If I asked you to bring to mind an
image of a good Christian family I suspect your image would include: a mom and
a dad (good looking and well-groomed), a couple clean-cut kids, a well-trained
dog, and a nice house with a cared-for lawn.
They would be good, happy, content, and enjoying God’s blessings as a
reward for their righteous living.
Contrast that image with the people we
met in our reading from Genesis 25.
Actually let’s back up to chapters 23 and 24 which we skipped because I
was on vacation last week. Abraham’s
wife Sarah dies at age 127. Abraham buys
a burial site for her and their family.
Abraham’s son to Sarah, Isaac, is forty years old, still living with his
parents, and not married. He seems
incapable of dating relationships on his own because his still-living father
sends a servant off to find Isaac a wife.
Abraham decides that the woman must not come from the local population,
but must come from his own kindred. So
the servant goes off and finds Isaac’s first cousin, Bethuel. Among Bethuel’s children is the young woman
Rebekah. Isaac hasn’t gone along on this
trip but Rebekah consents to marry Isaac sight unseen. So, Isaac marries his first-cousin’s
daughter.
With Isaac finally out from under his
feet Abraham remarries. He’s at least
140 years old by now, but he fathers six more children! Then, finally at age 175 Abraham dies. You’ll remember that he sent his first-born
son, Ishmael, and his mother off in the wilderness with just bread and some
water. Genesis 25:5-6 says, “Abraham
gave all he had to Isaac. But to the
sons of his concubines Abraham gave gifts, and while he was still living he
sent them away from his son Isaac, eastward to the east country.”
So, of all these kids only Isaac
really gets anything from wealthy Abraham.
And with Abraham’s death Ishmael finally comes back on the scene. All in all, this is not a happy family that
gets together for a family reunion every couple years.
Are they looking like a “good
Christian family”?
And it’s worse. The children promised to Abraham still aren’t
coming. Like Sarah, Rebekah isn’t
getting pregnant. While she is
undoubtedly much younger that Isaac, they’re still married for twenty years
before she conceives. To put a good
light on all of this we do have Genesis 25:21 saying, “And Isaac prayed to the
Lord for his wife, because she was barren; and the Lord granted his prayer, and
Rebekah his wife conceived.”
Yeah!
But not for long. She has twins,
and these are no ordinary twins. They’re
fighting with each other even within the womb!
As the story goes these two twins will be the founders of two nations,
Israel and Edom. The Israelites hated
the Edomites. Psalm 137:7,9 says, “Remember,
O Lord, against the Edomites the day of Jerusalem, how they said, ‘Raze it, raze
it! Down to its foundations!’ …Happy shall he be who takes your children
and dashes them against the rock!”
Ouch!
This is a sibling rivalry that begins in the womb. While that may not be technically possible
you get the idea. These two boys will be
at each other constantly. They’re
fighting to get out of the womb first too, as if somehow they know that birth
order will determine who gets the most inheritance. But birth order isn’t going to matter is it.
We’re reading the Jewish scriptures
here, so we can expect a Jewish point of view of this international
rivalry. Esau, the father of the
Edomites, is born first. He should inherit
the bigger portion. But he sells his
portion to his brother for a bowl of beans.
In a few weeks we’ll read about how Jacob swindles his brother out of
his father’s blessing too.
Of course there’s
more. We learn that Esau is the manly
man. He’s big, strong, and hairy. He’s a hunter and spends time out in the
field. He’s his father’s favorite. Jacob, by contrast, is a mama’s boy. He stays inside. This far in the story you can imagine him as
simply dainty. This will change in
time. And just as Jacob swindles his
brother in the weeks to come we’ll see how Jacob himself also gets swindled.
The point in all
of this is this, these are the stories of the fathers of Judaism, and also the
fathers of our faith. Are these families
anything at all like “good Christian families”?
No. Not at all. These stories are stories of seriously messed
up families. Our faith ancestors had
problems. They struggled. They made plenty of mistakes.
As I was doing
research for this sermon I read a couple commentaries that sought to smooth
over all the problems. They came up with
all sorts of twists and interpretations that said how Jacob’s struggles were
godly and righteous while Esau was a short-sighted man driven purely by raw
desire. They said that Isaac’s marriage
to Rebekah must have been God’s specific desire and that all the struggles
these families faced were good vs. evil.
But I disagree, and most of the commentaries do too.
This is purely
and simply a seriously messed up family.
God did not choose the pure and perfect to work with.
While I think
we’d all love to have the lifestyle of the good Christian family, it is not an
end unto itself. True, if you build your
life around the advice of books like Ephesians and Colossians you will be doing
many things that will have your family looking ideal. And there is certainly nothing wrong with
seeking to be virtuous. But when having
the perfect family becomes an end unto itself you have a problem.
Learn from the
Bible. God does not look down on the
earth and smile at some people and choose them because they have a perfect
life; while God frowns on those whose lives are a mess. Jesus ran into this mentality when he
conversed with the Pharisees. They were
certainly a group that thought God liked good people and rejected bad
ones. That’s why they were so critical
of Jesus when he spent so much time with the bad people. But Jesus said he came not to save the
righteous but sinners.
Now don’t leave
today thinking that you’re going to become a manipulate and exploitative slob
in society because it doesn’t matter.
No, but don’t think God loves messed up families any less than perfect
ones. All families have problems and
make mistakes, and love and wants to work with all.
Do not make
having a perfect life an end unto itself.
It is not God’s will. It is not
winning God’s favor. It is not making
you more effective to do God’s work. You’ll
exhaust yourself with superficial appearances.
What does God want? You know the words from Micah 6:8, “… do
justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”
If you end up
with the perfect family, great. But you
probably won’t. As we’ve read about
Abraham and as we continue to read about Isaac and Jacob we’re going to see
people’s lives deeply rooted in trusting God.
Ultimately God’s will is done, even when life isn’t simple. May you live as God would have you
live. And may you enjoy God’s
blessings. And may you know the safety
and satisfaction of being God’s people.
