It’s brothers, again.
Esau. Technically the older, by mere seconds, but these
things matter in families. Rugged. Sturdy. He preferred to
be outside hunting. Prone to impulsive action, especially
when hungry.
Jacob. Skilled in deception since the day he was born
clinging to his brother’s heel. He convinces his famished
elder brother Esau to sell his birthright for a bowl of
stew. Later, by impersonating Esau, Jacob fools their
elderly father Isaac into giving him (Jacob) the blessing
intended solely for the firstborn son. In other words, this
story is filled with family drama in the extreme. And so,
their mother Rebekah warns her favorite son (I don’t
even have time to explain that drama) that Esau now
plans to console himself by killing his brother. But that
was all a long time ago.
Now, after twenty years on the run, Jacob is headed back
home, where he knows his brother is surely waiting.
Jacob strategically sends scouts ahead who return with
some news. Jacob, we found your brother, Esau. There’s
bad news, and there’s worse news. Bad news: Esau is
already in pursuit, on his way to meet you. Worse news: he
is not alone. Four hundred men walk with him.
Jacob rightly assumes the worst, and driven by fear, he
moves quickly. Another act of strategic deception, he
divides the people, flocks, herds, and camels who are
with him. And he describes the reason. He says, “If Esau
comes to one half of my company and destroys it, then
the other half will be left to escape.”
And that’s the context for our two readings this morning.
Jacob, fearing for his life, prepares to meet his brother
on the road, but first he pauses to pray. It’s a remarkable
prayer. A request. A plea for forgiveness. A prayer of
repentance. An appeal for help. Jacob cries out to God,
“I am not worthy of your steadfast love. Deliver me from
the hand of my brother. Remember your promise spoken
to my ancestors.”
Then, somewhere deep in the wilderness, Jacob is
confronted. By whom? Not his brother. Not yet. Some
sources suggest it was an angel, but the Hebrew text
only says, “a man.” They struggle til dawn. Marilynne
Robinson describes the struggle as “a wonderful
image of lonely anguish, utter bewilderment, and
profound determination.”
It’s determination that enables Jacob to endure injury
and somehow hold on to his adversary. Before letting
go, as day breaks, Jacob asks for what he has always
most desired, what he has never fully received. Blessing.
Not power or prestige. Not influence or land. Not even
protection from his brother. Jacob asks for blessing.
His demand is granted, but in an unexpected way. Jacob
is given a holy vision, a new name, a fresh start, and an
aching hip to ensure that he will never forget this night.
So long as Jacob walks the earth, into his old age, he
will remember the wrestling that has just occurred.
And now, Jacob, limping his way into a new day,
prepares to meet his brother. The circumstances
of their encounter have changed not at all, but
something significant has shifted. Here’s how I know.
Prior to the wrestling match, he planned to send the
possessions and people ahead of him. See how it
works out for them, and I’ll follow behind. It is an act of
shameful self-preservation. Now, Jacob himself will go
first. Whatever may come, he will face it alone. He is
prepared for the worst.
Having dramatically set the stage in the wilderness, our
narrator in Genesis suddenly, without warning, shifts the
scene. All eyes on Jacob, but Esau ran to meet him. Esau
embraced him. Esau fell on his neck. Esau kissed him,
and they both weep.
It turns out that Esau’s pursuit was not marked by
bitterness or vengeance, but by an astonishing
grace. What follows is a moment of extraordinary
reconciliation between brothers that also echoes
Jacob’s experience the night before at the Jabbok. In
the midnight struggle and in the daybreak embrace,
Jacob sees the face of God. It is the face of God that
draws these two stories together. The face of God,
who has pursued him from the very beginning. The
presence of God who will not let him go.
And so, Esau offers his little brother the incredible gift of
forgiveness. But, why? The text doesn’t tell us. Not directly.
Some options present themselves. Maybe the old adage
is simply true—time heals all wounds. It has been a long
time, and Esau, for his part, has done quite well for himself
in the intervening years. He may not have his birthright. He
may not have his father’s blessing of the firstborn. But he
has acquired wealth, land, a family. As he explains to his
brother, he already has everything he needs.
Maybe that’s the reason. The passage of time. The
comfort he has acquired. But for some reason, I can’t
let go of a more simple explanation, the one truth that
has never changed from the very beginning. They are
brothers. Twins. They belong to the same family. This
act of grace may seem unexpected in the moment,
but through another lens it is perhaps inevitable. Their
emotional embrace speaks volumes for me. They wept.
What might their embrace, what might this story of
forgiveness and reconciliation, what might Esau’s
act, teach us? How could this ancient story guide our
intentions and our actions?
Two brothers. Esau. Esau pursues Jacob with a
mission of mercy. No wonder Jacob sees in his
brother’s face the very face of God. Esau’s response
reflects divine compassion joined with human love.
And this is our calling, Church.
And here, I want to be clear, because I believe our
sacred texts are clear. People of faith must take care
not to forget the heart of our God-given mission: divine
compassion and human love. Yes, we find these virtues
woven into the stories of Genesis, and as followers of
Jesus Christ, we find them fully embodied in the Gospel
accounts of his life and ministry that are our wisdom
and our guide. This is and must always be the standard
for our discipleship. The role of the faithful is to reflect
the life of Christ, to do as he did and as he commanded
us to do: to extend—not withhold—grace, to offer
empathy, to honor the humanity of those we love,
those we struggle to love, the strangers in our midst,
the vulnerable and the powerless, all God’s beloved
children. Jacob sees in Esau’s face the face of God
because Esau’s act is God-like.
Whenever we find ourselves using our faith as
justification for exclusion or hatred, we must honestly
search our own hearts and ask what is really driving us.
Communities of Christian faith have the high duty of
seeing with the eyes of Jesus and acting out of fidelity
to his word and his way. This vocation is to be valued
above every competing claim for our allegiance or
devotion. When we are not tethered to this core calling,
we will find ourselves drifting toward demonizing lies
and drawn to alluring idols of power. Esau resembles the
face of God because he remembers who he is and who
is brother is. Our call is nothing less. Remember who
you are. Remember who your siblings are.
So, what of Jacob? It’s his journey that continues in the
Book of Genesis. He’s on his way back to Canaan where
there will be twelve sons. More on them next week. But
Jacob. He is fundamentally transformed by this encounter.
Here’s the moment that changes Jacob perhaps above all.
He tries to account for his past sin with possessions and
property. He gathers gifts to give to Esau so that he can
be made right. Esau refuses them. This forgiveness will
come with no strings attached. No quid pro quo.
Marilynne Robinson describes it exactly the way it
happens, writing, “His debt cannot be repaid, but it can
be forgiven. This is the economics of grace.” In Esau’s
act of grace, Jacob receives the forgiveness of God,
and that’s the moment that changes the man. It is then
that the tears fall from Jacob’s face.
I’ve been thinking about how all of our experiences
of forgiveness contain within them this possibility,
this potential. To forgive is divine. To be forgiven is to
receive a holy gift.
The Reformer John Calvin suggested that every human
encounter is also a divine encounter. Consider that for
a moment, that every human encounter is also a divine
encounter. This means that for Jacob, the wrestling match
is no different from the reunion. In both, the face of God
is visible to him. Every human encounter is a divine
encounter. And Calvin says that in every human-divine
encounter, there is a question being asked of us, and that
question is this: what does God desire of this encounter?
What is God asking me to do in this moment?
Some of you know that my favorite volunteer activity
these days is coaching, along with Sara, our son
Samuel’s fifth grade basketball team. We have had
the privilege of coaching many of these same boys
for several seasons now, and I find that adds to our
enjoyment but also the depth of our emotion. A
couple of weeks ago, the game was close. Two points
separated the teams for most of the contest. It was back
and forth, back and forth, through the third quarter and
into the fourth. As the clock wound down, the intensity
on the floor ramped up, and it was matched by the
intensity in the stands.
Less than a minute remained when our point guard
stole the ball on the sideline—a heroic act! The opposing
player, out of frustration or perhaps desperation, shoved
our guard to the ground. Hard. Our player lay on the
court. He may be our toughest kid on the team, but he
began to cry. To be honest, some of what came next
is a blur to me. It was Sara who rushed over to check
on him. Slowly, tenderly, he got up and made his way
back to the bench. Meanwhile, there were some words
exchanged by parents in the bleachers.
And so, it was the kids who led the way. It turns out
our guy was not the only one in tears. The player on
the other team walked over to his bench wiping them
from his eyes. I watched what happened next in total
awe. As soon as the game ended, the opposing player
found a player on our team he knew from school. He
asked him to point out the kid he had fouled, and then
he walked over. Our point guard looked at him. Both
still teary eyed. He reached out and patted him on the
shoulder. All good, man. All good. The wonder of it was
it took place without any coaching. There was no adult
enforcement. As I watched them walk away from each
other, I could see the transformation that act of grace
had offered. We all saw it. Could their innate inclination
to give and accept grace point the way forward for us?
Here’s what I know, though I struggle to put it into
words. These small moments of reconciliation, these
simple words of forgiveness, this moment on a
basketball court in an elementary school gym in Indiana,
are made from the same material as the forgiveness
we know in Christ, as the forgiveness we are freed to
offer to each other. You see, the gift of grace is to make
us gracious. If we are not gracious, we have missed the
point. In Esau’s pursuit, Jacob saw the face of God.
And, behind it all, the God who has followed this broken
man from birth continues the pursuit. They met face to
face in a struggle for blessing that will forever join them.
Here’s how the writer Frederick Buechner imagined it:
“The darkness has faded just enough so that for the
first time Jacob can dimly see his opponent’s face. And
what he sees is something more terrible than the face of
death—the face of love.”
It’s the most powerful force in all of creation. Don’t let
anyone tell you otherwise. And so, with courage and
resolve for the journey ahead, let us look into the face of
love and take heart. You do not struggle alone. Amen.