Sermon for July 16, 2023 – The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

Genesis 25:19-34, Psalm 119:105-112, Romans 8:1-11, Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

In the Old Testament reading for this week, one of the most important individuals in Genesis comes on the scene.

Jacob, son of Isaac and Rebekah, dominates the next thirteen chapters of the book and he continues to be a major figure in the story of his son Joseph. Jacob’s story occupies fully half of the whole book of Genesis.

This story is an honest portrayal of sibling rivalry that provides us an opening to address this common family dynamic and to reflect on God's presence even through times of strife and disagreement. God may be commonly associated with the gifts of peace and unity, but this story of the struggle between Jacob and his brother, Esau, highlights family conflict as a context within which God also works.

The biblical writers understood family to be the foundational unit of society and religious experience, and they understood this particular family, beginning with Abraham and Sarah, to be the foundation of ancient Israelite society and religion. As such, these stories explore not only the complications of domestic ties, they also explore the connection between family dynamics, social customs, and covenantal life.

Like many of our own domestic dramas, the stories of the Israelite ancestors are replete with infertility and problem pregnancies and difficult births. Pregnancy is a condition that is always fraught with meaning and risk. In this case, the situation of Rebekah and Isaac is itself an echo of Abraham and Sarah’s earlier difficulties. Infertility threatens the family line with biological extinction and jeopardizes the promises of the ancestral covenant until God intervenes after a lengthy period.

Rebekah’s resultant pregnancy means that the covenantal promises and the family line will survive, against the odds, but hers turns out to be a problem pregnancy in more ways than one. Rebekah’s condition creates such discomfort for her that she is not sure what the outcome will be. A word from the Divine informs her that she is not just gestating twins who are struggling within her, she is also gestating two different nations fighting for dominance.

As it turns out, these twins are not identical and they don’t share a special bond that involves a secret language and a fierce devotion to each other. Quite the opposite. At birth, Esau and Jacob each possess characteristics that signal physical and personality differences that will lead them into conflict. Esau is born hairy and red, characteristics that link him to the people of Edom, who the writer of this passage understands to be descended from Esau.

These characteristics also link to Esau to the outdoors and he turns out to be brawny and skillful at hunting. Jacob, who is destined to be the progenitor of the 12 Israelite tribes, is born second. He is smooth-skinned and comes out with his hand around Esau’s foot. The detail is not gratuitous; it indicates Jacob’s desire to upset Esau’s status as the firstborn son and to subvert the social customs and expectations that would favor the firstborn.

The social status of these twin brothers is complicated by the Ancient Israelite expectation that the first- born son should be favored. The firstborn son typically takes on his father’s profession, such as Cain becoming a farmer like his father Adam. The firstborn son succeeds his father as the family patriarch, and inherits a larger portion of the family goods than his other brothers. These privileges, enshrined in Deuteronomy, make up the birthright and collectively provide a level of social and material security that the younger brother would not enjoy. The younger sibling would have to depend on the mercy of the older brother or make his own way in the world, much like the story of the Prodigal Son. It may be that these customs developed to create consistency and fairness in families, to prevent parental favoritism from running amok. When the older and younger brothers in question are twins born just minutes apart, however, then the custom seems a bit more arbitrary and unfair.

Jacob is determined, even before birth, to have the birthright and the blessing of the firstborn. But since he is not the outdoorsy type, he uses brains, not brawn, to gain it. Jacob is a trickster, an underdog character who uses his wit and cunning to change the status quo. As a man who prefers the tents to the hunt, Jacob knows how to cook and he uses this skill and his knowledge of Esau’s weakness to trade some red soup for Esau’s birthright. It is a trade that Esau willingly makes.

It is hard not to think that Jacob victimizes Esau. We can read Esau’s comment in verse 32 quite literally and think that Jacob is trading on Esau’s dire situation. When in fact, Esau has just come in from hunting. He is not starving to death, it seems that he just prefers immediate gratification over the long-term benefits of his birthright. His family inheritance, which in this story is tied to the covenant promises, means little to him.

Esau may not value his familial and spiritual inheritance, but Jacob does. Moreover, Jacob doesn’t see any immediate reward for his efforts; it will be decades before he actually sees success. Jacob is not deterred by the prospect of delayed gratification. Though we might view Esau’s actions as purely self-serving, he nevertheless unknowingly shared his privilege and his entitlements with someone who would otherwise not access to those benefits of being firstborn, thereby changing the trajectory of Jacob’s life forever.

This story illuminates a different view of grace. God chose Jacob even before his birth, a choice that was clearly not based on Jacob’s merits or achievements. Indeed, this is one of many stories about siblings in which God acts contrary to the social custom of favoring the firstborn. Firstborns are no more virtuous by the fact of being born first, but being born second in the ancient near eastern world made one an automatic underdog. It will not be long before this theme remerges in the biblical narrative as Jacob’s favorite son Joseph becomes the instrument through which the covenantal promise continues and not through Jacob’s firstborn.

Jacob is not an admirable figure, at least not here at the beginning of his story. But he is one who is singularly focused on obtaining the blessing of God passed down from his grandfather Abraham. And his focus on that blessing will shape the rest of his life. The blessing will bring wealth and children, but it will also mean exile, loss, and sorrow. The next several weeks’ readings will tell the story of this man and trace the path of the blessing in his life, as he continues to wrestle with other people and, of course, with the God who knew him before he was born.

So, the question we might ask ourselves this week is am I more like Jacob? Or am I more like Esau? We may have some sense of entitlement, some sense of expectation that our place in society affords us some level privilege. We could be like Esau and make our way through the world relying upon our “birthright;” cashing in on a society that is built upon perpetuating entitlements and privilege. Or perhaps we could be a little more like Jacob, and recognize that God works beyond the boundaries and social constructs that we create. The promise of the fulfillment of God’s plan can and indeed will come from the margins of society. And if we do find ourselves, like Esau, in positions of privilege, in positions of power, benefitting from the entitlements of our society, which is not an inherently bad place to be, but if we do find ourselves like Esau, will you perhaps share from your abundance?