Jacob & Esau

From Wellington Cathedral of St Paul

Jacob & Esau 11 July 2010 The Ven. Judy Hardie

• Ps 77:11-20
• Genesis 32:9-30
• Mark 7:1-23

http://wellingtoncathedral.org.nz/index.php/Sermons

I find it amazing how fresh and relevant the old familiar stories in the scriptures can be to us today. When I started reading the story from Genesis in preparation for tonight I found myself thinking – Oh no, not again. The thought didn’t last long though, because I found myself going back to the beginning of the story and then reading right on from where we stopped tonight. I even toyed with the idea of reading the whole story to you - but was very aware of how dark and cold and late it might be before we finished! In case you’re sitting there wondering just what the story of Jacob and Esau was all about though, I give you a condensed version…

Jacob and Esau were twin sons of Isaac and Rebekah – Esau the oldest by minutes. One commentary I read refers to their story as an epic of conflict and I for one sometimes wonder at how such a wily bloke (in Kiwi terms) as Jacob ever came to be Israel, one of the great Patriarchs of the Hebrew tradition. But more about that shortly.

Straight away, after the story of their birth, we become immersed in the events surrounding this family – conflict and intrigue are here for us, culminating in Esau, the strong, bold hunter and his father’s favourite, bartering his birthright to Jacob, the quiet shepherd, a thinker, a schemer and his mother’s favourite. Ravenously hungry after a hunting expedition, Esau traded his birthright as eldest son for a plate of Jacob’s food (which would have probably been given to him very soon anyway.) That sets the scene – and shows us as we read that here are two men who are heading for great conflict. Where is God in all this?

Jumping to the next major encounter between the brothers however, the conflict comes out into the open as the cunning Jacob (with his mother’s support) cheated Esau out of his father’s blessing – one in which Isaac prayed that Jacob would be blessed by God to become the leader of a great nation. Rebekah’s role as she encouraged and enabled this deception appalls us too – here is a family being split apart. Esau can be excused possibly for his consuming rage at being tricked out of not only his birthright but also his place at the head of the family. He has to be satisfied with Isaac’s rather doubtful assurance that if he wished to be free of Jacob’s domination he would have to break away and establish himself in another region. This is not good enough for Esau, who plans now to kill his brother – but again Rebekah steps in to save her favourite and Jacob escapes to find a wife and establish a new life under the protection of her brother Laban.

We need to skip over the next few chapters in this saga in which Jacob ends up prosperous, with wives and family and animals, but still retaining his old ways of cunning and vengeance which have helped him become so wealthy. His father-in-law, Laban, is no less wily and it is with difficulty and the threat of disaster that Jacob and his household with all their flocks are finally free to continue their journey back to Canaan after twenty years of exile. We must ask, did God approve of all these manoeuvrings?

This is where we take up our story tonight, for en route, Jacob has a vision of the angels of God, like an army meeting him. He then sends messengers ahead to Edom to let Esau know of his pending return. The messengers return to Jacob with the news that Esau was coming to meet him – with the support of four hundred men.

Now, desperate, he prays fervently for God’s help, no longer confident of God’s presence in spite of the vision he had received and very aware, probably as never before, of his own shortcomings. (Gen 32:9-12) In fright Jacob sets about dividing his people and stock into two halves sending them in different directions in the hope that at least one group would escape what he fears to be Esau’s wrath.

His next move is to organise a generous gift for Esau in hope of appeasing him—so certain is he of Esau’s murderous anger. This sent off, he doesn’t wait for morning but sets about moving his remaining family across the river. He is last to cross.

We’re not told why he lingers but it is here, alone on the banks of the Jabbok, that he encounters an adversary who he thinks is human but later has the awesome conviction of knowing he is in the presence of God. Jacob has an experience so distinctive that he can only describe it in physical terms as wrestling with God. All his future hopes have been swept away by a fear so overwhelming that it seems that God has this time rejected him.

And yet, it is while he has the strange sense of wrestling with this man/God that he receives his new name: Your name shall no more be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed. (Gen 32:28)

Sir George Adam Smith once wrote of Jacob “but upon the Jabbok its first hero was taught how man has to reckon in life with God also, and his noblest struggles are in the darkness, with the Unseen.”

Is it because of his courage that God continues to uphold him and guide him to become the leader of the nation? Or is it because Jacob at last confronts his own real nature, a personality with whose weaknesses he must struggle in order to continue in God’s presence? Or is it because God’s overwhelming grace simply continues to forgive and stay with those who know their need of him, as when all his endeavours failed, Jacob turned to him?

I believe it is the latter. Jacob is blessed by God because he has shown that he understands his own limitations and knows he has no one else to whom he can turn. He knows too that God ought not to forgive him, that God certainly knows he is unfaithful, yet Jacob continues to fight any inner sense of God’s rejection. In his own reality he strives with and prevails against God, receiving the lasting blessing of God as a result.

If we read on we find that Jacob, now Israel, doesn’t really change his nature. But we find too another astounding account of God’s nature in the person of Esau. Esau, so feared by Jacob finally greets him with love and understanding. His forgiveness of Jacob is so complete he even moves away from the lands he has tended for so long and goes back to Seir. Is it in Esau that the true strength of this epic story lies? In part, yes.

So what are we left with to carry into our own lives at this stage of an extraordinary story?

Firstly, we are faced with a story that has within it the roots of human reality. Today such reality is frequently portrayed on our TV screens. Yet also, we see our own human weaknesses reflected—deceit, self-seeking, corrupt values, conniving that splits families and brings fear and tragedy. I certainly know where I fit in this story.

But I know too that as I wrestle with the adversary, through Jesus Christ the power-filled presence of God’s grace floods into my life. Strong in this knowledge, you and I are empowered to carry this grace to all with whom our lives are spent.

As the absolution says: “Through Christ, God has put away your sin. Approach your God in peace.”