October 23, 2016 Family Portrait Sibling Rivalry Rev. Dr. John Ross Bible Reference: Genesis 25:19-28 We are in a month-long series of messages about family. We re painting a family portrait. You can see the ironic version, or the somewhat sarcastic version, of the family on the front side of the bulletin, two parents and 2.5 kids. We know - at least number one - that every family is unique, and we have a new ministry by that name breaking out among us right now. That s number one. Every family is unique. If you know one family, you know one family and that s it because they re all unique, and they re all different. Second thing, we also know that we are all part of a family, and some of you may be single, living on your own with no living relatives left, saying what family am I a part of? Well, if you can hear my voice, you re part of this family. You re part of a family of faith. You re part of a family to which we have all been invited by Jesus, himself, with his words to come, follow me a powerful force for good in the world, this family of faith. The third thing that I just really hope you take out of this series is that family is also a place where we get to practice our faith most often. We get to practice it with one another, the hours spent daily, the vacations, the times together, the times apart even. We practice our faith most with the people that we re with the most. Just do the math. Today we turn our attention to the unique relationship between siblings, and we look to learn something from that very unique relationship among all relationships. You know, friends can come and go, but, uh, siblings? we re sort of stuck with each other. Siblings we know also, by the time we are old enough to leave home and go off on our own, we will have spent a third of our time in the presence of siblings. There re all kinds of uniqueness in and around this relationship, and we re going to hear about one of the earliest sets of siblings. We re going to hear about the twins Jacob and Esau. Now, you hear names like Jacob and Esau, and you might immediately check out because, oh, these must be a couple of people that lived so long ago, what in the world are they going to have to do with me? Well, two things. Number one, Jacob and Esau are all part of the same family that we ve been talking about. In scripture the Biblical family runs from Adam and Eve all the way through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Esau, all the way through Joseph, all the way even - Matthew s genealogy tells us through David and to Jesus himself. So, don t think there s all these different families all over the place in scripture. It s really not that complicated. There s lots of names, but it s all the same family. Now these two are twins. That s what you need to know as you listen. What you re going to hear is the birth account. You re going to hear a little of the dynamics between Isaac, the dad, and Rebekah, the mom. Okay, you got that much? Mom and Dad - Dad Isaac, Mom Rebekah. The twins are born, Esau and Jacob, in that order. All right? We re going to hear the birth account and they we re going to pick it up in just a moment with the sermon, but listen to the word or God as it comes to us through Genesis 25, the remarkable start of the twins Jacob and Esau. (Katherine Poindexter reads Genesis 25:19-28) You know, I m really glad we got to hear that song. I really wish that Esau and Jacob had heard that song because you ve only heard what happened before they were born so far, or as they were born. What happens next is wow for a pretty long time a pretty tough story to take. If they just heard, Brother, let me be your shelter, never leave you all alone, it might have been a different story. Might have been a different story of siblings, but aren t siblings stories always
a little tricky, at best complicated, at worst really messy? I m sure you can relate to that. I looked for some material today about what siblings say about each other or what parents say about siblings. I found a couple tweets that I thought were pretty good. One of them said, I wish all my younger siblings would appreciate how low I set the bar for them. Reba, with a B, Reba tweeted, Please go play with your brother. That s basically the reason we had him. Drew tweeted, I think the only girl I know that s ever said, You re like a brother to me is my sister. Now, get this one. Matt says, Mom always said she didn t have a favorite child, which was tough because I don t have any brothers or sisters. Tricky stuff, and not just on Twitter. In scripture, right out of the gate, Cain and Abel. Here we go! Crank it up! Cain s got one set of gifts. Abel s got another set of gifts. They start keeping score right away, turn on one another. Moving forward from there, we know about Joseph and his brothers, that whole group of them. You guys all sang up here about that a long time ago. Joseph and his fancy coat right? Even Jesus talked about this without saying so directly when he told that parable about the Prodigal Son. We refer to it as the Prodigal Son, but it s also the story of a loving father and a jealous brother. There s a whole lot going on in there, and there s a whole lot going on in this story of Jacob and Esau that we can learn from, and I m going to have to go pretty quickly this morning. So, let me tell you up front what I m looking for. What I m looking for, number one, is that keeping score in relationships, especially sibling relationships keeping score in any relationship is a dead end, and number two that reconciliation, not rivalry reconciliation, not rivalries, reconciliation is the rule of God. Now, where do I pull these from? This story of Jacob and Esau is amazing. You can read it from Genesis 25 all the way out through about Genesis 33 and then beyond because the descendants, remember, all part of this great big family this story just keeps on rolling, and it doesn t get any less exciting. It gets more exciting, and, remember, these ancient priestly traditions were written down, not for like some historical, hard copy genealogy thing. They were written out of the priestly tradition for the meaning that they contained for us, an eternal meaning, a deep bottomless well of meaning. So, drawing from that, the story of Jacob and Esau you heard the start of it - even in their mother s womb, they were wrestling with each other. You know, they re in there, tossing around and pulling on each other and all this stuff, right up until the moment they re born, and Jacob doesn t want to let Esau get out too far ahead of him. We know because he s holding onto Esau s heel as Esau s born. Right from the very start there s this rivalry that is beginning because he s not going to let go of his heel and let him get too much of a head start on life out ahead of him. And from the early age we see that there were favorites among them. Oh! Parents, pay attention! Right out of the gate, Isaac prefers Esau. Why? We don t really know for sure, but we can guess. You know, it s ascribed to Esau as being born all hairy, you know. He s like a tough guy, and it says that he goes on to prefer game and hunting and all that stuff. If Esau was alive this weekend, he d be up north hunting right now for sure. He wouldn t be here in church. Do you know who would be here in church? Jacob, cause Jacob was kind of the home boy. He just kind of hung around the tents, stayed on his mom s apron strings. So, Rebekah favored Jacob- Isaac and Esau, Rebekah and Jacob. Right out of the gate we re set up for, you know, a struggle that maybe never needed to happen. Now the very next verse if Katherine had kept reading what is a Lectionary passage, I think in year A if she had kept reading, you would have immediately heard this fascinating story of a time when Esau was out hunting, like he would have been this weekend, and when he comes back, he s famished; he s starving. What s
Jacob doing? He s in the kitchen whipping up a little stew, and Esau says, Oh, I m starving. Can I have some of your stew, my brother? And Jacob says, Well, of course you can, but it s going to cost you your birthright. - literally. Jacob says, Sure, you can have some of that stew, but you have to promise me your birthright. Esau says, Fine, you can have it. And Jacob even follows up, doubles down and says, Now, you ve got to swear. - a pinky swear, you know you ve got to swear you re going to give me your birthright. And Esau says, What good is my birthright if I starve to death? So, he gives him his birthright for a cup of soup. Right out of the gate as young men it goes on, you know. Did you hear how old Isaac was when the boys were born, when the twins were born? How old was he? (Someone says, 60. ) Okay. You were listening. I m so excited. He s sixty when they re born, right? So, now, if they re in their teens or early twenties, you know, we just do the math. I know I m getting literal, and I m not supposed to blah, blah, blah... but my point is: Isaac s getting old, and he s getting ready to die. And we know that he s starting to lose his eye sight, and it s coming to that time when the traditional blessing would be given to the oldest son. Esau, right? Jacob can t stand it. He wants the blessing for himself. So, he conspires with his own mother to trick the old, dying, blind Isaac to bestow the blessing on Jacob - on himself rather than on his brother to whom it truly belonged. If you re keeping score, the score right now, it s Jacob 3, Esau 0. But, I m here to tell you keeping score in sibling relationships is a dead end. In fact keeping score in any relationship in your life is a dead end, and it s a recipe for disaster. Now, I love a good rivalry as much as anybody, but I need to pause for a moment here and just acknowledge that it s been a tough weekend for some of my favorite sports teams in the world. Gopher Men s Hockey dropped both games to St. Cloud State, which by the way interestingly has three brothers on the same team that are all first year skaters, one of which is only 17 years old. Fascinating brother story. Anybody want to meet with me after church to talk more about hockey, let s do that, but the Gophers lost both games, and they had a lead in both games. Come from behind! The Ohio State University, after 20 straight road wins, drops one to Penn State. Seriously? Now, I have not uttered the words Ohio State from the pulpit all year or maybe in years. Now they lose, and I do. So, no belly-aching about favoritism. I love a good rivalry as much as any body, and I remember a good friend of mine used to say if winning isn t everything then why do we keep score? In sports keeping score is fine. In sports a rivalry is fine. I love the Minnesota/North Dakota rivalry in hockey that hasn t died even though they screwed up the conferences totally by making it Big Ten and others, but I digress. (Laughter from congregation.) I love a great rivalry as much as anybody in the right time and the right place. Ohio State versus that team up north it s one of the great rivalries in all of sports, but rivalry and score keeping have no place in a relationship. All it does is lead to jealousy and anger. All score keeping and rivalry does in relationship is distract us from the unanswered call of God to do what Lindy dared us to do last week to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with God. All that scorekeeping and rivalry does is distract us from the generative work that God is waiting to do in and through us in all the positive ways that God has called us. All scorekeeping does in relationships is perpetuate a hereditary disease, the hereditary disease of jealousy and anger and violence. Shame on Isaac and Rebekah. Shame on any of you parents who can hear my voice who are overtly and blatantly generating rivalry among your children. It doesn t serve the world, it doesn t serve the kingdom of God, and it doesn t serve them. All it does is make sure that that kind of mentality gets transferred to the next generation.
It s true here. It happens. It s coming up right? - because Esau All right, let s get back to the story. Number one: scorekeeping s a dead end. Number two: reconciliation not rivalry is the rule of God. How do I know that? Because we go on and Esau is angry with Jacob for stealing the blessing. That makes sense. That s understandable. Jacob tricked him out of his blessing that he d been waiting his whole life for. So, Jacob runs away fearing for his own life, and there s like a 20-year period of silence. I lost ten years with one of my sisters. I can t imagine losing 20 years with any of my siblings, but that s what happens here, and over those 20 years, life gets complicated for Jacob. This is great. Jacob has two wives that are sisters who are also the daughters of his uncle. (Short pause, as John smiles at the congregation.) Okay. Now I know you got it. I ll say it again. Jacob has two wives that are sisters, and they are both daughters of his uncle, okay? So, this is not, you know, this picture-perfect family thing going on here, not at all. In fact, he ends up producing 12 baby boys with four different women, but he is most smitten with Rachel. Rachel and Jacob have together Joseph, and you know that story of a multi-colored coat that ends up covered in blood because sibling rivalry ruled over reconciliation passed from generation to generation. Now, we need to fast forward and wrap this thing up. Fast forward to Genesis 32. This is a turning point in Jacob s life. He s gone through all this stuff, and he s got his own family, and they re traveling, and they wind up in this place. He says it s of God because he s seen God there. He sends everyone away. He goes to bed and he has this wrestling match. You ve heard about this, Jacob wrestling with God right? You ve heard about this famous midnight wrestling match. Well, God is saying to Jacob, Jacob, you keep wrestling with me. Even though I keep trying to tell you that I m here to help you. I m on your side, and Jacob keeps wrestling with God and saying to God, I m not going to let you go, God, until you bless me, until you give me a blessing. So, there in the middle of the night as this wrestling match comes to a close, God blesses Jacob and gives him a new name, Israel. God blesses Jacob and gives him a new name, and we know from a couple weeks ago what happens when we get a new name. We get a new identity. We get a new mission. God says, Go and reconcile with your brother Esau. And just to make sure that Jacob knows that he can t do it by himself, God pops Jacob s hip out of joint and forces him to get help to go and do this most important mission of his whole life, to reconcile with his brother. So, he finds out where Esau is, and he goes in that direction, and he sees Esau coming right at him, and Esau s got 400 guys with him. I mean, talk about old country whooping coming up. Esau is carrying around a life time of resentment and 400 thugs with him to let Jacob know just how awful he was, and there s Jacob, limping along with his hip, and he probably deserved a tremendous retaliation. He s been holding onto Esau s heel since birth, but in the moment that we expect the worst to happen, we get the very best. Esau ran to him and embraced him and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept. How can it get any better than that, than the reconciliation of two lost to one another, especially brothers and never-the-less twin brothers? Does it get any better than that? Jacob falls into Esau s open arms of grace, and they wept a hug that must have been heard around the world, and in that embrace family brokenness is mended, God s rule for reconciliation wins over rivalry, and we finally get the picture. Keeping score is a dead end, and reconciliation is the rule. I need to close with this, and then we ll sing our way out of here. You read the words of Isaiah 40 at the beginning of the service? Powerful words. I don t know if you noticed it at the beginning or not, but these are words addressed to Jacob. Yes. Yes. Listen. You can keep
looking, but listen. Yes, it s the same Jacob. In Isaiah 40, God says, Jacob, why do you keep saying, My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God. Jacob s a whiner, and God says, Why do you keep whining, and then he gives us this amazing assurance and this incredible promise. He says, Come on, Jacob, what s wrong with you? Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint. He strengthens the powerless. Even youths will grow faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted, but those who wait for the Lord will renew their strength and shall mount up with wing like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. My friends, if you can hear my voice, you are part of a family, and whether you know it or not, you have brothers and sisters, even some Soul Sisters, but only you know if you re the one who needs to stop keeping score, and only you know if you re the one who needs grace or needs to extend grace to the rule of reconciliation. Have you not known? Have you not heard? Well, now you have. So, let s pray. Gracious and loving God, indeed your grace is enough. So help us to find ourselves in this story of yours. Make it our own and allow it to be the rule of our lives as we do our very best to paint what would be in your eyes a beautiful family portrait. Amen.