Jacob, Esau, and Us

Then there was the episode of the birthright belonging to Esau which he sold to Jacob for a bowl of lentils when Esau came in hungry after being out hunting all day.

And the parents didn't help the situation by playing favorites: Isaac liked Esau, and Rachel favored Jacob.

Next, there was the sneakiness of Rachel conspiring with Jacob to steal the deathbed blessing intended for Esau for Jacob...and it worked!

Esau was furious, and vowed to kill Jacob, who rightly felt that he needed to get out of Dodge.

He fled, penniless, across the desert to the ancestral homeland and took up residence with Uncle Laban.

The locale and characters have shifted, but the conflict continues.

Jacob was a slippery sort, but Laban proved to be equally slippery.

He drove a hard bargain; after 7 years Laban substituted the older sister for the younger one on the wedding night, forcing Jacob to work 7 more years to get the woman of his dreams.

Laban changed how his wages were calculated 10 times over the years.

But God blessed Jacob in many ways despite all of these difficulties.

Finally, after 20 years, Jacob has had enough.

And further, God gave him the word that it is time to go home.

He gathered up his wives, his children, his flocks and herds, all that he has accumulated across the yeas, and headed back across the desert.

What has he learned about blessings in all of the years away from home?

--It is not a matter of luck, or just personal cleverness, both of which Jacob had in good measure.

--True blessings are first of all God's good gifts to us.

He couldn't take them, steal them, earn them...only receive them.

And then secondly, an even better thing about blessings is when you are able not only to receive them but to share them, to give them away!

And so he sends herdsmen ahead of him with a present for Esau: hundreds of sheep and goats, cattle and donkeys, camels and more from his accumulated wealth.

The cynic would say it is a bribe, but it is more than that, it is finally a genuine gift.

Hear again what Jacob says at the end of the scene to Esau: “If I find favor with you, accept my present from my hand; for truly to see your face is like seeing the face of God....”

He has finally realized the joy of giving in response to the delight in receiving.

And he has received something quite precious from Esau; forgiveness.

The last thing that we had heard Esau say many chapters earlier was to vow murder to Jacob for his theft of the blessing from father Isaac.

The scriptures don't tell us what has been happening with Esau over the 20 years, but God has been working with him also, so that when the messengers come saying that Jacob is coming, he responds in a way other than murder.

He has grown powerful over the years also; he approaches Jacob with a retinue of 400 men.

Not to do battle; but to give an honorable welcome to Jacob, his long-distant brother.

“To see you is like seeing the face of God”, Jacob says.

What a comparison!

The Lord God, the one who truly is gracious, who gives gifts most generously and undeservedly...Esau is being compared to that nature of God!

And for Jacob that is new life, for he has lived 20 years in the shadow of dread, knowing what he did in stealing the blessing, hearing the threat of murder echo in his ears and mind all of that time, seeing all of his scheming and planning set aside, wrestling with a dark stranger in the night at the riverside that left him with a crippling limp, until now when he faces Esau alone and....is welcomed and forgiven.

“Yours is like the face of God,” indeed!

God worked a wonder with two brothers across those 20 years.

And now to the other part of the title, “...and us.”

How might you decide to apply the story to your own life, or congregational life, or national life?

What is the impossible situation, where a gift of God's grace is the only solution?

Look for it, listen for it, celebrate it when it is discerned, and then act upon it.

It may be different for each of us here, but it is here.

There is that argument that has been festering for a decade or more with an aunt/cousin/neighbor over....maybe we remember clearly how it all started, and maybe the story has become embellished over time.

I wonder if there comes a point when the assigning of blame fades a bit in importance in the face of the offer of re-establishment of relationships?

Isn't that the trump card that God plays again and again with us?

Isn't that what Esau offers Jacob?

Isn't that what we hear with joy each Sunday morning in confession and absolution?

Isn't that our reminder each time we pass the font and touch the water?

“...God has dealt graciously with me...” Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.