As the World Turns, season 3, episode 6.
God has blessed our hero Jacob with flocks of sheep and goats in a selective breeding program that puts anything we do today to shame. As he watches his uncle's/father-in-law's (Laban's) flocks, Jacob throws stripped/striped branches in their watering trough to cause them to breed and produce speckled animals that Jacob can claim as his own - his wages for watching Laban's flocks.
Of course as Laban and his sons watch their inheritance and wealth disappear there is grumbling so Jacob does what he always does when the heat gets turned up - he plans to run away.
He goes to his two disagreeable sister wives and this is something they agree on - Laban their own father has treated them as outsiders the moment he "sold them" to Jacob and since as women, they get no inheritance, why not skip town? Their father has wasted their bride price, is a cheat and is not to be trusted.
Jacob packs up his family like Robert Irsay leaving Baltimore in the middle of the night and Laban gets no goodbye kisses from the grandkids.
To add insult to injury, Rachel steals her father's household idols (what does this say about where priorities lie and her world view of Jacob's God?) as they skedaddle out of town.
Laban finds out three days later and rounds up a posse to chase them down. He's calling for blood when God says "don't lay a hand on Jacob" in a dream.
So when Laban catches up to the moving vans, he feigns how he has been slighted and rambles on about not getting a chance to throw a proper going-away party. They are now his daughters again. And think about the grandkids!
[This is real soap opera stuff! And imagine the smiles around the campfire as the story gets told and retold.]
Finally to add insult, by the way, where are my gods? [ah to have gods that you can pack up and take with you - Honey, don't forget to pack your god in your suitcase. BUT how many of us pull THE God out of our back pocket only when we need Him?]
Jacob admits he was afraid - that he didn't trust his father-in-law uncle. Honesty. Finally. Then rashly proclaims - "idols? what stinking idols? we don't have your stinking idols, but if we do, you can have the person's head." (oops not knowing Rachel had them.)
So Laban searches everywhere lastly Rachel's tent. And Rachel, God bless her, lies. She sits on the idols (picture that image) then feigns that she is having that "time of the month" so she shouldn't move. Of course Laban cold never imagine his menstruating daughter sitting on his gods and passes.
So now Jacob becomes the emboldened and indignant one - he and his family have been wronged/falsely accused. And to add insult, he ticks off every other infraction of his father-in-law as well as elevate his own integrity in 20 years of working for Laban. (See what happens when you bottle up your feelings for 20 years? - that and the business that God has your back and Laban admits it.) Deceiving Jacob gets some backbone.
And with the air (20 years worth) cleared, Laban and Jacob make peace, set up stones as a reminder of the peace, then have a covenant meal (remember how in the middle east you can't share a meal with an enemy?). They lay out the conditions of the covenant and in the end Laban blesses his daughters and grandkids. They even come to agreement that their great grandfathers worshiped the same God
And they lived happily ever after . . . But wait, Jacob is heading home to face the brother Esau who threatened murder after Jacob stole his birthright. . .
These are the skeletons in our family closet. This is our holy book. This is the story that never gets put on flannel graphs in children's Sunday school (oh the speckled sheep part occasionally, but never the idols part). What was God thinking? What does God think about us? God is so patient.
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