I’m going to try something different today. I’ve not done this before and I’ll probably never do it again. But it feels like the right thing to do this morning. I’m not going to preach on one of the assigned lectionary readings.

A couple of months ago I received a gift from a friend and I want to share with you what I did with that gift. I don’t know if I doubled the gift as we heard about in today’s gospel (Matthew 25:14-30). I do know that for a while I was afraid and wanted to dig a hole in the ground and bury it. My friend asked me not to, and I’m glad I didn’t. 

My friend’s name is Bruce and his gift was asking me to preach to his congregation this past Friday evening. Bruce is a rabbi and serves a Reformed Jewish congregation. 

In order to give you some context for the sermon I’m going read you the passage I preached on (Genesis 25:21-34). You probably know this story. 

Here’s what I preached two days ago to Congregation Hakafa.

Sometime in August 2022, several weeks after the Highland Park shooting, my phone rang late one afternoon. I was getting ready to leave the office and I didn’t recognize the number but I answered anyway, and I’m glad I did. I don’t remember the exact conversation but it went something like this: “Hi. My name is Bruce. I’m a rabbi serving in a community that has suffered a mass shooting. You’re a priest serving in a community that has suffered a mass shooting. I was wondering if you’d like to talk about what we’ve experienced.” Without hesitation I said, “Yes.” 

Since then Bruce and I have talked every three or four weeks. He has become a treasured friend, and through him, though we’ve not met before tonight, I’ve counted you all as friends too. Bruce and Congregation Hakafa remain in my love and prayers. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your worship and community this evening. I am grateful to be with you all. 

I must, however, confess that I tried to get out of preaching tonight. A couple of weeks ago I said to Bruce, “You know, with everything going on in Israel and Gaza these days maybe I shouldn’t preach. Maybe it would be better if you or someone else did.” He said, “No I really want you to preach. If you don’t want to that’s fine, but I’d like you to.” 

I asked, “What’s the assigned reading for that night?” Bruce started laughing. As he’s laughing he said, “It’s the birth of Esau and Jacob, their conflict with each other, and Esau’s loss of his birthright and blessing.” Along with a few other words I said, “Oh Bruce.” “No, no, it’s fine,” he said. “You don’t have to preach on that. You can preach on anything you want. You choose what you want to preach about. I just want you to preach as you ordinarily would, like a Sunday sermon.” 

Well that’s the problem. I’ve never chosen what I wanted to preach on. I’ve never had that option. That’s not how we do it. I always preach on one of the assigned reading. So out of respect for your tradition and to not betray my own integrity I’m going to preach on the birth of Esau and Jacob and their struggle and conflict with one another. It’s a struggle and conflict I know well and I suspect you do too. 

Over the last several years I’ve found myself struggling more and more to reconcile the opposites, the contradictions, in my life and the world. It’s a struggle as old as Esau and Jacob. That struggle, however, didn’t begin with them. It’s also the story of Cain and Abel, Sarah and Hagar, Rachel and Leah. And neither did it end with Esau and Jacob. It’s also your story and my story. Rebekah’s womb is a pretty good metaphor for how I experience my life and the world today. Maybe that’s your experience too.

Esau and Jacob struggle within Rebekah. They are twins in her womb, two sides of the same God-answered prayer. And like Rebekah, we often don’t know what to do with that struggle. “If it is to be this way, how do I live?” she asks. 

Esau and Jacob are opposites. Esau is a hairy man. Jacob is a man of smooth skin. Esau is a skillful hunter, a man of the field. Jacob is a quiet man and lives in tents. Even Isaac and Rebekah represent opposites. They are male and female. Issac loves Esau but Rebekah loves Jacob.  

We often try to resolve the tension of the opposites by choosing one over the other. One is good, the other is bad. One is right, the other is wrong. Today I don’t want us to do that with Esau and Jacob. I want us to hold the tension and let both Esau and Jacob be lenses through which we see the opposites in the womb of our own lives and the world. I want us to feel within ourselves the same struggle Rebekah felt within herself. 

Who or what are Esau and Jacob for you today? In what ways are they showing up in your life, your family, this community, our country, the world? What are the opposites or contradictions in your life today?

When I look in the womb of my life and world I find contradictions. Esau and Jacob are struggling with each other.

* I see times I have smiled with joy and times I have wept with grief.
* I see times I have beamed with pride and times I have flushed with embarrassment.
* There have been times when I was real and authentic and times when I hid behind masks.
* My hands have been open and receptive and they have been closed and defensive.
* I say I value honesty but I have sometimes been dishonest.
* I want to be loyal and trustworthy but I have also betrayed myself and others.
* I have lived with integrity and I have compromised.
* I’ve said one thing and done another.
* I have offered peace and I have caused division and conflict.
* Sometimes I’ve done the right thing and sometimes I’ve done the wrong thing.
* My life is rich in so many ways and impoverished in so many other ways.
* I recall times I have acted with compassion and times I have acted with indifference.
* I can name people I have helped and people I have hurt.
* I have forgiven, and I have judged and condemned.
* I recall times of courage and truth telling and times of fear and silence.
* I have been loving and I have been angry and hateful.
* I have participated in the beauty of humanity and in the disfigurement of humanity.

What about you? What do you see when you look in the womb of your life and world? What are you doing with the opposites and contradictions in your life today?

Here’s what I wonder. What if the tension of opposites isn’t begging for an answer or a resolution? What if it’s not a choice between Esau or Jacob? What if the tension of opposites is calling for collaboration? Maybe it’s a movement out of our extremes, from this or that to this and that. What if the Esau and Jacob of our lives are each asking for and offering something? 

When I’m able to hold my opposites in tension I can ask different questions and open myself to new possibilities. I have more compassion and understanding for the contradictions in the lives of others. 

For example, what if Jacob isn’t the heel grabber, the supplanter, we often see him to be? What if he just wants his brother? What if he is reaching for his brother and not trying to hold him back? And I wonder what Esau is really hungry for. I wonder if it’s more than a bowl of stew. Maybe he’s hungry for more than what a birthright can give him. What might that be?

What would it be like and take to name the opposites in your life today? To hold them without having to resolve them? To listen to and learn from them? If we aren’t able to reconcile the opposites within us we will deliver them to the world just as Rebekah delivered Esau and Jacob to the world. 

Maybe our challenge today is to hold the opposites in tension with each other and give both sides of ourselves and others equal time, attention, energy, and even value. More often than not, however, we want to resolve the tension by eliminating the opposition. That just doesn’t work. When opposites clash we all lose. Ultimately, that’s what we see in the deaths of Esau and Jacob. 

Do you know that story? I knew part of it but discovered a lot more I’d never heard before. When Jacob died Joseph and his brothers took their father to be buried in a cave at Machpelah. (Genesis 50:13) When they arrived at the cave Esau and his sons came to prevent the burial. Esau claimed that the one remaining burial spot belonged to him. Jacob’s sons claimed that Esau had sold the burial spot to Jacob. 

Esau demanded to see the bill of sale. Unfortunately, it was back in Egypt. So Jacob’s sons sent Naphtali, a really fast runner, to go get it. Meanwhile, Hushim, the deaf grandson of Jacob, doesn’t understand why the burial is being delayed. When he learns that Esau has claimed the cave for himself and is delaying his grandfather’s burial Hushim strikes Esau with a sword (some say a club) and severs Esau's head. Esau’s head rolls into the cave, onto the lap of Jacob, and is buried there with Jacob’s body. (The William Davidson Talmud, Sotah 13a, The Beheading of Esau)

The womb of struggle has become the tomb of struggle. The opposites that cannot learn to live together will surely die together. That’s why tonight gives me hope. 

Think about it. A gentile Episcopal priest from south Texas is preaching in a Reformed Jewish congregation in Illinois. There’s a couple of opposites for you. A rabbi and a priest meet regularly to hold the violence and pain they and their communities have suffered and to speak, hope, and reclaim peace and nonviolence. A couple more opposites. 

Tonight we are reconciling some opposites and reaching across some boundaries. That’s always a choice before us. They may be small, simple, even seemingly insignificant given what’s happening in our world these days, but it can be done. We are doing it. Tonight Esau and Jacob have meet together. Esau and Jacob have kissed. 

What about tomorrow, the next day, and the one after that? Where might Esau and Jacob meet again? When might they kiss again? I wonder what might be next for Esau and Jacob in your life and in my life.

That’s what I offered Congregation Hakafa Friday night. It’s what I offer you this morning. Bruce reached across a boundary to me and invited me to reach across that same boundary to him. Congregation Hakafa opened its doors and heart to me and, through me, to you. And with this sermon you now have some insight into them. Our lives have been enriched and enlarged. We now have brothers and sisters we didn’t have before. 

The good news always bridges the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. And sometimes the gospel asks us to reach across a boundary and do what we’ve never done before. I wonder what that might mean for you today. When and where might the Esau and Jacob of your life today meet and have a first kiss?

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Image Credit: Photo by Patrick Perkins on Unsplash.