Why Do We Live?

These observations about Genesis 25:19-34 have informed Elsa’s preaching. This is not a sermon manuscript. Please call the Church Office at 799-3361 for an audio recording.

If it is to be this way, why do I live? Rebekah asks the eternal question of why things must be this way. God gives her no comfort, but instead offers the insight that the feuding she feels inside her will continue even after her children are outside of the womb.  It’s not described as birth pangs. We are not told that Rebekah is having contractions, but we know it hurts. We know that something hurts inside her. So she appeals to God whom she doesn’t know very well. It’s still too early to really know what God is like. At this point, God seems unpredictable. Indeed, God created the world but then allowed it to be flooded. Sure, God promised Abraham that his descendants would number the stars but then tested Abraham to slaughter his first born. It’s not really clear what God wants.  Scholar Karen Armstrong claims that at this point it is “still hard to live creatively into God’s presence.”[1] Even so, Rebekah calls out, If it is to be this way, why do I live?

So what is alive?  What is being born? What is Rebekah imagining about God? What does she believe that God will do? Or is that even the question? When she feels her sons’ quarrel between her ribs, is she calling upon God or herself? Every time we gather for Bible Study, Betty Deschenes makes this assertion about God. “Excuse me,” she nearly always says. “Can I tell you what I think?” without really waiting for an answer, Betty continues to tell us how God’s Spirit is within us all.  That’s an idea that our ancient Israelite ancestors haven’t had yet. God is still out there. God is someone or something that you call out to — out there. And yet, in Rebekah I hear Betty. God is not just out there. God is inside her. This will become more clear as the story continues as Rebekah makes some clear decisions about who God will be.

Maybe you can’t quite tell yet or you simply don’t want to spoil the ending, but you can catch a glimpse in the way her beloved Jacob behaves. He’s not the only one that manipulates the situation. As the story unfolds, it appears he learned that from his mother. Right or wrong, both Jacob and his mother believe that God is on their side. God is within them. God will realize their hopes.  But, there’s a problem with that kind of faith in God. There’s Esau. He’s the eldest child. By tradition, right or wrong, he gets the birthright.  He gets the advantage of financial security.  Simply because of his birth order, Esau is guaranteed double the share of his father’s inheritance than his brother Jacob.[2] And yet, the text tells us that Esau isn’t so favorable.  Esau is born reddish and hairy.  Red is “the color of the earth from which Adam was made” and the color of “drunken eyes (Gen 49:12)”, “weeping faces (Job 16:16)”, “wine (Proverbs 23:31)”, and “sin (Isaiah 1:18).”[3] I think it’s fair to assume that this is not a good thing even for those of us that believe like Betty that red is the color of the Spirit.  Something about Esau being born red seems foreboding. This is emphasized again when Esau hastily eats the red lentil stew.  This makes Esau seem impulsive and rash unlike his cool and collected younger brother.[4] (Karen Armstrong points out that Jacob’s cooking might not be in the kitchen but in his scheming head.)[5] Of course, that’s the problem. In this story of two brothers who have been fighting since before they were born, there is a winner and a loser.  Indeed Rebekah may even think this to be true herself.  So, it seems we must ask, If it is to be this way, why do I live?

When we read the Bible, we often assume that this is the way it’s supposed to be.  This tradition of passing down sacred stories seems to carve the stories into stone so that we forget that God is bigger even than these stories.  As the scholar Julianna Claassens claims, “One should keep in mind that these narratives are told from a pro-Jacob/pro-Israel perspective. The portrayal of a God who sides with the powerless, the weak, the younger brother, the barren woman is moreover a theological perspective that reveals something of Israel’s self-understanding as a tiny, powerless people who lived in the midst of much stronger nations.”[6] With this perspective, the volume of Rebekah’s question increases.  Like Rebekah, we believe that our barrenness will somehow be overcome. Like Jacob, we believe that the things of this world don’t determine our worth. For these things to happen, we don’t necessarily believe that someone else must lose.  There are times where we wish that might be true – but that spiteful desire does not reveal the power of God.  Instead, it warps God to our human imaginations because truly there are no winners and losers with our God.  There is only possibility.

And yet, that is hard to live into.  It’s hard to live into the possibility that God offers us. This past week, I gathered with the whole United Church of Christ for General Synod 28 in Tampa, FL. There was an interesting tension present in our gathering.  In the UCC, as with many other denominations, we share an awareness that Christianity is changing.  For some, the change is so hard it feels like death.  For others, it is so exciting that it feels like renewal.  And so, we spent most of the time at General Synod 28 in the desert.  The desert is “inhospitable.”[7] It’s not a place that anyone wants to spend any time so we often rush out of it.  In the UCC, we’re no different.  We’re complaining that we are in the desert and insisting that there must be a way out.  On the day of our nation’s independence, the UCC General Minister and President Geoffrey Black freed us from this frustration by offering 5 “big holy audacious goals” to imagine our way out of the desert, including:

• A growing church, a growing movement – to be conversant with all faith traditions; to be spiritual and missional about our capacity to serve God
• Widely recognized witness for peace, justice, equality and inclusivity; “we will do this unashamedly, unapologetically and without fear.”
• A catalyst for excellent leadership in every setting of ministry
• An environmental steward central to our understanding and practice of Christian faith
• Relevant to and reflective of the age and racial/ethnic demographics of this nation.[8]

These goals do not answer Rebekah’s question.  These questions answer how we’ll move forward but do not ask why we might bother.  That question remains up to us as people that believe God is even bigger than the sacred stories we share.