July 10, 2011
Where is the Fun in Dysfunctional?
- Genesis 25:19-34
- Rev Ruth Chadwick Moore
I know I have shared this with you before, but I just love preaching from the Old Testament! The stories, especially in the book of Genesis, just capture my interest and make me want to keep on reading to see how the story ends. I can't always say that about some other books of the bible, but God working through people like Abraham and Isaac and Jacob just fascinates me.
When I was in seminary, I had to take our daughter Hadley to the pediatrician because she had a sort throat. Now being the multi-tasking, working mother that I was, I had flash cards with me to study for an Old Testament exam. So while we were waiting to see the doctor I had Hadley quiz me on the names and stories of Genesis. I can still remember her 10-year-old little voice saying, "Mom, hearing these stories is just like watching soap operas on TV!" And how right she was. The bible is full of people whose behavior would make a great soap opera or reality show. I can see it now, instead of a show about the Kardashians, The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, the reality show for the story of Jacob and Esau could be entitled something like: "Jacob – the Early Years" or "Struggling, Siblings and Stew." When I was trying to come up with a title for this sermon I thought of old TV show titles like: "The Price is Right" or "Family Feud," or my favorite "Let's Make a Deal." I can see Jacob and Esau in Judge Judy's courtroom sharing their family history, dysfunction and resentment.
My mother in law was a twin and in fact Mark's grandmother gave birth to 2 sets of twins in her own bed and not in the hospital. I don't think she knew she was having twins until a second baby started coming out. Can you image that happening today? Maybe that's one of the reasons I have always been interested in twins and the story of the most famous twins in redemption history – Jacob and Esau. This is the continued story of Abraham and his family as God shares with us the struggles that often happen between siblings who seek advantage over one another. I don't usually expect a case history of infertility, wills, and family dysfunction when I read my bible, but that is certainly the case this week. And it is in and through that family pathology, the family history and resentments, that family dysfunction, that I believe that we see the places and manner of our own redemption.
The Book of Genesis tells us that both Sarah and her daughter-on-law, Rebekah suffered from infertility. I don't know the figures for ancient Palestine, but today about 10% of the reproductive age population in the United States suffers from infertility. Multiple births are rare – about 3% of live births. So statistically speaking both infertility and multiple births are rather uncommon. But that is precisely where God chose to act in the lives of Isaac and Rebekah.
Starting way back in chapter 12 of Genesis, we get the beginnings of this story. Abraham and his wife Sarah (Jacob and Esau's grandparents) are introduced and by the time Abraham dies in chapter 25 he has fathered at least 8 children by 3 wives. First there was his son Ishmael with Hagar the slave. Then there was the Isaac of our scripture this morning, and then Abraham fathered 6 more children by his second wife. But upon his death Genesis tells us that "Abraham left everything he owned to Isaac." (Genesis 25:5) While Abraham was living he patronized "the sons of his concubines" – not the concubines themselves mind you! – with a few trinkets and then the bible says he sent them away from his son Isaac. So much for maintaining warm family relationships! Abraham actively disinherited his seven named sons and then disowned them, as if they might contaminate Isaac and his family. It is hard to imagine a better way to perpetuate family animosities. And poor Ishmael – sent to die in the desert as a boy with his mother. Ishmael did go on to father 12 sons, but as the bible tells us, "they lived in hostility toward all their brothers." Given how Abraham excluded most of his children when he disposed of his massive wealth, and remembering how his wife Sarah and Hagar argued jealously from the beginning, I suppose the sibling rivalry between Esau and Jacob is to be expected.
Our story for today tells us about the infertile couple Isaac and Rebekah and the birth of their famous twins. Even before they were born the boys were fighting with each other – the bible says they "struggled together within her." From the very beginning there was family feuding. And in a reversal of that culture's usual way, God told Rebekah that the older boy would serve the younger. From the very beginning the twins were different. Esau was born red and hairy and he grew up to be a rugged "man's man" as a hunter and lover of the open country. Jacob was quiet and stayed among the tents. He obviously liked to cook. Aggravating these differences, the parents had their favorites, Isaac favored Esau and Rebekah loved Jacob best. Jacob then tricks his brother out of the family birthright – giving a famished Esau a bowl of beans in exchange for the family inheritance. Later Jacob will cheat Esau out of Isaac's blessing – essentially changing his father's last will and testament. Jacob, the younger son, gets a double share of his family's estate and now he gets to be the leader, the patriarch of his family. Esau mortgages everything he has, his stomach rules over his brain and he sells his future for practically nothing. Jacob on the other hand seems to have sold his integrity to gain wealth and power. Can you say dysfunction here with me? Does it sound like anyone is having fun yet?
I don't have any sisters and my brother and I are almost nine years apart in age. We have gotten closer as we have gotten older, but we don't live near each other and our lives are very different. But I do have two daughters who love and care about each other. Now they fight with each other – it drives me crazy – but they enjoy being together and doing things together. And even if we're not close to our siblings, their presence and influence on our lives is woven into the fabric of our being. Our identity is wrapped up in theirs. In the best of sibling relationships there is a sense of deep trust. No matter what controversies or arguments arise you know your sibling has your back and that the family bond that holds you together cannot be broken. Often times our sisters or brothers are our most loyal allies, our best fans and our staunchest defenders. It can be a true blessing to have a sibling who knows our family history and dysfunction and loves us just the same. Sibling relationships can remind us of the way God loves us. Just like our siblings, we are never free from our relationship with God. No matter how far we wander God is always searching for us and loving us in spite or our shortcomings and family dysfunctions. Just like with our siblings, our identity is intricately tied to who God is, and we come to know ourselves as we come to know God.
But I'm not naïve. I know that not all sibling relationships are instruments of God's grace. I see that in the way my own children relate to one another. I see that in how I relate to my brother. And I see that as a pastor when I watch brothers and sisters hurt each other. I have ministered to wounds that are still open years after family
in-fighting. And even when relationships among brothers and sisters have created many blessings, relationships can deteriorate and cause unbearable pain. When love and care are abused or withheld, the damage can crush the spirit.
I have also seen a person or a family broken because a major decision was made in haste without thought to the consequences or the future. Married people have affairs in the heat of the moment. Or what about that new car or house or computer? Isn't it shiny and new and exciting and fun, but how are you going to pay for it? How do we learn to wait in a culture of instant gratification? And what about our relationship with our parents? Did you ever feel that Mom loved Johnny more than she loved you? Or maybe you were Dad's favorite, but did you ever consider how that affected your siblings? And who wouldn't want to get most of the family inheritance? Seriously, I would! There are poor decisions made in every family. We are all selfish sometimes, or deceitful or hurtful or unintentionally clueless.
Before I was a minister I used to look around me at other families in church and think, "They are the perfect family. Nice house, good marriage, well behaved children." And on the outside many of us look like the perfect family – although our definition of family is changing and I don't want to stereotype what a "perfect" family would look like. But no matter what your family looks like, I have learned and I believe we need to acknowledge, that all families and all relationships have their secrets. Sitting in the pews this morning are people who have no contact with their siblings or children or parents. There are people in marriage counseling, and contemplating or going through with a divorce. In this family of faith some of us are addicted to alcohol or painkillers. Some of us have debt up to our eyeballs. In other words there is no perfect family out there. And I for one take comfort in that. My marriage is not perfect, my children are not perfect, my relationships with others are not perfect, but that's ok; because I am still a child of God and I am still loved by a God who loves his children unconditionally. All families have their hurts, their dysfunctions, and their disappointments. Human life is messy and we mess up a lot. But you know what? God still loves us and God can still use us.
So why do we have the example of this dysfunctional family in our bible? Why does God present these people in this fashion and what can we learn from them? First I believe we can learn that this story presents fact and not myth. It paints a realistic picture, not some fairly tale of perfection. The people in Genesis are too normal and too real to be fiction. This is one of the ways we know the bible is true.
And this passage is also encouraging. If the bible were full of only people like Jesus, which is to say perfect, imagine us trying to compare our lives to that standard. We would be demoralized at our utter inability to come anywhere close to the standard that was set. Instead we can look at people like Abraham and Isaac and Rebekah and Jacob and Esau and appreciate and admire their faith – but at the same time we can see that they, like us, were mortal, sinful people.
Genesis also teaches us about forgiveness. Sometimes people say the Old Testament is so different than the New Testament. The Old Testament can seem so harsh and violent, while the New Testament is all about love and peace and compassion. While I understand that sentiment, to me God is screaming mercy and forgiveness in passages like the stories of Abraham and his descendants. And if anyone ever needed mercy and forgiveness it was that family! And yet God uses this complex family to teach us about faith. Like Paul says in Romans 8, the flesh cannot have the final word about us if we walk in the spirit of Christ. If we put sibling and family conflict into the category of "sin in the flesh" then it is a sin from which "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set us free."
And finally I think this passage teaches us about faith and what God can do with that faith. Isaac, Rebekah, Esau and Jacob are not perfect, but they do have faith. They believed what God said to them and acted accordingly – if not perfectly. We have no idea why God chose Jacob over Esau. But after this Jacob goes on to be the father of the twelve tribes of Israel. He is even renamed Israel. Through him we have the nation of Israel – God's chosen people. God uses even the most sinful, devious, dysfunctional people to accomplish God's purposes. And that says to me that God can use us – yes us, even in all our imperfect humanness – God can use us to do amazing things!
We are human and if we live our lives we are going to make mistakes – some small and some that are really big. And God knows that. But I believe that God wants us to act on our faith – even if we make mistakes. Because from what I can see from the story of Jacob and Esau, God seems to make pretty big allowances for those who are acting on their faith but sinning in the process. God's steadfast love always offers forgiveness that frees us from the bondage of past mistakes and allows us to go on and try again. God works through the statistical improbabilities and the practical challenges of infertility, multiple births, sibling rivalry and deviant behavior. In God's hands we can also see that the incidental, the accidental and the ordinary become the material of redemptive history. And as we take encouragement from the people in Genesis – because they look, feel, sound and act just like us – maybe we find our own place and our own role in God's story of salvation. May it be so. Amen.
Sources:
"Dysfunctional Families in Genesis," posted by Administrator on January 10, 2011 in "Thought for the Week" on http://wcfoundtion.org/tftw_blog.
"Family Feuds (Genesis 25: 19-34; Romans 8:1-11)" by Verity A. Jones in the June 19-26, 2002 publication of The Christian Century.
"Jacob and Esau: A Theology of Pathology," reflections by Dan Clendenin posted July 4, 2005 on http://www.journeywithjesus.net.
"Not 4 Sale," July 10, 2011 on http://www.homileticsonline.com