NRS Genesis 25
27 When the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, living in tents. 28 Isaac loved Esau, because he was fond of game; but Rebekah loved Jacob. 29 Once when Jacob was cooking a stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was famished. 30 Esau said to Jacob, "Let me eat some of that red stuff, for I am famished!" (Therefore he was called Edom.) 31 Jacob said, "First sell me your birthright." 32 Esau said, "I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?" 33 Jacob said, "Swear to me first." So he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob. 34 Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank, and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.

NRS Genesis 27:1
When Isaac was old and his eyes were dim so that he could not see, he called his elder son Esau and said to him, "My son"; and he answered, "Here I am." 2 He said, "See, I am old; I do not know the day of my death. 3 Now then, take your weapons, your quiver and your bow, and go out to the field, and hunt game for me. 4 Then prepare for me savory food, such as I like, and bring it to me to eat, so that I may bless you before I die."
5 Now Rebekah was listening when Isaac spoke to his son Esau. So when Esau went to the field to hunt for game and bring it, 6 Rebekah said to her son Jacob, "I heard your father say to your brother Esau, 7 'Bring me game, and prepare for me savory food to eat, that I may bless you before the LORD before I die.' 8 Now therefore, my son, obey my word as I command you. 9 Go to the flock, and get me two choice kids, so that I may prepare from them savory food for your father, such as he likes; 10 and you shall take it to your father to eat, so that he may bless you before he dies." 11 But Jacob said to his mother Rebekah, "Look, my brother Esau is a hairy man, and I am a man of smooth skin. 12 Perhaps my father will feel me, and I shall seem to be mocking him, and bring a curse on myself and not a blessing." 13 His mother said to him, "Let your curse be on me, my son; only obey my word, and go, get them for me." 14 So he went and got them and brought them to his mother; and his mother prepared savory food, such as his father loved. 15 Then Rebekah took the best garments of her elder son Esau, which were with her in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob; 16 and she put the skins of the kids on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck. 17 Then she handed the savory food, and the bread that she had prepared, to her son Jacob.
18 So he went in to his father, and said, "My father"; and he said, "Here I am; who are you, my son?" 19 Jacob said to his father, "I am Esau your firstborn. I have done as you told me; now sit up and eat of my game, so that you may bless me." 20 But Isaac said to his son, "How is it that you have found it so quickly, my son?" He answered, "Because the LORD your God granted me success." 21 Then Isaac said to Jacob, "Come near, that I may feel you, my son, to know whether you are really my son Esau or not."
22 So Jacob went up to his father Isaac, who felt him and said, "The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau." 23 He did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau's hands; so he blessed him. 24 He said, "Are you really my son Esau?" He answered, "I am." 25 Then he said, "Bring it to me, that I may eat of my son's game and bless you." So he brought it to him, and he ate; and he brought him wine, and he drank. 26 Then his father Isaac said to him, "Come near and kiss me, my son."
27 So he came near and kissed him; and he smelled the smell of his garments, and blessed him, and said, "Ah, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field that the LORD has blessed.
28 May God give you of the dew of heaven,
and of the fatness of the earth, and plenty of grain and wine.
29 Let peoples serve you, and nations bow down to you.
Be lord over your brothers, and may your mother's sons bow down to you.
Cursed be everyone who curses you, and blessed be everyone who blesses you!"

As we read in the Book of Genesis, Jacob and his mother Rebekah conspired to do some pretty horrible things. Rebekah deceived her husband and disenfranchised her own son, while Jacob stole his brother's rightful blessing and brought terrible grief to his aged, infirm father. Nonetheless, many people defend Jacob and Rebekah, arguing that Jacob was clearly the superior of the two brothers and that he alone was worthy to bear the blessing of Abraham to a new generation. And there's some truth to that argument.

Once, when Esau came in from the field, perhaps from one of his hunting trips, he was starving and asked Jacob for a helping of the stew he was cooking. But before handing over the food, Jacob demanded Esau's birthright in return. Esau foolishly agreed, and for some fast food he relinquished his claim as the eldest son which would have entitled him to a double share of his father Isaac's estate. It was a dumb thing for Esau to do, and it shows that, besides being the rough and ruddy outdoorsman, Esau was an impulsive man, prone to act first and think later. Esau also showed a defiant streak when later he married two Hittite women, Judith and Basemath, rather than marrying from within the extended family of Abraham, as his father Isaac had done. So perhaps Esau was not the prime candidate for carrying forward the mantle of Abraham, but I think it's just as clear that when Jacob exploited his twin brother's weakness, he was probably thinking more about feathering his own bed than about being a blessing to many.

Rebekah, too, is often defended as simply doing what a mother had to do. When she was pregnant with the boys, God had indeed spoken to her, "Two nations are in your womb, and two people born of you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the elder shall serve the younger" (Genesis 25: 23). When Rebekah plotted with Jacob to deceive Isaac, it could be said that she was simply acting in accordance with the Lord's prophecy. God had decreed that the younger Jacob would rule over the elder Esau, and when she dressed Jacob in Esau's clothes and sent him in to Isaac posing as Esau, Rebekah, I'm sure, was convinced that she was just greasing the skids on the plan that God had laid from the foundations of the world.

Maybe, or maybe Rebekah was just sticking it to Isaac for the years she had played second fiddle to Isaac's mother Sarah. Genesis tells us that after Abraham had arranged Isaac's wedding to Rebekah, Isaac did not set her up in a tent of her own, but instead, moved her into his dead mother's tent (Genesis 24: 67). You don't have to be Sigmund Freud to see the psychology here. Isaac could not quite let go of the momma who had favored him over Abraham's other son Ishmael, and the fact that Isaac favored Esau doubtless had a lot to do with Rebekah's doting on Jacob.

All the people in this very complicated story are, in a way, damaged goods.
" Isaac had been at the center of a titanic battle between his mother and father, one that resulted in Abraham's eldest son being banished from the household. That had to leave scars, and those scars had to have deepened when Abraham later trussed up Isaac on an altar and was on the point of plunging a knife into his heart as a sacrifice to the Lord. What do you think it was like in Abraham's family when little Isaac came back and told his mommy about the camping trip he and daddy had taken to Mount Moriah?
" Rebekah is described as a virtuous woman, and beautiful, too, but it was twenty years before she conceived and bore Esau and Jacob. When your main job (really, your only job!) is to bear a son, can you imagine the impact of 240 consecutive months of barrenness on that poor woman's heart and soul?
" Although a smart, skillful hunter, Esau was, as we've seen, impulsive and perhaps defiant, but then, too, those traits may just have been part of how he coped with the conflict between his mother and father. Do you really think that Rebekah kept that prophecy all to herself? How would you like growing up with your mom telling you that your destiny is to serve your younger brother? I actually know someone who grew up hearing exactly that kind of message, and let me tell you, the results weren't pretty.
" Genesis tells us that the strife between Jacob and Esau actually began in utero, and even at birth Jacob was trying to supplant Esau. But when you look at the character of Jacob, it's almost as though he made himself into his brother's mirror image: Esau spent time with dad outdoors, while Jacob spent time with mom in the tent; Esau was loud and boisterous, but Jacob was quiet and brooding; and where Esau was rash and hasty, Jacob could be cold and calculating. Jacob may have despised his older brother, and maybe he did everything in his power to be the opposite of Esau; but in another respect, for all his conniving, Jacob could not help himself from being the classic baby brother.
Obviously, all these people had history, and like all history, it came as a mixture of good and bad, blessing and curse.

At the end of the day, of course, you can still say that God's will was done, and that is the good news to this fractured family saga. In spite of their flaws, or perhaps because of them, God kept the ball rolling and God's plan for the salvation of the world stayed on track. But at the end of the day, there was also plenty of blood on the highway. Although Isaac never scolded or punished Jacob for his deception, the Bible tells us that Isaac "trembled violently" when he realized what he had done. Esau broke down and wept after he learned that he had been cheated out of his father's blessing. His grief then turned to hate and rage and he swore himself to killing Jacob after the death of his father. When Rebekah got wind of Esau's murderous intentions, she arranged for Jacob to escape to her family in Haran. She would never see him again. Jacob would keep up the family tradition of playing favorites, a practice that would provoke his own sons to the attempted murder of their brother Joseph. Yes, God's will was done, but this hardly qualifies as a happy ending.

I grew up during the age of the classic sitcoms, you know, shows like "I Love Lucy," "Make Room for Daddy," "Father Knows Best," "My Three Sons," and my favorite, "The Dick Van Dyke Show." The thing I loved about these shows is that families could get all crazy and there'd be all these miscommunications but at the end of the half-hour, everybody would be happy and laughing and, you know, together. I wanted my family to be like that, and sometimes I imagined that everybody's family but mine was like that. Even as a kid, I knew that wasn't true, but that didn't keep me from wishing it were. Which might explain why we're sometimes tempted to read the Bible like it was a sitcom. God is like the wise father, you know, a blend of Robert Young, Danny Thomas, and Fred MacMurray, and we're like the goofy kids who get everything messed up, but daddy makes everything work out in the end, so it's all good. God does make everything work in the end, but it takes a cross.

In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.