‘When her time to give birth was at hand,  there were twins in her womb.  The first came out red,  all his body like a hairy mantle;
so they named him Esau.  Afterward his brother came out,  with his hand gripping Esau’s; so he was named Jacob.’  

Gen.25:24-36

If someone were to ask me a good place to begin reading the Bible I might suggest they start with the story of Jacob.  For one thing,  they won’t be bored -  Jacob is such an colorful character and his life story has all the elements of a soap opera  -   jealousy,  rivalry,  cheating, lying, deceit, hatred, fear, love, lust, sex,  struggle,  reunion, reconciliation and hope.   What’s more, this is a lengthy e story -  Jacob plays the leading role for 10 chapters and he sticks around in a secondary role for the next 15 after that.   And long is good because it allows the reader time to enter into the story,  to develop a rapport with the main character.  That’s particularly important with this story because it is the author’s intention that we come to identify with Jacob…to see in his character reflections of ours own character,  to see in his struggles to believe and follow God glimpses of our own struggle,  to recognize his limp as being our limp too.  So begin with Jacob because he’s our man.  His foibles,  his shortcomings are like ours.  And so are the foibles and shortcomings of his family.  It’s refreshing to see that Jacob’s family is less than perfect – like our families…in fact Jacob’s family is more messed up and dysfunctional than most I think,  which in a strange way gives us hope.  If God can love and bless the likes of them, surely God loves and blesses the likes of us too.  
So let’s begin what I hope will be a four week series on the story of Jacob,  touching on the highlights and lowlights of the man and his life journey.  Today we begin at the beginning with the birth of Jacob:

‘When her time to give birth was at hand,  there were twins in her womb.  The first came out red,  all his body like a hairy mantle; so they named him Esau.  Afterward his brother came out,  with his hand gripping Esau’s; so he was named Jacob.’   Gen.25:24-36

    Jacob was born to Isaac and Rebecca.  Isaac was the only son of Abraham and Sarah and Rebecca was his first cousin once removed.  (It’s a bit close for marriage,  if you asked me,  but they didn’t)   They both wanted to have a family but Rebecca was barren and no children would come.   Isaac prayed to God to bless him with children, and low and behold – twins!  (Be careful what you pray for!)  They were named Esau and Jacob – twins,  but certainly not identical twins.  Esau was born with lots of hair,  and Jacob was smooth.  They had completely different interests too;  Growing up, Esau loved the outdoors – was a skillful hunter and an avid farmer.   Jacob on the other hand was a quiet lad who preferred to spend the days inside the tent rather than outside.  Their parents found themselves drawn to different sons -  Isaac to Esau because he liked to go hunting with him,  and Rebeccah to Jacob because he helped her around the house.

There was a rivalry between the two and Rebecca would tell you it could be traced back right to the womb.  When she was pregnant with them it was like WWF westling match going on inside her.  It was so intense that she feared for her life and prayed to God about it.   God said to her:  “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples born of you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other,  the elder shall serve the younger.”  In other words, God was pronouncing blessing upon the youngest child in her womb.   Now, that’s not the way it  works in Hebrew culture – everyone knows that the first born is the preferred child,  not the youngest!  But God decreed it would be otherwise and Rebecca heard it.
The problem with Jacob was he didn’t believe it.  And who could blame him? Look at his brother Esau!  He’s big, he’s strong,  he’s self-assured and capable.  Esau’s the all-American athlete who can bench-press his weight without even breaking a sweat.  Esau’s the star quarterback on the highschool football team,  who has all the cheerleaders going gaw-gaw.  He’s the guy who goes out partying the night before the big math exam and still pulls off an ‘A’.   Easu was born with a silver spoon in his mouth ….life just comes easy to him.  Not so for Jacob – sports aren’t his thing…he’s no athlete and actually academia isn’t really his forte either.  Truth is, nothing came naturally to him…he has to work at everything he does.  You see, Jacob has learned that there are those in life who have it made,  and there are those who have to make it happen.  There are those for whom life is blessing upon blessing and there are those really have to work at it to get any blessings to come their way.   And Jacob knows which categorie in -  he’s no Esau and if any blessings are going to come his way he’s going to have to strive to make it happen.  And that’s exactly what the name Jacob means -  striver…hustler.  And as we will see Jacob spends a lot of his life striving and hustling for blessings  -  there’s nobody he won’t try to hustle -  his brother Esau,  his father Isaac,  even God himself! 

In today’s passage Jacob puts the hustle on his brother Esau…and he’s good at it.  He’s so good Esau hardly seems to know he’s being hustled! Jacob is a domestic…a tent-dweller…and his brother Esau was an outdoorsman.  One day Esau came in from the fields and he was absolutely famished.  Jacob was cooking up a big pot of Lentil soup and the aroma tantalized Esau.  “Give me some of that soup Jacob, I’m starving”.  Jacob says “What’s it worth to you Esau – would you sell me your birthright for a bowl?”   Esau was so hungry at that moment that he says to Jacob “Sure”.   So Jacob made him swear to it – his birthright for a bowl of soup.  And darned if Esau didn’t do it!  It was like taking candy from a baby!  And so began Jacob’s days as a hustler.  

Now why would Esau do such a thing?  Some commentators point to this as proof that Esau was a bit thick…all brawn and no brains.  Others point to this as proof that Esau held distain for his own birthright and so really didn’t deserve to have it anyway.   I  don’t know if either of these is entirely fair.  I wonder if Esau’s shortcoming wasn’t that he trusted his brother to much.  (if that can really be considered a shortcoming at all).  I mean, who expects their own brother to rob them blind?  I think that Esau took this whole conversation in jest -  he didn’t really think he was selling off his birthright,  this was just the sort of banter that brothers engage in all the time…like wrestling with one another until one gets the other to say “Uncle, I give up,  You’re the greatest”.   But Jacob wasn’t fooling here …he really was out to hustle his own brother and we see just how serious he is when he goes on from here to hustle his own father out of the blessing intended for Esau.

    So we see in Jacob a tragic flaw from the offset.  He believed if he was going to get ahead in this life he was going to have to hustle and strive and be kniving to do so…even if it meant hustling his own brother.  And what strange irony of it all is that Jacob didn’t need to hustle – God had already promised  him blessing.  While he was still in the womb God proclaimed to Rebeccah that the younger one would be blessed one.  And when you’ve got God’s blessing what more do you need?  The problem was that Jacob didn’t believe it -  even though he must have heard it many times from his mother while working alongside her,  but he didn’t believe it.  All he could see was Esau – the strong one,  the popular one,  the first born,  the preferred one of his father and the rest of the world……and he figured the only way he’d ever be blessed would be to steal it from Esau.
M.Craig Barnes has written a book on Jacob entitled  “Hustling God: Why we Work So Hard for What God wants to Give.”  In it he suggests that all of us identify with Jacob in this story.  All of us know that some people are blessed and the rest of us have to strive to be blessed.   We’re all strivers…And like Jacob we all have a twin like Esau.  Oh, it might not be your biological twin,  but it’s somebody that you measure yourself against.  And Esau is like you only better.  He might be imaginary …and you knock yourself out trying to fill the image but you never do.  No matter what you do,  it’s not good enough because Esau would have done it better. You get 95% on your final and someone you hear a little voice inside you say  “Not bad for Jacob…but Esau would have done better.”   No matter what the award, the milestone,  the achievement,  the celebration is diminished by Esau,  who you know would have done it better.  So we have this love/hate relationship with Esau, our twin.

  We knock ourselves out year after year trying to become like Esau.  We never give up because we’re afraid if we do that blessing will elude forever us if we do.  Our only hope is to keep on striving,  keep on hustling.   The great irony for all of us Jacobs is that God has already declared us blessed.  God loves us and desires to give us his blessings in this life.  So all this striving and hustling is for nought… you cannot pry the blessings from the sacred fingers,  God insists on giving them to us.
And if you think about your life – the things that you really value in your life:
… the birth of your children
… the return of health after an illness
…the gift of a wonderful friendship
…news of the safe return of a deployed soldier from Iraq
…a phone call from the lab that says ‘No malignancy’

All of these are gifts from God.  You cannot earn them,  you do not deserve them and all the striving in the world cannot make them come about.  They are pure and simple gifts from God who has been trying to get our attention all along and say ‘I love you and bless you.’   Isaiah says it best in his prophecy to Israel:  “Do not fear,  for I have redeemed you;  I have called you by name,  you are mine.  When you pass through the waters I will be with you…you are precious in my sight, and honored,  and I love you.”  

Why is it that the most precious gift …God’s love for us,  is the one most often overlooked?   ‘God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son,  that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everylasting life.’  That’s the gospel in a nutshell…God loved us and God’s son is an expression of that love.  In Christ we are made God’s beloved children…God’s blessed children.   Paul declares in Romans  “we are children of God,  and if children then heirs,  heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ…’ (Rms 8:17)…  So don’t fall back into fear,  don’t fall back into striving and hustling …you’ve received the spirit of adoption!    Doesn’t matter if Esau was first born…you’ve been adopted by God as children of God.  Doesn’t matter that you’re a Gentile,  doesn’t matter if you were born on the wrong side of the tracks,  doesn’t matter if your dad was alcoholic and your parents divorced,  doesn’t matter if your bank account is overdrawn and your credit cards are max out.  You are a child of God, beloved of God and blessed by God each and every day.

Fred Craddock tells the story of the time he and his wife slipped away to the mountains for a few days of relaxation. As they sat in a little restaurant, they saw a man going from table to table greeting diners. Eventually he made his way to their table.  When he learned that Fred was a pastor he told him this story…

He said he had been born a few miles from that spot, across the mountain. His mother had not been married when he was born, and the arrows slung at his mother also struck him.  He kept to himself at school because the children would tease him and ask ‘Whose boy are you?’  The insults of his classmates were harsh and hard to take.  When he was twelve, a new pastor came to the little community church. People talked about that pastor's skill as a preacher, and the boy began to go hear for himself. The preacher fascinated him; but he was always careful to slip in late, sit in the back, and leave early.

One Sunday he was so caught up in the service that he forgot to slip out early.  He tried to slip past the long line of people shaking the preacher’s hand,  but suddenly he felt a big hand on his shoulder; and, as he whipped around, he saw the face of the pastor. The preacher said, "Who are you, son? Whose boy are you?" His heart sank at the dreaded question; but then the preacher went on: "Wait a minute. I know whose boy you are. The family resemblance is unmistakable. You’re God’s boy…yes, you’re a child of God!" With that he patted the boy on the back and added, "That's quite an inheritance, son. Go and claim it!"

The man in the diner with the story then said to Dr. Craddock and his wife, "That one statement literally changed my life." After he left someone leaned over to Fred and said to him “You know who that was talking to you?  That was Ben Hooper – governor of the state of Tennessee.”  
Let us remember who we are…and claim our inheritance as children of God…beloved and blessed. 

Amen