The Defiling

Thank you, Julian. Good to see you all. It's a joy to be able to be here. As you know, before I jump into the word, we are in the middle of Adoption Month.

We're trying to raise awareness of what it means for the church to care for the widows and the orphans. And today I have a great, great pleasure to be able to invite a friend up to come to have a conversation with me.

It's just a special time for us. Actually, just to plug again, Julian, today is Sunday the 15th of November. And that means the showing is today after service. So feel free to hear.

So grab your lunch and then come back up 1.30 and we'll start watching the movie together. And I don't know if you guys noticed, but we had our dear, dear beloved family, the Rauders, here with their beautiful addition as well.

And so just please go and say hi to them. We're just trying to continue just to pray and seek God and go, what is it that he wants us to do to care for the families and care for the children in this city?

On that note, I'm going to invite a friend up, a dear friend, Sky, who's going to come up with her son, Evan, who is going to come and join us. And I'm going to interview Evan, is what I'm going to do.

Oh, he wants pancakes. So you've got to come to the surfing thing on the Saturday morning. For the record, I did not put my hand up to learn how to surf, but I will be there.

And it's not going to be good. It's going to be pretty ugly. Can we get another mic for Sky? Is that okay? Just that green one there. There's so many ways that I can introduce you.

The person who formerly led Kelly's support group or the one who's leading Mother's Choice right now. But really, just friend is probably the most important one.

In fact, we actually have a WhatsApp group just called Friends, just so we can remind ourselves that we are friends. It is true. We kind of have to do that once in a while. Once in a while. But welcome. I'm so glad that you're here.

Thank you so much. And thanks for having Evan as well. Hey, Evan. Do you want to say hi? Hi. There we go. I know you've been a dear, dear friend to Christina, my wife as well.

So tell us while you're here. Tell us a little bit about you. Well, first of all, I'm a proud mama of two very, very active boys, Evan and also Elliot, who's somewhere hiding.

And proud wife of my husband, Derek, who's also here. He's going to be very embarrassed that I just called him out. And also someone who is extremely lucky to call Hong Kong home.

I would say that I always describe myself that I look Chinese. I sound Western, but I actually have the heart of an African. Because when I was really young, my parents and I left Hong Kong and went to Ghana and West Africa as missionaries.

And that's where I grew up. So I always have a little bit of an identity crisis. I've had to work through that through my teens and my 20s. But someone who really has seen a lot of grace in her life and just really watching my parents' ministry in Africa.

But also seeing my own journey with God as I've come back to Hong Kong. And now having the privilege of finally being 100% true to my heart by saying that I think that I'm very lucky that Hong Kong is my home.

Just to hear that that's, I mean, you do a whole ton of things and we're going to go into that. But just to hear that the heart that drives all of that is just this place of grace and just gratitude. Everything that you've had up until this point, right?

So tell us a little bit about what you do right now. So today I am part of a very large team of people in Hong Kong who really fight for the protection of children.

Really wanting to see not just orphans in our city, but children who unfortunately temporarily may not be able to be with their family.

And our living in welfare and really doing our very best, whether it's through fostering, whether it's through adoption, whether it's through raising awareness, whether it's through even taking care of girls at the very beginning of a crisis pregnancy.

And really being able to really stand in the gap for them and help them to make the best decisions for themselves. And for the children who sometimes don't have a voice to be able to help them to find the thing that they need the most, which is a loving permanent family.

Have you always had that burden? Or has that been something that has been recently brewing? Funnily, you'd say that. But when I first met or encountered Mother's Choice, I actually have been working in the NGO sector for about 20 plus years.

In fact, when I first moved back to Hong Kong, I said I wanted to be in the NGO sector and everybody said, oh, I think you should go into the corporate world, make some money, do some savings, get some contacts.

But I felt very strongly that the minute I stepped foot here in the city, that God was calling me for working for his good for the community. So I never did that.

And I just went straight into the NGO world. So the whole time that I've been working in NGO world, actually, I've never really connected with Mother's Choice because I lived as a young person surfing. Yes, I have also tried that.

Hanging out in lots of different places, mostly working with young people, actually. And it wasn't actually until I became a mom that the concept of children and, you know, that draw of maybe it's a, you know, a maternal instinct that really kicks in.

But my heart has always been with the next generation. And I think whether you are a child or you're a teenager or you're a young adult, that is next generation definition for me.

And I think that that's actually been what's been brewing in my heart, where God's been shifting, whether it's been my career, whether it's been ministry, has always been working with the next generation.

And really seeing our next generation thrive. And, you know, we got to know you, I mean, six, seven years ago now. And a lot has happened in this city. A lot has been exposed, especially with the fractures that happen in society between generations.

We seem to fall prey to outsource our discipling of the next generation to external sources. And you see all these problems coming. And we're just so busy with everything else that we're doing.

With what you're doing right now, and we don't need the whole profile of what MC does, but what is it that you hope that we here as the church would know about when it comes to going out and reaching the next generation and creating safe families for kids?

I really think that God speaks to all of us in our very, very personal circumstance. And when we have our ears open and our spiritual eyes open to see when he does plant that into your life, I think that that's when the magic happens.

For me, I told you a little bit, and I do want to share this if that's okay. I don't know if we have time. So the night that Evan was born, I was at Queen Mary Hospital.

And if you've ever had a baby in a public hospital, it's a little bit chaotic. There's zero privacy. And you're right next to somebody else who's going into labor.

And we're also right next to the person who's just given birth as well. And right across the bed from me was a young lady. I think she must have been in her teens. She was South Asian of descent.

And she went into a four-hour conversation with a social worker after we gave birth, shortly after we gave birth. So you can imagine all the hormones and everything that was going on.

And in that moment, I felt like, oh, how can I help? Can I be a translator? Can I give her some tissues? Can I intervene in some way to just really assist the very painful conversation?

But essentially, in a nutshell, she had had drugs in her system during her pregnancy. So the social worker was essentially telling her that her baby needed to be removed from her immediately while there was a review of her suitability to be a parent and whether or not she could take her baby home.

And so she was being informed that the baby was going to be placed in a center, a residential care place nearby, and that she would have to just wait.

So for me, I ended up just actually sitting there and praying. This is while you were in labor yourself? Right after labor. Oh, okay. It's kind of a blur, James.

But at that moment, actually, all I did was pray. And there were two prayers that I had. The first one was I really prayed that wherever that baby went, that that baby would be really taken care of.

And the second prayer that I had was, you know, God, I said, God, you know, I'm not really great with babies. I just had one. Now I'm having a second one. But, you know, if God ever you placed me in an opportunity where I would take care of girls like this one and help reassure her that her child be okay or help her in her journey or take care of, you know, children like her baby, I said I would do it, God.

And honestly, a month later, I was having a conversation with Mother's Choice to being their next CEO. And I think that, you know, God has a really strange way of doing things in your personal life.

It's whether or not you hear it, whether or not you see it. And so for me, I think what I would like to say to the church is that, you know, I think we're surrounded with so many things that are busy.

We have lots of things on our social agendas or work agendas. But what we don't realize is that the fundamentals of our society is actually family. And the most vulnerable of our families is actually our children.

And when our families are not strong, our children are not going to be strong. And our next generation is not going to thrive. So what can we as a church do to step into that gap and be there for the most vulnerable?

And, you know, we talk a lot about adoption. We talk about foster care. And I think there's a lot that we don't really understand either. I think the best thing is just to learn a little bit more about it, you know.

Yeah. Thank you for sharing. I'm going to ask you one more question because I think Evan is very keen to hear me preach. I think there's people in this room who, even as you're hearing us talk, you're kind of like, oh, gosh, again, this topic again.

Why do you keep bringing this up again? But the truth is not everyone's going to be asked to be the CEO of Mother's Choice. Not everyone's going to have the ability to be able to adopt or foster.

So the next step, I need to hear a practical step that someone here is kind of like, okay, all right, this is my side. God, this is from you. What do I do? Or do I just give them your number? Is that the way?

Well, first of all, I have a lot of materials here. So just in case. And, you know, thanks, James, for having the screenie here and Christina as well. I think that that's actually a very practical step is actually get to know and to understand what is it that our children need?

How can we help? What does it actually mean to adopt and to foster? There was we have this FAQ that we have that we have developed because so many people ask lots of questions.

And one of the questions that come in a lot, which I'd like to share with you, is the question is, if I can't adopt, if I can't foster, can I even be involved? And the question is 100% yes.

You know, because adoption is closer than you might think. There might be a family in the room, a family member that is around you. And, you know, having kids is very difficult. Like, I have one right now hanging off of my arm.

You know, really, you know, we say this a lot. And I know you've heard this all the time. It's not really a cliche. It really does take a village to raise a child, you know. And even being a part of somebody's life where they've made that choice and made that option, even if it means spending time with their kids, giving them a break.

And some of you in the room have done that for me and Derek, so thank you so much. Or even if it is just being there to pray. You know, we cannot underestimate the power of prayer, you know, for our next generation, particularly those who live hidden that none of us can see in our daily lives.

And I think that that's something we can definitely do. Okay. Actually, I've got a mentor of mine here, Steve Gordney. And you remind me of a quote that he shared with me last week, which is, everyone wants to have a village, but not everyone wants to be a villager.

Is that right? Right. So we all want the village to look after us and look after people so we can be known. But actually, a lot of us refuse to be villagers and to roll up our sleeves and actually get going.

So just really grateful for you. I'm going to say a very short prayer of very few words, but I pray that you'll hear the depth of the, just the hunger to actually get involved together about this.

So, can we stretch out our hands and pray for Sky? Thank you, God. You came to adopt us. You came to care for us when we were helpless and vulnerable.

And so we ask that you would help us do the same to those around us. Empower Sky. Just with your, continued with your compassion, your joy to be able to serve you.

Keep our eyes focused on you. Thank you for the blessing of Derek and the boys. Pray that they'll continue just to grow in stature, in wisdom, in favor. And to grow in you.

Thank you, Lord. In your name we pray. Amen. Amen. What do you think? Do you think you can still do the scripture reading? Yeah. Yeah. Why not? All right. So we're going to jump into the sermon now. Is that okay, Evan? Yeah. Mommy's going to read something from the Bible.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. Okay. There we go. He approves. It's not super short, but it's not super long. We're going to do Genesis chapter 34. As is our tradition, can I invite you to stand for the word of God?

God, we come to you now and we listen to your word. Fill us with reverence and awe. We hang on every single word that you say. Would you minister to us now? Thank you. Thank you. This is the word from Genesis 34.

Now, Dina, the daughter of Leah, whom she had born to Jacob, went out to see the women of the land. And when Shechem, the son of Hamor the Hivitite, the prince of the land, saw her, he seized her and lay with her and humiliated her.

And his soul was drawn to Dina, the daughter of Jacob. He loved the young woman and spoke tenderly to her. So Shechem spoke to his father, Hamor, saying, get me this girl for my wife.

Now, Jacob heard that he had defiled his daughter, Dina, but his sons were with his livestock in the field. So Jacob held his peace until they came. And Hamor, the father of Shechem, went out to Jacob to speak with him.

The sons of Jacob had come in from the field as soon as they heard of it. And the men were indignant and very angry because he had done an outrageous thing in Israel by lying with Jacob's daughter for such a thing must not be done.

But Hamor spoke with them, saying, the soul of my son, Shechem, longs for your daughter. Please give her to him to be his wife. Make marriages with us. Give your daughters to us and take our daughters for yourselves.

You shall dwell with us and the land shall be open to you. Dwell and trade in it and get property in it. Shechem also said to her father and to her brothers, let me find favor in your eyes.

And whatever you say to me, I will give. Ask me for a great bride price and gift as you will. And I will give you whatever you say to me. Only give me the young woman to be my wife.

And the sons of Jacob answered Shechem and his father Hamor deceitfully. Because he had defiled their sister Dina. They said to him, we cannot do this thing to give our sister to one who is uncircumcised.

For that would be a disgrace to us. So only on this condition will we agree with you. That you will become as we are by every male among you to be circumcised.

Then we will give our daughters to you. And we will take your daughters to ourselves. And we will dwell with you and become one people. But if you will not listen to us and be circumcised. Then we will take our daughter and we will be gone.

Their words pleased Hamor and Hamor's son Shechem. And the young man did not delay to do the thing. Because he delighted in Jacob's daughter. And now he was the most honoured of all of his father's house.

So Hamor and his son Shechem came to the gates of the city. And spoke to the men of their city saying, These men are at peace with us. Let them dwell in the land and trade in it. For behold, the land is large enough for them.

Let us take their daughters as wives. Let us give them our daughters. Only on this condition will the men agree to dwell with us to be one people. When every male among us is circumcised as they are circumcised.

Will not their livestock, their property and all their beasts be ours? Only let us agree with them and they will dwell with us. And all who went out of the gate of his city listened to Hamor and his son Shechem.

And every male was circumcised. All who went out of the gate of his city. On the third day, when they were sore, two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dina's brothers, took their swords and came against the city while it felt secure and killed all the males.

They killed Hamor and his son Shechem with a sword and took Dina out of Shechem's house and went away. The sons of Jacob came upon the slain and plundered city because they had defiled this city.

They took their flocks, their herds, their donkeys, and whatever was in the city and in the field, all their wealth, all their little ones and their wives, all that was in their houses they captured and plundered.

Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, you have brought trouble on me by making me stink to the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites and the Perizzites.

My numbers are few and if they gather themselves against me and attack me, I shall be destroyed, both I and my household. But they said, should he treat our sister like a prostitute?

And this is the word of Lord. Please take a seat. Thank you, Sky. Hopefully now that we've read the account that we're just going to be going through, you can understand why I decided to have Sky come and do a conversation with us so I don't need to preach too long on this chapter, just to keep it short.

But also, we've been going through Genesis since April and one of the things about going through the Bible just chapter by chapter is that actually God sets the agenda. God sets the word.

Thanks, see you later. God sets the agenda and not us. And we're going to just read from this and then ask God, what is it that you're saying to us today from Genesis 34?

This is a dark chapter. And if you have a young, young kid here or just someone you'd like, just disclaimer, I'll try to remain as, you know, not as graphic at all, but we're going to just go through this and we're going to lean in.

We're going to lean in and we're going to go, God, what is there here that you are trying to say to us? And when you look at things like these, there's two obvious crimes here, right?

Can we see those two crimes? One is a young girl, probably the age of a teenager. These commentaries say that she's probably between 13 and 15. So that's the number one crime.

The number two, of course, is the murder that comes. What I'm here to suggest to us today is they are the two very obvious heinous crimes. But underneath those two crimes are two pretty toxic, hidden problems.

We see a society when it does not keep families safe. It does not keep children safe. You see the consequences. You see the pain of what comes. And what you see here, you have to ask that question.

God, where are you? God, seriously, where are you? You look outside into the world. You look outside and you just read SCMP or you just find a really horrifying documentary to watch on Netflix.

The question will always be the same. God, where are you? My point today is, actually, in this chapter, he's not mentioned at all.

That's kind of the point. When God is left out, when humans decide to go their own way, you see society break down almost on every level.

It's sad because the chapter just before, Jacob got a new name, reconciles with his brother. And even though he's got a new name, he's sticking to his old ways. So he doesn't have a full reconciliation is what Gabe talked to us about last week.

But he does say at the very end of chapter 33, there he erected an altar and called it Israel, the God of Jacob. He's been talking about this God as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac. Finally, for the very first time, he says, this is my God too.

How cool is that? Sadly, then, straight after that, chapter 24, God does not show up at all. He shows up in chapter 25 again, but there's this dark chapter that just sits here on its own.

What's the problem here? Let me set the scene for us. When Jacob leaves his family in Genesis 28, he goes and he sees the ladder and he sees the angels.

And then he builds the altar and he says, God, if you would be with me, if you would look after me, I will come back here. I'm going to call this place Bethel, which is the house of God. And God, I promise you, I'm going to come back here. Okay, that's the scene.

And so then he goes and then he goes and he gets his wives and he gets his kids. And eventually he comes back. Does he go back to the place that he said he would go back to in Genesis chapter 28? The answer is no.

He told God, I will come back to Bethel. And instead of going back to Bethel, he stopped short in a place called Shechem. And he decides, you know what? I know I did tell God that I was going to go back to Bethel, but I'm just going to stop right here because Shechem seems like a pretty cool place to live.

My granddad didn't choose to buy land here. But you know what? Well, I'm going to buy myself a piece of land because I am rich. And so he settles. This is the end of chapter 23.

And Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, on his way to Panam and Ram. And he camped before the city. And from the sons of Hamor, Shechem's father, he bought for a hundred pieces of money the piece of land on which he had pitched his tent.

From this point, honestly, from every point, the people of God are always trying to figure out one thing. How can I live in this world but not be of this world? How can I be placed here but not assimilate to the point where, really, I don't really know if there's any difference between God's people and the people of the world?

And so you see here, he doesn't do what he says. Come on, Jacob, every time. Now, just when he's making progress and he's got a new name and a new identity, just when you think, okay, finally getting it, it pulls back and he just can't quite do it.

He lies to Esau even though they've now reconciled. He tells God that, I'm going to come back to Bethel, but then he stops short. And that then sets the scene for the events of chapter 34 and the first crime.

Let's unpack the first crime. Verse 1, now Dina, the daughter of Leah, whom she had borne to Jacob, went out to see the women of the land. Teenage Dina, 13 to 15.

Almost made an extra effort here just to say the daughter of Leah. So she was not the favored one. Her mother was not the favored one. So what you see here is maybe a teenage girl who hasn't really had the attention of dad at all.

They're camped out in a place that they shouldn't really be at. And dad doesn't really pay that much attention to her. And Dina wanders out into the land to see the women of the land. Something about the ancient world that we have to be very, very aware of here, because Hong Kong is one of the most safe places that you can be, and you can let your children roam pretty much anywhere.

In the ancient world, an unattended female, whatever age, actually was deemed as fair game. That actually any man who would see her could take her. That was the context with which this was in.

There's a few of us, our own Jeremy and Matthew, we've been reading the book of Ruth. We hear about this guy called Boaz, who meets this vulnerable young girl. And what does he say to the men? You are not allowed to take her.

Why does he have to say that? Because that's the custom of the day. If you see an unattended girl, you can take her. So Boaz says you are not allowed to take her. So actually what happens here is you've got Dina, this 13 to 15 year old teenage girl, leaving her father's tribe and heading in to see the women of the land, heading to see the Canaanite women.

The Canaanite women that actually Abraham and Isaac and Rebecca, all of them were saying, let's not mix with them. We do not want our kids to mix with them. We do not want our kids to intermarry with them. Stay away from them.

Now you have Jacob kind of going, well, this is the daughter of the wife that I don't really care about. Let her do as she pleases. And how that ends up.

She sees, and verse 2, and when Shechem, the son of Hamor, the Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her, he seized her and lay with her and humiliated her, assaults her.

He saw, he took. What language does that remind you of? He saw and he took. You can go all the way back to Genesis 3 when she sees the fruit and she takes.

You can go to Genesis 6 before Noah. They saw, they took. Time and time again you see the same thing happening when someone takes, decides they want, and then seizes and consumes.

This is the fall of Eden all over again. But then it's confusing. Because straight after in verse 3 it says this. So he sees her, seizes her, lays with her and humiliates her.

And his soul was drawn to Dina, the daughter of Jacob. He loved the young woman and spoke tenderly to her. So Shechem spoke to his father Hamor saying, get me this girl for my wife.

So he seizes, he takes. And then he says, oh, I'm drawn to her. I love her. I love her. And speaks tenderly to her.

How confusing, how twisted is this story already? He does it in the completely wrong order. He's drawn to her. He loves her. And then he speaks tenderly with her. When really, what we should do, when we see someone that we might be interested in, we speak tenderly to them first.

Young men. We speak tenderly to the people first. And then we get to know them. And then we learn to love them. And eventually we are drawn to them. The order here is completely wrong.

That's the first crime. And we know what it is. It's obvious and it's disgusting and it's twisted. But what I'm here to say is beneath that first crime, there is a very big hidden problem.

And that problem is that dad Jacob stays completely silent. Completely silent. When you have passive or absent leadership, this is what happens.

When you have people who don't actually care for the weak and the vulnerable, this is what happens. What was it? Was it favoritism? Was it complete disinterest? Why would you let your daughter go out on her own unattended, knowing that the land that you were in?

And we look at that and go, look, by God's grace, hopefully we're not at risk of committing that first crime. But I wonder whether we are at risk of this hidden problem, which is passive leadership.

Not speaking up for the vulnerable. Not protecting the vulnerable. And you're like, well, Hong Kong's a safe place. I'm not talking about that. Actually, Brenda, you and I were talking about the book, The Anxious Generation.

Jonathan Haidt, the author says, in this current day and age, essentially, even though it looks very different, are we doing the same with our children, with our teenagers? Are we giving them a device and saying, hey, go and wander, knowing there's so many dangers on social media.

There's so many dangers that our children can access on their phones. The horrors that they can be exposed to at a super young age. Are we essentially doing the same thing as Jacob and say, hey, just go? The passive, neglectful, disinterested leadership.

Jacob stays silent. Now, Jacob heard that he had defiled his daughter, Lina, but his sons were with his livestock in the field. So Jacob held his peace until they came. He stayed silent. He was at home.

His daughter left, got taken. He hears about it somehow. And then he stays silent. Until his sons come back. And then Hamel, the father of Shechem, went out to Jacob to speak with him.

The sons of Jacob had come in from the field. As soon as they heard of it, the men were indignant and very angry because he had done an outrageous thing in Israel by lying with Jacob's daughter, for such a thing must not be done. They knew this was not supposed to happen.

The sons were angry. Who were the sons? We later find out. They're Simeon and Levi. These are the full brothers of Dina. The same siblings of, of course, of Leah.

So probably also neglected. Probably also victims of favoritism. So they're like, dad, our sister has had this terrible thing happen to her and you're staying silent. I'm going to peek into the second crime and we see, we know what they're going to do because we've just read it.

But where does it come from? I think it comes from a passive disinterested leader who is absent, who doesn't take control. And when he doesn't take control, you see the sons who are filled with anger for their own sister.

They take control. This hidden problem where we stay silent in the midst of injustice. Hamor comes. He said, hey, actually, interesting here in this whole chapter, there's no God.

Guess what else there is? There is no apology. There is no sorry. It wasn't like, hey, man to man, I am so sorry that my son did this to you. Nothing. You can see how it was almost just assumed that it was okay.

Hamor walks straight in and says, the soul of my son Shechem longs for your daughter. Please give her to him to be his wife. Make marriages with us. Give your daughters to us and take our daughters for yourselves. You shall dwell with us and the land shall be open to you.

Dwell and trade in it and get property in it. Shechem also said to her father and her brothers, let me find favor in your eyes. And whatever you say to me, I will give. Ask me for as great a bride price and gift as you will. And I will give whatever you say to me.

Only give me the young woman to be my wife. He is infatuated with Dina and he's willing to do anything. So he takes his dad and he goes into the tribe of Jacob. He says, just name your price.

No apology. You left her unattended yourself, but name your price. You know what? I'll do you a big solid. Why don't our families just intermarry? Why don't we just join together?

Guess what that'll do? Let's merge and we'll become stronger. We can get rich together. Here we are again. God's people. How are they going to figure out how to be in this world, but not of this world?

God kept saying time and time again, do not mix. You are my people and I am your God. And yet what we see here, Jacob, the guy with the new name.

Interestingly though, he's got the new name before, but the Bible keeps referring him to him as Jacob. We often have a new identity, but the old one is just right next to us. Romans 7 talks about that. Even the great apostle Paul.

He says, look, I want to keep doing good. But there's just this thing, this shadow next to me that always just keeps to my side. What wretched people we are. You see that here with Jacob.

He stays completely silent. Even after that proposal from Hamor, he still doesn't speak. Verse 13. The sons of Jacob answered Shechem and his wife Hamor deceitfully.

So we've just talked about the first crime. Now we move on to the second crime. Dad, you're not going to speak? We'll speak. Let us scheme. Let us figure out what we can do from here to avenge the crime that was done to our sister.

It's already here. They spoke to them deceitfully. Like father, like sons. They've seen dad lie his way through life. And now they'll do the same. They said to them, we cannot do this thing to give our sister to one who is uncircumcised.

For that would be a disgrace to us. Only on this condition will we agree with you. That you will become as we are by every male among you being circumcised. Then we will give our daughters to you. And we will take your daughters to ourselves. And we will dwell with you and become one people.

But if you will not listen to us and be circumcised, then we will take our daughter and we will be gone. Abraham is rolling in his grave. He spent all his life trying to separate his people from the people of the world.

And now you've got these kids saying, okay, yeah, let's join together. Let's intermarry. You can take our daughters. We can take yours. There's just one thing that we have to do. The small thing called circumcision.

Because that's what we do. Because we are God's people. And that's something that he passed on to us, to Abraham. And so we can't do this unless you get circumcised. Just stop and pause for a second.

The second crime is about to come. But the hidden problem is just hypocrisy. They're taking the symbol, the sacred symbol of God giving to his people saying, this is how you're going to be separated.

Now I won't go into the details of what that looks like. But they're taking the symbol and then using it deceitfully for their own shameful gain. And then I just, forgive me for the example.

I mean, it's a little bit like, Jasper, I'd love to baptize you. I mean, they're taking a symbol that God gave to them. Like, I'd love to baptize you. Can I baptize you? Come on, let's go to Repulse Bay.

Let me baptize you. And then I drown you. Baptized to death. I did drop you in the water. That is true. I am sorry about that. I definitely dropped Kenneth into the water.

Because Kenneth is like three human beings in one. So that was like, can you see the hypocrisy here? That they would take a gift and a sign that God gives them and they would use it in such a way.

Whew. Whew. Their words pleased Hamor and Hamor's son Shechem. And the young man did not delay to do the thing because he delighted in Jacob's daughter.

Now he was the most honored of all his father's house. Hamor and his son Shechem came to the gate of the city. Remember, the gate is where all happenings were happening. This is the interactive brokers platform of the day. Okay.

Everything is happening right here at the gate. So they take all the people back to the gate. Jacob and his sons are there. Everyone's there. And they have a big meeting and saying, this is what they say.

These men are at peace with us. Let them dwell in the land and trade in it. For behold, the land is large in us for them. Let us take their daughters as wives and let us give them our daughters. Only on this condition will the men agree to dwell with us to become one people.

When every male among us is circumcised as they are circumcised. And then here comes the interesting thing. Here's why you can see that Hamor, Shechem's dad, is a really good businessman. With Jacob, he's saying, hey, let's just be together.

Let's just be one big happy family. You're God's family. Why don't we be God's family? Let us just enjoy this time together. And you can have my daughters. Likewise. When he goes back to his own people, verse 23 exposes a little bit more of his heart.

It's not just that they would be one big happy family. Will not their livestock, their property, and all their beasts be ours? Only let us agree with them and they will dwell with us. We're going to get rich too.

Have you heard about God's family? This covenant group of people that are wondering how rich they are? Imagine if we merged with them, we would be rich. Maybe the first hints of the prosperity gospel here.

Why don't we follow this God and we're going to be blessed? The compromise is happening. And of course, we know what happens after this.

Funnily enough, all the men agree. And all who went out of the gate of the city listened to Hamel and his son Jechem. And every male was circumcised. All who went out of the gate of this city. What a productive meeting that they managed to convince everyone that this was the way to go about it.

Have we heard from Jacob yet? Still nothing. Still nothing. Still the absent leader. On the third day when they were sore, after the operation, remember, this was not, they did not go to the sanatorium to do this operation.

They just did it very quickly at home with a very blunt knife. On the third day when they were sore, two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dina's brothers, again, they're full brothers. Dad's not doing anything.

We will. They took their swords and came against the city while it felt secure and killed all the males. They killed Hamel and his son Shechem with the sword and took Dina out of Shechem's house and went away.

The sons of Jacob came upon the slain and plundered the city because they had defiled their sister. They took their flocks and their herds, their donkeys and whatever was in the city and the field. All their wealth, all their little ones and their wives, all those in the houses they captured and plundered.

Wait. That first crime was heinous. It was horrible. It was unforgivable. But now you go and do the same, but times 100, times 200. That's how you justify what you're doing.

The hypocrisy that we can see here. Isn't it interesting that sometimes in the name of fighting evil, we become evil ourselves.

Sometimes we, well, I've always said one of our biggest problems as a church is just hypocrisy. When we tell people to live a certain way, but it looks just as we are doing just the same things.

You look at every scandal that happens in a church, every leader that falls, every believer that goes out and doesn't bear good witness. Yes, this is an extreme example, but I wonder whether we're at the beginning of that path, whether we flirt with that same idea.

Remember, Jacob didn't deliberately say, I'm going to raise sons who are going to murder a whole group of people. He just, just let me stay outside of the city here, just a little bit. Who does that remind you of?

Genesis 13, right, Lot. I'm not going to go into Sodom and Gomorrah. I'm just going to pitch my tent outside in the valley. It's nice here. It reminds me of Egypt. It reminds me of, this is probably what the Garden of Eden looks like.

I'm just going to live out here. But before you know it, within a few verses, he started on the outside and he ends up in the heart of the city. That slippery slope of sin that we talked about a couple months ago. I wonder whether we have hypocrisy in our own hearts.

I wonder whether we fight evil with evil. When we look at something that isn't right, do we go about it in the right way? They were trying to get justice, but they were just trying to get justice in the wrong way.

Gandhi was the one who said, right. If it was really an eye for an eye, the whole world would be blind. There's another quote.

Let me see if I can get it. W.H. Auden, he's a poet during the Second World War. He says this, When we look at the injustices of the world, when we look at the darkness that we see, when we look at some of the injustices that are done to us, maybe not to this extreme level, but maybe there's an offensive, we all have that rude, offensive uncle at home in our family.

We all have that person. And they say something offensive to us. What's our response in that moment? We all have that colleague who stabs us behind the back. Then what do we do? It's interesting in the Old Testament, there were rules about justice.

Hey, if this is done to you, then it's an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. That's where it comes from. But Gandhi has wisdom there. But if we operated by that, then we'd all be blind. What is there that's inside our hearts where we're trying to fight for something good, but we end up taking on the evil that we're trying to fight?

All this time, we still do not hear from Jacob, the guy with the new name, the patriarch, one of the founding fathers of the faith.

He stays silent. How often in the face of the crimes that are going on in society does the church stay silent? But finally, he does speak.

But now that he speaks, you really wish that he didn't. Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, you have brought trouble. Let me emphasize again. You brought trouble on me by making me stink to the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites and the Perizzites.

My numbers are few, and if they gather themselves against me and attack me, I shall be destroyed. Both I and my household. What's this passive, abstent, disinterested leader thinking about himself?

When we don't have leaders who are willing to lay down themselves to sacrifice for those who have been put in our care, who are just focused on what they can get. The only time this guy speaks is not when his daughter gets violated.

It's not when his sons commit a heinous crime. The only time he speaks is when he is in trouble. Don't we have that? We live in a dark world.

Philippians 2 calls it the crooked and twisted generation that we live in. But we stay silent until it inconveniences us. And then we're like, oh, how outrageous, outrageous is that?

So you wish he wouldn't speak. And the brothers finish with just this line, but they said, should he treat our sister like a prostitute? It's one of the first times this term, this concept is mentioned in scripture.

They're like, you didn't do anything. Are we really going to let this happen to our sister, your daughter? We just did what we felt was best in the absence of a godly, interested, compassionate leader.

And then the scene fades out. Conveniently, or bringing great comfort, the next verse in chapter 35 is God said to Jacob.

God shows up again. He was there at the end of 33. He was completely ignored throughout the whole of 34. But now he comes back into the scene. And so next week we will see that there is hope.

But you look at this whole chapter and you wonder, Jacob, you've got to do better. And then we look at ourselves and go, we have got to do better.

The church has to look to ourselves and go, we have got to do better. To show more interest in protecting the vulnerable, the weak. To stand for justice, but in the right way.

Jacob must be better. We must be better. But of course, the point of this, you ask yourself, why is chapter 34 in the Bible? We could have done away with this. We don't need this.

Hasn't it been interesting as we've been going through Genesis and you look at every person coming up, you're like, no one, no one is innocent. Not a single person.

Everyone is messed up. And then you wonder, well, why is it here then? Well, this book exists for one reason. It points us to someone who was innocent, who remains to be innocent, who came to die for the sins of many.

The sacrificial lamb who took the place of the many. The better prince, where Shechem was a prince who saw and took the better prince that is the prince of heaven.

Jesus comes and sacrifices his own life. His own comfort. His own power. His own authority. For the sake of others. And there's no greater love than this, that one who would lay down his life for his friend.

The better prince. The better brother. Simeon and Levi were working with very, very limited resources here. They went completely the wrong way. There is no justification for what they did in the second crime.

But you're asking yourself the same question. How are we going to protect those who are weak? Well, stepping up to the plate is the descendant of another brother.

A descendant of Judah steps in and says, I am the better brother. I will protect. I will save. I will bring freedom. Jesus is the descendant of Judah who comes in, the innocent one, who steps in the place and breaks that cycle of revenge.

He subjects himself to the pain, to the ultimate violence. So that cycle of just horror and revenge is broken.

He would disagree with Gandhi in some ways. He says, well, the answer to all of this, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. He says in Matthew 5, right?

He says, turn the other cheek. The only way you break that cycle of hate, that cycle of revenge, is if we turn the other cheek.

He takes it a step further, in fact. And just says, it's not even just turn the other cheek. In fact, all the consequences of the sins that we, all the decisions that we've made, we're going to break that by simply me.

Jesus himself. I will deal with this. I will turn the other cheek. I will lay down my life. I will climb onto the cross for these people. They can't save themselves.

I will save them. It's a really interesting thing, that verse 31, when the brothers are like, why would we let them treat her like that?

Many years later, the prophets in the Old Testament would ironically refer to Israel in the same way. People of a covenant committed to their God, but whoring themselves out to any other God.

So we see two serious crimes here, but I wonder whether we are guilty of the two hidden problems underneath.

The one of silent, passive, disinterested leadership that the church must be taking, and the one of hypocrisy. What's the Lord saying to you?

As your shepherd, I wish I knew exactly the circumstances that God has placed you in. The workplace, the school, the families that he's placed you in, because then I'd be able to give you some insights to maybe what God is calling you to do.

To be the person that you are called to be. To look after the vulnerable that he has placed around you. To not be someone of hypocrisy, but of integrity.

Willing to stand up for what is right, in the right way. Willing to bear the name of Jesus, by following the way of Jesus. Can you imagine if we did that?

Less of Jacob, more of Jesus. Can we commit to being that? So that when we see injustices happening around the world, we do not turn the other way and ignore.

And only be outraged when it inconveniences us. Can we live and look and love the other? Just like our Lord did.

Chapter 24 has no mention of God. There's places in this world right now where you walk into, you're like, God, I can't see you.

I can't hear you. But know one thing. He is there. He is here.

And if you're stood in that place, He is there through you. Would you allow Him to work? Would you speak up?

Would you go out of your way? Would you live in the Jesus way? Let's pray.巨 tro battle of Christ. Please hear me.

Please hear me. Please hear me. Please hear me. Please hear me. Please hear me. Please hear me. Please hear me. Please hear me. Please hear me. Please hear me. Please hear me. Please hear me. Please hear me. Please hear me. Please hear me.

Please hear me. Please hear me. Please hear me. Please hear me. Please hear me. Please hear me. Please hear me. Please hear me. Please hear me. Please hear me. Please hear me.have't you. Thank you.

We read passages in scripture like this and we struggle to make sense. We look out into the world and we see injustices.

And it doesn't make sense. But today we ask that you would show us what it means to live in a way that is based on how you lived.

And we started the service with Philippians 2 and maybe this is where we'll end it. That we as a people would not do things whilst we're grumbling and disputing.

But that we would live as lights shining into this crooked and twisted generation. Living as children of God.

Holding fast to the word of life. We profess to have the words of life yet we refuse to share them to the darkness that surrounds us. Give us courage to speak up.

Give us courage to stand up. Holy Spirit we need you.

We recognize the only way that we can do this is if you go with us. Would you convict the world of sin and righteousness through us.

Here we are Lord. Send us. Thank you Lord.