Part of a series, The Man God Mastered:
St Alban’s Highgate 16th July 2017
I was walking home from the deli early one Saturday morning when I ran into Pete. Pete had started coming to church. “How are you?” I asked. “Confused,” was his reply. “I decided I’d read the Bible. Yesterday I read Genesis; today I’m halfway through Exodus. And boy, I’m confused. It’s not what I expected.”
What do people expect when they read the Bible for the first time? Moral lessons; perhaps a bit of philosophy. I asked Pete whether he had picked up the idea of what he was reading. “It seems to be the story of a family,” he said.” And that is exactly what it is: the story of a special family. People who read the Bible for the first time are often shocked to encounter blatant immorality, in a story that doesn’t bother to condemn such misbehavior. But it is the story of a real family, and they were not always good.
Today I am beginning a series of six sermons on just a part of that story, the life of Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel, who became the father of a very special people: the people of God. God would become known as “the God of Jacob”.
But what is the point of preaching such a story? Surely there are better things? And hasn’t the Old Testament been superseded by the old? Isn’t it more moral and more relevant? I’ll let you work that one out as we go along. Just let me say now that if the Bible is a story – which it is – you will need the early bits to understand what follows. Also the God with whom Jacob struggled is the same God you and I must deal with today. I will stick my neck out and say that there are things we will learn from Jacob that we will not learn about anywhere else. At the very least Jacob is one very unusual man. At the end of his life he was received by the King of Egypt. He asked him how old he was and Jacob’s reply is intriguing. “The days of the years of my sojourning are 130 years. Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their sojourning.” (Genesis 42.9)
On June 7 1987 a man named David Grace sat in his hotel room in Honolulu. He was midway flying a Qantas jet from Sydney to Los Angeles. He was lonely and unhappy and reached for the hotel Gideon’s Bible, though he was no friend of God. The Bible fell open at Luke 21 and he was reading. “… and Jerusalem will be trodden down by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled,” when the radio on the wall playing music was interrupted for a news flash. It was the middle of the Six Day War and Israeli troops had entered Jerusalem and planted their flag at the Western Wall of the Temple Mount. For the first time in two thousand years Jerusalem was in Jewish hands. Bewildered by the match between the Bible and the news he fell to his knees and surrendered his life to the God and Father of the Lord Jesus. On the other side of the world the commander who led the force to the Wailing Wall could hardly get words out for his tears. He grabbed the arm of one of his men:
“Zamosh, if my grandfather, if my great-grandfather, if any of my family who have been murdered in pogroms and in the death camps . . . if they could know, somehow, even for one second, that I, their grandson, would be standing here at this hour, in this place, wearing the red boots of an Israeli paratrooper . . . if they could know this, Zamosh, for just one instant, they would suffer death a thousand times and count it as nothing.”
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We see that we are caught up in a story that has not ended yet. Jacob was the beginning of that story. Jews treasure his story because it carries in it the key to their identity and destiny. So do Christians, because we believe that Jesus is the conclusion of the story. The God of Jesus is also the God of Jacob.
We who are not of Israel’s family, also read and treasure and preach this story, because we believe that the King of the Jews wants to share Jacob’s destiny with us. And so Israel’s patriarchs become our fathers too, just as Israel’s God becomes our God. We Gentile Christians are like the Moabite girl who said to her Jewish mother-in-law:
“Don’t urge me to leave you, or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God … May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.” (Ruth 1.16-17)
The foremost reason why we treasure these stories is because God has chosen to make himself known this way. These stories are his story. They are first and foremost about him and are the instrument he uses to make himself known. We will encounter God in this story, and we will get to know him, and come to know our own destiny in God.
So where does the story begin? Only in fiction do stories have a beginning and an end, and this is not fiction. The key to our destiny is found in a promise. This promise was made to Jacob’s grandfather – by God – and it was handed down to Abraham’s son, Isaac, Jacob’s father. It was more than a promise, because God had sworn it as a covenant – to Abraham, and then he had renewed it to Isaac. It was a kind of will and testament. In the earlier part of Genesis 25 we see how careful Abraham was to set up all his other descendants and to get them away from Isaac. He didn’t want any disputing of the will. All of them were blessed in their way from their relationship with Abraham, but God had made it clear that the parent promise itself should be passed down through Isaac, Sarah’s only child, the miracle child.
God first made the promises in Genesis 12:
I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse (Hitler sealed his own doom when he decided to exterminate this people; he was not the first to have made this mistake) – whoever curses you I will curse, and all peoples on earth will find blessing through you. (Genesis 12.2-3)
And God had sworn the promise as a solemn testament in the following words:
To your descendants I will give this land, from the Brook of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, Kennizites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perrizites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites. (Genesis 15.18-21 – How many of these nations are still around today?)
But that promise had been made a long time ago; it was more than seventy years since Abraham received it, and who still believed it? When the curtain rises on the story of Jacob the land is still firmly the possession of all those strange sounding peoples, and Isaac’s family is still a nomadic clan wandering the uncontrolled wilderness areas of Palestine. What sort of value would you put on a promise like that for future inheritance purposes? That is the question upon which the meaning of this story hinges.
These are the generations of Isaac, Abraham’s son: Abraham fathered Isaac, and Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Paddan-aram, the sister of Laban the Aramean, to be his wife. And Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife, because she was barren. And the Lord granted his prayer, and Rebekah his wife conceived. The children struggled together within her, and she said, “If it is thus, why is this happening to me?” So she went to inquire of the Lord. And the Lord said to her, “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the older shall serve the younger.” When her days to give birth were completed, behold, there were twins in her womb. The first came out red, all his body like a hairy cloak, so they called his name Esau. Afterward his brother came out with his hand holding Esau’s heel, so his name was called Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them. (Genesis 25.19-26)
What do we mean by destiny? Destiny means someone is born with their future already decided – not perhaps in detail, but the broad sweep of what they will be in life and what they will achieve – or perhaps their failure – is predestined. So is there such a thing? The modern materialist has to say no, unless he thinks everything is predetermined by natural forces and there is no such thing as free will. Destiny only makes sense if there is a God who is in ultimate control of what happens. And that is precisely what this story is about. Rebekah is struggling with a particularly difficult pregnancy, so much so that she feels it is unnatural. She inquires of the Lord. We are not told how, but she gets a clear answer: she is to be the mother of two nations and they will not be friendly towards each other; already they are fighting. And struggle will be the story of Jacob’s life. I could have called this series of sermons, “Fighting God”, because Jacob is preeminently the man who fought God. We will see more of that later. For the moment he is fighting his brother.
The two boys are born. Esau comes first, unusually covered with red hair. His name means “Hairy”. His other name is Edom, which means “Red”. Jacob is born next. He is holding onto his brother’s heel. He got his name from grabbing at his Esau’s heel. The Jewish rabbis made a lot of this. Someone asked how the new age of the kingdom would come. Would there be an intermediate period between the present ago of wickedness and the coming age of righteousness, as Christians were saying? No, it would be like Esau and Jacob. Esau stands of the present age; Jacob stands for the new age and he is hanging onto his brother’s heel with nothing between.
On a beach mission at Albany one year we had as a theme “Stories of the Dreamtime”. I told the story of “Hairy and Grabber”. Later in the week a little boy came to me and asked whether I could tell them another story about Hairy and Grabber. I had evidently aroused some interest.
Our Prayer Book takes Isaac and Rebekah as a model of Christian marriage. They loved one another and, unlike most of the ancients, Isaac only ever had the one wife. But they were not a happy family. Jacob and Esau fought and Isaac and Rebekah took sides. It is not clear whether Rebekah was influenced by that early prophecy, or whether she just preferred her quieter son, but Isaac clearly loved the adventurous, outdoor Esau, and may not have taken too much notice of the oracle.
Genesis only tells us the essentials of the story. We jump from the birth of the twins to their early manhood. We see that Genesis is not attempting Jacob’s life-story, but something else.
When the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, dwelling in tents. Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob. Once when Jacob was cooking stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was exhausted. And Esau said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stew, for I am exhausted!” (Therefore his name was called Edom.) Jacob said, “Sell me your birthright now.” Esau said, “I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?” Jacob said, “Swear to me now.” So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright. (Genesis 25.27-34)
Destiny is working itself out. What was this birthright? In later days the eldest son would inherit a double share of the father’s inheritance. It was intended that he would take over the property from his father and keep the family farm going. We don’t know if it was the same in the time of the patriarchs. In any case there was no farm; Isaac was a semi-nomad. What was Isaac worth after Abraham had shared everything out to his family? In terms of real estate he only owned a single field with a burial cave. You couldn’t do much with that, because Abraham and Sarah would be buried in there. They still are! The Cave of Machpelah is closely guarded by the Muslims of Hebron, who also trace their ancestry back to Abraham. There were some wells, but the Philistines had filled them up. There would have been some tents and servants, and sheep and goats. Chapter 26 gives the impression that life for Isaac and his family was a struggle until his later years.
But maybe Esau was a young adventurer who didn’t put much value on property, or perhaps he didn’t take this whole deal with Jacob too seriously. It would be up to his father, after all, to decide who was going to inherit what, and he knew he was Isaac’s favourite. Or yet another possibility is that Jacob didn’t have his eye on the property; he wanted to get his hands on the family promise. That’s what mattered to the author of Genesis, anyhow.
So we come back to the old covenant – the family heirloom; I reckon Esau regarded that as just religion, of as much worth as a piece of used toilet paper. He was happy to trade it for a square meal, and thought he had got a good deal. He didn’t see the transaction as significant. But Jacob did, and so did Genesis, and so does God. Nearly four thousand years later it is still influencing world history. Who does “The Promised Land” belong to, after all? Certainly not to Esau’s descendants; they no longer exist as a people. This story shows us the seriousness of a human decision. Visions of Maoris and Zulu’s selling off their lands for beads flashes before our eyes.
It is hard not to ask moral questions. At the very least Jacob’s behavior was unbrotherly, manipulative and exploitative. We wonder how a nation could record such a story of its founding hero. But moral questions are secondary here; they are not the key to how this late starter came to win the race. The New Testament tells us that this was predestination at work. God had made a decision about how his plans would be worked out before either Jacob or Esau were born and neither had done anything good or bad.
In his letter to the Romans Paul is discussing how God’s promise passed not to every descendant of Abraham, but to particular chosen ones, to Isaac first, and then he mentions Jacob and Esau.
And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls— she was told, “The older will serve the younger. (Romans 9.10-12)
If we try to judge by the character of each man, we find good and bad in each of them. Jacob, the complex, conniving schemer; Esau quite the more attractive of the pair, careless and carefree. But this is not the basis of God’s choice; that is hidden from us, just as God’s choice of us is hidden. We are chosen in accordance with his loving plan – not because of our goodness, but in spite of our badness.
People get twitchy about predestination. We imagine that somehow God is holding some people back and favouring others. It is quite the opposite. God desires that all people should be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2.3). All are invited, and God holds the door open to us all. He even pleads with us. But who enters? We all naturally turn away. “We all like lost sheep have turned away,” says Isaiah. It is in the face of sinful rejection that God still has mercy on some and drags them through the door. Others he leaves to their choice. Without the intervention of God both Jacob and Esau would have despised their birthright for the real tangible good things of this life.
So is there no distinction at the human level between these two men? There is, and it is important that we pay attention to it, but first I want to ask what Jacob and Esau’s story has to do with us today. I have touched on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; is that what it is all about? In the self-understanding of many Jews the land is theirs by right because of this story, and because they are descended from Jacob. Muslims, on the other hand, believe themselves descended from Abraham’s other son, and they believe Israel forfeited its right to the land, and was exiled by God, and its rights taken away and transferred to Muslims. And where does that leave Christians? Do they have any claim? Or is it all about people looking for justification for land-grabbing?
It all depends on how you think the story continues and ends, and this is where Jews, Muslims and Christians see it differently. The Bible, however, makes it quite clear. The promise includes possession of the land, but much more as well. The promise was made to Abraham and his seed (whoever they might turn out to be), and it was reaffirmed to Isaac and Jacob. Then under Moses God made Jacob’s descendants his special nation and enacted a subsidiary covenant with terms for their continued relationship as his people. They then broke that covenant over and over and eventually God declared it null and void, and said they were no longer his people; he banished them from the land. Listen to what God said through the prophet Hosea when his child was born.
Call his name Not My People, for you are not my people, and I am not your God. (Hosea 1.9)
Did this mean there was nothing left of Abraham’s covenant? Was this the end of the Jews as God’s people? No! Moses covenant was broken beyond repair, but Abraham’s covenant still stood. Listen again to what God said through Hosea even after those terrible words he said before.
Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And in the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” it shall be said to them, “Children of the living God (Hosea 1.10)
All of the prophets look forward to the day when God will restore his promises to Israel. But how will that be?
Listen now to what God said through his prophet Jeremiah.
Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. (Jeremiah 31.31-34)
Three things we should note here. The first is that Israel has a future. Though she was cut off at the time Jeremiah writes, she is not cut off forever. The second is that her sin will one day be forgiven. The third is that God will transform her by changing people’s hearts on the inside. If you read on further you will see how serious God is about the ultimate restoration of this people (Jeremiah 31.35-37). Muhammad got this wrong. So where do Christians fit in, or do they?
In my view the New Testament is clear that Israel has its own destiny. This is pictured in Revelation 7.1-8 as 144,000 sealed, 12,000 from every tribe. The meaning is that the full restored and perfected Israel will be found in the new world. Not one of the elect will be missing. The numbers are not literal, but God’s promises to Israel will be fulfilled in their entirety. I say, in my view, because this is debated. Some say Israel is replaced by the Church. This is the replacement idea of the Qur’an, and it is held by many Christians, but I don’t see it in the New Testament. Gentile Christians are pictured in Revelation 7.9 as “a great multitude that no one could number from every nation”. They have been joined to Israel to share in the blessing of Abraham, but are distinct. If you want to study this, read Ephesians and Romans 9-11. The Church of the new age is made up of Israel and the Nations. This, according to Paul the theologian, was always the teaching of the Old Testament.
His argument comes in a number of forms. One of them goes something like this: if God has made his people “not my people” – we saw this in Hosea – he has reduced them to the status of Gentiles. If he then has pity and calls them “my people” again, why should be not also make Gentiles who are not his people “my people”? (Romans 9.22-26)
I fear I may have lost some of you, but I need to wake you up for one more point here. I have been talking as though the promise was all about possession of the land of Israel-Palestine. But is it? The promise to Abraham was of land, descendants and relationship: “you will be my people and I will be your God.” Later God made it clear a king was to be involved, a king who would rule the nations. Jacob is promised a “church of nations”. What is to be involved in the final form of the promise keeps being filled out. It is like an uncle tells you he is going to leave you his business, and as you explore what that means you find out that the business owns shares in other companies, and property, and boats and even an aeroplane. By the time you come to the New Testament Paul is telling us that the promise to Abraham was actually the promise of a new world. Jesus himself says we shall inherit the earth. So quarrels about who has title to Israel-Palestine are irrelevant. Jesus promises Jacob’s true descendants, and the Gentiles who are joined to them, eternal life in a transformed world and universe. What Esau traded for a feed of stew was the title deeds to a new world.
So let me end this by saying simply that God in his mercy has joined sinners, who do not belong to Jacob’s family, into Abraham’s family, to share his blessing. The message of Jesus with his promise of eternal life for all who believe places us before the same decision that confronted Esau. Do we want that old promise, or will we opt for the solid blessings of this life?
Esau despised his birthright. He counted the promise as something of little worth. Jacob glimpsed its value and wanted it, even if he had to cheat to get it. And God responded to that. The way in which the elect – God’s chosen ones – begin to distinguish themselves, and the others disqualify themselves, is in their attitude to the promise of blessing.
We see this in the ministry of Jesus. The religious leaders were making fun of his teaching. Jesus answered them, “The law and the prophets were until John the Baptist. Since then the kingdom of God is announced and everyone forces his way into it.” What is he saying? The Pharisees were trying hard to keep the law, but when Jesus spoke to them about the kingdom of God they were not interested. However, the prostitutes and tax collectors, though they had little righteousness to hold up, recognized the value of what Jesus was holding out to them and they wanted it. Everyone knew the door to the kingdom was barred to these people and they knew it themselves, but they didn’t let that stop them, they forced their way in anyway. Jesus called them “the violent ones” and welcomed them. What marked them as the elect was their enthusiasm for the promise of the kingdom.
Think of Jacob and Esau as second generation Christians: children of believing parents. Before them from their earliest years is a promised of great blessing from God, the promise of a new world. But how will it stack up against the apparent real values of food and sex, of lovers and degrees and jobs, of houses and cars? They will have many opportunities to trade their birthright for one or other or all of these. Or suppose you come from outside the Christian circle; you are hearing the gospel for the first time. Jesus promises you a place in the new world he is bringing. All you have to do is believe in him and entrust your life to him. But you know it will cost you. What value will you give to the promise? Just religion and not worth bothering with? Or something akin to a treasure hidden in a field, which you have found, and is worth more than all you have ever imagined.
Whatever your decision may be, God’s plan of salvation will go on. You decision is about whether you will be a part of it. The plan will prevail. Will you come and join Abraham’s family?