Friday, July 11, 2014

Despising Birthrights Sermon for July 13, 2014


A Reflection for V Pentecost (Proper 10) All Saints’ Episcopal, Southern Shores, N.C. July 13, 2014 Thomas E. Wilson, Rector
Despising birthrights”
(a video of this sermon is on http://youtu.be/vWTCj3f16QI )
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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