As I was working on this week's sermon, I discovered that I had never posted this sermon from Feb, 2024. I am posting it mainly so that it will be included in future searches through my previoulsy preached sermons.
“Lenten Love: Divine Love” February 25, 2024 Genesis 25: 21-34; Genesis 32: 24-31; SAPC, Denton; Richard B. Culp
24Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. 25When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 26Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” 27So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 28Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.” 29Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. 30So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.” 31The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.
Introduction: Esau and Jacob - brother love?
Isaac/Esau and Rebekah/Jacob - parental love
God’s divine love
The Esau/Jacob saga reveals aspects of all three.
Walter Brueggemann, retired Old Testament professor at Columbia Seminary and Genesis scholar notes that this narrative “portrays Israel in its earthiest and most scandalous .… the narrative is not edifying in any conventional religious or moral sense…. But for that very reason, the Jacob narrative is more lifelike.”
if you have ever thought my mom loves my brother more than I;
or my dad loves my sister more than I;
or if you have ever been involved in a give and take relationship with a sibling;
or if you have ever found yourself in a relationship that was supposed to be loving and if falls short;
you perhaps recognize yourself in the Jacob and Esau’s story.
this week, we continue our Lenten love series reflecting on how we discover love in the biblical texts.
We have reflected on the how God’s love encircles all the days of our lives and how God’s love is a covenant love.
This morning, we look at how divine love appears even in the messiness of our human relationships.
So let’s see what we can learn from Esau and Jacob, Isaac and Rebekah.
Move 1: First of all, we discover that divine love reveals the God who is true to the promises God makes.
a. In response to Isaac’s prayer for his wife Rebekah and her desire to bear a child, we are told that God grants this prayer.
1. This should not surprise us - it is not the first or the last time in the biblical story that barren woman will bear a child as a sign of God’s promise.
2. We also know what is at stake - the promise made to Abraham that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars had needed Sarah to have Isaac,
and now needs Rebekah to have a child so Isaac to has a son to carry on the lineage and live into the promise God has made.
b. We do not know why God makes the promise that God makes.
1. In response to a troubled pregnancy, Rebekah inquires of God about her pregnancy, and God tells her that two nations will come out of her womb;
they will be divided;
and the older shall serve the younger.
2. Esau out of the womb first;
Jacob next;
and as the story unfolds, despite Jacob and Rebekah seeming to be the conniving side of the family taking advantage of Esau and Jacob, God’s promise made will come true.
c. We do not know the mind of God.
1. wE are limited by our human perspective.
2. In fact, Brueggemann notes that even the narrator of the story in Genesis seems to take the side of Esau and Isaac and present them in a more favorable fashion.
3. Nothing is black and white in this story.
4. But, as the story unfolds, divine love reveals the God keeps the promises God makes.
Move 2: Esau and his father Isaac seem to turn away from divine love with the choices they make.
a. Remember that because he was firstborn, although not by much, Esau got the birthright.
1. it meant The family name and titles were to be his. He would also receive a chief portion of the inheritance. But it was more than just a title to the physical assets of a family. It was also a spiritual position, and in the case of the people of God, God would lead the family through patriarchs, or fathers (Hebrews 1:1-2). Additionally, in the special case of Esau and Jacob, that meant the one to whom belonged the birthright was the one through who the covenant promise made to their grandfather, Abraham, would be realized. (http://www.bible.ca/ef/expository-genesis-25-29-34.htm)
2. If you knew you were going to receive the biggest share of your father’s possessions; you knew you were going to have the chance to be the family leader; if you knew you would be that presumably the covenant with God would pass; if you had all that waiting for you as a future inheritance, what would you sell it for in the present moment?
b. Esau gives it all up for a good smelling blow of soup when he is really hungry.
1. He’s been out in the fields, presumably hunting.
2. tired and hungry.
3. He is famished. In fact, his hunger becomes part of his rationale — “If I starve to death, my birthright won’t do me any good.”
4. There is Jacob….with some soup.
5. “Mmm, mmm, mmm. This soup sure smells good. Brother Esau, I think it smells so good that you’d be willing to sell your birthright to me for a bowl.” (I can see a Super Bowl commercial coming out of this scene!).
6. Like that, Esau gives up his birthright
7. We might note that later when Jacob steals Esau’s blessing from Isaac, food is involved again.
8. Esau and Isaac seem more focused on immediate gratification and the food in the moment than the promise and the hope of God’s divine blessing.
c. Then we have Rebekah guiding her son Jacob with a different focus.
1. Rebekah has her mind on God’s plan and communicating with God, not her next meal.
2. she has heard God’s promise,
experienced God’s love in the birth of her sons,
and acts in ways that open her up and Jacob up to live into God’s promises.
Move 3: Finally, the story of Jacob wrestling with the stranger in the night reveals the mystery and the relational nature of divine love.
a. After a night of wrestling, the morning dawn is about to arrive.
1. In this cryptic wrestling match, the unnamed wrestler, maybe God’s very own self, demands that Jacob let him go.
2. Does the wrestler want a release for his own sake, or is it a gift for Jacob? After all, if the unnamed person is indeed God and Jacob sees the face of God might have meant death for Jacob, such was the power and awesome nature of God.
3. Jacob is apparently still interested in blessings since he responds to the request to let go with a demand that the stranger give him a blessing in exchange for his release.
b. The stranger does not mention giving Jacob a blessing but shifts the conversation to how Jacob’s life will be transformed.
1. He will no longer be called Jacob, but now he will be Israel.
2. Somehow this mysterious wrestling encounter between Jacob and God leads to a transformed life.
3. In fact, we know that this new name will become the name of God’s people.
3. The relationship with Jacob and the divine promise will continue.
4. Brueggemann notes that Israel is not formed by success, or shrewdness, or land, but comes out of a wrestling match Jacob has.
c. Almost as an afterthought, Jacob asks to know his wrestling partner’s name - “Please tell me your name.”
1. Like Moses before the burning bush, Jacob wants some clarity about who God is.
2. Jacob is not given a name, but a blessing.
3. The point being made, of course, is that God is the one who can and will bless Jacob.
God is the one who can and will be true to the divine promises already made.
d. What does this tell us about divine love?
1. that divine love is lived out in relationship and vulnerability.
2. Jacob engages God in the night;
the wrestling exposes Jacob’s vulnerability - he will literally limp away from the wrestling match.
3. But Jacob also leaves a changed person.
3. to engage God means clinging to God even while being vulnerable.
clinging to God as God transforms us.
Conclusion: Jacob, Esau, Rebekah, Isaac - no one loves perfectly, or maybe even comes close.
but the divine love of God still finds them; still finds us.
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