Frederick Buechner in his book “Peculiar Treasures”, gives us a glimpse of the two brothers in our scripture for this week. Read through his descriptions below and allow yourself to wonder about Jacob and Esau. Where do you see Grace? How might you frame a story like this in your own family? How are doing good and doing harm linked?
Jacob:
The book of Genesis makes no attempt to conceal the fact that Jacob was, among other things, a crook. What’s more, you get the feeling that whoever wrote up his seamy adventures got a real kick out of them.
Twice he cheated his lame-brained brother, Esau, out of what was coming to him. At least once he took advantage of the blindness of his old father, Isaac, and played him for a sucker. He outdid his double-crossing father-in-law, Laban, by conning him out of most of his livestock and, later on, when Laban was looking the other way, by sneaking off with not only both the man’s daughters, but just about everything else that wasn’t nailed down including his household gods. Jacob was never satisfied. He wanted the moon, and if he’d ever managed to bilk heaven out of that, he would have been back the next morning for the stars to go with it.
Esau:
Esau was so hungry he could hardly see straight when his younger twin, Jacob, bought his birthright for a bowl of chili. He was off hunting rabbits when Jacob conned their old father, Isaac, into giving him the blessing that should have been Esau’s by right of primogeniture. Eventually it dawned on Esau what his brother was up to, and he went slogging after him with a blunt instrument; but the slowness of his wits was compensated for by the generosity of his disposition, and in time the two were reconciled.
Jacob stole Esau blind, in other words, got away with it, and went on to become the father of the twelve tribes of Israel. It was not all gravy, however. He knew famine and loss. He grieved for years over the supposed death of his favorite child. He was as hoodwinked by his own sons in this as both his father and Esau had been hoodwinked by him, and he died with the clamor of their squabbling shrill in his ears.
Esau, on the other hand, though he’d lost his shirt, settled down in the hill country, raised a large if comparatively undistinguished family, and died in peace.
