Brawling Brothers

Esau selling his Birthright

copy after Paulus Moreelse, after 1609

https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/object/Esau-selling-his-Birthright--488ef52e35ee1f3dd4365e1a4f7a09c9

Centuries after the time of Abraham and Sarah, and even centuries after the time of Moses and Miriam, Hannah went to the Lord to pray. She was barren, unlike her rival wife Peninnah, and wanted a child. She prayed silently, moving her lips, and the priest Eli, at first confronting her for this strange behavior, heard her plea and assured her of God’s mercy. Indeed, in due course, a child was on its way. 

She, following a vow she had made, presented her child to Eli to be raised as his helper – and as it turned out, his successor. 

Here is part of what she prayed as she rejoiced in her expectancy:

And Hannah prayed, and said, My heart rejoiceth in the Lord, mine horn is exalted in the Lord: my mouth is enlarged over mine enemies; because I rejoice in thy salvation.

There is none holy as the Lord: for there is none beside thee: neither is there any rock like our God.

Talk no more so exceeding proudly; let not arrogancy come out of your mouth: for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed.

The Lord maketh poor, and maketh rich: he bringeth low, and lifteth up.

He will keep the feet of his saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness; for by strength shall no man prevail.

1 Samuel 2:1-3, 7, 9 (King James Version)  

Sound familiar? In her praise and exultation, Hannah hearkened back to the joy of childless women made fertile in the past: from Sarah and Rebekah to Rachel, and echoes on through time, from Miriam to Hannah, to Elizabeth, cousin of the Virgin Mary. (And the song Mary sang after visiting Elizabeth.)

And the prayer of Hannah echoed the song of Miriam, sister of Moses, at the Red Sea:

Then the prophet Miriam, Aaron’s sister, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women went out after her with tambourines and with dancing.  And Miriam sang to them: “Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.”

Exodus 15:20-21

All these women, from Sarah to Elizabeth, form a sisterhood that is powerful. God over and over again overturns human expectation. The younger is preferred to the older; and the weak to the strong. It is all in fulfillment not of human purpose but that of God.

So you see there is more to the story of Isaac and Rebekah than just a sandwich generation, between their parents and their sons. Isaac had prayed, Rebekah had inquired of the Lord, and God answered them.

Because of them, of their pursuance of God’s fruitfulness, the promise and the covenant continued. God would make of their descendants a mighty nation, a nation of priests to serve their God, and all nations would be blessed in them. Them too. 

And then there are their sons. Their vexatious children, contending from inside the womb and on into adulthood. Our Scripture portion for this morning only goes so far, in what it gives of their story. Later, spoiler alert! Esau in his anger vowing to kill his brother, is overheard by their mother, and Rebekah persuades Isaac to go away for a while. He goes east of Canaan, east of Edom, and back to ancestral Harran. 

God has a purpose in this exile – as in so many other occasions. When he brings back Jacob with his newly acquired household, it is to meet Esau in reconciliation. The brothers embrace when they meet.

That is long after the story of ‘that red stuff’ and the birthright scorn. 

Today we see the consequences emerging of his impulsive, brash, brusque, rude as rude can be, disregard of his heritage - and duty.

Esau will not be the one to bear the promise and the mission. It was Abraham and not Lot, Isaac and not Ishmael, so it will be Jacob and not Esau, that God chooses - not of their virtue but of his will. 

What will happen when these boys grow up? Will the two nations continue to strive, one east, one west, of the Jordan River? And what in our own day will come of contending nations, and brash brothers?

Will we do better than these, God’s chosen ones, who in their folly, jealousy, pride and humanness, end up furthering his mysterious purpose?

The triumph of Rebekah was a strange joy, unearthly in its origin, and whether or not she saw the fulfillment of her own hopes is an open question. We see, from this distance, hope in the story, but wonder: 

Do the people in the midst of the story have hope in the promise, or are they despairing in the desert? Only faith can make the difference.

And the providence of God – sometimes shown by human hand. In our own day, there are people wandering in the desert, or across seas, seeking a future with hope, in a land that God may show them. 

*****

But wait, there’s more:  after today’s reading, there is a whole chapter, a big chapter. It is between this week’s scripture portion, and next week’s. Chapter 27 of Genesis relates the astonishing story of how Esau, who had already bargained away his birthright for “some of that red stuff” loses the blessing of his father as well. 

And when Isaac was old, and his eyes were dim (so that he could not see) he called Esau his eldest son, and said unto him, My son. And he answered him, I am here. Then he said, Behold, I am now old, and know not the day of my death. Wherefore now, I pray thee take thine instruments, thy quiver and thy bow, and get thee to the field, that thou mayest take me some venison. Then make me savory meat, such as I love, and bring it me that I may eat, and that my soul may bless thee, before I die.

Genesis 27:1-4 (Geneva Bible, 1599)

But Rebecca, who had favored her younger son since before he was born, now intervenes. She bids Isaac to forestall his older brother by getting two kids from the goat herd and preparing a stew, and then disguising himself as the red and hairy older brother. In this way, he will receive the elder brother’s blessing instead of Esau.

At this Esau finally wakes up enough to realize there is a problem and becomes very angry, but Rebecca has a solution for that too. She sends her favored son off to the land of his ancestors to find a wife. 

As she explains to her husband, she’s tired of these Hittite women (Esau married two) and wants her son to marry from among his own kin from back home.

While she had been found for Isaac by Abraham’s servant, her son will discover for himself his bride. 

It is on the outward journey that Jacob stops and dreams the dream of the ladder that we will hear about next Sunday.

Eventually, after long years of labor in the service of his bride's brother, he will return, unsure how he will be received by his own brother. He will encounter him by a brook on his way home. 

JRL+

Sundays and Seasons [https://members.sundaysandseasons.com/Home/DayResources] offers some resources on the readings of the day, including this comment on Genesis 25:19-34

The lectionary now cites four episodes in the story of Jacob-Israel. Again, the Lord intervened in nature so that the barren Rebekah conceived and bore Isaac twin sons. Although Esau was first born, the younger son Jacob inherited God’s blessing, and thus once again the cultural expectation of primogeniture was thwarted with the Lord’s blessing. This legend was important for the eighth-century Israelites, whose very survival was threatened by enemy conquest. Christians have enjoyed the details of these folk tales and have seen in them illustrations that God’s promises are kept.

And on the Response (Psalm 119:105-112):

As if we are Rebekah, struggling through childbirth; as if we are Esau, close to starvation; as if we are Jacob, leaping over the law: we sing Psalm 119:105-112. We are severely afflicted, but God gives us life. We join with Jacob to follow the law of the Lord.

Sunday 12 July 2026
Seventh Sunday after PentecostProper 10Track 1 Genesis 25:19-34Psalm 119:105-112Romans 8:1-11Matthew 13:1-9,18-23

Thanks for insights from text study colleagues Robert S. Jones, Steward McDonald and Stephen Springer.

Kathryn Z. Johnston. In the Lectionary: July 12, Ordinary15a. (Genesis 25:19-34). The Christian Century. July 2026. 25.

Esau sells his birthright to Jacob attributed to Dirck Volckertsz. Coornhert, 1549 Esau, dressed as a hunter, has sold his birthright to Jacob for a plate of lentils. He feasts on the lentils. Jacob sits opposite him. The print is part of a series about the history of Jacob.

https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/object/Esau-verkoopt-zijn-eerstgeboorterecht-aan-Jakob--9a8120fe9b98a6f2bdbfd3c8c014bf4d

Esau verkoopt zijn eerstgeboorterecht

(Esau sells his birthright)

Crispijn van de Passe (I), 1700 - 1750

https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/object/Esau-verkoopt-zijn-eerstgeboorterecht--f0c6708ecd8466c91a60555d66739e0a

The Sower and the Seed

 

The Sower

By Jean-François Millet (French, 1814–1875)

1850

https://collections.mfa.org/objects/31601

(public domain)

The Sower

Vincent van Gogh (1853 - 1890), Arles, November 1888

https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/s0029V1962

The sower came to my house the other day with a hose and blew hydroseed all over the place. Sure enough, some fell on rocky ground, of which we have plenty; some fell on the path and the road and if the birds had a chance on it before the trucks ground it into the dust, I’m sure they had their fill. Some fell among weeds, where it became indistinguishable from them: a weed is a plant growing where you do not want it, but until it grows up to maturity how do you tell which is which? And some fell among good soil. We’ll see what happens there.

The parable of the sower that Jesus tells in the gospel of Matthew (13:1-9) touches on this common experience. Picture him sitting on the shore near a small fishing village, ready to teach, until so many people come to hear him that he gets into a small boat and from just offshore looks back at the crowd and speaks to them from there.

How many of those people decided to fit themselves, and others, into categories? That guy looks like rocky soil to me, says one to himself, while the other thinks the first has a weedy look.

That is hardly the point of the parable, in my mind. Like many of Jesus’ parables it turns our everyday expectations upside down. And that is a place to start. Why was the sower so indiscriminate? Why not pay attention to where you’re throwing, and focus on the good soil? Or better yet what is this sowing all about in the first place?

Jesus’ sower seems to work with joyous abandon, spreading far and wide a seed-message that in only a few can take hold and grow into something productive. He seems bent on starting something, and he does it in the most extravagant and outrageous - and democratic - way. 

The seed, I would suggest, is the message that Jesus - and we - bring to the world, the coming of the ordering of everything under heaven into its right relationships. We call this the reign of God. 

And why not spread it far and wide? Why deny anyone the chance to receive it? Sure they may seem rocky or weedy or road-weary to us, but let’s see what happens when the seed falls, and the sun shines, and the rain falls: will it grow? Will it become something wonderful? We will have to wait and see. And meanwhile we must cultivate our own garden, that it well receive what we seek to spread.

Almighty God, we thank you for planting in us the seed of your word. By your Holy Spirit help us to receive it with joy, live according to it, and grow in faith and hope and love, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen. (Sundays and Seasons)

 

Let the rain begin!

JRL+

An edited version of this meditation appeared in the Arizona Daily Star, page E3, Keeping the Faith feature, Sunday July 23, 2023, under the title “The seed of God’s word.”

waiting for rain

Ted Ramirez from Tubac has a song about the time of year just past - about waiting for rain. It is a cheerful song, sung in June, waiting for the monsoon. The rains will come - haven’t they always? And all this dry ground will moisten. Rivers will run, green will show among the brown. Mosquitoes will hover; termites take wing. The birds are happy. And there is the smell of creosote after the rain. Hope.

Hope. Scattered seeds. Scientifically and practically, as Joann Lee from San Francisco observes, we place our seeds cautiously in the garden, in neat rows, tilled carefully. Soil prepared, supplements added, nurture required.

It seems almost farcical to suggest a sower throwing arms wide, seed scattering here and there… indiscriminately? We don’t do it it this way -- usually.

Though as we speak a counter-example sits on my mantelpiece: mesquite pods of a rare variety. I’ve been encouraged by the giver to toss them into a wash just as the monsoon starts… And here where some oaks used to grow, cattle have unconsciously spread mesquite pods of a common variety wherever they sense moisture and shade enough to pause in…

Some gardener, huh? Rocks, weeds, thorns - and good soil.

Wherever that might be. Cracks in the pavement. There are towns where I lived once, San Francisco for example, where there seemed to be no green thing for miles, except in parks - just concrete. Before the urban tree movement. And Brooklyn -- you wouldn’t know it, looking at brownstone buildings lined up in closed ranks, but behind and between the stone facades are gardens, green things, and occasionally now a community garden in a vacant lot.

But that is not enough, not what it’s all about. Sure, there are farms, big and small, organic gardeners and agrichemical giants.

The seed that grows between, behind, among, and inside the buildings -- the Word of God -- falls more indiscriminately, apparently. A seed lies dormant in a human soul for years and miles. One day something brings it moisture and nurture, and it grows. May be concerns, bitterness, indifference can stop the process - or can it?

Is grace inexorable? Does it miss us sometimes?

This story seems not to be about gardening. It’s a simpler, stranger story, a challenge to be worked out. Parable itself seems to mean, literally, to throw alongside, to scatter about. Jesus the punster. And sower - for he himself throws out to us this story.

To scatter, broadcast: that’s what we do. For all our niche marketing and careful planning, it’s the seeds of hope that we drop unconsciously or unconcernedly, without an agenda, that may lodge, grow, and lead to fruitful life.

There is a story about an old Scottish minister looking back at the end of his life, over the course of his career, and a question came. Did you ever convert anybody? Did you ever bring the gospel into anyone’s heart? No, I don’t think so -- unless it was that little Davey Livingstone…

David Livingstone, who went on to a life of missionary service in Africa.

Now such things are less fashionable. But the people -- the descendants of the people who heard the Word from such as David Livingstone -- are grateful.

For the missions, indiscriminate as they may have been, left behind some seeds to grow.

Material benefits -- clean water, epidemic diseases eradicated, healthier food, educated children -- but notably all this came from a greater good, that ordered them and made sense of them all: to reconcile our souls to God in Christ.

This is still the mission of Christian service, underlying all our efforts and activities, and to be reaffirmed … as it was this last week by my wife’s relief and development organization, refocusing their efforts in light of the greater mission, for all is done in the name of Christ.

And so those seemingly random efforts have behind them a hope and a promise, that under God’s grace and with his assurance, his word will not return to him empty.

And the rains will come and water the earth.

May it be with us as you have purposed. Amen.

Isaiah 55:10-13

Psalm 65: 9-14
Romans 8:1-11

Matthew 13:1-9,18-23

The Book of Common Prayer. New York: Oxford. 231.

Joann H. Lee, “Living the Word”, The Christian Century, June 21, 2017, 19.

Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona, Nourishing News, July 2017.