2nd Wednesday of Advent (December 7). Leah the unloved

Prepare to Listen.  Light 2 purple candles.  Be still and silently repeat: You are the Lord my God.
 
Prayerfully Read Genesis 29:31-35
31When the LORD saw that Leah was unloved, he opened her womb; but Rachel was barren.  32Leah conceived and bore a son, and she named him Reuben; for she said, ‘Because the LORD has looked on my affliction; surely now my husband will love me.’  33She conceived again and bore a son, and said, ‘Because the LORD has heard that I am hated, he has given me this son also’; and she named him Simeon.  34Again she conceived and bore a son, and said, ‘Now this time my husband will be joined to me, because I have borne him three sons’; therefore he was named Levi.  35She conceived again and bore a son, and said, ‘This time I will praise the LORD’; therefore she named him Judah.
 
Prayerfully Wonder
For seven years Jacob worked for Laban to earn his daughter, Rachel as wife.  But on his wedding night Laban deceived him.  “When morning came, it was Leah!”  Jacob was furious.  Ignoring Leah, he demanded Rachel whom he loved “more than Leah.”[1]  Even today Leah remains the unloved and neglected one.  I’ve heard pastors jokingly refer to unpleasant surprises as, ‘Leah moments.’  Others, incorrectly couple Rachel with Jacob as one of our mothers of faith.  That role belongs to Leah through her son Judah.  Perhaps we fail to see Leah because we fail to see the unloved and neglected around us.  We may ignore the needy, oppressed, abused.  God, however, doesn’t.  “When the LORD saw that Leah was unloved, he opened her womb.”
 
Leah tells her sad story in the names she gives her first four sons.  Three of them are expressions of lament.  She named her first son Rueben, because the LORD saw her affliction and she hoped her husband would love her.  Simeon’s name expresses her belief that “the LORD has heard that I am hated.”  Her third son was named Levi in the hope her husband would be “joined” to her.  Her suffering was real and her laments a heart-felt plea to God.  Despite her suffering, at the birth of her 4th son she put her hurt aside, if only for a moment.  She named him Judah, because she said, “This time I will praise the LORD.”  Her unloved status hadn’t changed, but Leah chose to trust and thus praise the LORD.
 
Prayerfully Reflect
Imagine how Leah would tell her story; how she might begin, and what her climax might be.
 
Respond in Prayer
Lord, I pray for all the Leahs in the world, the unloved, neglected, ignored.  May I live with compassion for them.  Amen.
 
Live Obediently.  Like our God, stand with the unloved today.
[1] Details of Jacob’s marriages and Laban’s deception can be found in Genesis 29:21-30.  I’ve quoted from vv. 25 and 30.