“Jacob and Esau”
A Sermon Preached by
the
Rev. Jean Niven Lenk
Sunday, October 21,
2012
First Congregational
Church of Stoughton, United Church of Christ
Text: Genesis 25:29-34; 27:1-16, 41-44; 28:10-12,
16, 32:3, 6-7a, 33:1a, 4,10b
Last week in our Bible Top 40 series, we heard the haunting story of Abraham’s near sacrifice of his young son Isaac. Isaac was ultimately spared, and grew up to marry Rebekah. The couple struggles with infertility, and in answer to Isaac’s prayers, Rebekah not only conceives – but ends up expecting twins! However, during her pregnancy, the two boys struggle with each other within her womb, and their in utero fighting becomes a harbinger of the feuding that will come to plague this family.
These fraternal twins could not be more different. Esau, the firstborn, is a hairy redhead who grows up to be a rugged hunter who loves the open country. Jacob meanwhile enters the world with one hand grasping the heel of his brother, and his parents memorialize that scene by giving him a name meaning “he grasps the heel,” or figuratively, “he deceives.” And a deceiver and a con man Jacob grows up to be. Unlike Esau, Jacob is quiet and withdrawn, preferring to stay indoors not only cooking up stew in the kitchen but also cooking up plots to deceive his aging and blind father Isaac and to cheat his brother Esau out of his inheritance.
Aggravating these differences, the parents play favorites. Dad Isaac is partial to Esau while mom Rebekah dotes on Jacob and serves as a co-conspirator in his schemes. Jacob carries out a ruse to get from his father Isaac the blessing that rightfully belongs to the first-born Esau; the blessing in which Isaac transfers the covenantal promise passed down his father, Abraham; the blessing that will one day produce a whole nation of God’s favored people. The blessing is Esau’s birthright, but Jacob grasps it, as surely as he grasped his brother’s heel at birth. And his deceit costs Jacob. He must run for his life from Esau, who vows to kill him.
Jacob runs until he reaches “a certain place” – that is, no
place in particular. And there, he falls
asleep and has a dream about a ladder that reaches up to God, a “stairway to
heaven,” if you will, for all of us who grew up listening to Led Zeppelin. And God says to Jacob – that schemer and liar
and cheater – God says to Jacob, “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham
and the God of Isaac… I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go.”
God comes to Jacob, not full of the reproaches he deserves,
but rather full of grace and promises.
Jacob has not looked for God, but God has looked for him. And when Jacob awakes from his sleep, he
says, “Surely, the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it…” “This is none other than the house of God,
this is the gate of heaven.”
In his sleep, Jacob has an encounter with God. “Sleep” can mean many things and can come in
many forms: it can be anything that distracts us, or causes us to be
indifferent, anything that keeps us separated from God, or prevents us from discerning
God’s presence. Jacob says, “Surely the
Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” For us, each moment that we live outside the
awareness of God’s presence is a kind of sleepwalking, and this imagery is
echoed by the Apostle Paul in the New Testament when he writes to the Ephesians
[5:14], “Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on
you.”
Sometimes it is a blessing that awakens us: the birth of a
baby, an unexplained healing; a reconciliation that brings us into an awareness
of God’s presence, brings us into God’s light.
Sometimes we are awakened by suffering: in the depths of despair, we
reach out into the darkness, and God’s hand is there to take ours; and in the
light that shines through, we can finally see the face of God.
After Jacob is awoken from his sleep, he names the place he
has his dream “Beth El,” meaning “house of God.” It has been transformed for him from “a
certain place” – nowhere special – to holy ground, a place inhabited by
God.
After his dream, after he becomes aware of God’s presence,
Jacob’s life starts to change, but not all at once. The promise of God’s presence is not an
exemption from problems or character flaws.
Yet Jacob’s journey with God, his transformation, has begun. Eventually he decides to take the enormous
risk of trying to reconcile with his brother: instead of again ripping him off,
he wants to give back to him. In advance
of their reunion, Jacob – who has become quite wealthy -- sends on ahead
extravagant gifts: goats and ewes and rams, and camels and cows and bulls.
We can imagine that, after two decades of estrangement, as Jacob
sees Esau marching toward him with four hundred armed men, Jacob fears for his
life. After dealing so treacherously
with his brother, after stealing his birthright and his father’s blessing,
Jacob knows he deserves nothing more than Esau’s wrath, and Jacob waits
breathlessly to see if Esau will kill him.
But -- Esau runs
to meet Jacob and embraces him, throwing his arms around his neck and kissing
him. They both weep. And Jacob says to Esau, “To see your face is
like seeing the face of God…” [Genesis 33:10].
Instead of hatred, retribution, and revenge, the encounter is enveloped
in God’s peace; the place these two long-alienated brothers reconcile is
inhabited by God, and it becomes holy ground.
The story of Jacob and Esau calls
each of us to look at our own lives and ask “Where does an estrangement need to
be healed?” Who do we need to take
another look at in order to recognize the face of God? What can serve as a place of reconciliation,
resolution, and reunion, transforming it into Beth El?
The good news is that any
place can be Beth El, the house of God, any
place can be holy ground where we can feel God’s presence, where we can see the
face of God, where we can be enveloped in divine peace. Certainly this sanctuary, but also our home,
our office, our job, our car, our heart.
Any place can become Beth El,
because God promises to be with us always.
We simply need to wake up from our slumber, as Jacob did, to
recognize God’s presence and to realize that “Surely the Lord is in this
place.” Amen.
