Jacob is revered in both Judaism and Christianity as one of the patriarchs of the nation of Israel. His twelve sons were honored as the founders of Israel’s twelve tribes, and he himself was given the name “Israel,” which means “wrestler with God.”
And yet, for all the reverence Jacob has been given through the ages, he is actually a terrible role model. He cheats his twin brother Esau, his elderly father, and his father-in-law/uncle. He sets up the entire male population of a small city for mass slaughter by his family. He plays blatant favorites among his twelve sons, to the point where ten of them conspire to sell Joseph, the golden boy, into slavery.
And—let’s face it: few of Jacob’s relatives are actually virtuous, either. His father Isaac and his grandfather Abraham each try to pass off their wives as their sisters, to protect themselves from jealous strangers as they travel through hostile nations. His mother, Rebecca, helps him deceive his father and brother, and arranges for him to get safely out of town afterward. Uncle Laban cheats him out of seven years of free labor and later tries to make sure Jacob doesn’t get paid for the years he worked afterward. Leah, the unloved wife, uses magic to get alone-time with him. Both wives conspire to steal as much of Laban’s goods as they can carry, including his household good-luck charms. Jacob’s sons lie to him about what they’ve done to Joseph. And even Joseph finds a way, much later, to deceive his brothers.
Jacob takes the role, in the Bible, of an archetypal character who shows up in most traditional cultures. The Trickster.
Tricksters are narcissists. They are amoral, sly, dishonest, and self-serving. They often use practical jokes to get what they want—if the joke causes pain and humiliation for someone else, that may be a feature. They take credit for other people’s ideas. They break things for the fun of it, to see what happens, like a cat pushing a glass over the edge of the table just to watch it fall. They enjoy up-ending the status quo. They’re lustful and greedy and gluttonous, and famous for tricking other people out of what they’ve worked to acquire. Often, their only function in a story is to destroy, break down, and undo what others have built. They are frequently unwelcome among decent people.
And yet, even Tricksters have a part to play in God’s cosmos. First, they model antisocial behavior, so their stories teach young people the right way to do things. And they can expose the flaws in their society and culture. And their destructive jokes and selfishness may accidently result in new creation: features like rivers and mountains, increased salmon runs, new species of animals, and easier ways to do tasks. In many traditions, including the Bible, Trickster is a culture hero. Among enslaved people in America, the ancestral Tricksters they brought from Africa modeled how to survive their brutal life. Brother Rabbit escaped many attempts on his life by using his quick wits, and so does his descendant, Bugs Bunny.
In much of indigenous America, the resident Trickster was Coyote. Usually he was busy trying to steal from or cheat his neighbors, or seduce pretty women. But he also took time out to carve out the channel of the Columbia River, and to steal the sun for humanity.
Out on our rainy coast, the Trickster was Raven, who also accomplished miracles by accident. He was tired of living in the dark, so he stole the sun, moon, and stars from the nobleman who kept them in a box in his house, and tossed them up into the sky. He was curious, so he pecked and pecked at a giant clamshell he had found on the beach, and inadvertently freed humankind from the shell.
And—back to the Bible now—all of Jacob’s cheating and being cheated ultimately led up to his becoming the founder of a vast nation. Ten of his twelve sons would not even exist without his unloved first wife.
God, who overcomes even death, can work miracles even with a deeply flawed instrument like Jacob.
We are experiencing a time when Trickster energy rules the land. We wake up almost every morning to a new outrage. The marks of destruction are everywhere. No institution, no community has been left untouched by the tornado of vengeful, petty, clumsy reversals of everything we cherish. We are living in an empire where policy is based on the whims of wannabe despots.
And yet, this is Trickster’s unwitting gift to the world. By tipping over everything we’ve depended on, Trickster has exposed the deep flaws in our institutions and the virulent prejudices of a large part of our population. For many of us, the system seemed to work pretty well. There were glitches along the way—signs that the whole thing needed an overhaul—and Black and Brown people have been warning the rest of us all along. But so many of us took for granted that America would continue as it always had, making slow progress toward universal equality and justice. Now we know better.
And now that the whole system has been exposed as deeply dysfunctional, the visionaries are already rising to describe to us what is possible. They’re using social media, conversations, books, and direct action.
Rebecca Solnit is one of those visionaries. She captures the growing sense of rebirth in her newest book: The Beginning Comes After the End. She describes Trickster’s rule as “a backlash against the vision of interconnection,” and she includes “environmentalism, feminism, [LGBTQ] rights, equality, racial justice, and inclusion, even kindness” as “part of the new world struggling to be born.” For the last 75 years, the old world view of hierarchies, separation, scarcity, and either/or categories has been slowly giving way to a new vision of creation as relationship and networks.
Those who are in power now have always benefited from systems built on ideologies of superiority vs. inferiority, of dominance vs. submission, of exploiters and victims, No wonder they are fighting back so hard! The strength and desperation of that struggle is a measure of how far we have come.
And it feels as if the spirit of our time has been changing even in the last six months, from shock and despair to new and creative hope. The Holy Spirit is at work among us. It inspires us to boycott corporations, newspapers, and TV shows that cave to the regime’s demands. It speaks when we confront racism, sexism, homophobia, and hatred of immigrants. It hovers near when we write to our congresspeople and other officials. It moves our hands as we write postcards to voters we’ll never meet. It works through social media to teach white people how to be anti-racist, through Black and Brown voices on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
In this last year, we’ve seen entire communities joining together to protect their neighbors from ICE, and to protest the presence of armed, masked militias in their cities and towns. Other cities are suing the administration in lower courts, and winning. Many cities and states are refusing to sell properties like big-box store buildings or undeveloped land to the government, to prevent them being turned into either concentration camps or energy-gobbling AI facilities.
The prophet Joel told us that once the Israelites returned from their exile in Persia, they would dream dreams and see visions of a new way of rebuilding their society—a way that reflected the God-given law of love that made them a nation.
And John’s astonishing vision in the Book of Revelation includes the promise that God will dwell among us and will be with us. God will wipe every tear from our eyes…for the first things will have passed away. Earth will be God’s domain.
And in the present, where we are still living, in those times when Trickster’s depravity brings you to despair, remember that Jesus told his followers, “The Domain of God is among you.”
And he said that as an oppressed Jew under the iron thumb of the Roman Empire.
And he said further, “the Domain of God is like a mustard seed. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.”
And God is still speaking through our contemporary prophets.
Rebecca Solnit witnesses to the reality of the Domain of God among us, although those aren’t the words she uses. She describes the communities of caring that arise in catastrophes, as well as the ongoing, loving work of justice, which still continues—even in this time of backlash and setbacks.
Robin Wall Kimmerer not only witnesses, she teaches us how to live in the Domain of God. She merges the traditional teachings of her Potawatomi nation with her training as a biologist to show us how to live in right relationship with other humans and with the rest of creation. And in her newest book, Serviceberry, she reminds us that “All flourishing is mutual.” We are all connected. What nourishes you, nourishes me.
And we have visionaries here, right now, in this room. What do you want to see or experience in a reborn America? What does the Domain of God look like for you? As you dream, as you envision, you can imagine that anything is possible, because with God, the God of Love and Justice, all things are possible. Think as extravagantly as you can. For everything you hope for, someone is already working on bringing it to life.
And as you dream, as you envision, remember that every act of resistance, every act of courage, every act of love and compassion that the Holy Spirit moves you to take is a seed of the Domain of God. You have no idea how far and how deeply your actions will take root and anchor themselves in the ground of a world that is crying out for what you have to offer.
AMEN