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Genesis 25: 19-34
Psalm 119: 105-112
Romans 8: 1-11
Matthew 13: 1-9, 18-23

Family Values?

On Wednesday night I was channel surfing and came across a series of three regular programs. Degrassi: The Next Generation was followed by an episode of Wife Swap which was followed by Super Nanny. I stopped watching after the introduction to Super Nanny; I had to do some work on this sermon - when it was finally cool enough to think! (And in-between typing my thoughts or looking through web-postings and books, I swatted at few zillion pesky mosquitoes.)

In their own ways, each TV show dealt with conflicting and competing social and family values. What and whose values should society reflect? What values should children be taught and what if a child has his or her own opinion on the issues at hand?

Many churches look to the Bible for guidance on social and family values. That is much harder than it might appear at first. You need to be really careful when you look for “good stories” to use as “examples”. The stories of Abraham and his children and grandchildren certainly can’t be taken out of the biblical context and applied to our lives today, not without reflection and certainly not literally. The stories need to be seen in the context of the entire story of grace and faithfulness; sin and redemption.

The intention of this week’s story is much more about God’s grace and love than it is about Jacob and Esau themselves. It is also about setting in context the early history of their ancestors for the later generations.

Almost every parent of adult children had regrets about something or other that they would do differently, if they could. Almost every parents has times where they wonder about the future of their rebellious or difficult child.

The Abraham stories are about many things, but one of the things they are most certainly about is the grace of God.

Like his parents, Isaac and his wife Rebecca have fertility problems. Like the previous generation they pray and pray and pray some more. After a long time of waiting they are told that their hopes will soon be realized; after TWENTY years of marriage they will have a child. However, it was one of those cases of “be careful what you pray for, you just might get it”, kind of scenarios when Rebecca discovered that she was carrying twins and the sibling rivalry had already started, BIG TIME.

When she sought divine guidance she was told that her twins would be the beginning of rival nations and that the elder would SERVE the younger.

We need to know that this was not how it was supposed to work. In their culture the oldest son was always the most important. If there was any serving to be done, it was the younger sons who did that sort of thing! It is clear from the story, as it progresses, that the younger Jacob was going to try and reverse the tables on the tradition of the oldest son having all the glory!

Even though one twin would be older by only a few minutes that son would still be considered the oldest - just as if there was at least 9 months between them. It may not be fair in our eyes, but that is simply the way it worked.

Unfortunately Isaac and Rebecca each had their favourite son and the boys obviously knew it. This favouritism is seen as playing a part in the continuing rivalry between the two nations.

Yet, as stories of God’s grace, these passages remind us that God’s call was not to perfect people who never did any wrong, but to people with plenty of faults and who even seem to delight in those faults. It used to amaze me that the biblical writers made no attempt to hide the faults of their heroes. We have more than one negative story about Abraham, Jacob and Esau. We know the story of David and Bathsheba. Yet these stories are included, I think, to remind that what is important is God’s grace and not the goodness of those who were chosen.

When we talk of birthright and blessing we tend to think of it as privilege. The problem in the history of the children of Jacob, afterward called Israel, was they thought of it as privilege while God’s intention was one of responsibility.

God promised to bless the people so that they could be a blessing to others. God promised to make them a light to the nations. However they forgot to live in ways which showed they were followers of the God of their ancestors.

What I think we can take from this is the same thing that the texts were tying to get the people of Israel to take seriously. Our call as people of faith is to be a blessing to others. Our actions in terms of righteousness are not irrelevant but they are secondary to our mission as God’s people.

As Canadians we live in a resource rich country. Yet we seem to think that we have a special and exclusive claim on these resources.

Many years ago I saw a film in which Dr Robert McClure was talking to a group of young people. Dr McClure was a former moderator who had worked under the umbrella of the United Church of Canada as a medical missionary in China and Africa and various other places. He has been speaking to someone in the developing world who had said, “you go home and ask your neighbours if it was their ancestors who put the gold in the rocks of Canada”. Dr McClure did not know much about globalization and the power of multinationals to take the resources of the whole world for themselves, even from the so-called “rich countries” but the comments of his friends should cause us to pause and make us think about how we could make use of our blessing to be a blessing.

When we look at foreign aid it seems to be an issue of how little we can get away with, rather than how much we can share.

As families how do we make use of our free time and our financial resources. In a time of high fuel costs many people are going to have a hard time eating, getting to work and keeping a roof over their heads. As a community how do we share our resources of blessing so that all may have enough.

I have a colleague who reminds his children that their income as parents is not just for their own family but to help make life better for others who do not have the basic necessities of life.

I know of lots of people who in their own quiet ways use the privilege of professional training or income to help those with limited resources or who are in need in some way.

We all know or know of the old song “Count Your blessings”. It presents the counting of blessings as a way of dealing with adversity of several kinds but have we ever taken it the step of how our blessings can strengthen us and equip us to be a blessing for others.

The Christian faith was never supposed to be “just for us” but so that we could reach out to those in need. As our world grown smaller through increased communications and as our communities become more diverse we need to open our eyes and hearts to those around us.

We cannot continue to ignore a world ravaged by poverty and disease and expect to be able to claim we are a generous and caring nation. Our freedom means little or nothing if the world is falling apart.

We must live out our faith, seeking in family, community and nation to be a blessing to others.

Amen!

1995- 2008 The Rev. Beth W. Johnston.

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