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Home , Ishmael, Sibling rivalry

Sermon 10.20.19 Genesis 32:22-28; 33:1-11; 50:15-21 or Reconciliation ​

May this time of reflection guide us in our lives of grace and reconciliation, in the name of our Lord . Amen

Family Dynamics! What’s it going to be? Rivalry or ​ Reconciliation? Our is full of stories about conflict and ​ competition, with the being particularly rich. After the tragic story of , we come to the story of and . ​ ​ st Ishmael was ’s 1 ​ son, born not of his wife, , but to her ​ Egyptian slave, . And according to Genesis, there was a bitter rivalry between these 2 mothers and their 2 sons. Hagar and Ishmael, they’re treated terribly, while Sarah and Isaac they’re given every advantage. But intervenes and makes it clear that even if Abraham and Sarah fail to love Hagar and Ishmael, God cares for them deeply. Years later, Abraham’s grandson is caught up in another bitter sibling rivalry with his twin brother, . Now at the heart of their conflict is the erroneous belief that God just seems to love Jacob more than Esau. Based on this flawed belief that he is somehow uniquely favored, Jacob feels entitled to take advantage of everyone around him, especially his disfavored brother, Esau. Again and again, Jacob gets away with trickery, until, eventually Esau grows so angry that Jacob has to flee for his life. And for many years, the 2 brothers live far far apart, alienated from one another. During this time, Jacob marries 2 sisters – a favored one named and a disfavored one named . Do we see a familiar pattern here? Well, after Jacob becomes a rich and successful man, he feels the time has come for him to begin the journey homeward. And where we pick up Jacob’s story in scripture, he’s just learned that the next day he will encounter his brother, the very one he had wronged in so many ways so many years before. Well, we can imagine that Jacob is probably more than just a bit afraid. He’s lived his whole life by trickery and deceit, but now his old ways aren’t going to work for him anymore. So all that night, Jacob feels as if he’s in a wrestling match with God. ​ ​ And his sleepless night, Jacob’s wrestling, I think it’s a fair image for the human struggle common to us all. Because like Jacob, at times we wrestle to get our own way trying to cheat or defeat someone who has what we desire – including God. Like Jacob, we grapple with changing old habits, even when those old habits aren’t really working for us anymore. And like Jacob, at times we can agonize through the long night, the dark night of our soul, feeling the weight of despair, and fearing it’s too late, too late for a new beginning. Well, hour after hour, through the night, we hear Jacob wrestled and when the new day dawned, he rises from the struggle with 2 signs of

st his emergence into spiritual maturity. 1 ,​ Jacob receives the blessing of ​ nd a new name, , which means, God-wrestler. And 2 ​ Jacob receives ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ a hip injury that causes him to walk with a limp, a lifelong reminder of his long night of struggle. Limping forward, then, Jacob is now ready to face his brother Esau. But instead of trying to trick Esau into welcoming him home, as the old Jacob would have done, Jacob sends Esau a huge array of gifts to honor him. But still, Esau has a chance, when he finally meets Jacob face-to-face, this older twin, he can finally get revenge on his upstart younger brother. Esau could pay his twin back for all his dirty tricks of the past. Esau could treat Jacob to a taste of all the disdain and contempt he had repeatedly poured upon him. Yet what does Esau do? He surprises everyone! He makes it clear ​ ​ he’s not going to hold a grudge. He desires no revenge, nor does he require lavish gifts as appeasement. Esau simply wants to be reconciled. And Jacob is so touched by this that he responds with some of the most beautiful words we hear in Scripture, Truly, to see your face is like ​ seeing the face of God, for you have received me with such favor, with such grace. ​ So...What’s it going to be? Rivalry or reconciliation? Through that dark night of wrestling and because of his brother, Esau, the upstart trickster, Jacob, Israel, he finally learns to see the face of God in the face of the one he had hurt and despised. He discovered God’s grace in the one he had always considered disgraced, and in the face of the other, Jacob rediscovers his kin, his brother. But you know, even though Jacob learns this important lesson that day, even though he was growing in his walk with God, in his spiritual maturity, it doesn’t take long for sibling rivalry to make a resurgence in the next generation. You see Jacob had 12 sons, and one of his sons, , this ​ Joseph he was resented by his 11 brothers, because – well, as with Abel over Cain and Sara over Hagar, as with Isaac over Ishmael and Jacob over Esau, as with Rachel over Leah, Joseph was favored. He was favored by his father over his other brothers. It seems that ​ dynamic was just too hard for Jacob to overcome...and then there was ​ this dream that Joseph had – a dream that one day his brothers would bow before him. Well, that didn’t go over so well! So driven by rivalry and resentment, Joseph’s brothers plot to kill him. But at the last minute, they decide instead they’ll sell him into slavery to some Egyptian traders. And despite a series of dramatic temptations and delays, of setbacks and recoveries, Joseph eventually rises from the depths of slavery to a place of honor in the court of the Egyptian . Many years later, when a famine demands that Joseph’s brothers travel to as refugees, Joseph has his Esau moment. He can get revenge on his plotting and scheming brothers who had treated him so badly. He could do to them what they had done to him. But like Esau, Joseph makes a different choice – a choice not for revenge, but for forgiveness and reconciliation. When his brothers bow before him, as Joseph had dreamed they would, and when his brothers offer themselves up in servitude, Joseph doesn't gloat. He refuses to play god. He refuses to judge them as deserving of death or sentence them to enslavement. Instead with an incredible depth of spiritual maturity, Joseph reinterprets the whole story of their relationship. He sees how their evil intent is really overshadowed by God’s goodness, such that Joseph could now save their lives. Sure, Joseph had suffered at the hand of his brothers, but now he realizes the blessings he has come to know, they are for his family’s benefit! So instead of imitating their resentment and violence, Joseph imitates the gracious heart of God. Joseph refuses to play god in judging them, instead Joseph images God in showing kindness and mercy to his brothers. So...what’s it going to be? Rivalry or reconciliation? In these Genesis stories of sibling rivalry, the rejected brother, the ‘other,’ is the one in whose face the grace of God shines brightly. Now if we hold Jesus’ story of the Prodigal Son in dialogue with these Genesis stories, we sense some similarities, in that the one done wrong, like Esau, like Joseph, the one done wrong, the father, he welcomes home this boy who has broken his heart. He embraces this son who had turned his back on his family. The father, he shows grace rather than retaliation. He offers love and joy and reconciliation rather than retribution, and he invites his eldest son to do the same. But for him, the eldest, what’s it going to be? Rivalry or reconciliation? As Jesus tells the story, he invites us to live the answer...in our daily lives, in our relationships, what’s it going to be rivalry or reconciliation? As it is throughout , our lives are full of conflict and competition. We all experience being wronged and hurt. We all experience injustice through the actions of others – and we all inflict wrongs and hurts and injustices upon others. But as we grow in spiritual maturity, as we make the intentional choice again and again to reflect the image of God, like Esau, we will choose grace over hostility. Like Joseph, we’ll live into reconciliation instead of rivalry and revenge. And like the extravagant Father, we’ll let go of the hurt and the disappointment...knowing that when we do, we’ll see the face of God in our brother, in our sister and we’ll reflect that face, that love, with our own. Praise be to God. Amen