“Selling Out”
Genesis 25:19-34 – July 10, 2011
INTRO: A few Sundays back, we heard the story about Abraham and his son Isaac. Today we
continue further down their family tree, as we begin a series of stories about Jacob, the grandson of
Abraham. “Jacob may be the most intriguing person in the Bible. We know more about him than
about virtually any other biblical character. He is the only person in the Bible whom we see in
action as a child, a young man, a mature husband and father, and an old man contemplating
death. If we study the lives of people who mattered so that we can learn how to make our own lives
matter, we can do no better than to try to understand the story of Jacob and what it can teach us.”
(Harold Kushner) And if you’ve ever had a sibling, or if you’ve ever been a parent—I think you’ll find
something to relate to in this story.
Let’s have a show of hands, if you’re willing—who of you are the eldest child in your family—the
firstborn? Who of you are firstborns with siblings? Who of you are firstborns with siblings, who at
some time in your life, wished you were an only child?
The experience of being the oldest child in a family is different from that of being the youngest
child, or the middle child. Rules may have been different for the oldest, and there may have been
special privileges or expectations and responsibilities that go along with the role. And sometimes,
just because people are siblings, there are rivalries.
A Sunday school teacher was discussing the Ten Commandments with her five- and six-yearolds. After explaining the commandment to honor your father and mother, she asked, "Is there a
commandment that teaches us how to treat our brothers and sisters?" Without hesitation one little
boy answered, "Thou shall not kill." (Emphasis)
The experience of being a sibling can be challenging as well wonderful—for the siblings as well as
the parents. Over the years, I’ve heard parents admit that their children are so different, they can’t
believe these kids came from the same gene pool. Or if they had had the more challenging child
first, they say they might never have had their second child. Upon looking at their three daughters,
one pastor colleague of mine regularly remarks to his wife: "They come the way they come."
In today’s story, we have very different siblings, made more interesting by the fact that they were
twins. “As is often the case, these twin brothers were opposites in many ways, almost as if each
were half of a complete personality—as if in the womb each brother had grabbed half the available
traits and left the other half to his twin. Esau was a man of few words, while Jacob was more
thoughtful and articulate. Esau was his father’s favorite, while Jacob was his mother’s favorite. In
one encounter that teaches us much about the character of the two brothers, Esau comes home
from an unsuccessful day of hunting, finds Jacob cooking lentil stew, and desperately hungry, asks
his brother for some stew. Jacob trades the bowl of stew for Esau’s birthright, that Jacob from now
on be considered the firstborn son and thus receive the greater portion of their father’s estate after
his death. In that brief exchange, we see Esau defined as a man ruled by appetites, a man who
lives for the moment with no regard for tomorrow. And we see Jacob’s scheming side, a young man
who will try to get by cleverness what he cannot get by birth or strength.” (Living a Life that Matters, Kushner)
In this story, we have the struggle of one brother—the younger one, winning out over his older
brother. The issue is primogeniture which means: being the first born of children of the same
parents; an exclusive right of inheritance belonging to the first born.
“The birthright could be economic—depending on the father’s prosperity. But the birthright was
also about leadership. Having the birthright meant exercising leadership over the family, replacing
the father as the patriarch. The holder of the birthright made the decisions and ruled over his
siblings, and the family line would be continued to him. In short, the birthright was designed to
ensure the future of the family. Mess it up, and you’ve messed up the family. Sell it, and you’ve
sold away the future.” (Homiletics, 7-11)
We can still speak about our birthright, in terms of our family of origin, but there are other ways
we might want to think about birthright. Perhaps “the most important birthright is the one directly
conferred upon everyone by their birth: It is life itself. What could be more important than that?”
(Philip Wogamon)
And, yes there may be absolutely tough days when we struggle. And we might wish for someone
like Sarah Pease, that her time with us could have been five or six times as long as it was, but being
born and sharing life on this planet is a pretty amazing gift.
“Each of us is incredibly fortunate. Out of all the billions and billions of possibilities, life landed
on us, and here we are. It is our birthright.” (Philip Wogamon)
We are given these lives, and along with them, the challenge to live them as fully as we can.
“Frederick Buechner's novel, The Book of Bebb, has an interesting scene in which this
evangelist named Leo Bebb is talking about his chief associate, who is called Brownie. Rev. Bebb is
part charlatan himself, and part deeply spiritual, and you never know which is going to come out on
top. But this is how he describes Brownie to the narrator of the story, Antonio: ‘Now, you take a
man like Brownie, Antonio, and you ask yourself where the Almighty went wrong. Well, I tell you it's
not the Almighty went wrong, it's Brownie went wrong. The Almighty gave Brownie a life, and
Brownie never lived it.... But it's not too late for him, Antonio. Even for Brownie there's hope.’
Sometimes, like this Brownie character, we can be so wounded in spirit that we're afraid to
make a move. The point is, God is right there for us, helping us claim the life and spirit we've been
given. It is our birthright.” (Philip Wogamon)
We have the birthright given to us by God, in our birth which places us in our family of origin—
another kind of birthright. And as people of faith, we have the birthright that comes to us
through our family of faith. Certain things are expected of us, like figuring out how we can live
most fully the command to “love God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and our neighbor as
ourselves.” That’s huge, something we will spend our whole lives attempting to follow, and
something we may over and over again fail to follow.
We may sell out on each other, and cut ourselves off from the human family, whenever we fail to
see ourselves as a part of a world-wide community—where what goes on in one part of the world,
has meaning and consequences to somebody else, half a world away. We may sell out whenever we
forget that the world’s resources aren’t just for us, or whenever we just block out situations that we
either don’t care about, or think we can’t do anything about anyway. Like Esau, we may say, “it
doesn’t matter—this world’s so messed up already, what difference can I make?”
Esau was to be his family’s representative to his society, that was his birthright. But he sold it
for a bowl of stew. We are God’s representatives to our society, that’s our birthright.
“I maintain that we are born and grow up with a fondness for each other, and that we have
genes for that. We can be talked out of that fondness, for the genetic message is like a distant
music, and some of us are hard of hearing. Societies are noisy affairs, drowning out the sound of
ourselves and our connection. Nevertheless, the music is there, waiting for more listeners.” (Lewis
Thomas)
There is a whole generation of young people, that I believe have grown up with a kind of unique
birthright. They are those who may be high school seniors by now, who when they were in
kindergarten first learned about Harry Potter. They are a generation that basically doesn’t know life
without him. Harry Potter “became a part of their childhood.” Harry Potter has come to them
through seven books in a series, and as of this next week, eight movies. Some 450 million copies
of these books in 68 languages have come to define a generation. And, what’s interesting is that
“despite early misgivings by some church groups, Harry Potter has taught these young people about
being decent human beings.” A non-profit group—the Harry Potter Alliance--is devoted to
translating the morality of the Harry Potter universe into the real world. This group has organized
to do things like sending five shiploads of aid to Haiti, and donating more than 70,000 books to
children to help in the global fight against genocide and climate change. These actions, which “put
love as the highest good and self-sacrifice as a norm of life, at least for brave and true characters”—I
think we might say that’s a birthright that’s worth hanging onto. (The Christian Science Monitor, 7-11-11)
Let us take seriously the birthright that’s given to us, in just sharing life together on this planet.
And then let us live as people who seriously have a fondness for each other, who don’t sell out on
one another. May we count our birthright as a privilege—to be God’s children, living as God’s
representatives today, while caring about the world we are leaving for tomorrow’s people.
--Sue Burwell