This morning, we return to the early stories of our faith. Last week, we focused on the story of the difficult choice Abraham was forced to make – whether or not to sacrifice his young son.
Today we will focus on a story of events that occurred later in Isaac’s life. Isaac married his cousin Rebecka and they became the parents of only two children: fraternal twins Esau and Jacob. Esau was born a few minutes before Jacob. Even though the boys were twins, their birth order made a big difference in their lives.
In Ancient Israel, when an estate was divided among the heirs, it was divided by the number of sons plus one. The oldest son received the extra share. In the case of Esau and Jacob, this meant Esau expected to receive two-thirds of his father’s estate. As the oldest son, he also was supposed to receive a special blessing from his father. Blessings like this were considered legally binding and were considered prophetic – whatever was said during the blessing was believed to be able to predict what would happen in the future.
In a very silly moment, Esau told his brother Isaac that he would trade his special birthright as the oldest son with him in exchange for a plate of food. Brothers and sisters joke around with each other. But, this joke was so absurd that Esau probably assumed Isaac would regard it as a joke, not a binding covenant. Isaac was a trickster, though, and things did not work out in Esau’s favor.
So, let us turn to the story of the two brothers at a crucial time, when Isaac was prepared to bestow his special, binding blessing on his oldest son.
We pick up the story at Genesis 27….listen now to the word of God….
Scripture Genesis 27:1-4, 15-23; 28:10-17
27 When Isaac was old and his eyes were so weak that he could no longer see, he called for Esau his older son and said to him, “My son.”
“Here I am,” he answered.
Isaac said, “I am now an old man and don’t know the day of my death.
Now then, get your equipment—your quiver and bow—and go out to the open country to hunt some wild game for me.
Prepare me the kind of tasty food I like and bring it to me to eat, so that I may give you my blessing before I die.”
Then Rebekah took the best clothes of Esau her older son, which she had in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob.
She also covered his hands and the smooth part of his neck with the goatskins.
Then she handed to her son Jacob the tasty food and the bread she had made.
He went to his father and said, “My father.”
“Yes, my son,” he answered. “Who is it?”
Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau your firstborn. I have done as you told me. Please sit up and eat some of my game, so that you may give me your blessing.”
Isaac asked his son, “How did you find it so quickly, my son?”
“The Lord your God gave me success,” he replied.
Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Come near so I can touch you, my son, to know whether you really are my son Esau or not.”
Jacob went close to his father Isaac, who touched him and said, “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.”
He did not recognize him, for his hands were hairy like those of his brother Esau; so he proceeded to bless him.
The hairy hands were enough to convince Isaac incorrectly that Jacob was Esau. Another absurd occurrence in the midst of a very serious situation.
Esau discovered the betrayal almost immediately….as soon as Jacob was blessed and left his father, Esau walked in with his specially prepared food. Isaac couldn’t undo the blessing. Instead, he gave Esau a lesser blessing. Esau was so angry he vowed to kill Jacob.
Jacob believed Esau was going to kill him. So, his mother helped him flee – she sent him to live with her brother who lived a several days' journey away. On the way to safety, Jacob had a strange dream. Listen now to the story of the dream:
Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Harran.
When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep.
He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.
There above it stood the Lord, and he said: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying.
Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.
I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”
When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.”
He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”
Here ends this reading of the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Let us pray….
Message Jacob Steals a Blessing
In the dream about Jacob’s ladder, God blessed Jacob…God blessed Jacob and extended the Abrahamic covenant to him and his offspring, even though Jacob had behaved badly to his brother and father. What does this say about God? Why would God reward such a flawed person?
Jacob’s family is the epitome of toxic. His parents had favorite children. His mother connived against his father and his brother. The boys were pitted against each other by their parents. Their father was raised by his grandparents to be the fulfillment of all of their dreams…yet his grandparents had their own share of dysfunction.
Jacob left one toxic family system and entered another. He sought protection and rescue in the family of his mother’s brother, Laban, who used him for labor, tricked him into marrying a wife he didn’t want or pick, and later had to flee with his 12 children and four wives from the wrath of his uncle-slash-father-in-law. Jacob’s own children tried to kill each other, sold one of their brothers into slavery, and one of his sons raped his own sister. Not an ideal family-system.
Yet, these messed up people and this messed up family is blessed by God. These are the people who are our ancestors in the faith – the patriarchs and matriarchs of Judaism and Christianity.
We believe in a God who blesses imperfect people. I hope none of us come from families of origin that were as terrible as Jacob’s, but there are people in this room who have come from toxic families. We may be currently navigating relationships with people who are not easy to get along with or with whom we don’t feel safe. And, we know stories about our friends and neighbors and know that people we know have troubled, messy lives.
The people in the Bible, like Jacob and his family, are examples of how God uses imperfect people. The example they set for us is that no matter how unworthy we feel, no matter how flawed we believe ourselves to be, we are still capable of doing helpful and just and useful and Godly actions in our lives. We must not let our pasts define us. We must not allow our pasts to predict our futures. God loves us. God needs us to do God’s work in the world. We are called to be attentive to guidance of the Holy Spirit – maybe the Spirit is speaking to us in our dreams, or in the quiet times of our days, or when we are walking around our neighborhoods clearing our heads. God has work for us to do. And, God will use us to care for God’s creation, to love God’s people, and to work on God’s behalf to repair our broken world.
So, take heart, and remember, no matter what kind of family we are part of, no matter what mistakes we have made, no matter what we haven’t done yet in our lives, we are being called by our God to do God’s work in the here and now. So, let’s listen to God pulling on our heart strings.
May it be so. Amen.
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