“Selling Birthrights”

Genesis 25:19-34

A sermon preached by the Rev. Douglas M. Donley

June 26, 2005

University Baptist Church

Minneapolis, MN

 

I had the occasion to be on the north shore on the Summer solstice this past week.  I had just completed the Grandma’s Marathon and my sore legs were resting at a campsite in Gooseberry State Park.  Now I know why people retreat to the north sore every chance they get.  It was stunningly beautiful.  After the Sunday storm, the water was clear and calm and the sky had only a hint of clouds.  As Kim got ready to get into the tent, she told me that she had seen the full moon in blazing yellow at the top of the hill. I took my aching legs to the hill and there it was: A huge bright yellow moon against the night sky flirting with the clouds.  I made my way to the lakeshore and stood in stunned silence as the moon rose over the lake and reflected a line of white on the shore heading to the horizon.  With a few others that gathered, we stood for many minutes in stunned silence.  I remembered what had happened in the past week.  I remembered what had happened in the past year.  I reveled in the sense of grace that intrudes on us when we least expect it.  I prayed for our world and that if we could capture the hope and the stillness and the power of this solstice moonrise and channel it in to the holy work we need to do, then we might have a very different world to look at.

            It’s pride Sunday.  People are awash with joy and exuberance in Loring Park and in major cities across this land to remember the rights and to advocate for the dignity of all people regardless of sexual orientation or gender affection.  It’s good to be here celebrating the birthrights of all people to live free from discrimination and fear.

            The lectionary gives us this passage from Genesis as our focal Scripture for this Sunday.  When some people on the Worship Planning Team looked at the scripture, they wondered, yet again, if I had lost my mind.  Where was I going to go with this one, they wondered?

            Jacob was a scoundrel.  He was uppity.  He was jealous.  He was insecure.  He was devious.  He was relentless.  When his mother Rebekah became pregnant with twins, it was more than she could take, the convulsions and discomfort were so intense.  Even from the womb the brothers Jacob and Esau were fighting.  When they were born, Isaac favored hairy, red-headed Esau because he was the first born.  Rebekah favored smooth-skinned Jacob.  Esau learned to hunt and Jacob learned to cook.  One day after a long day of hunting, Esau came home to find lots of scrumptious food around.  He asked Jacob for some of it and Jacob said, “sure, you can have some, just sell me your birthright.”  Esau was starving to death and agreed. 

            What’s a birthright?  Well, it’s what God has given you.  By your birth, it is who you are, how you were created, how you are wired, for better or worse.  It is our birthright to be treated fairly, to never have our dignity questioned, to have life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as our expectation.  Thomas Jefferson put it this way, writing of his reasoning for fighting the Revolutionary War: “In our native land, in defense of our freedom which is our birth right.  And which we ever enjoyed till the late violation of it.”

            That’s the spiritual aspect of it.

            But when this hits reality, and gets messed up with patriarchy, misogyny, racism, homophobia and me-firstism.  Since there is favoritism in the world, we start to see that favoritism as our birthright.  From the perspective of those in power, our birthrights are our property, our ability make war, our ability to define morality for everyone else except ourselves, our right to get rich quick regardless of who we step on in order to do it, our manifest destiny to take all that is available because if we are so powerful, we must have God on our side, our ability to make tax and budget policy that favor the rich over the poor, as if richness is a birthright, our propensity to judge and demonize anyone who calls this system into question, we say that they are denying our birthrights. 

            Jacob knew that the birthright meant the deed to all of the land, all of the worldly goods, the good name of the father, and the control of all of the slaves.  In a fit of hunger, Esau had given it to him.  It bought Jacob happiness, right? It bought him the love and admiration of his father, right?  It bought him the respect of his brother, right?

            Wrong.  It got him none of this.

            Jacob, listed as a hero in the Bible doesn’t fare too well in the story, unless your heroes are defined by trickery and thievery.  On his father Isaac’s deathbed, Jacob still wanted his approval.  But he could only get it by tricking him.  Old blind Isaac asked Esau to kill him an animal and feed it to him so he could give him a final blessing before he died.  Rebekah overheard this and convinced Jacob to make believe he was Esau.  He dressed in hairy leather and wore his brother’s clothes when he gave Isaac some food he’d cooked from one of the domestic animals hanging around the house.  Isaac suspected he was being fooled, but nonetheless blessed Jacob over Esau.

            In this life, we need to be careful as we seek to get along with one another that we don’t sell our birthrights in the process.  We need to take care that in our desire to reach a short-term compromise, that we don’t sell away all that is ours.  Our birthrights.

            In Vctor Hugo’s epic play Les Miserables, John Valjean sold his birthright in order to feed his family.  He was caught and thrown into prison, which some say is the birthright of many people of African descent in this society.  In prison, he learned how to be a criminal.            When Valjean was released from prison, he was tempted to go back to the structure of his old life, but then a kind clergyman turn him on to a life of possibility—a life defined by grace, not evil.  He gave him a new birthright.

            Jacob lived in fear of his brother Esau.  He was always fleeing from him.  He knew he was a scoundrel and knew that Esau would eventually come back for his revenge.  It was during those times of fleeing from Esau that Jacob had his visions of angels coming up and down on a ladder and had his own wrestling match with God.  When Jesus said that he came for the sick and not the healthy, it seems to fit with the image of Jacob.

            Finally, it came time for Jacob to meet Esau again.  Esau had become a great nation.  Jacob, too had amassed riches.  But Jacob remained fearful and insecure.  He still feared his brother.  He feared him because he knew he had ripped him off.  He feared his righteous anger.  He feared him because he was stronger.  We never lose our fear of our adversaries, especially when your adversary knows you so well, especially when that adversary is your own shadow-side, your own twin.

            Jacob sent envoys to Esau with gifts and riches, a bounty, a bribe.  Wave after wave he sent to Esau, hoping to appease or at least guilt him into not destroying him.

            Jacob had the trappings of the birthrights, all of the property and wealth and social standing and even the name that he wanted.  And yet, he lived in fear of his brother.  Esau, on the other hand, had none of the familial trappings of domination.  He had to make a name for himself.  He had every right to be bitter and want revenge.  We feel so much better when we want revenge.  We want to see the other person suffer just like we did.  We call this suffering justice.  What we mean by this form of justice is retribution.  We want to see them hang for what they did.  We want them to spend some time in Guantanomo and see what it feels like.  We want to see them choke under their own arrogance.

            Esau had every right to punish Jacob.  Who could blame him?  When Esau saw Jacob coming, he ran to meet him.  Jacob was waiting with his armor and his fear.  But Esau reached out, hugged and kissed him.  He was so happy to see his long-lost brother.  They sat down and ate and wept bitterly over their rift.  They spoke of their mother and father.  They spoke of their own sons and daughters.  They reevaluated the morals they sought to teach them.  When all seemed lost to Jacob, his brother Esau redeemed him with none other than his birthright.

            Esau was Jacob’s brother.  The family bond was not for sale.  Everything that Jacob sought to steal away from Esau was just window dressing. What he could not take was his familial bond, his dignity, his humanity.  That was not for sale.  That was the real birthright.

            Sisters and brothers, we need to remember that try as those out there may to take away the birthrights of our dignity, of our property, of our denomination, of the definition of love and with it the definition of civil rights including marriage rights, we can only give them our birthrights if we forget that we have them.  We can only surrender our dignity if we don’t have a sense that we had dignity in the first place.  We can only give up our voices if we believe that we never had a voice to begin with.  Grace is our birthright and we should never sell it for short-term gain.  It is rather a long-term gift from God.

            Sisters and brothers, don’t sell your birthrights.  Remember who you are and why you were created.  We are marching in the light of God who grants us wisdom and courage and vision and strength and honor and glory and blessing.  The blessing comes from God.  It’s our birthright. 

So as we take to the streets and join with thousands of others, we do so remembering our birthrights.  We do so recommitting ourselves to the beauty and the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to set us all free.  We do so in the tradition of Esau who would not let petty things like property bog him down and blind him to what’s really important.

            Sisters and brothers, remember that your birthright is the grace you have received from God.  And our responsibility is to share that grace with a people who have forgotten their own birthrights. 

Yes, there is some of the Jacob in all of us.  We do what we need to do to survive. There is some of the Rebekah and the Isaac always wanting the best for our children. There is some of the Esau, wrestling with his own demons as we wrestle with our siblings, and coming out with a new perspective that comes with maturity.  But the most important thing is that there is a part of God in all of us.  This part of God is the part of us that shows mercy and compassion and love to our estranged sisters and brothers.  This is our birthright.  And it is not for sale.

May everything that we do and are help us to remember the birthright of love and grace we receive from God and that we give to our needy world.

            Amen.