Jacob and Esau

By The Rev. Bernard W. Poppe, Rector

I wanted to talk about the parable of the sower and the seeds, but a phrase in the Old Testament lesson nagged at me too much and wouldn't let me concentrate. Perhaps the same phrase jumped out at you? It's the phrase when Esau comes in from the field and he's hungry and says to Jacob, "Let me eat some of that red stuff...."

Now, I like to cook and God knows that description could also be used with some of my dishes. Still, it irks me to see it here. One wonders what was on the mind of the translators who came up with this "red stuff." Earlier translations used the words "stew" or "pottage." Both of these are noble and hearty words to describe the food Jacob was eating and presumably taunting Esau with. "Red stuff" seems to lack the dignity one expects in Biblical readings. I am tremendously impressed that the layreader read this lesson without so much as a smirk. Not only would that reaction have been appropriate but the well aimed "hurrumph" would also be fitting. So a big Bronx cheer to the translators of this passage.

Having said all that, and getting that out of my system, a word about word play might give some instruction. You see, not only is the translator guilty of dubious humor, the original writer is too. The writer goes out of his or her way to describe Esau as a red, hairy man. The word "esau" means "hairy" in Hebrew. So this means that Isaac and Rebecca named their hairy little baby, "Hairy." (And not the kind that met Sally, either!) Well, little baby Hairy was followed closely in birth by his twin brother. We're told the twin had grabbed hold of Hairy's heel on the way out, and perhaps used this method to ease the passage. I must admit that my understanding of childbirth was stretched by this image in and information. I never thought there was so much room for this sort of gynecological gymnastic.

Never the less, Isaac and Rebecca having demonstrated an uncanny wit for naming babies, named the second boy "heel grabber" or in English, Jacob. I'm beginning to feel a certain generosity of forgiveness for the translator who came up with "red stuff," given the act he's had to follow. Oh, but we're not done with the clever word play yet. You see Esau had a nickname. He was also called "Edom." Edom means "red." So both his red hair and the red stuff for which he traded his birthright earned him this clever nickname. No doubt when the enormity of his mistake was discovered, he was probably also very red faced.

Esau apparently did not inherit the cleverness of Isaac, Rebecca or share in the calculating and effective deceitfulness of his brother Heel Grabber, uh, Jacob. It would seem that Jacob was to grab much more than his brother's heel during their lives. Esau was the first born and therefore entitled to the inheritance. Despite what we might think of the fairness of that system, that's what it was. But by the time they were grown, Jacob had tricked Esau out of all of it.

These stories in Genesis are creation and origin stories. They tell the tales of beginnings. You can imagine families around the fires at night where children ask how the world was created or why do we live here and those people live there? There were stories about everything and everyone from people and places to rock formations and rivers. Puns are important in these stories and unfortunately we lose a lot since the original language holds a treasure trove of them that aren't translated in this way.

It's also apparent that these stories are in some cases gentle and in other cases not so gentle mocking of neighboring peoples and also dangerous enemies. In these stories Jacob and Esau went on to be the patriarchs of nations that lived side by side. Jacob's name was later changed to "Israel" and the country bears his name; while Edom, the country to the south of Israel (also known for its stretches of red rock formations) bears the name of Jacob's brother -- a name that is the subject of teasing and slight ridicule.

When I was a child the RI neighborhood I grew up in was fond of certain ethnic jokes aimed at people descended from a European country that discretion prevents me from naming. One year cousins of ours from Holland came to visit and as children do we started swapping jokes. We giggled and roared as we told our favorite ethnic jokes and were confused why they didn't laugh at all.

For their part, they found great humor in telling Belgian jokes. And while they giggled and roared my siblings and I looked at each other totally bored with that line of humor. What's so funny about Belgians we wondered?

However, being adaptable children we soon learned that if we each told our jokes and substituted our preferred nationalities that our respective audiences giggled and roared as we had originally hoped.

The point is that prior to the raising of politically correct sensitivity, the mocking of one nationality by another is an age old past time. Israel and Edom shared such a past time using each other as the brunt of their humor. The wisdom in this story, though, echoes that of one we read a short time ago between brothers Abraham and Ishmael who also founded countries that became enemies later on. The wisdom is that even enemies are rooted in family ties. Our enemies are not our enemies at all. They are our brothers and sisters.

The beauty of these creation stories is that they convey wit and humor describing relationships that were contemporary to them while not losing sight of the fact that all people come from God and are brothers and sisters.

Our societies are marked by relationships that run the full range of loving to deadly. Our rhetoric goes from witty and good natured teasing to poisonous slander or vicious distortion. Election years are fodder for such negative volleys and this year promises to be more severe than most I believe. People at war, and those on opposite sides of political or social issues -- as well as those involved in personal disputes tend to be guilty of dehumanizing their opponents.

Despite our relationships, the disagreements, the tensions and even dangers, we are all bothers and sisters springing from the love and life of God. Unless we change our approach from enemies to be vanquished to brothers or sisters to be reconciled we will be out of sync with the earliest wisdom of creation -- that we are all from God and only through God can we all be reconciled.

Jesus told his disciples about the seeds being sowed on the path. Not only can we look at the seed as being the word of God that we hear and in fact how we listen to it, but in the many layers of the parable, we can see ourselves as the seed being sent to bear fruit in a world that needs it. Not only do we hear the word, but we become the word. There are obstacles to both. But in the end, it is God's garden and God's been planting gardens a long time. If we do our best, God will do the rest.
Amen.

© 2008 St. George's Episcopal Church, Maplewood, NJ