Jacob and Esau: St Peter's Tewin: Susannah Underwood


I know this is a terrible confession, and I know there will be plenty here who think I shouldn’t do it, but I truthfully like nothing more at the moment than ending my day with a dose of Big Brother.  After the demonising of contestant Jade Goody earlier this year, I do sit extremely uneasily with the ethical implications of such a programme, but I find the process of watching personalities emerge and relationships develop, intensely addictive.

I have often wondered how tricky the task of editing such a show is. Scores of cameras film every waking and sleeping moment of all the contestants. The editors need to trawl through all this footage to find interesting snippets of conversation from 12 usually bored, purposeless contestants, with little in common save the desire of celebrity. This is then cut and pasted with other parts of the day, including who is asleep or in the shower, perhaps an argument over who has eaten the last banana or failed to clean the bath, to make an hour long episode each evening. I think I need to get a life.

This show has always been controversial, but the largest outcry was earlier this year when on ‘celebrity’ Big Brother (which is the same as normal Big Brother only the contestants are made from celebrities, whom no one has usually heard of), Jade Goody, a ‘celebrity’ only because she was a former BB contestant, was accused of the racist bullying of Shilpa Shetty, an Indian Bollywood movie star.

While a lot of the press and television media proclaimed Jade as an out and out racist, one of the issues of concern was that of the show’s editing. The way that those reels of film were chosen, and events put together painted caricatures of goodies and baddies. Jade and Shilpa were cast as representations of each culture. Shilpa had a strong sense of Indian identity and said of Jade’s behaviour ‘is this what England is?’

Our story this evening also tells of two people who represent more than purely their individual selves.  Jacob, we are told in the story, represents Israel, his descendants shall form the new chosen nation. Esau, his twin brother, will be the father of the nation of Edom, whom Israel had had a long history of troubled dealings with, by the time this story was put on paper.  The story is of how Jacob, the younger twin, gains the birthright and later the blessing that Esau was entitled to as the elder son. The family is divided, there are difficult consequences for both brothers and there is a 20 year separation before the brothers meet again.

The editors of these early stories certainly had the chance, like Big Brother, to create rather more black and white heroes and villains for this story. That is precisely what happened in the spin off interpretations and retellings that future Rabbinic literature gives. In these later editions in which Esau represents a number of different enemies of Israel, including the Roman Empire in Jesus’ time, and more recently Palestine, Jacob is heralded as the learned entrepreneur whilst Esau is seen as the deserving buffoon. Yet a reading of the text as we have it in Genesis shows a family full of flaws, including and perhaps especially in Jacob himself. Their parents Rebekah and Isaac are divided in favouring different children and in pushing one forward at the expense of the other; Esau in this first story treats his birthright with so little respect that he gives it away, without thought, for a bowl of stew; Isaac, encouraged by his mother, is scheming and deceitful and I feel particularly cowardly. There is within the tale, as with all of Israel’s history, a frustrating but perhaps important emphasis, on the flaws of all the major heroes.

The issue of editing, of how we edit our lives, for the purpose of presenting ourselves to others, is interesting to reflect on. The recognition of the silliness and sinfulness of these early figures, leads me to wonder if we are honest enough in our churches about the flaws in ourselves or, like Jacob and Esau, in our family relationships.  Now I am not talking about false modesty or about creating an environment where we feel free to moan about all our family's revolting habits and irritations (although mine have plenty), but I wonder rather, how many people within our churches may be struggling with some aspect of family life or a personal issue but believe that the church community is the last place to admit to it.  Do we perhaps edit our lives in such a way as to present to each other only that which is respectable and if so could that lead to alienation or a sense of increased shame among those of us, both in and outside of the church, who judge our lives to be less than perfect?

You see it is interesting to note that although the church is called together to be a family, that in some sense we can behave in a manner that is so different to how we may be at home. At home or amongst those we are closest to if we no longer live with family, I am sure it is common for most of us to gripe unfairly at each other from time to time, because we are tired, stressed or hormonal (well some of us have that excuse). Because of the time or years spent together in families, we are not able to permanently wear our metaphorical Sunday best, in which I mean permanently keeping on display the nicest parts of our personalities which we may prefer to show on a Sunday morning.

Now I am not saying that our pleasantness on a Sunday morning isn’t a genuine sign of affection for one another and many many people find in our churches astounding love and support when things are tough. But we need to recognize that there are still particular taboos, for example family problems, abuse, issues with sexuality or addictions, where the respectability of our church communities contributes to the secrecy and shame. Of course these issues and many others must be treated with great care and may only need to be shared with one or two within the church community to lift some of the isolation, but it is the task of all of us to take care that we do not edit ourselves and our lives in a way that is dishonest about the type of people that God loves and has called to be his own.

The story of Esau and Jacob reminds us that God does not need us to edit a respectable personality for him to work through us. Jesus seemed more comfortable somehow in the company of those whose vulnerabilities and failings were openly visible, rather than with those who preferred to keep them hidden under a cloak of respectability. There is a story by Adrian Plass, a Christian writer, in which Jesus returns to earth, to contemporary Britain. The story amusingly describes a poor churchwarden’s efforts to manage Jesus’ trip for him. He buys him a suit for an important church service, but Jesus gives it away to a beggar. The churchwarden seems to be forever trying to get Jesus to church events, only to find that he’s got waylaid in the pub. I wonder what places Jesus would visit if he came to our communities. Are they places we would like to be seen? I wonder whose houses he would visit. Who would he sit and eat with? It is a long time since I read that story and I can’t remember the ending, but I like to think that through this relationship, Jesus does not drive the church warden totally insane, but rather something of Jesus’ freedom of spirit rubs off on him, that the churchwarden learns to say ‘what the hell’ once in a while and let his hair down. That he learns to live less by other's expectations but is able to live more confidently as the person that God made him to be, able to accept himself and reveal that to others, warts and all, because of experiencing the gracious loving acceptance of Christ.

So I think we need to ask ourselves in what ways do we edit our own stories, to display what we think is an acceptable, respectable face of a Christian? And in doing so are we building churches that are failing in some way to proclaim the gracious nature of God? Jacob and Esau are just two of many silly and sinful characters in the bible, the flaws of whom the biblical writers didn’t try to deny. They are just two of millions of silly and sinful people in history that God was not ashamed to accept, including all of us here. There is finally at the end of the story in Genesis, after a 20 year separation, a wonderfully moving account of a moment of reconciliation between Jacob and Esau. Jacob approaches repentant but expecting the worst, yet Esau falls upon his brother and kisses his neck. It is an embrace that is reminiscent of the Father’s love in the story of the Prodigal Son. Indeed, Jacob, aware of his shame and how undeserving he is, is so moved that he says in that moment ‘for truly to see your face is like seeing the face of God – since you have received me with such favour’.

 Let us work towards having churches that have a culture of such radical acceptance of ourselves and others, that all who enter will see in us the face of God. Amen.