Family Values
Sermon by The Rev. Lisa Caine
July 13, 2014
Genesis 25:19-34, 1 Corinthians 1:26-29

The honeymoon is over. Last week we recalled of the marriage of Isaac and Rebekah. It was a gentle hopeful story, where every wish of the servant matchmaker was answered, where the bride was eager leave home to begin her new life in a faraway place, and where her husband loved her and she brought him comfort after the death of his mother. It was a nice start.

A lot happened after that lovely wedding. Abraham died. In a conciliatory moment, Isaac and his estranged half-brother Ishmael met to bury their father together next to Sarah. Isaac prospered in material ways – with land and cattle much as his father had done. And like his father, he waited for children. And he waited. And he waited.

He prayed to God that Rebekah could and would bear children, and after twenty years of praying, his prayer was finally answered. But not before Rebekah prayed to God as well – questioning why, after waiting so many years, her long awaited pregnancy was so uncomfortable, so painful, that life seemed almost not worth living. Because she trusted God and was willing to share her distress with the Almighty, she was granted an oracle, a prophecy from God. She was told that more was going on than she could realize. These twin boys that she carried would be the founders of two different nations that would struggle against each other later on in life even as they had before their birth. And in the contest with each other, and the elder, in contradiction to the prevailing custom, would ultimately serve the younger.

When the twins were born, they couldn’t have been any different. Esau, the firstborn, was the larger baby for sure. He was ruddy and had a head full of hair. His brother Jacob, was born immediately after Esau, holding onto his brother heel as he entered the world, as if trying to get ahead and beat him into it. As they grew up, their personalities and talents differed. Esau loved hunting and the outdoors. Jacob, in contrast, was quiet and stayed closer to home. And consequently their parents favored one over the other – Isaac favored Esau because Esau was good at hunting game. Rebekah, on the other hand, was partial to Jacob. We aren’t told why, maybe as a newborn, he was smaller and needed more of her attention so she bonded more with him, or maybe it was because of that sense that he was meant by God for greater things that she’d become aware of before his birth. Of course neither boy knew of his mother’s strange experience because she kept it to herself.

Then one day, just an ordinary day by any measure, Esau came in from hunting and he was famished. And Jacob was alone in the tent, cooking a stew. It’s funny how things that change your life can happen under the most mundane circumstances. Esau was hungry; Jacob was cooking. That’s all it took. Esau saw an answer to his immediate problem, while Jacob saw an answer to his long range problem.

Esau was the first born, and by custom, at the death of their father, he would receive two shares of his father’s estate to his brother’s one. And he would also be given authority and responsibility as head of the family. His would be in a privileged position, and his first born son would inherit in the same manner after him. This social custom of primogeniture was and still is in some places, a foundational element in legal and social systems. Today we can see this tradition still active in royal families– for example, Prince Charles, Queen Elizabeth’s oldest child, will inherit the crown of England because he is her first born son, and after him, his first born William will take the throne. Recently the law of primogeniture was changed in England to allow the successor to the throne to be the first born child, regardless of gender; however, the birth of Prince George deferred any immediate problem when he became Will and Kate’s first child. Certainly Charles and William have lived since their first days with the knowledge that much will be expected of them beyond the living of their private lives. They know they have a responsibility to their country, to its government and to its people that will take precedence over any personal desires or wishes,

So that day when Esau came into the kitchen hungry, he had the responsibility of the family’s future resting on his shoulders. He would have known that just as surely as Charles and Will know it. And everything he did should have been done with that future in mind. But he’s hungry. And his immediate desire for stew on the table is more real to him than his future obligations. He obviously wasn’t aware that with great privilege comes great responsibility. Maybe he just thought it was already his, and he could do whatever he wanted to do without consequence.

But Jacob knows better, and this is his chance to improve his prospects in the world. Who knows what his motivation was. Maybe he’d been told by his mother that it was unfortunate that Esau was born first because he was big and strong enough to easily make his own living in the world, but Jacob was not as strong or active; he’d have a hard time and have to use his wits in order to survive in the world.

Whatever the reason, Jacob tells Esau he can have his fill of stew after he sells his birthright to Jacob. And Esau, exaggerating for sure, since he’s nowhere near starvation, says dramatically, “I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?” And then Jacob makes him swear that this will be so. He does, and then gobbles down his stew and bread. The narrator says, “Thus Esau despised his birthright.” He shunned it; scorned it; rejected it; disregarded it – all for a plate of lentil stew and a piece of bread. He forfeited his future to quiet the rumbling in his stomach.

These brothers are really something, aren’t they? There’s one who would sell his future for a dish of stew; and the other who would withhold food from his hungry brother in order to get something he wanted that was not within his customary rights at all. So one is shortsighted and can’t see beyond his stomach, and the other, although far sighted, ignores the questionable ethics of his plan. These behaviors seem strange to us, unforgivable even, unless any of us has perhaps been tempted at some time or other by an immediate desire so overwhelming that we forgot our long term responsibilities. Or perhaps there were times we were tempted to be less than truthful or a bit manipulative upon occasion to get our own way. Have you ever justified, rationalized, or excused your behavior? I know I have!

And yet God chooses to work with people just like you and me, just like Esau and Jacob! Those who speak so reverently about upholding the “family values” found in the Bible, must not be familiar with the family of Abraham and his descendants. They present the Bible as a book about moral values and doing the right thing.

But that’s not what the Bible is about! It’s not a cookbook. It’s not a book of rules. It’s not Miss Manners for Believers. The Bible is God’s story, a story about a powerful and mysterious God who offers few explanations or justifications, and who continually creates, redeems, and sustains. It is about a God who can work with most anything or anyone to bring something good out of the worst of circumstances.

We don’t know why God chose Abraham and his descendants, but we do know it wasn’t because they were perfect in every way. They weren’t the strongest or the smartest or the bravest or the most honest by a long shot. And by choosing them, God’s purposes get all tangled up in their weaknesses, in their self-interest and self-seeking.[i] But God made a promise to Abraham, and God does not go back on God’s promises. That’s what the Bible is about!

Jacob has a faulty moral compass, he’s a rascal some would say – he’s not above lying, cheating, or stealing in order to get what he wants. Later on he’ll lie to his father, and then steal from his uncle. But God chooses to work with the unworthy, the unvalued and the powerless, even going so far as to choose a crucified messiah as the way to begin again.[ii] As Paul says in the passage from 1Corinthians that we heard earlier, “God choose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are.” That’s what the Bible is about!

So today’s story tells us something about God and something about what it means to be caught up in the purposes of God regardless of our limitations or flaws. God blessed Abraham and his descendants to be a blessing to the world. And that was not an easy task for them, nor is it now for us. Because it doesn’t mean being chosen for a life of leisure or of plenty, but instead being chosen for a life that very well may involve a lot of conflict and a lot of change and a lot of sacrifice.

But it also means the opportunity for transformation and for blessing that arise from the conflict, change, and sacrifice. Jacob is blessed by God even as he runs away from Esau’s wrath and he learns over time – learns the hard way as most of us do – to trust God more than he trusts himself. And later, he experiences not only God’s grace and mercy, but also the forgiveness of Esau who has gone on to find peace in his own life.

God is the God of promise and the God of blessing. That’s what the Bible is about! If we only knew that! If we only could trust the promises and accept the blessing! But apparently there is no easy way to trust and acceptance. The road inevitably leads through questioning, conflict, and change as we first try and fail to do it by ourselves and in our own way, and only after those struggles, are we ready to receive the blessing that has been waiting all along and to accept our own birthright as the people of God. Amen.

[i] Walter Bruggeman, Genesis, 1982, 204.

[ii] Bruggeman, 209.