Proper 10
Preaching
Preaching and Reading the Old Testament Lessons
With an Eye to the New
Object:
It may seem rather startling to read in verse 20 of this passage that Isaac is forty years old when he marries Rebekah. In the text of Genesis 24 that we looked at last Sunday, Isaac was just a young man of marriageable age, for whom his father Abraham was obliged to find a wife. The disparity in the accounts is due to the fact that we have two sources woven together here. Verses 19-20 of our text today come from the priestly source. Chapter 24 and 25:21-34 come from the Yahwist source, and the two sources differ in their chronologies. Perhaps this is an opportunity for the preacher to explain to the congregation that some of the contradictions in the scriptures are due to the interweaving of separate sources.
This text in chapter 25 forms an introduction to what follows in the Genesis narrative. Once again the background is the promise of many descendants, and this text serves to illumine why Jacob becomes the chosen one of the Lord and the bearer of the promise. It also reflects the lifestyles of the inhabitants of Palestine -- the darker-skinned, somewhat scruffy hunters of the eastern and southern regions, the more civilized shepherds of Israel.
Always there seem to be obstacles to God's fulfillment of his promise. Rebekah, the beloved wife of Isaac, is barren, which was a matter of shame in ancient Israel. And according to the priestly writer, she is barren for twenty years (v. 26). But then the Yahwist story tells us that Isaac prays for his wife and she conceives (v. 21), which is an explicit notice here, as throughout the Bible, that all human life is created by God.
Rebekah's pregnancy, however, is difficult, and she thinks she cannot bear the stress and pain that it causes her. She, too, therefore, goes to a cult center and prays, inquiring of the priest there why she is in so much distress. The word of the Lord, conveyed to her by the priest, forms a prophecy of the future. She will bear twins, but the lastborn will rule over the firstborn. That word is then confirmed not only by the fact that Jacob grasps his brother's heel at birth and is therefore named "supplanter," but also by the name "Edom," signifying the "red" pottage for which Esau, the forbear of the Edomites, trades his birthright.
By right, as the firstborn, Esau should inherit the wealth and honor of his father Isaac. And it is to Esau that the dim-eyed and dying Isaac should later give his blessing (ch. 27), conveying all his goods and status. But Jacob is a "supplanter," Jacob is a cheat -- a characteristic that marks him throughout his life -- and he cheats his brother out of both the inheritance and the blessing. Esau swears to the transaction -- the oath is necessary to insure it (v. 33) -- simply because he is famished after a day of hunting. Physical hunger determines his actions, as physical desires often determine ours. And what Esau ends up with is not some delicious game, but a mess of cheap lentil pottage that he hastily gulps down.
The little notice that "Rebekah loved Jacob" (v. 28) will later be shown to be a love that saves Jacob's life (27:41-45). But perhaps the basic question that confronts us from this passage is why a man like Jacob -- a supplanter, a deceiver of his brother, a cheat who will continue his cheating ways in his Uncle Laban's house (30:37-43) -- should be the person chosen by God to inherit Isaac's goods and blessing and to bear the promise of the Lord. Jacob has taken advantage of his weaker brother Esau, and he is totally undeserving of any consideration or grace from the Lord.
So are we undeserving of God's care and mercy, are we not? We never deserved that cross on Golgotha and the forgiveness of our sins. We never deserved the promise of eternal life through Christ's resurrection. We never have deserved God's constant watch over us, his guidance every day, his comfort in sorrow, his strength in distress, even his gifts of sun and rain, and our daily bread. But God has lavished them all on us. And what is more he has chosen us, as he chose Jacob, to be his special people set apart for his purpose. We are elect, as Jacob was elect, through no deserving of our own. Surely, our response to that can only be overwhelming gratitude and a daily desire to walk in God's ways and to be his faithful covenant people.
Lutheran Option: Isaiah 55:10-13
The prophecies of Second Isaiah (Isaiah 40-55) begin and end with the proclamation that the Word of God will not and cannot fail. To the exiles in Babylonia sometime after 550 B.C., the prophet announces that all of God's past promises to Israel -- of land, descendants, covenant communion, Davidic king, and blessing -- will be gathered up and brought to fulfillment, because "the Word of our God will stand forever" (Isaiah 40:8). And here in our passage, that is reaffirmed. God tells us that the word "shall accomplish that which I purpose" (55:11). God's Word presses on through human history to accomplish God's goal.
Our usual understanding of the Word of God does not begin to encompass what the scriptures mean by those terms. We usually think of the Word of God as identical with the Bible ("the Word of God written"), or as a proclamation from the pulpit, or as teaching passed on, all of which just give us new understandings or new information about the Lord and human beings and the world.
But the biblical understanding of the Word of God is much more dynamic than that. Throughout the scriptures, the Word of God is understood as active, effective force, which brings about new situations, and which influences and shapes the course of history, until that which the word says is brought to pass. To give a simple illustration, in Genesis 1, God says, "Let their be light," and light is created (Genesis 1:3) -- a new situation comes into being.
In our text, therefore, God speaks of this active nature of his Word. Just as the rain and snow come down from heaven and cause seeds to sprout and grow, so God's word causes events. It does that of which it speaks. The word works until it is fulfilled. So Bible and biblical sermon not only convey information. Much more, they communicate the powerful Word of God that works to transform human lives. As Paul says, when Christ is preached and faith in him is aroused, that Word of God incarnate makes a "new creation. The old has passed away, behold the new has come" (2 Corinthians 5:17). Our past is done away; our sins are forgiven; and we are made into new persons who, by Christ at work in us, are able to do his will.
God speaks many words to us through Bible and sermon and sacrament. And one of those words is, "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live" (John 11:23). And that Word of God will work in our lives, good Christians, until we are, indeed, granted eternal life.
This text in chapter 25 forms an introduction to what follows in the Genesis narrative. Once again the background is the promise of many descendants, and this text serves to illumine why Jacob becomes the chosen one of the Lord and the bearer of the promise. It also reflects the lifestyles of the inhabitants of Palestine -- the darker-skinned, somewhat scruffy hunters of the eastern and southern regions, the more civilized shepherds of Israel.
Always there seem to be obstacles to God's fulfillment of his promise. Rebekah, the beloved wife of Isaac, is barren, which was a matter of shame in ancient Israel. And according to the priestly writer, she is barren for twenty years (v. 26). But then the Yahwist story tells us that Isaac prays for his wife and she conceives (v. 21), which is an explicit notice here, as throughout the Bible, that all human life is created by God.
Rebekah's pregnancy, however, is difficult, and she thinks she cannot bear the stress and pain that it causes her. She, too, therefore, goes to a cult center and prays, inquiring of the priest there why she is in so much distress. The word of the Lord, conveyed to her by the priest, forms a prophecy of the future. She will bear twins, but the lastborn will rule over the firstborn. That word is then confirmed not only by the fact that Jacob grasps his brother's heel at birth and is therefore named "supplanter," but also by the name "Edom," signifying the "red" pottage for which Esau, the forbear of the Edomites, trades his birthright.
By right, as the firstborn, Esau should inherit the wealth and honor of his father Isaac. And it is to Esau that the dim-eyed and dying Isaac should later give his blessing (ch. 27), conveying all his goods and status. But Jacob is a "supplanter," Jacob is a cheat -- a characteristic that marks him throughout his life -- and he cheats his brother out of both the inheritance and the blessing. Esau swears to the transaction -- the oath is necessary to insure it (v. 33) -- simply because he is famished after a day of hunting. Physical hunger determines his actions, as physical desires often determine ours. And what Esau ends up with is not some delicious game, but a mess of cheap lentil pottage that he hastily gulps down.
The little notice that "Rebekah loved Jacob" (v. 28) will later be shown to be a love that saves Jacob's life (27:41-45). But perhaps the basic question that confronts us from this passage is why a man like Jacob -- a supplanter, a deceiver of his brother, a cheat who will continue his cheating ways in his Uncle Laban's house (30:37-43) -- should be the person chosen by God to inherit Isaac's goods and blessing and to bear the promise of the Lord. Jacob has taken advantage of his weaker brother Esau, and he is totally undeserving of any consideration or grace from the Lord.
So are we undeserving of God's care and mercy, are we not? We never deserved that cross on Golgotha and the forgiveness of our sins. We never deserved the promise of eternal life through Christ's resurrection. We never have deserved God's constant watch over us, his guidance every day, his comfort in sorrow, his strength in distress, even his gifts of sun and rain, and our daily bread. But God has lavished them all on us. And what is more he has chosen us, as he chose Jacob, to be his special people set apart for his purpose. We are elect, as Jacob was elect, through no deserving of our own. Surely, our response to that can only be overwhelming gratitude and a daily desire to walk in God's ways and to be his faithful covenant people.
Lutheran Option: Isaiah 55:10-13
The prophecies of Second Isaiah (Isaiah 40-55) begin and end with the proclamation that the Word of God will not and cannot fail. To the exiles in Babylonia sometime after 550 B.C., the prophet announces that all of God's past promises to Israel -- of land, descendants, covenant communion, Davidic king, and blessing -- will be gathered up and brought to fulfillment, because "the Word of our God will stand forever" (Isaiah 40:8). And here in our passage, that is reaffirmed. God tells us that the word "shall accomplish that which I purpose" (55:11). God's Word presses on through human history to accomplish God's goal.
Our usual understanding of the Word of God does not begin to encompass what the scriptures mean by those terms. We usually think of the Word of God as identical with the Bible ("the Word of God written"), or as a proclamation from the pulpit, or as teaching passed on, all of which just give us new understandings or new information about the Lord and human beings and the world.
But the biblical understanding of the Word of God is much more dynamic than that. Throughout the scriptures, the Word of God is understood as active, effective force, which brings about new situations, and which influences and shapes the course of history, until that which the word says is brought to pass. To give a simple illustration, in Genesis 1, God says, "Let their be light," and light is created (Genesis 1:3) -- a new situation comes into being.
In our text, therefore, God speaks of this active nature of his Word. Just as the rain and snow come down from heaven and cause seeds to sprout and grow, so God's word causes events. It does that of which it speaks. The word works until it is fulfilled. So Bible and biblical sermon not only convey information. Much more, they communicate the powerful Word of God that works to transform human lives. As Paul says, when Christ is preached and faith in him is aroused, that Word of God incarnate makes a "new creation. The old has passed away, behold the new has come" (2 Corinthians 5:17). Our past is done away; our sins are forgiven; and we are made into new persons who, by Christ at work in us, are able to do his will.
God speaks many words to us through Bible and sermon and sacrament. And one of those words is, "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live" (John 11:23). And that Word of God will work in our lives, good Christians, until we are, indeed, granted eternal life.
