Red Stuff

July 13, 2014

Pentecost 5

Genesis 25:19-34

This morning, I want to talk a bit about instant gratification.  It’s a pandemic.  If you carry a cell phone of any kind with you, anyone who has your phone number can get ahold of you at any time, day or night.  If you have a smart phone, not only can they call or text you any time, but they can also e-mail you, send you a message via facebook, twitter, snap chat, or Instagram…and, more often than not is it at least hoped for, if not outright expected, that you will respond somewhat quickly.  And it’s not just technology that has us hooked on instant gratification.  Got bad credit? No credit? No problem, we want to sell you something right now.  You know you want it, so come by our store today and drive home with a brand new thing for $25 a month for the next 60 months (plus tax and interest fees).  There was even a commercial that ran at Christmas time advertising an online company that would allow you to buy extravagant Christmas presents on credit and pay it off over the next 12 months…at which point Christmas comes around again and you start all over…but you’re the cool aunt for buying your nephew the ps4 he has been wanting since before it came out. 

The problem with instant gratification is that it wears down on our ability to wait for things and our willingness to work hard in order to achieve our goals.  I once got into an argument with my grandmother because she was boasting about one of my distant relatives who had gotten ordained online so he could do a wedding for a friend.  She couldn’t understand, until I explained it to her, my frustration that she was so proud of him for spending 30 minutes online to get ordained when I was in the middle of a 4 year master’s program which would ultimately result, but not guarantee, my ordination. 

The other problem with instant gratification is that it creates the illusion that we have more control than we actually do. 

As we arrive at this part of chapter 25 of Genesis, we get to a place in the story of God’s people where, if you blink, you will miss something.  We go from Rebekah being barren in verse 21, to Esau and Jacob’s birth in verse 25 to seeing her twin boys as teenagers in verse 28.  These are two boys that never got along, even in the womb.  The Lord tells Rebekah, in the midst of a difficult pregnancy, that her babies would later become two nations, nations that would struggle against each other, but that the older would end up serving the younger.  And when they were born, it was quite apparent that they were different. Esau was born covered in red hair while Jacob was born with smooth skin, though eager to not fall too behind his brother in meeting the world.  As they grew, the differences between Jacob and Esau became more and more pronounced.  Esau, grew up to be a hunter…a real man’s man, where as his little brother, Jacob, preferred a more introverted and refined existence living in the tents where he became quite the cook. 

And the thing that probably intensified the division between the two boys what that mom and dad picked favorites.  Isaac loved Esau because he had a taste for game, whereas Rebekah loved Jacob.  Not usually something that you want to do if you hope that your already feuding kids will get along in the future…or even the present. But so it was.

One day Jacob was cooking some lentil stew and Esau came in to the tent from the fields hungry and demanded a bowl of that “red stuff.”  Jacob consented, but cunningly changes the subject and begins bargaining for Esau’s birthright.  Esau agrees to Jacob’s proposal and, for the cost of his birthright, meaning, his right to double the inheritance and to take the place as the spiritual head of the household after their father died, Esau got a bowl of stew and some bread…but to a teenage boy who thinks he is about to die from hunger, what does that mean when you can have a bowl of lentil stew now? Nothing.

Now, we could do what comes naturally when reading this story and shake our heads and wonder what in the world Esau was thinking for selling his birthright for a bowl of stew…and it must have been some pretty amazing stew.  Esau’s agreeing to sell his birthright for a bowl of stew demonstrated that, in that moment, he cared more about being able to control his hunger right now than he did about his well-being in the future.  He wanted the instant gratification of a full stomach after a day of hunting and farming so much that he wasn’t thinking about the future implications of the deal he made with his brother.  As so he forfeited the privilege of  later becoming the head of the household, of the property and land and wealth that came along with it because he was so fixated on what he could get now that would make him feel better.

Esau is not the only one with issues in this story.  Jacob lived up to the second meaning of his name “the one who deceives” when he took advantage of his brother’s desperate situation.  He knew that Esau was at a weak point due to hunger, and so he took his chance to claim not only the spiritual and material blessing of the birthright, but in this case the promise to Abraham of many descendants and nations was at stake…and who wants to let that go when you have the opportunity to grasp it sitting right in front of you at the cost of only a bowl of stew?

Which begs the question - What’s your red stuff?

 Is there anything that you can think of that you have been offered in the past that offered up so much satisfaction in the here and now that you didn’t even think about the implications for the future? 

Have you ever offered up red stuff to someone else as a way to achieve something that you didn’t think you could get on your own?  No need to answer now…but give it some thought.  We all have our red stuff…the substitute forms of food that feed us immediately and that are within our control…the things that give us that sense of instant gratification.  Things that we are willing to compromise our faith for, for the sake of easier gain. We’ve been offered it…we’ve offered it up to others. 

But here is where the catch comes in.  We may shake our heads at Esau’s quick willingness to sell his birthright for a bowl of stew…we may even shake our heads at Jacob’s taking advantage of his brothers extreme hunger in order to secure the birth right.  But even in the midst of this family feud and the feud caused when Jacob truly steals not only Esau’s birthright but also his blessing, God’s plan is working itself out. This wasn’t simply a brief exchange in which one brother profited in the long term while the other brother profited only temporarily.  The Lord had told Rebekah directly that her older child would serve her younger child, and in the selling of a birthright for a bowl of stew, the Lord’s will was done.  Jacob would be the one through whom the promise to Abraham would be passed down, not Esau.  And so, in this strange interaction between two brothers that never got along in the first place, God’s work still got done. 

God’s work gets done in the strangest circumstances…in the selling of a birthright for a bowl of stew…in the selling of a brother over some extreme jealousy…in the selling of the location of where the Lord’s own son would be praying the night before his crucifixion.

And so the take home here is the in the midst of the bad situations we get ourselves into, God’s GOOD plan is going to work itself out.  And that’s the definition of the Gospel…it is God’s good news in the midst of our bad situations.