Links for today’s readings:

Read: Genesis 25 Listen: (4:18), Read: Mark 3 Listen: (3:41)

Links for this weekend’s readings:

Read: Genesis 26 Listen:(4:31), Read: Mark 4 Listen: (5:01)
Read: Genesis 27 Listen: (6:25), Read: Mark 5 Listen: (5:21)

Scripture Focus: Genesis 25.24-34

24 When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb. 25 The first to come out was red, and his whole body was like a hairy garment; so they named him Esau. 26 After this, his brother came out, with his hand grasping Esau’s heel; so he was named Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when Rebekah gave birth to them.
27 The boys grew up, and Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the open country, while Jacob was content to stay at home among the tents. 28 Isaac, who had a taste for wild game, loved Esau, but Rebekah loved Jacob.
29 Once when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the open country, famished. 30 He said to Jacob, “Quick, let me have some of that red stew! I’m famished!” (That is why he was also called Edom.)
31 Jacob replied, “First sell me your birthright.”
32 “Look, I am about to die,” Esau said. “What good is the birthright to me?”
33 But Jacob said, “Swear to me first.” So he swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob.
34 Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentil stew. He ate and drank, and then got up and left.
So Esau despised his birthright.

Reflection: No White Hats

By John Tillman

The Bible is not a melodrama. It’s complex.

We often oversimplify it, heroizing one and villainizing another. There are people who do heroic things and people who do villainous things, but often they are the same people!

One commonly oversimplified story is Esau despising his birthright. We can imagine it as a silent Western melodrama:

Esau, wearing a big black hat and sporting a long, evilly curled red mustache kicks open the doors of the saloon and swaggers in. Jacob, in a glowing white hat and matching outfit is innocently stirring stew at the bar. Esau slams his fist down on the bar demanding stew. Jacob wisely and calmly tricks him into giving up the deed to his inheritance! The villain stumbles off, drunk, overfed and sleepy and collapses in the gutter. The hero celebrates his new-found prosperity.

Is Esau the villain or the victim? Is Jacob getting revenge on a bully or bullying his brother when he is weak? (There’s no biblical evidence that Esau ever did anything wrong toward Jacob prior to his acts of deceit.)

Who gets the white hat? Neither of them.

Oversimplifying the Bible makes it easier to moralize. We cast ourselves in heroic roles and those around us in villain roles. But it doesn’t give us a sufficient picture of God, our flawed world, or our flawed selves.

We need to understand what grace from God the “villainous” missed and what mercies of God the “heroes” failed to carry out.

Esau sinned by giving up something of great significance for temporal satisfaction. His momentary need overcame any degree of patience, reason, or prudence. His let his “flesh,” his feelings and emotions, rule.

Jacob sinned by resorting to deceit and theft to gain what had already been promised by God. Esau caved to the temptations of physical appetites. Jacob’s appetites were not for food, but wealth, power, and glory. Esau despised his birthright. Jacob despised his brother.

Not only that, but Jacob despised his own birthright and even his identity. To further secure what he stole from Esau, he had shed his identity, disguising himself as Esau to steal Isaac’s blessing.

Esau and Jacob each despised God’s providence and acted faithlessly in their own ways. Those ways are ones we can easily fall victim to today. May God have mercy on us when we fall in their same steps.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons

For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. — 2 Corinthians 4.6

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Read more: Stretch Out Your Hand

In Jesus’ day and in ours, those who are wounded or who suffer in life are often viewed with suspicion by the religious, the comfortable, or the wealthy.

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