esau | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

In which there is Poetic Justice, for God is a Poet, but there is also Mercy

Even while Esau was out hunting his father’s favourite wild game, Jacob and Rebecca slaughtered and cooked two choice young goats. Jacob served these to Isaac, pretending to be Esau, stealing Esau’s blessing.

A cruel deception.

And, uncannily, years later, in his own old age, Jacob’s sons sold his favourite son into slavery, dipping Joseph’s precious robe in the blood of a slaughtered goat, claiming he had been killed by a wild beast.

Tricked with a goat, just as he had tricked his own father with a goat.

* * *

The seeds we sow, we reap, measure for measure. They lie dormant in the earth, sometimes for years, then yield their harvest.

The good we have done yields blessing, and the evil we’ve done conjures shadowy forces against us.

And that’s scary if we have sown bad seeds, have said and done less than luminous things, things we are now ashamed of.

* * *

But we do not live in a mechanical universe. We live in a just universe, shot through by mercy like a golden cord.

The law of sowing and reaping is the deep magic from the dawn of time, in C. S. Lewis’s phrase. However there is a more powerful force still: the force of mercy, unleashed by the willing victim who bore in his body the punishment for all the bad seeds we have ever sown.

And so mercy triumphs over justice. The deep magic from before the dawn of time.

Jacob recovers Joseph; Esau was, in fact, blessed.

* * *

For myself, I want to sow good seed for the rest of my life.

But the bad seed I have sown? The things I am ashamed of? The things I did because of my small, bewildered, wounded heart?

I confess them.

I ask God’s forgiveness. I ask Christ’s blood to cover them.

And I step into the waterfall of mercy, the mercy that triumphs over justice because the One who loves the world is good.

I ask him to let all the bad seeds I’ve sown, which are still dormant, die.

And I ask him for grace to overplant much good seed to crowd out the bad seed.

And I ask him, the ultimate genetic engineer, to somehow, even now, change the DNA of the bad seed I’ve planted, and bring good from them.

And I place my life and future in His hands.

Holly Grantham kindly hosted this. Thanks Holly.

In which Manipulation Backfires (in the long run). Not so seeking God’s Blessing!

By Anita Mathias

I am reading the story of Jacob in Genesis. God tells Rebecca who was pregnant with twins, “The older will serve the younger.”

When we meet the twins in Genesis 26, Esau, “a skilful hunter,” comes in famished, and wants Jacob’s red stew. Jacob, “a quiet man, staying among the tents,” driving an exploitative bargain, demands Esau’s birthright, traditionally a double portion of the inheritance, in exchange for the bowl of lentil stew.

Isaac was “very wealthy. He had many flocks and herds and servants.” (Gen 27:25). So Esau is asked to give his extra third of all this to Jacob for a bowl of aromatic stew. In his impulsivity, he agrees.

* * *

A cruel bargain, but not a deceitful one. What is cruel and deceitful is how Jacob later takes advantage of blind Isaac, and pretends to be Esau to steal his blessing, wearing Esau’s clothes, passing off choice young goats from their flock, skilfully prepared by Rebecca, as game caught and cooked by Esau.

And despite his misgivings, “Your voice is the voice of Jacob,” Isaac blesses Jacob with the blessing he had intended for Esau

“May God gives you of heaven’s dew,

and of earth’s richness—

An abundance of grain and new wine.

Be Lord over your brothers

And may the sons of your mother bow down to you.”

Jacob no sooner leaves than Esau enters, with game he had killed himself, tastily prepared.

“Isaac trembled violently, “Your brother came deceitfully, and took your blessing. I blessed him and indeed he will be blessed.”

Esau “burst out with a loud and bitter cry,” ‘Bless me—me too, my father. Do you have only one blessing, my father? Bless me too my father.’ And Esau wept aloud.”

His father answered him

“Your dwelling will be away from the earth’s riches

And you will serve your brother

But when you grow restless,

You will throw his yoke from off your neck.”

* * *

And then what happened?

* * *

God did not allow this trickery to prosper.

Blessing comes from God. Parental blessings are only prayers to God to bless children. As such, there is power in them. But not magic. If our blessings of our children determined their destinies, the world would be full of Einsteins, Leonardos, Shakespeares, Michael Phelps and Bill Gates.

Furious at his deceit, Esau plans to kill Jacob, and Jacob flees, living in exile for 20 years, as a hired man, serving Laban.

Esau, meanwhile, built up his own wealth, staying home as a rich man’s son. “I have plenty, my brother,” he tells the returning Jacob (Gen 33:9).

And Esau uses family wealth for the bride price of his three wives, whereas Jacob worked as a hired man for fourteen years for his two wives, one of whom he did not love or want.

“Be Lord over your brother and may the sons of your mother bow down to you,” was the blessing Isaac meant to give Esau, and Jacob “stole.”

However, when he returns, it is Jacob who bows to Esau and calls him Lord–always the blessing Isaac had intended for Esau.

“Jacob bowed down to the ground seven times as he approached Esau.” (Gen 33:3). He introduces his children, “They are the children God has graciously given your servant.”

He sends Esau a gift of “two hundred female goats, and twenty male goats, two hundred eyes and twenty rams, thirty female camels with their young, forty cows and ten bulls, and twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys.” The servants are to say, “They belong to your servant Jacob and are a gift sent to my Lord, Esau.”

Jacob insists, “Please accept the present that was brought to you. They are to find favour in your eyes, my Lord.” (The Hebrew word berakah means both blessing and gift or present.) “And because Jacob insisted, Esau accepted.”

So, in a sense, Jacob returns the stolen blessing and birth-right and Jacob now bows to Esau, and the wealth he has gained goes to serve his brother, which were the blessings Isaac had intended for Esau.

And Jacob gets the blessing/curse that Isaac sadly gave Esau. “Your dwelling will be away from the earth’s riches ( he was a hired man for twenty years). And you will serve your brother (which he does with his massive gift). But when you grow restless, you will throw his yoke from off your neck,” as Jacob does by refusing to follow Esau to Seir but instead settling in Succoth and later in Hebron.

* * *

What were the result of Jacob’s attempts to manipulate Esau’s birthright and blessing away from him?

He had to run away from his home. He never saw his mother again. Deceived, he worked seven years for an older daughter he did not love or want, and another seven years for the beautiful daughter he did. He worked for 20 years as a hired man, frequently cheated (Gen 30:35-36; Gen 31:7). He gave a good portion of his wealth to Esau.

God did not allow his trickery to prosper. Esau got the blessing Isaac mistakenly gave Jacob. He gets earth’s richness and abundance; Jacob bows down to him and calls him Lord. Jacob gets the “blessing” Isaac sadly gave Esau—he lives away from the richness of Canaan for 20 years, his labour serves his brother, and he eventually shakes him off.

* * *

However, just before meeting Esau again, Jacob is blessed by God in a dramatic encounter by the Jabbok River which left him limping and in no doubt that blessing comes from God, not from our intrigues, manipulations or even hard work.

And he enters Canaan, the land of blessing, once he is “broken.” He now limps, leaning on Him who had always intended to bless him, and would have done so far more rapidly, had Jacob not tried to help him out with his own manipulations.

And from that second blessing, the blessing of God, not the stolen one, all subsequent goodness in his life would flow.

* * *

“Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it:” How the Best Thing can Spring out of the Worst Thing

By Anita Mathias

So Jacob, running from murderous Esau whom he has cruelly and unscrupulously deceived, rests at Bethel.

And in his dream, he sees a stairway between heaven and earth, with the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And at the top, stood the Lord, who speaks blessing and encouragement.

And Jacob says, “How awesome is this place. This is the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”

“Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.”

* * *

Jacob is in a fix. He has stolen Esau’s birthright, by taking advantage of his hunger and weak character. And then, taking advantage of Isaac’s blindness, he pretended to be Esau, stealing the blessing Isaac intended for him. He is now running for his life from Esau. He will never see his parents again, never return home.

And in the midst of this self-caused tragedy, God meets him, and blesses him.

* * *

When are we most likely to be unaware of the presence of the Lord?

When we are in the land of suffering.

I am working through Donald Miller’s StoryLine.

Step 1: We plot out our life to date, as if were a movie script, or the outline of a novel or memoir, assigning a positive or negative value to each event.

Step 2. We try to see if something good, something redemptive has come out of all the negative plot turns.

We make two lists for each negative event. Along with the list of catastrophic things, we make a list of the good things which emerged from the event.

* * *

Viktor Frankl, the Austrian psychiatrist, founder of Logotherapy, helped thousands of patients heal as he helped them see the good, positive, and beneficial things which came to them or others because of their greatest sufferings.

In fact, once people see the good which has come out of their sufferings, they no longer view it as suffering.

Donald Miller writes, “I now claim what I used to see as tragedies as honest gifts from God. Still painful, but redeemed.

* * *

Doing the exercise was eye-opening for me. I found myself assigning positive values to the most painful, disappointing and traumatic things that happened to me because I now, in middle age, can see the good which came out of them.

Some of the best things in my life have come out of some of the worst things, out of failure, humiliation, shame, and loneliness.

In fact now, there is nothing I assign a straight negative score to, for each of these “plot turns” has led to so much good.

* * *

Here are some of my plot twists:

1) I was “the naughtiest girl in school” in my first school run by local nuns, and got expelled at 8. Who gets expelled at eight? Apparently, I!

As a result, I went to a boarding school, run by German and Iris nuns in Nainital, in the Himalayas, receiving a rather more cosmopolitan education than I would have got in my small Indian town. Boarding school was a calm and very disciplined environment, with set hours for study and reading. I read hungrily and left relatively well-read, having read hundreds of books.

2) After my undergraduate degree in English at Somerville College, Oxford, I was offered a place for a Ph.D in English at Oxford, contingent on getting a First.

I did not, and was overwhelmed with shame.

Instead, I went on to graduate school in the US, earning an MA, and then some of a Ph.D in English and Creative Writing, before quitting that to get married.

I would never have gone to America on my own, but having lived there 17 years, I am as comfortable with Americans as with Brits; have a sort of Anglo-American sensibility; and, psychologically, live mid-Atlantic, which is an asset in the blogosphere.

3) I was so depressed after the rejection of a manuscript in 1996 that I diagnosed myself as “sick,” and decided I needed a physican. I committed to 90 minutes a day of prayer and Bible study.

That practice has changed who I am, and the course and events of my life more than anything else.

4) After a painful conflict (about a group I was leading), I withdrew for a few years from active involvement in church life and politics (though not from church services), pouring my energy first into establishing a stable family business, then into blogging.

The redirection of energy, away from leading Bible studies which I did for over ten years into writing , proved a blessing to me. And I left that church, SO toxic for me, for a grown-up, emotionally healthy church.

A few examples of “negative turns” eventually bringing many blessings my life.

It makes me more convinced that God is definitely working through my life, working through its plot, bringing good out of all the plot twists.

That He was there in each plot twist, though I might not have been aware of it.