David Hilfiker
Watch Zoom Video: 

March 6, 2016

Texts: Genesis 27:28-29; 27:39-40; 28:3-4; 33:10-11

I'd like to begin this morning by reading to you parts of a young man's prayer written shortly before his death.

I pray to you God to forgive me from all my sins, to allow me to glorify you in every possible way.
Oh God, open all doors for me. Oh God who answers prayers and answers those who ask you, I am asking you for your help. I am asking you for forgiveness. I am asking you to lighten my way. I am asking you to lift the burden I feel.
God, I trust in you. God, I lay myself in your hands. I ask with the light of your faith that has lit the whole world and lightened all darkness on this earth, to guide me.

The author of this prayer was 33-year-old Mohammed Atta the night before he led eighteen others in the attacks of 9/11 that killed 3000 people.  This is not the prayer of a psychopathic monster.  It seems to be the prayer of a deeply devout man seeking to do God's will at any personal cost, what Jonathan Sacks has called "altruistic evil."

There are those who say that radical Islamic extremists are not real Muslims but simply terrorists using religion as a cover for their monstrous deeds.  Maybe for some.  It seems to me, however, that Mohammed Atta and many others are, in fact, devoted Muslims seeking meaning in a secular world devoid of meaning.  They get caught in a fundamentalist duality that sees Islam as the only true faith and all non-believers as enemies of God.  It's no different from the Crusaders marching off under the Christian banner to slaughter Muslims or Puritans hanging witches, or other Christians burning heretics at the stake … all in the name of God.

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all claim Abraham as their spiritual father.  Each set of believers tends to see its own as the "one true faith."  Unfortunately, that can easily be ramped to a dualism: all the good on our side; all the evil on the other.  A person is one or the other: a child of God or a child of Satan.  Push that a little further, and we get into burning heretics and crashing planes into towers.

This morning I want to suggest that several well-known stories in Genesis offer counter-narratives that contradict the usual one-true-faith interpretation.  If you look at these texts carefully, Muslims, Jews and, by extension, Christians are true worshippers of the same God.  In the two stories we're going to look at today--that of Isaac/Ishmael and that of Jacob/Esau--the usual interpretation that the Lord selects one and rejects the other won't hold up.  They're more complex, richer; it turns out that God can choose one person while not rejecting the other, that God can love and bless both.

As Maria Barker mentioned two weeks ago, the Servants mission group is offering this series of teachings inspired by Jonathan Sacks, the former chief rabbi of the United Kingdom and his book, Not in God's Name: Confronting Religious Violence.  As Maria did, I'll rely heavily on Sacks's ideas and even his language.

In her teaching, Maria reflected on the story of Isaac and Ishmael. (Gen 16)  When Abraham's wife Sarah can't have a child, she pushes Abraham into sleeping with her slave-girl Hagar, who conceives.  Hagar, rather foolishly for a slave-girl, I'd say, expresses her contempt for the barren Sarah.  In retaliation and despite the fact that impregnating Hagar was her idea, Sarah blames Abraham for her distress and pressures him to allow her to banish Hagar into the wilderness.  But God intervenes, telling Hagar that God "will so greatly multiply your offspring that they cannot be counted."  Hagar's told to go back to Sarah and submit to her.  In due time, she gives birth to Ishmael,  who will be the father of Islam. 

Sarah, as we know, later miraculously conceives and gives birth to Isaac.  As the half-brothers grow up together, however, Sarah once again jealously insists that Hagar be banished (this time with her son) into the wilderness, where they will likely die.  But Ishmael is Abraham's son, too.  Abraham loves him and resists Sarah's demand until God approves.  Hagar and Ishmael then find themselves dying of thirst until God intervenes, promising Hagar that Ishmael will be father to "a great nation."  Not only does God save them, but Genesis tells us that "God is with the boy" as he grows up.

How do most of us remember the story?  I've always remembered that Isaac is chosen; Ishmael is sent away.  But the story is more nuanced.  Notice a couple of things.  First, although we know that Sarah will eventually be the mother of all Israel, it's Hagar who comes across sympathetically while Sarah is something of a shrew, irritating and unreasonable.  Then, in the second half of the story, the Scripture tells us that Abraham loves Ishmael and balks at sending him out to die.  He agrees to banish him only when God guarantees, for the third time, that God will make a nation of Ishmael.  Next, notice that God loves Ishmael and treats him, too, as his child.  Finally, a little later in Genesis when Abraham dies, Ishmael shows up and both sons together bury Abraham.  Nowhere is Ishmael vilified.  In fact, he and his descendents are blessed.

Our initial interpretation of the story is too simplistic.  What the story really tells us is that God may choose Isaac to be the father of a people with a special purpose, but God does not reject Ishmael; rather God blesses them both as fathers of nations.  God loves them both.  Who is loved more?  That's the wrong question; never ask that of a parent.

The fundamentalists of Islam; the fundamentalists of Christianity; the fundamentalists everywhere are wrong in their dualism.  The Abrahamic faiths are all true.  We are all blessed siblings.

A few chapters later in Genesis, we get the story of Isaac and his sons Jacob and Esau, but it, too, is accompanied by a hidden counter-narrative.  The straightforward story is that Jacob deceitfully steals Esau's blessing to become wealthy and powerful, the direct ancestor of all Israel.  But, of course, Jacob doesn't so much receive the blessing as steal it.  Egged on by his devious mother Rebekah, Jacob pretends to be Esau and tricks the elderly, blind Isaac into blessing him in Genesis 27:

May God give you
of the dew of the heavens,
And the richness of the earth,
And abundant grain and wine.
May nations serve you
And peoples bow down to you.
Rule over your brothers
And may your mother's sons bow down to you. (Genesis 27:28-29)

Thinking him Esau, Isaac blesses Jacob with wealth (the dew of heaven and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of grain and wine) and he blesses him with power (May nations serve you and peoples bow down to you).

Jacob eventually is renamed Israel and the rest is history.  But wait, there's a powerful, usually ignored, counter-narrative.

1. First, as in our story with Sarah and Hagar, our sympathies are enlisted on behalf of the elder son Esau, rather than Rebekah and Jacob, who are both liars and cheats.  Isaac is distraught, "trembling violently," when he discovers the trickery.  Jacob has stolen the blessing. 

Who wants these people to get away with this?

2. Second, blind Isaac, of course, fully intended the blessing for Esau.  When father and son are later commiserating over the treachery, Esau begs for a blessing, too.  Isaac says he's already given his blessing away but, in a complete and surprising turn-around, does bless Esau. 

Now, what I'm going to say next about this blessing of Esau may seem to be a diversion and a bit of exegetical smoke and mirrors that get us off track, so let me bracket it.

[In the translations we usually read, Isaac's blessing of Esau seems more like a curse: "Away from the fatness of the earth shall your home be; and away from the dew of heaven on high…. You shall serve your brother." (Gen 27:39-40)

No wealth nor power for Esau!

But, there's another, almost contradictory translation that Sachs uses, even without comment.  I was so surprised by it that I went back to footnotes in the Harper-Collins Study Bible: They fully support Sacks's reading.  It turns out that the Hebrew word mi-, that was translated "away from" in Esau's blessing has a second equally valid translation, the word "of."  And if we use that second meaning, the blessing really is a blessing: "Of the fatness of the earth shall your home be, and of the dew of heaven on high."

Sacks [p 129] translates the whole blessing like this:

The fat places of the earth can still be your dwelling.
[You can still have] the dew of heaven,
But you shall live by your sword.
You may have to serve your brother,
But when your complaints mount up,
You will throw his yoke off your neck.  (Gen 27:39-40)]

Okay, end of bracketing, but the point is that our story is not as simple as we've thought.  Isaac blesses Esau with wealth and power, too.

3. Third, Isaac later gives Jacob a second blessing that we don't usually pay attention to.  This is when, fearing Esau's wrath, Jacob is preparing to run away to his uncle, where he'll eventually marry his cousins, Leah and Rachel.  Now knowing that it's Jacob, Isaac blesses him this way:

May God almighty bless you, make you fruitful and increase your numbers so that you become a community of people.  May he give you and your descendants the blessing of Abraham, so that you may take possession of the land where you now live as a foreigner, the land God gave to Abraham. (Gen 28:3-4)

Sacks suggests that this is Jacob's true blessing: not power or wealth but "children he would teach to be heirs of the covenant, and the land where his descendants would seek to create a society based on the covenant of law and love. [Sacks p 135]

So, when Isaac knows it's Esau, he blesses him with wealth and power; when he knows it's Jacob, he blesses him with children and land.

4. The story isn't over: Jacob flees and lives with his uncle for twenty years, marrying Leah and Rachel.  But things get rough with the brothers, and Jacob must once again flee.  This is the trip on which Jacob will wrestle with the angel.  Just before that, however, Jacob hears that Esau is coming to confront him with 400 men.  Terrified of Esau's revenge and wanting to placate him, Jacob sends out a massive gift: hundreds of animals from his flocks: goats and sheep and camels, and cows and donkeys to appease Esau.  Each time one of the five flocks of animals is delivered, the servants are to say to Esau, these are from "your servant" Jacob. 

Fearing Esau, Jacob retreats to Peniel where the wrestling match occurs and Jacob learns his true identity, who he really is and gets a new name.  Esau now shows up and Jacob, now knowing who he himself is, is no longer afraid.  Nevertheless, he prostrates himself to his brother seven times.  But "Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him," and they wept together.  Then something remarkable happens: even after this reconciliation, Jacob has Leah and her children bow down and Rachel and Joseph bow; even the women's maids bow down.  Jacob again calls himself Esau's servant and calls Esau "my lord" five different times.  If Jacob is no longer afraid of Esau's violence and is supposed to rule over his brothers, why does he call himself Esau's servant and name Esau his lord?

Esau tries to refuse the gifts Jacob has sent, but Jacob will have none of it:

No, please … accept this gift from my hand, for to see you is like seeing the face of God. … Please accept my blessing that was brought to you, for God has been gracious to me, and I have everything. (Gen 33:10-11)

Sacks [p 135] writes,

Wrestling with the angel, Jacob has recognized who he really is; he doesn't need the wealth and power he stole. He has the land and the children; he is, in fact, giving back to Esau the blessing that he stole from him.  This counter-narrative adds a profound depth to the story.

5. A couple more details to notice:

  • When Isaac dies, both Jacob and Esau together bury him. (Gen 35:29b) 
  • Also, Esau eventually marries Ishmael's daughter, tying this story to Islam. 
  • Finally, Genesis later takes an entire chapter (36) detailing an endless list of Esau's descendents.

Let's recap this counter-narrative: After Esau becomes the sympathetic character, who has been robbed of his birthright, Isaac actually gives Esau a blessing, promising him wealth and power.  Then, when Isaac knows he's actually facing Jacob, he changes the original blessing, leaving out wealth and power, but emphasizing children and land.  After wrestling with the angel and learning who he truly is, Jacob realizes he doesn't need the blessing he stole and gives it back to Esau.  Esau later works with Jacob to bury their father and then the Bible emphasizes the nations that God promised to Esau.  Finally, Esau marries Ishmael's daughter, and the writer of Genesis emphasizes Esau's importance in the stories.

So what's going on here in Genesis?  The narratives have God choosing Isaac and rejecting Ishmael; choosing Jacob and rejecting Esau. 

The counter-narrative is that God does not reject the two older brothers, but grants each wealth, power, and descendents.  Isaac and Jacob are chosen, but Ishmael and Esau are not rejected but blessed; they are not "less than."

Notice that, actually, in each case, God takes the weaker of the brothers as his "chosen one" to found Israel.  And the Jews remain the weaker nation almost throughout history.  Their inheritance is not wealth and power but servanthood, a beacon for the nations.  One of the most striking themes of the first five books of the Bible--not only in these two stories--is that "God chooses those who cannot do naturally what others take for granted."

The insistence that there is only one true faith is the rejection of other faiths, which implicitly carries the seeds of fundamentalist extremism and violence: extremist Jews slaughtering other Jews in the temple as they await the Roman soldiers; Christian crusaders marching to destroy Islam; extremist Muslims crashing planes into towers.

In Isaiah 49:6 the prophet tells Israel that it been chosen as a "light to the nations, that [God's] salvation may reach to the end of the earth."  Not the conqueror, not the one true faith, but a light to the nations.