A
Reflection for V Pentecost (Proper 10) All Saints’ Episcopal,
Southern Shores, N.C. July 13, 2014 Thomas E. Wilson, Rector
“Despising
birthrights”
Last
week I finished a trilogy (a three part series) of reflections on
Abraham and this week I am beginning a tetralogy (a four part series)
on Jacob. One of the
problems with being a Parish Priest is that I always have next
Sunday’s service hanging over me. This Sunday’s story from
Genesis has to do with the “birthright”, that which we inherit
from our parents. I did a reflection for Martha Middleton’s
Celebration of Life last week that grew out of a discussion I had
with the family about what was their birthright from Martha. What we
tend to think about is the “stuff” we inherit; for instance, I
have a couple of silver pitchers and silver tea set and a couple
pictures from my mother. When my father died, I got some Veteran’s
and Social Security help in paying for college, some books and I got
one of my father’s old suits, re tailored, which I wore to my
graduation, wedding, work, the baptism of my daughter, and Grad
School, until it just wore out. Whenever I saw the books or wore that
suit, I was reminded that my father was living within me, urging me
to live into who I was created to be.
Martha
Middleton inherited from her parents the value of hard work and
caring for others. In a way she lived into who she was named for –
Martha, the hard working friend of Jesus who took care of others. The
name Martha itself comes from the Greek for the Mistress of the
household, the one who is in charge of taking care. Martha lived into
her name and passed on her birthright to her children.
In
the same way the “birthright” in Genesis is more than just stuff;
it is a blessing which carries with it the power of cementing the
personality of the receiver so that that person might become who he
or she was created by God to be. In this story from Genesis, we have
the birth stories of Esau and Jacob in which the first blessing is
the given name. The name carried power to shape the individual as
they lived into their name, and the blessing, birthright, is believed
to confirm that fullness of personality.
Jacob’s
name has its roots in a saying like “May God protect”, and it was
appropriate since he was the younger brother of the hairy and ruddy
Esau who was bigger and stronger than Jacob and, God knows, Jacob
was going to need all the help he could get. Later in this part of
the story there will be a connection of the name Esau to the color
red. Just stop for a minute and think about what kind of person you
would think of if I gave you three adjectives - big, hairy, and red.
The color red resonates with the color of danger - vital, alive,
aggressive and forceful. Jacob has to be the one who is able to think
on his feet and to rely on God to get him out of trouble. Later in
the story he will have his name changed to Israel, which means the
one who struggles, wrestles, with God.
We
get our names from our parents, and our parents help us live into our
names as we go through the journey of life. Let me give you an
example of a modern myth to demonstrate how we live into our names.
As you may be aware, this is the 75th
anniversary of the 1939 movie “Wizard of Oz”. The name of the
main character, Dorothy, comes from the Greek Dorothea - Doron
= gift and theos
= God; she is a gift from God. In the story, Dorothy’s parents have
died and she has not inherited anything except the name, so she must
make a journey to live into her name. In order to live into her name,
she is going to have to develop her brain, she is going to have to
learn to love, and she is going to have to develop courage. In the
dream she has, she meets these three attributes in the scarecrow who
wants a brain, a tin man who wants a heart, and a lion who wants
courage. The dream is the incorporation of these three elements into
herself and the defeat of her shadow side of selfishness, e.g. the
wicked witch, which she has inside her. The movie’s core is a
“Hero’s journey” mythic archetype where the journey is how the
hero is changed and comes to a new understanding of how he or she
belongs in the world, how to live into who that person was created to
be.
The
Jacob saga, the mythic structure of a public dream for the
descendants of Jacob/Israel, is a “Hero’s Journey” archetype
where Jacob comes into who he was created to be. They were twins so
they were created to be connected and relate to each other. As they
were conceived in love, formed in love and united in love; they are
to live in love. However, they end up estranged from each other and
thereby from themselves, from the core of who they are. The journey
they are to take in these next four weeks of reflections is a journey
of reconciliation to themselves and to God. In this part of the
story, Esau does not want to live into who he was created to be and
he squanders his birthright. Later Jacob will outright steal it from
him. The birthright is invaluable, but Esau throws it away for a bowl
of beans to feed a
temporary
hunger, as the story says, “Thus Esau despised his birthright.”
We
will see that theme of “despising birthright” in the parable that
Jesus tells in the passage from Matthew about the “Sower and the
Seed”. As you probably remember, a parable is a story that has a
single point, usually as an unexpected surprise at the end; while an
allegory is a teaching tool in which all the details of the story
stand for something and the point of the story is in the collection
of the different parts. Jesus told parables to show us what life in
the Kingdom of the Heavens was like in this world as we are given
opportunities to live into who we were created to be. The writer of
Matthew wants to teach later generations, so the editor turns the
parable into an extended allegory which domesticates it into a
teaching about other people and an explanation as to why the church
is unable to grow. I believe that it is a story, a dream, a myth, a
“Hero’s Journey”, told in miniature about the seed, which is
you and me, and how we grow into who God created us to be. You and I
can fill in the blanks about the times we decided to be stony, or
dried up, or encumbered with weeds in our lives, or that we just
ignored. All are ways that we despise the birthright of who we
really are. The punchline is how the “seed”, when it decides to
live into being the creation of
God, grows
into thirty to sixty to 100 times more of the person that God created
that “seed” to be.
We
see this theme of “despising birthright” in Paul’s letter to
the Romans as he tells them that, when we enter into the new birth of
Christ’s Spirit and then ignore the fact that we were created to be
full spirit-filled human beings, we are focusing only on a
sleepwalking, self-centered existence, what Paul calls the flesh.
We are not living fully into this new, resurrected life - in this
life and the next.
Homework
for this coming week is to reflect on what is your
birthright. What did you inherit from your parents? What did you
inherit from your God? How are you honoring that birthright? How are
you despising it? Where are you on your hero’s journey of living
into your true being?
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