These are the descendants of Isaac, Abraham’s son: Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah, daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Paddan-aram, sister of Laban the Aramean. Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife because she was barren, and the Lord granted his prayer, and his wife Rebekah conceived. The children struggled together within her, and she said, “If it is to be this way, why do I live?” So she went to inquire of the Lord. And the Lord said to her,
Genesis 25:19-34
“Two nations are in your womb,
and two peoples born of you shall be divided;
the one shall be stronger than the other;
the elder shall serve the younger.”
When her time to give birth was at hand, there were twins in her womb. The first came out red, all his body like a hairy mantle, so they named him Esau. Afterward his brother came out, with his hand gripping Esau’s heel, so he was named Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them.
When the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, living in tents. Isaac loved Esau because he was fond of game, but Rebekah loved Jacob.
Once when Jacob was cooking a stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was famished. Esau said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stuff, for I am famished!” (Therefore he was called Edom.) Jacob said, “First sell me your birthright.” Esau said, “I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?” Jacob said, “Swear to me first.” 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.
My sermon from the 4th Sunday after Pentecost Sunday (July 16, 2023) on Genesis 25:19-34.
So when I first saw our reading today from the book of Genesis, I wanted to focus on the end of the story. There’s something riveting and exciting about a set of twins who are impulsive, calculating, and who are not the heroes of their own story. We’re slowly moving our way through the story of Abraham, Sarah, and their descendants. After being called by God to leave their home in modern day Iraq, Abraham and Sarah lived a semi-nomadic life in ancient Israel and Palestine. While there, Abraham received a promise from God that his descendants would outnumber the stars and that through Sarah, the entire world would be blessed. God, though, didn’t say when this promise would be fulfilled. And as the months turned into years, both Abraham and Sarah wondered if it would ever come true. They tried to speed up God’s promises by having Abraham sire a child named Ishamel through Hagar who was one of their slaves. Eventually, though, Sarah did give birth to a son who they named Issac. It seemed, for a moment, that everything was finally moving forward. But the dynamics within this family were pretty complicated. We saw how Sarah expelled Hagar and Ishmael from their household and even Abraham tried to sacrifice Issac on a mountaintop. Through it all, Issac grew up married Rebekah, and became the new head of the household. God’s promise to Abraham then became his promise and today we witnessed how it was partially answered through the birth of Esau and Jacob. Esau was a rather rugged individual who spent most of his time outdoors. He became a very skillful hunter and was his father’s favorite because of the meat he regularly brought to the table. His twin brother Jacob, though, was more of a homebody who learned how to cook. He, like Esau, was one of his parents’ favorites but unlike his brother, we’re never given a reason why Rebekah favored him the most. Their differences, though, were matched by their shared appetites for power and status. Both used food as a way to improve their social standing at the expense of their brother. Esau, who was constantly on his toes while busy hunting in the field, walked carelessly into a carefully laid ambush by his brother. One day, Esau came home, complaining that he was starving even though he was simply hungry. He, in a very impulsive way, sold the cultural expectations centered around his status as first-born to his twin brother. This wasn’t the end to that story since Jacob still needed to trick his father into granting him that status which he will do in chapter 27. Both Jacob and Esau were ruled by their appetites which invites us, I think, to wonder about those appetites that are busy ruling us. When we focus on the promise fulfilled, we can then dwell in the very humanness of these twins who are not, I think, meant to be made into a hero and a cautionary tale of what not to do.
But there’s another story within this story that I feel particularly drawn to. When Rebekah and Issac entered into their arranged marriage, both expected that a child would arrive very soon. All around them, it appeared that God’s promise to Abraham was coming true since Abaraham, through his second wife, fathered at least a half-a-dozen more children, and Ishamel’s children were already making families of their own. Yet as the length of their marriage stretched from months into years and into two decades, Rebekah and Issac found themselves experiencing something that his parents felt too. For twenty years, they wondered if God’s promise was ever going to come true for them. I want to skip to the fun part, yet I wonder if it’s a bit more faithful for us to sit with Rebekah and Issac in the years before their children came. Many of us know what it’s like to have a promise or an expectation delayed. We know what it’s like for a dream to never take off in the direction it should. The promise of a family, of children, of a relationship built on mutual hope, love, commitment, and whatever else we hold deep in our hearts, that promise might be one that simply lingers in the air. And it hurts when the promise seems to be coming true for everyone else but us. Sometimes the long awaited promise is fulfilled in a way that surpasses our expectations. But most of the time we end up changing the promise or downgrading our expectations and then learn how to live with a promise that never comes. There’s a deep hurt, grief, and sorrow that radiates from the unfulfilled promises that linger in our hearts and souls. And while these promises are often given to us – an inheritance built on the expectations of our families, our culture, and whatever we imagine we need to succeed – they’re also mixed through with words we hear from God. We sit with Issac and Rebekah not because our story exactly matches their story but because we know what it’s like to wait for a promise that might never come.
Now sitting in that spot isn’t comfortable and there are times when we can’t stay there for very long. When the rawness of an unfulfilled promise is simply too much, we can – and should – let someone else take our seat around that table. That space will be ready to receive us when we’re able to name our grief, sorrow, and share with others our unanswered prayers. And once we get there, we’ll do more than simply be present for ourselves. We’ll also name the unfulfilled promises that we see impacting the lives of all our neighbors. When we sit with Rebekah and Issac, we are given the space we need to cry, to doubt, to wonder, to ask questions, to sit in silence, to pray, and even to rage at the sky. We have the permission to admit how these unfulfilled promises impact the relationships we have with our family, friends, our loved ones, and with the entire church. It’s a space where we do not need to be perfect and it’s big enough to hold the loneliness that every unfulfilled promise makes us feel. It is not an easy space but it is a holy space since even Jesus, while on the Cross, wondered why God had forsaken him too. I’ll admit that I’ve found myself sitting in this space this week with questions about what it means to love, serve, and forgive after a particular trauma from almost a half a century ago has suddenly become fresh again. I wish I could simply rush to the next part – to the fun part – to the part where all the questions, doubts, worries, and grief are fully answered by a promise that makes everything new. But until then, we linger in that particular space with every Issac and every Rebekah. When you find ourselves living with unfulfilled promises that linger, know you are not alone. Your worth as a beloved child of God is not defined or limited by the amount of time you spend as a Rebekah or as an Issac. You, through your baptism and faith, are united with a God who knows what it’s like to linger while their loved ones fail to live out their call to show mercy, offer hope, grant forgiveness, and share a holy love meant for all. We are invited to name out loud those promises that linger; to thank those who share those promises with us; and to sit with each other as we yearn for what tomorrow might bring. And it’s in that space where we live as the body of Christ for each other since no one lives through this life alone.
Amen.