Genesis 34:1 -4

PLEASE READ THE TEXT FIRST!

He was the son of the mayor. He was used to getting what he wanted. One day he saw a shiny new sports car. He had never seen one like it before. He stole the car and took it for a joy ride. He enjoyed driving the car very much. He had never felt this way about a car before. He called it love. He talked to the car. He called it baby, and sweetheart. He had to have it. After he left it where he had stolen it from, he went to see his father. He told his father “Get me this car; I have to have it as my daily driver.”

Substitute Leah for the sports car, and the rest of the story remains the same. Shechem treated Leah like an object. You cannot love an object the way you love a person. Unfortunately the feelings you have for a favorite object are close enough to the feelings you can have for a person that some people cannot tell the difference.

The problem was made worse by the culture. The culture Shechem grew up in treated women as possessions. They could be taken and given in trade. Their value was monetary. They were quite often not recognized as persons. When they were recognized as persons it was not as equals.

To Shechem, Leah was that sexy thing. Raping Leah was not his first sin. His first sin was seeing her as an object rather than as a person. We live in a world that pressures us to think like Shechem. It does not pressure us to commit rape. It pressures us to think of others in an impersonal way. If we’re going to lived righteous we cannot conform to the ways of this world. We must learn to think of people in a new way. We must see others as God sees them.