Date: 08 Jul 2002
Time: 14:29:19
Selling out? This could be used today. Have we as the Church, the body of Christ sold out...not for a bowl of soup when famished...What have we sold out for? Lust, money, prestige, progess, the quote unquote american dream.... What have we let another buy from us? Not steal, but given away like it don't matter anyway... I think one thing we have given is our youth and young adults---if the mainline Churches continue this path they will loose another generation the elementary age kids.... What have we as the church sold our young ones out for? Programs, social club... Is your Church a social club? YOu come to be entertained? Or are you being discipled? Just some beginning stirrings right now...Pastor Mary in OH
Date: 09 Jul 2002
Time: 08:30:33
The story of the birthright being sold follows the explanation that Jacob was thus named because he is a heel-grabber. I am working around the theme of "Family Values at Jacob's Used Camel Lot." What is evident is that both brothers showed little regard for the value of family. Esau treated a birthright with contempt. Jacob took advantage of his brother's hunger. As a former car salesman, I knew other salespersons who would brag about how much money they had made off a relative. I suppose that's where the "used camel lot" portion ties in. -Dale in Chattanooga
Date: 09 Jul 2002
Time: 12:15:31
I'm going to use this Sunday's OT lection (and go include the "swindling" of the blessing, too) to talk about family relationships. I think there's a certain consolation in reading about Isaac's mixed up bunch. The family dynamics present in Isaac's household aren't that different than in our own: favoritism, rivalry, deception, anger, estrangement. If God can be God for these folk, God can be God for us as well. If God can love Jacob the supplanter, than maybe God can love me, too. It would be possible to extrapolate out to the "family" of the church, too. This slice of family life in Gen. 25 isn't too far off from what we find in many churches. The story of Jacob and Esau isn't held up to us as an ideal but as a reality. If this is our reality how do we learn to live together in peace and equity? I wonder what a family counseling session with Isaac and family would look like? Maybe that would make a good sermon!
JGC in MA
Date: 10 Jul 2002
Time: 08:21:46
I am also going to center my thoughts around the "Family Feud" theme present in this story. This story isn't all that ancient nor is it irrelevant. Here in Massachusetts there is a huge amount of publicity this week about Ted Williams and his feuding family. There is deception, greed, anger, estrangement and sin. It's bizarre and not all that different than Jacob and Esau....
DB in MA
Date: 10 Jul 2002
Time: 10:38:03
How does Jacob's (and, later, Rebekah's) deception relate to the fact that GOD tells Rebekah that the younger will rule the older, in effect, saying that the covenant promise will continue through Jacob? Abraham also struggles with God's promise, and not all his actions are acts of faith in that promise, either. If God had marked Jacob as the one through whom the Covenant would continue, did Jacob even really need to receive the birthright from his father Isaac? Is it a part of our human nature to think that we have to 'help' Almighty God keep his promise to us? What does that question say to the Church today, and some of the things we engage in to 'defend' the Good News? With our own inheritance secure as joint-heirs with Christ, do we steal others' birthright by the way we treat them? Ken in WV
Date: 10 Jul 2002
Time: 11:25:10
Okay, laugh if you will (you never plan worship this way, right?): I'm preaching on the OT story this summer, but I have a visiting soloist singing on Sunday, and she's doing a heartbreakingly beautiful and starkly simple arrangement of "Jesus Loves Me". Now I know there is a whole school of thought that finds Jesus references in every particle of the OT, but I have reservations about that. How do I get from Jacob's greed to Jesus' love? (Actually, the refrain of the song may be the key ... "the Bible ... the Bible tells me so." Any help?
Date: 10 Jul 2002
Time: 11:26:05
Neglected to sign - that's me, kbc in sc
Date: 10 Jul 2002
Time: 13:42:53
As a church I am pondering what we consider to be our birthright these days? Not only what we sell but what we expect of who we are as a people of God. Any thoughts on a positive aspect of our Christian nature? MR in NB
Date: 10 Jul 2002
Time: 15:07:27
Ken in WV,
Good thoughts on the birthright question. Could you say a little more about what you mean by ways we steal each other's birthright? "Our need to help" God the Almighty is a good point. Say a little more about the stealing birthright point, very interesting. Thanks. Tommy in Tx.
Date: 10 Jul 2002
Time: 15:45:59
I am also following a family in my sermon entitled "Around the Table" Will describe what it must have been like around J&E's dinner table. . . both the horrible stew meal and also the hope that the next meal (the meal where Esau was to have received the blessing) would be better. I'm then going to serve tastes of my rendition of Esau's stew and talk briefly about the sort of makeshift dinner table we just made in the sanctuary. I anticipate the energy level will rise, laughter conversation with neighbors...all in all a nice dinner table. Then I will close with a reflection on our personal dinner tables as places of sometimes conflict, sometimes isolating, sometimes lonely (the many seniors who eat alone at home) and the hope that keeps us coming back. This will naturally lead to The Table . . . the one table worth coming back to again and again. CinciPatti
Date: 10 Jul 2002
Time: 20:03:36
CinciPatti: It wasn't based on any of this week's lessons, but did develop the "table" theme, so you might find something you can use in a sermon I preached a few years ago entitled "God's Multi-Purpose Table" ... It's on the 'net; the URL for it is http://stfrancis-ks.org/subpages/asermons/easter3.htm
Blessings, Eric in KS
Date: 11 Jul 2002
Time: 08:23:36
Hi Ken,
I've also wondered why God sent this promise through Rebecca. I know that carrying the twins inside would make her closer to their personalities, but didn't God know that the blessing would come through Issac and not Rebecca? Telling Rebecca was as radical as shifting the birth orders. Maybe the theme is consistent that God will work through whomever God choses, and if the families had worked togetherthey could have issued in the promises of God and perhaps alll would have been blessed. Don't we miss the promise or the blessing because it comes from a non-conventional vessel? Gen
Date: 11 Jul 2002
Time: 08:23:43
Hi Ken,
I've also wondered why God sent this promise through Rebecca. I know that carrying the twins inside would make her closer to their personalities, but didn't God know that the blessing would come through Issac and not Rebecca? Telling Rebecca was as radical as shifting the birth orders. Maybe the theme is consistent that God will work through whomever God choses, and if the families had worked togetherthey could have issued in the promises of God and perhaps alll would have been blessed. Don't we miss the promise or the blessing because it comes from a non-conventional vessel? Gen
Date: 12 Jul 2002
Time: 21:27:08
Thanks for the contributions - I'm now only a day away from having to preach on this text and have finally sharpened up my focus as follows. This is a reversal story. Jacob is a conniving low-down trickster - see Buechner's Peculiar Treasures. Buechner concludes quote "luckily for Jacob, God doesn't love people because of who they are, but because of who he is. Its on the house is one way of saying it and its by grace is another, just as it was by grace that Jacob of all people who became not only the father of the twelve tribes of Israel, but th emany times the great-grandfather of Jesus of Nazareth, and just as it was by grace that Jesus was born at all" I'm building on this. Another commentary writes "the story of Jacob being chosen over Esau is not a story about divine destiny, it is a story about divine grace. The God of Jacob is a God of grace. I will also mention that Esau was also dysfunctional - he despised his birthright - so he too is flawed - like all of us - but God restored him and gave him a place in Israel's history. I'm ready to write - thanks for all the comments.
Ian in Brisbane Oz