Freedom Dreams | QUILTS of COMMUNITY
- highlandspcwy
- Jul 21
- 7 min read
Scripture Readings Genesis 28:10–19a
Matthew 13:24–30, 36–43
Last week, we watched Jacob close one of the Bible’s most absurd deals; trading a bowl of lentil stew for his twin brother Esau’s birthright.
In the days that follow, Jacob once again takes what was meant for his brother—this time by deceiving their sick and blind father into giving him the blessing which rightfully belonged to Esau.
We can understand then why Esau is furious with his brother.
We might wonder if, perhaps, Esau is so violently angry because he has lost his unearned privileges. Material privileges that came with being the firstborn, including the larger inheritance and greater social status.
But perhaps he was also hurt by his brother’s deceit.
For now, not only is their relationship in tatters, but the very fabric of their family is unravelling— at the exact moment when they should be coming together—as their patriarch, Isaac, nears the end of his life.
Esau is not only angry for what he has lost—he is grieving what he will soon lose.
Overhearing Esau plotting his revenge, Rebekah sends Jacob away to the house of a relative. She saves him from his brother's grief-fueled rage.
This is where we find Jacob in today’s reading. A man on the run, fleeing for his very life… headed towards an uncertain future.
And so it is here, in this seemingly unremarkable place, that Jacob has a remarkable, life-altering encounter with the God of his ancestors.
Weary from his journey, and unable to push on with the sun setting. Jacob stops for the night. And there he finds a stone to use as his pillow.
Personally, I would have gone with something a bit softer, but Jacob's just a lot more rock and roll.
As Jacob sleeps, God meets him in a dream.
The dream’s most striking image is that of the sulam, as it is called in Hebrew—a structure reaching toward the heavenly realm, with God’s messengers going up and down… up and down.
The word “sulam” has most often been translated as “ladder.” In the early 1900s, this image of steps ascending toward heaven would inspire the name of the Jacob’s Ladder quilt pattern.
And although the quilt takes the more common word “ladder” for its name, I think its pattern captures visually what the NRSV intends when it translates “sulam” as “stairway.”
Rather than a modern ladder, scholars suggest we might picture a Mesopotamian ziggurat, the earthly home of ancient Mesopotamian gods, whose ascending levels symbolized a meeting place between heaven and earth.
But in contrast to the ziggurat, this stairway did not draw Jacob up into heaven. He stays put. It is God who comes down to Jacob, to speak to Jacob for the very first time in our scriptures.
Just let that sink in for a moment.
Here, God is not removed from earth. God is not high in the sky.
Jacob does not need to climb up a mountain to hear God’s speak to him.
He doesn’t even seem to be seeking God’s word.
Rather God comes to him.
And God speaks to Jacob when perhaps he, and we, least expects it.
Breaking into Jacob’s anxious sleep—remember he’s a fugitive using a rock as a pillow—God makes a promise that provides Jacob tremendous comfort and assurance… that wherever Jacob will God, God is with him. God is always looking after him. And blessing him so that he and his children will be a blessing to all the families of the earth.
What a remarkable promise—that God is going to make it so that he, Jacob, the one who has torn the very fabric of his own family, will be a blessing to all the families of the earth.
To all the families of the earth.
There is an old African American spiritual called, “We are climbing Jacob’s Ladder.”
Perhaps you are familiar? There are several variations, but below is a recording of the version I am particularly fond of.
The singers go:
We are climbing Jacob's ladder… Soldiers of the cross.
Every round goes higher, higher… Soldiers of the cross.
We will rise and shine and give God the glory . . . Soldiers of the cross.
Keep on climbing; we will make it … Soldiers of the cross.
Do you want your freedom? … Soldiers of the cross.
As with many spirituals, the origins of “We Are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder” are unknown. Historians believe the song likely emerged in white Christian tradition before being taken up and transformed by enslaved Africans into the spiritual we know today.
The hymn reflects the particular resonance that Black Christians have long felt with the character of Jacob. And this story to the history of the long struggle out of slavery.
The ladder connecting earth to heaven, for enslaved Africans and marginalized communities, did not just represent personal salvation. It did not symbolize a believer's direct line to God.
Rather, it served as a powerful metaphor for the path towards collective uplift, resilience, and the belief that God was actively involved in the elevation of an oppressed people. The ladder symbolized the journey from earthly trials to ultimate divine justice and heavenly rest.
Theologian and Civil Rights leader Howard Thurman (1899–1981), once wrote that the song expressed a profound theology of hope: “There seems to be basic to human experience a kind of incurable optimism about the ultimate destiny of man . . . Sometimes blindly, sometimes with scarce hope of vindication, often with wild irrationality, the spirit of man dares to affirm ultimate hope…”
He continued, saying, “We are all climbing Jacob’s ladder, and every round goes higher and higher. All who recognize that this is a living part of their experience join with those early destiny-bound singers who marched through all the miseries of slavery, confident that they could never be entirely earth-bound” (Thurman, 1975, p. 87).
This sort of confidence astounds me.
For even though the world is currently a literal hot mess… my own earthly experience has been far closer to the luxury and leisure of the white slave owners than the enslaved Africans working their fields.
Very often my faith in God feels like a threadbare rag in comparison to those who could imagine God's liberating love would deliver them from slavery.
And yet, on my best days I too dare to hope, as Thurman wrote, "blindly and without vindication." To believe, that we are "climbing… climbing… climbing Jacob’s ladder." And we join into the songs sung before us. To join in the freedom dreams of our ancestors.
For the living, loving, and liberating God of Abraham, Isaac, and now Jacob is with us.
For we are still today not entirely earth-bound.
Put another way, our existence is not defined by the evil, the oppression, that which threatens life and dignity on earth.
It means that our earthly existence is not defined by the weeds which grow in our midst.
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus tells a story about a rather strange farmer.
The farmer has planted wheat seeds throughout his fields.
But the farmer has an enemy, who plants weeds into his field.
The farmer’s servant goes out to survey the field, expecting a good crop, but instead finds weeds growing among the wheat.
This is a problem! For it's obvious that the weeds will ruin the fields of grain! The wheat cannot compete for space and nutrients! Plus, once it is established that these weeds were introduced as a deliberate, hostile act, should they not be swiftly removed?
All the gardening advice I’ve ever received would suggest as much.
But not this time.
God is, as always a strange gardener.
The field owner encourages patience.
Just wait and see, he says.
Let's see what happens when the wheat and the weeds grow together.
At the harvest, the weeds will be removed and burned.
As one commentator observed, now "what was assumed to be a threat will become a source of fuel!"
And the wheat can then be safely harvested.
It seems like a win-win.
Now, I recognize that Jesus’ own explanation of this parable can sound a little fire-and-brimstone. It can sound as though Jesus is condemning certain people to the fiery flames of hell.
But I think it is important to remember that parables are meant to provoke the listener. They were not stories meant to satisfy our self-righteousness or our shame… to feed our impulse to sort the world neatly into good people and bad people… to reassure ourselves that we are the wheat and someone else is the weed.
Because, like so many of Jesus’ parables, this one paints a realistic picture of the world we actually inhabit. Good and bad, constructive and destructive, healing and harm are often tangled together. Paul knew this, too, when he confessed that even when he wanted to do what was good, he sometimes found himself doing the very opposite.
Helpful and harmful are mixed up all around us—and within us. Within our communities. Within our institutions. Within our churches. Within ourselves.
Sometimes, even our desire to help can cause harm.
We see this in the history of Christian missions and white saviorism, where we see again and again people entering communities convinced that they know what others need, and failing to listen to the wisdom and agency of the people they intend to serve.
And we see something similar whenever fear convinces us that certain people are the problem—that if we could just identify the “weeds” and pull them out, everything would be better.
We are witnessing the deadly consequences of that logic taken to its ends in our immigration system. Human beings—our neighbors—are being treated as threats to be identified, separated, detained, and removed. This past week, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Johan Duran Guerrero were killed in Texas and Maine, respectively, in incidents that started as traffic stops. In addition, 2026 is already a record for deaths of people being held in ICE detention.
Perhaps this is why Jesus warns us to be careful about deciding too quickly who belongs in the field and who does not. That is work best left to God.
Because if Jacob’s story teaches us anything, it is that God does not give up on us—even when we get it wrong. Even when we cause harm. Even when the fabric of our lives is torn and tangled by our own individual and collective mistakes.
God meets Jacob on the run, and proclaims: I am with you. I will keep you wherever you go.
So perhaps it is here where our hope is found today.
Found not in the belief that everything will turn out exactly as we want, or that we will always know the difference between the wheat and the weeds, but found in the promise that, through it all, God is still here.
Still tending the fields of our souls, which thought thick with golden wheat, still have a weed problem.
Still bringing heaven and earth together, showing up in thin places when it is least expected.
Still walking alongside imperfect people, like Jacob, and like us, bringing about blessings to all the earth.
And so, even when hope seems irrational, we keep climbing… climbing… climbing.
Trusting that the living, loving, and liberating God of Jacob is with us still.
Singing… singing… singing… songs of freedom.
Sermon preached by Rev. Delaney Piper on 7.19.26.
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