So, I don’t know about you guys, but I am super busy right now. Does anyone feel like that? Just outrageously busy? Really, I think I have been more busy here at seminary than at any other time in my entire life. As a college student, I had a lot on my plate, but not like here at PTS. And this is my second graduate degree. But again, my life is even busier now than it was when I was when I was writing my master’s thesis. Life is busy at seminary.
This year is even worse than last year. It seems like middler year is really the most intense of it all. You get through some of those survey classes in junior year, which have their own difficulties, but kind of follow a pattern—you study for your midterms with multiple choice questions, and you get through it. But now, you get to middler year, and you’re writing twenty page papers, preparing presentations, and it’s tough stuff. On top of that, some of us are in the midst of denominational requirements, taking those polity and worship classes that wouldn’t be so hard to get through if they’re weren’t so boring sometimes—and then once you get through the classes, you have to prepare for the ordination exams or whatever denominational hoops you have to jump. On top of our course requirements and denominational obligations, many of us are working in a field education placement, so we essentially lose our weekends completely. Saturday, you have to catch up on all of the work that you couldn’t get finished during the week, and then Sundays, you’re at church all day. Some of us work additional jobs on top of that, on campus or at the local library, or at a restaurant or café, just to stay financially afloat while at seminary. And then there’s other stuff. Some of us are thinking about Ph.D. applications, CPE placements, MSW work. Others of us are really active in extracurricular activities that benefit the entire community, organizing plays, worship services, conferences and publications. And then, of course, some of us have, you know, families. Or a community of friends that we want to be able to care for and help out. We need to have fun and spend time with the ones we love.
We are so, so busy. It’s insane. And my second job is at a psychiatric hospital, so I don’t use that word lightly! Seriously. It’s crazy. We are all so busy. There’s just not enough time for everything. I’ve found myself a number of times, just in the last semester, about to break down at times, because I just don’t know how to get it all done.
And so where in those schedules of ours is there time for God? We barely have time for sleep, so how can we possibly fit in time to spend with our Bibles—to listen for the Word of God, not to study for a midterm? Or have time to spend in community with those living right next door to us, who share our faith? Or to go to chapel in the mornings? Or even to be fully present in worship in our own field education sites? I know for me, I try to maximize the time I can work on school stuff at work, even if it is at the cost of my worshipping or prayer time at church. I just don’t have the time. Do you feel like that? Am I alone in this? I didn’t think so. Our relationships with God take the backseat to the papers and exams and sermons that we have to get done. We find ourselves forsaking the most important things.
There’s a story about giving up important things in the book of Genesis that we’re going to turn to right now. So, if you want to, turn with me to Genesis 25:27, and we’ll read from there until verse 34. Does anyone remember where we might be right around Genesis 25? Yes, we’re about to hear the story about Isaac’s two twin sons. They’ve been born, Esau first, Jacob second, after a pregnancy in which they were basically warring together. And now, we’re going to hear about what happens when they’re in their late teens, doing late teen things. Let’s listen for the word of God together.
The boys grew up, and Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the open country, while Jacob was content to stay at home among the tents. Isaac, who had a taste for wild game, loved Esau, but Rebekah loved Jacob.
Once when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the open country, famished. He said to Jacob, “Quick, let me have some of that red stew! I’m famished!” (That is why he was also called Edom.) Jacob replied, “First sell me your birthright.” “Look, I am about to die,” Esau said. “What good is the birthright to me?” But Jacob said, “Swear to me first.” So he swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentil stew. He ate and drank, and then got up and left. So Esau despised his birthright.
Genesis 25:27-34
These two twins couldn’t be more different. Jacob was a sensitive type, but Esau was a man’s man, an outdoorsy dude who loved to hunt. He was, quite literally, a go-getter. He would go out and get stuff, and bring it home, and his dad Isaac loved all of the tasty stuff he would bring home to eat. And so, one day, he goes out to get stuff, and comes home and is just starving. He is in need of a good meal. So badly that he can’t really think straight. His dastardly brother, Jacob, has some delicious food cooking up, and man oh man, does it smell good. If he couldn’t think straight to begin with, man, he is in trouble now. And Jacob says he’ll give him some on one condition: Esau has to give up his birthright, his special relationship with his father Isaac and his privileged inheritance, and if he gives those things over to Jacob, Esau can have that stew. And Esau is so overcome by hunger—like one of those Snickers Commercials where Danny Trejo is Marcia Brady—that he just can’t think straight. And he does it. He gives it all up, for that tasty bowl of stew.
And we do, too. I do, too. I give up my birthright, my inheritance of freedom in Christ, the freedom to worship God and talk to God whenever I need to, so that I can have more time to spend on that paper, or study for that exam, or finish up that Sunday school lesson plan, or… have that little bit of fun with my friends that I have been yearning for for weeks. Because in my heart, I think to myself, if I don’t get that stuff done, I’m finished. What’s the point of having a relationship with God if I can’t get through seminary? What good would that do? And so I allow my hunger for worldly things, my inclination to be a go-getter, and finish that project, to take precedence over my relationship with God. I think a lot of us struggle with that. I know a lot of us do.
And if that were the whole story, we would be in some pretty big trouble indeed. The prophets over and over again call out God’s people for forgetting about God, for allowing other things to become more important than worship and gratitude to the one who gives us all things. In giving over this special inheritance, we would end up, like Esau does, just crying at Isaac’s feet, asking if there is something that he could do. After Jacob’s second trick, when Jacob receives the blessing that Esau was supposed to get from their father, Esau comes in crying and asks if there is anything that can be done. And indeed, their father Isaac tries his best to comfort Esau and gives him a kind of consolation prize of a blessing. But what is done is done, and Jacob ultimately lives into the destiny that Esau could have had if he hadn’t been so hungry and so thoughtless after that one afternoon hunt.
Our story isn’t like that, though. We aren’t doomed to a second-rate destiny, even when we have made the mistake of prioritizing the wrong things. God continuously offers us grace, and invites us anew to a relationship with him. So much so that he sends his firstborn son, his only son, the one who by all means deserves God’s birthright, to come be with us and share God’s inheritance with us. Jesus invites us to receive God’s birthright and blessing. And God isn’t just a man like Isaac, with one birthright to grant, but God is the Lord of All, and he has endless blessings to offer us. He adopts us and bequeaths to us, in Jesus, his mercy and grace. We don’t have to do anything to earn it, just like a firstborn son doesn’t have to do anything to inherit his family’s wealth. And even if we’ve squandered it, like the prodigal son, we can receive that grace anew in humble repentance.
There was a time when I lived in West Virginia, where I lived in an old elementary school. The building was right on this gorgeous river. And during the fall, I would take my guitar out there, or a book, and spend some time by the river. It was so peaceful, and so important to me. In the winter, though, it got cold, and I just couldn’t go to the trouble of throwing on a jacket and spending time by that beautiful river. I endured a lot of darkness in that season, but I never spent time by the river where I could be comforted and heartened. Around this time that year, in the very first days of spring, I found myself sitting on the river banks and realized my foolishness in forsaking that wonderful space. I was embarrassed. And yet, this gracious thought popped itself in my head: Being ashamed of having ignored that beautiful gift all winter wasn’t really the point. But I could know from then on, that the river would always be flowing there for me, inviting me into the grace and peace of its presence.
It was silly for me to have forsaken that gorgeous gift, absolutely, but I didn’t have to be embarrassed. It was a really easy fix—all I had to do was just remember that the river was out there, and walk out to the river’s edge. I didn’t have to worry about what happened over the winter—just being there by the river gave me the comfort and mercy that was all I needed. And I knew it wasn’t going to go anywhere. My forgetting about that river didn’t make it disappear. It would be there for me, whenever I needed to go to it.
And so, today, I invite you to spend time by your river, the source of your peace. Live into your birthright, and don’t let those immediacies, those urgent papers and sermons and applications, be the bowl of soup for which you trade your relationship with your heavenly father. This doesn’t mean you should never address those needs—Esau’s not supposed to give up eating all together. But it does mean that you can attend that chapel service, or make time in prayer with God, confident that, when you put your trust in your heavenly inheritance, all of those urgent hungers will be taken care of. The God who gives us every blessing and our birthright will ensure that his children aren’t done for.
But also know, that even when those worldly hungers make you not think straight, and those urgencies tell you that you could just trade in that birthright for the things you need right now, when you find yourself forsaking the most precious gift you have been given, your God, your Father, is willing and able to adopt you back in to the family. Thanks be to God! Amen!