosperous? Is that how we’re going to become
influential and make a difference in this world? Isn’t that what we want to do? Surely if we listen
to what the world says and we go by the world’s agenda, then that’s something we can achieve.
So while Jacob did nothing, Jacob’s sons meanwhile are very busy.
We’re carrying on from verse 18. Their proposal seemed good to Hamor and his son Shechem.
The young man who was the most honored of all his father’s family lost no time in doing what
they said because he was delighted with Jacob’s daughter. So Hamor and his son Shechem went to the
gate of their city to speak to the men of their city. So now this one family who’s a leader in
their community has agreed to do this thing, to go along with this lie that the sons of Jacob
have promised, and as a result now they have to convince all the other men in their community
that this is what’s best for them and this is how they pitch it. This is how they sell their idea.
Verse 21, this is what they say. They say, these men are friendly towards us, they said.
Let them live in our land and trade in it. The land has plenty of room for them. We can marry
their daughters and they can marry ours, but the men will agree to live with us as one people only
on the condition that our males be circumcised as they themselves are. Weren’t their livestock,
their property, and all their animals become ours? So let us agree to their terms and they
will settle among us. They believe if they do this bold, crazy gesture, all the males in their
midst becoming circumcised, they’re like, this is a clear indication that we’re committed to them
becoming part of us and this is going to be for our benefit. This is how he sells it to those
other men of their community, the other families. This is going to be beneficial for us. So verse
24, all the men who went out of the city gate agreed with Hamor and his son Shechem and every
male in the city was circumcised. Three days later, while all of them were still in pain,
two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, took their swords and attacked the
unsuspecting city, killing every male. They put Hamor and his son Shechem to the sword and took
Dinah from Shechem’s house and left. The sons of Jacob came upon the dead bodies and looted the
city where their sister had been defiled. They seized their flocks and herds and donkeys and
everything else of theirs in the city out in the fields. They carried off all their wealth
and all their women and children, taking as plunder everything in the houses.
It’s hard to see how the purposes of God work out in the midst of this. When I said,
how do we see blessing coming in the midst of trauma? When in response to that trauma,
Jacob appears to do nothing. Jacob’s brothers lie and then attack and murder people and then steal
from them. And that very thing that those nations, the men of Shechem and Hamor,
what they wanted was to become richer and more prosperous through this. And as a result of this
crazy action of Simeon and Levi, when they attack and murder people, they become richer.
They take all their goods. Actually, the nation of Jacob’s household becomes blessed, physically
blessed through this process. They become richer. They become, yeah, they get all the benefit of all
this material goods through this. And then you get this conclusion versus 30 and 31.
The two viewpoints within this family are saying that this passage is a lot about view,
worldviews. There’s a worldview difference between God’s people, Jacob’s family, and the men of
Shechem and their worldview. But there’s a difference in worldview within the family too.
Jacob, it says, doesn’t do anything at the beginning. When his daughter is abused
and taken advantage of, he doesn’t do anything at this point. And so his sons feel like they have
to do something. And what they do is they lie, they deceive, they take advantage of people,
they kill, they steal. And then verses 30 and 31, Jacob speaks to his sons. And this is what
he says. Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, you have brought trouble on me by making me
obnoxious to the Canaanites and Perizzites, the people living in this land. We are few in number.
And if they join forces against me and attack me, I and my household will be destroyed.
But they replied, should he have treated our sister like a prostitute?
That’s the end of the chapter. We hear no more about this story. The story moves on to other
things. And isn’t it, as we said at the beginning, trauma of this level and this magnitude has huge
consequences. This story may end here and it doesn’t go away. In real life, we know that they
would have been dealing with this for the rest of their life. And the consequences of this come up
right at the end of Genesis. We’ll see it come back. Jacob is going to bring this up to Simeon
and Levi again, like 15 chapters later or something that the consequences are huge and have moved on.
And yet there is a real struggle within the family of Jacob, within the family of God’s chosen people.
How is God bringing blessing in the midst of trauma? And what are we supposed to do about it?
Are we supposed to do nothing? Or are we supposed to take matters into our own hands?
Surely we’ve got to take matters into our own hands. That’s exactly why Simeon and Levi did
what they did. They said what was true. They said what has been done to our sister is wrong
and it can’t be ignored. And yet what they chose to do, Jacob is also right. He said,
you have brought trouble on me. We see in the beginning of verse 35, just skipping ahead and
stealing from whoever’s speaking next week a little bit, that the consequences do carry on.
They talk about the fact that the fear of God falls upon the surrounding nations so that no one
and so that, I’m sorry, I missed it now, so that no one tries to pursue them.
And if you miss chapter 34, you’d say, why would the surrounding nations be wanting to pursue them?
For this reason, they just murdered and wiped out an entire clan.
And this is the land that they’re wanting to live in harmony with the surrounding people of.
There are consequences to this and they carry on. And so Jacob is right when he says that they
have brought through their actions, through their lies and deceit, through their murderous ways,
they have brought trouble onto this family. They have made things worse.
And yet their response is also right. They say, should we have let him treat our sister
like a prostitute? Of course not. So what do we do? What’s Jacob to do? What’s his family to do?
I don’t have any answers. And the story doesn’t give us any answers, does it?
The story stops and moves on. But what we do have
is the reality of a God who partners with people, who journeys with people,
and who is always seeking to bring blessing in the midst of trauma.
And we can’t see it. We can’t see how in those circumstances, can we?
And some of the things I want to encourage us to do is to remember who Jacob is and what his name
means. Just two chapters before, Jacob had had this really weird encounter with God when he
had been renamed Israel, meaning wrestles with God. It comes in the story of literal wrestling.
He literally wrestles a man and yet there’s always deep meaning to names in the Bible.
And then when God says, you’re someone who’s wrestled with God,
what he means is in these kind of circumstances, when trauma comes and you say, how is this God
bringing blessing on me? Do you give up and do nothing? Or do you give in and fight?
See, this is the real challenge as well, isn’t it? The sons of Jacob see their sister abused
and they say, we have to do something and so we’re going to fight and we’re going to take for
ourselves. And then what they end up doing is exactly what the man who abused their sister did.
They take something that they want for themselves. They say, we’re going to do what’s right by us.
We’re going to protect our own. And who cares what happens to other people?
That they’re doing exactly the same thing.
That they’re right that we can’t do nothing. But it’s also true that if the way that we deal with
difficult circumstances is just do what the rest of the world does, we’re going to bring
more trauma into the world. We’re going to bring more grief and more sadness, more brokenness.
And the God of the Bible is about bringing blessing. His promise is to bring healing
and restoration. And I said that there are similarities between this
and this pattern all the way through Genesis that you see in the garden,
that when Adam and Eve see what they want and take it for themselves, they break a relationship with
God. And God tells another story. There’s another pattern. And the pattern is a God who relentlessly
follows his people and wants to bless them. He wants to fix what we have broken. And he’s the
only one who can fix what we have broken. And he’s the one who will fix what we have broken.
And this story is about worldviews within God’s own people that say,
we don’t know what to do. So what do we do? And that’s why I want to remind us about what
Jacob’s name means. We’ve got to wrestle with it. We’ve got to wrestle with difficult circumstances,
but we don’t see how God is working out in them. That in the midst of loss, in the midst of hurt,
in the midst of betrayal, God is working out his purposes. And in the midst of that,
when those traumas strike and that pain hits, we can’t see it. So often we feel lost and alone.
We feel abandoned by God. So do we do nothing or do we give in?
What Jacob is commended for, and the reason his name is changed is because he’s someone who
wrestles with God. He wrestles with it. He says, I don’t understand, but I’m going to seek your
faith. I don’t see how this can work out for good, but I trust you are working things out for good.
That’s what it means to wrestle with God. And that’s what I pray we
as a church can continue to do in the midst of difficult circumstances so often.
The other thing I really want us to do is to point us to the cross at this point.
And Andy was saying, how are you going to conclude this chapter? When we read this together,
what is the, how are we going to deal with this as a church? How are we going to respond to this?
And the way I want to respond is by looking at the person of Jesus and just pointing out,
there’s an amazing Bible project video, which I highly recommend. And I think every time I’m up
here, I end up talking about at least one. Jesus is a person who demonstrates what it means to be
a person who sees that the world says either we give in or we fight back. And the world says,
those are the only two things you can do. And Jesus says, there is a third way that we can live.
To wrestle with God in the midst of difficulty means to follow Jesus’ example.
The name of the video, just in case you want to watch it, I highly recommend it. It’s called
the way of the exile. And it’s talking about in the midst of this, the exact circumstance
that Jacob and his family find themselves in, they’re in a foreign land. They’re trying to
settle and set their own home up, but they’re surrounded by worldviews that massively differ
with them, clash with them. People attack them. People abuse them. This is what happens to his
daughter in the midst of this place where God says, I’m going to bring you here and
build blessing. And yet this has happened. And so Jesus talks to people who are living
under Roman rule. He speaks to God’s people and says, in this circumstance, you may think there’s
only two things you can do. You can either give in or you can fight back. But there is a third way.
What we can do is we can respond in a way that disarms and breaks the way that the world says
things should work. We can respond with love when all that’s thrown at us is hate.
When we are abused and when we’re taken advantage of, when we deal with difficulty and strife,
loss and sorrow, we can respond with blessing. We can give in a way that only we as followers
of Jesus can. Because Jesus demonstrated that. On the cross, he prayed for the people who were
killing him. He said, God forgive these people. Isn’t that powerful? Forgiveness in the midst
of abuse, in the midst of death, in the face of death, Jesus forgave.
And that’s the example we’re called to follow. And it’s really hard. That’s why we’ve got to
wrestle with it. It is not easy. It’s not easy to do. And we’ve got to pray for each other.
We’ve got to pray with each other. Prayer is the best way that we can respond to this.
That is how we wrestle with God. We have to pray. We have to be people who say,
I’m not going to give up, but I’m not going to do what the world says either.
I’m going to pray and seek God’s face and say, how can you bring blessing through me today?
How can you use us to bless other people? It’s challenging. It’s painful.
If you feel like you need prayer, we want to pray with you. I’ll be up here praying for anyone who
wants to pray. I feel like prayer is the only way that we can respond, right? But I want to
remind you and encourage you that when we see the face of Jesus, we see a different way to live,
a way that says in the midst of trauma, blessing can come, that the God of the Bible never changes.
And who he is is a God who wants to bless. He wants to restore. He wants to fix what is broken,
and he’s doing it in us and through us by the power of Jesus. And that’s what we’re going to
bring about. If we seek God’s face and we pray and we continue to be people who say,
no matter what, I am determined to seek the good of others the way that Jesus
speaks the good of me. I’m willing to forgive others the way that Jesus has forgiven me.
That can change the world. That can change worldviews. That can break strongholds.
And I pray that we can do that together. Amen.
you