Rebecca--Mother of Nations
Genesis 25:19-34, Matthew 13:1-9
July 10, 2005
By Rev. Marcia Hauer

I loved my two sons--loved them more than I can say. I'd waited --we'd waited 20 long years for such a gift from God and when I finally became pregnant.....What a blessing! What a glad time it was! I had finally proven my worth as a woman! But then it began. I didn't know then that there would be twins when the baby began to move. At first I was ecstatic! Strong movement is a good sign, but day after day the movement grew stronger and more intense until finally, I thought the child would rip me in two! I didn't know if I would live to see this child born.

I had always been one of God's faithful ones. I had always prayed often and my prayers often were answered. I asked God for a wonderful husband--the man God wanted for me. Then God gave me Isaak, the son of Abraham, the ancestor of God's chosen people. I prayed when I realized that I would have to leave home to be with Isaak. It was hard to leave the familiar land and all the people who were dear to me, but I was willing to go to this place that I could only dream existed. God eased that journey even though it was hard. Then I met Isaak, the laughing one or so his name led me to believe. But Isaak never laughed. Don't misunderstand, I was happy with Isaak, he was good to me, but, it was as if his gaze turned inside of himself. Something had happened to him to make him so...distant and strange. He wouldn't tell me much about it--only that he and his father had once gone out together to worship God and to sacrifice, but that they hadn't taken a ram or a goat or anything along with them. He said that he met God face to face that day. I always wished that Sarah had lived long enough for me to have been a daughter to her--to tell me stories about the family, about Isaak and his growing up. I heard that Isaak had an older brother, but no one wanted to talk about him either and both Isaak and Abraham made it clear that neither he nor his kin were welcome here.

There I go again! I was telling about my babies and off I went! So easy to do, especially since there are so few people to talk to. Anyhow, since the babies were moving so violently inside me, I thought there must be something wrong because I had never known any other woman to suffer with kicking and pounding the way I was. So I called the midwife to come to me. She came and felt my belly, but she couldn't see anything wrong. She said that there was a lot of movement and that I was bigger than most, but everything seemed just as it should be even though I was much older than most. I was glad to know that everything seemed fine, but I sure didn't feel fine, so I prayed and God spoke to me--out loud--well, you probably wouldn't have heard the voice, but I did. It was like God was inside my head. God told me that there were two babies growing inside of me and that they were wrestling with each other. God also said that the younger child would be the one who would be the favored one--the one who would inherit Isaak's possessions and his blessing.

How could this be, the younger child would be the favored one, the last would be first? I didn't understand, so I believed that my first born would die before he had a chance to grow up. What other explanation could there have been? Many children don't live to see their first year through; especially when twins are born, one is often weaker than the other. I don't know if things would have been different for my boys if I hadn't believed that or not, but the fact is that while I loved both of them, I favored Jacob over Esau and Isaak favored Esau.

Finally, the babies were born. It was a hard labor. The two of them struggled together the whole time. The first one was all red and covered with hair so we called him Esau, that is, 'hairy.' This birth was really strange, and believe me, I know how different one birth can be from another. I've helped many women birth their babies. The really strange part came when the second child held on to his brother's heel as he was being born. He really grabbed on and held tight. We named him Jacob, that is 'grabber.'

At first they were easy to care for--a lot of work as babies are, but about what you would expect since there were two of them. I had help. Since Isaak is our leader and with so many people in our encampment, there is always someone who can help nurse an infant. The trouble began when the boys began to move around on their own.

If they had struggled in my womb, they really struggled once they were able to move around and see each other. One or the other of them was always bruised or scraped. They never seemed to do serious damage to each other, but all they wanted to do was fight. It was a full time job just trying to keep them apart enough to have a little bit of peace. Isaak was no help at all. If anything, he seemed to encourage their separateness.

Isaak liked to hunt and go into the woods. He didn't like herding the flocks or doing the other chores around the encampment. He did like to plant seed and see what would grow. Both hunting and farming are solitary activities and he was such an odd, lonely man. One of the problems I had to deal with was when it was time to move the herds to better pasture. Isaak would hesitate to leave if it was a place that he liked or if the crops hadn't come in. He wanted to feed his soul, he'd tell us. The other families would complain to me, since they got nowhere with Isaak. His attitude brought a lot of conflict among the other herders in our group. Many would have left if they had not had an obligation to Isaak.

Never-the-less, he was a good father to Esau and to Jacob. He preferred Esau's company to anyone's, but he'd let Jacob tag along if he wanted to go. But Jacob was mostly content to say close to home. He wanted to learn to cook and to stay among the women. That was fine while he was small, but as he grew older, it was difficult to make him go with the men of the tribe to hunt or herd or do the men's work. He had to learn to do these things, if he was going to be the man that God had said he would be. Eventually he did learn, but even so, he preferred my company to anyone else's.

These boys of mine were not the children I expected, but then, what mother has the children she expects? Once the boys became adults, or almost, they tended to stay away from each other. Esau either went off alone or stayed with his father while Jacob stayed with the flocks or with me. I wondered often about what God had said to me when God had said that the older child would serve the younger one.

Life was good for us in those days. Jacob and Esau stayed away from each other and so there was some peace in our household. The flocks prospered and Isaak learned many things about planting and growing the seeds he had harvested. We always had enough to eat and Jacob was always learning new ways of cooking the grains his father grew. We didn't have much trouble with other people in the area--we hardly ever saw anyone but our own group--maybe a few traders now and then or another group of herders like ourselves.

One day, trouble began again, although the incident seemed small enough at the time. Esau had been out hunting. He'd been gone for days--long enough that we were a bit worried about him. When he finally came home, he was dirty and his clothes were torn. His hair was matted. He looked terrible. He was in a foul mood. The hunting had gone badly. He had been attacked by some wild group of people who didn't want him to be in their territory and they had taken all the food and water he had taken with him. All he could think of was what had happened to him and his desire to avenge himself. When he arrived at our tent, Jacob was cooking a pot of lentils and goat meat. He had flavored it with some of the herbs that grew wild around where we were camped. It smelled delicious. Esau wanted some and he wanted it right then. He didn't want to wait the little time until all of us could eat together. He demanded a bowl right then, saying that he was too hungry to wait, that he might fall dead if he didn't eat right then. Well, Jacob wasn't ready to give any of it to anyone and said so. Esau got more demanding still and so Jacob said that he would give him some, but that Esau would have to pay for it. The price was Esau's birthright. I was aghast! I had believed that the whole thing about the older son serving the younger was something that we would worry about later. Maybe I had been mistaken, who knows what might happen, but to demand his brother's birthright! Anyhow, Esau, in his anger, agreed. He said that he was so famished that if he didn't eat he wouldn't have any use for a birthright anyway and besides who cared. Everyone heard about this interchange between the two of them--you know how gossip spreads, but no one believed that it was anything but another argument between brothers. Everyone knew that Jacob and Esau didn't get along very well and that both were hot heads who let their emotions get the best of them. So when Jacob gave Esau the bowl of red stew, no one thought more about it than that. Not even Esau.

But it soon became obvious that Jacob was serious. He began to demand that Esau bring him certain kinds of game and certain herbs and plants that grew in the forests where Esau spent most of his time. He began to expect that Esau would serve him, bring him whatever he wanted. He expected Esau to give him the choice parts of the game he brought back even when he hadn't demanded a certain animal. Jacob was clearly a man who wanted to rule over his brother and was going to do so no matter what anyone else said.

I admit that Jacob had his faults. He always one who expected to get whatever he wanted. He was a stubborn sort who wouldn't give up when he believed that he was entitled to something or to some privilege. No amount of explaining would make him change his mind and, as a child, there was no kind or amount of punishment that would make him see that he was in the wrong. But now that Jacob believed that he had purchased his brother's birthright, he was impossible. No one could talk any sense into him. No one knew what to do and no one knew what would come of their relationship. We all knew that things were bad between them, but no one thought that it would come to anything like what eventually happened: A father tricked into giving his blessing to his younger son, Jacob. One brother, Esau, feeling cheated out of what was rightfully his. A father, Isaak, too stubborn to take back what he had been tricked into giving. A second brother, Jacob, given the birthright that belonged to Esau and believing that if he stayed at home, his brother would kill him. A mother who believed that helping her younger son was the best thing she could do--the only way out of a terrible situation that would only get worse. I helped Jacob take his brother's due not because I believed that he deserved the blessing or because I loved him more, but because he had gone so far in his own belief of entitlement that this was the only way I could see to resolve the issue.

My story doesn't have a happy ending or even an ending at all, really. I was a daughter, a wife and, finally, after long waiting, a mother. I was a faithful woman who knew that God would be with us and love us no matter what we did. I did the best I could to help two boys become fine, honest, faithful men. Now, I fear that I have lost them both. Esau believes that I always loved Jacob best and that I betrayed him. He won't speak to me on the rare occasions when he comes around. Isaak believes that I betrayed the entire family. Jacob has run away. I fear that I will never see him again. I don’t know what to do now. I guess that all I can do is pray—pray for strength, for good things for both of my sons and pray for peace within our household. I know that God is with us, just as God always has been and always will be. I know that God will make blessing come from all of this mess, just as I know that our troubles will go on for generations because both Jacob’s story and Esau’s story will be passed on to their children and their children for generations. Those stories will take sides and people will have hatred almost bred into them because of those stories. All because of a bowl of lentil stew and two brothers who spent all of their lives fighting with one another.


Thank you for listening. This is my story, but it is also Sarah's story just as it will be Miriam's and Deborah's and Tamar's and all the other women whose stories are tucked away inside the pages of the Bible. It is your story, and your neighbor's story and your least favorite person's story, too, because we are all God's people--people whose stories need to be told and heard. It is only when we listen to each other, that we discover that God is within everyone's story.

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