“In Search of Significance”

Genesis 25:19-34

Genesis 27:1-25

    Any idea who that is?  [[SLIDES 1-2 – Corey & Josh]].  Those are the two most loving brothers you’ll ever meet.  Yes, that’s me and my brother, and yes I’m lying…we didn’t get along at all.  I think I antagonized him to the point of insanity.  As most siblings are, we were completely different from each other (and still are).  I was the momma’s boy, the homebody, the introvert.  My brother “never met a stranger,” was always going out skating or with friends and during his teenage years always had a girlfriend.  I was in the gifted program, my brother struggled in school.  I was uptight, my brother was laid back.  I, of course, was so well-behaved.  I mean, I didn’t intentionally break 4 windows in my mother’s house with a baseball, they just happened to gravitate towards the glass all the time.  I didn’t mean to hit my brother in the head with a toy train I was just…expressing my disappointment that he wouldn’t play with me. [[black screen]]

    My brother and I fought all the time.  I guess it’s what brothers do.

    We’re going to look at some more brothers today.  We move now to Jacob & Esau in the Bible.  The first passage we read starts with their birth.  Jacob and Esau were twins.  Esau was born first, and we’re told that Jacob came out second with a grasp on Esau’s heel.  This foreshadows the story that is to come, because the Hebrew name Jacob (yakob) means “to grab by the heel,” which was a Hebrew figure of speech for “deceiving” or “manipulating.”  (Every name in the Hebrew Bible has a meaning!)  The biblical narrative skips quickly to Jacob and Esau as adults (or somewhere close).  In a moment of terrible bargaining and impatience, Esau sells his birthright to Jacob at his request because Esau was hungry after a day of hunting.  This “birthright” was basically the special privileges and advantages belonging to the first-born son among the Israelites which included things like family judicial authority and a double portion of the father’s inheritance.  We’re reminded of the birth scene where Jacob is wanting to be first from the very beginning, and here we are with Jacob very easily convincing Esau to swear on an oath, “You were born first.”
    The second story we read is the classic one of Jacob’s deception (“grabbing the heel”).  We also see the whole gamut of family dynamics including parental favor, backstabbing, and taking advantage of someone.  With the prompting of his mother who greatly favors him over Esau, Jacob tricks Isaac into giving him the blessing that belongs to his brother Esau (even though he had given up his birthright??...the text doesn’t explain this).  This is a hard concept for our modern day ears to grasp, but this pronouncement of a blessing by the father was thought to carry a very heavy prophetical and spiritual weight.  Whatever the father promised the son would be his, and whatever the father said would happen, it would.  We didn’t read the entire story earlier, but it ends with Esau coming in and begging his father to give him a blessing too, probably realizing that Jacob had “one-uped” him his entire life.

    As we read this story that would have happened almost 4000 years ago, we see that some things never change.  We see the sibling rivalry theme over and over in real life as well as TV and movies.  A show that I watch sometimes that is a great example of this sibling rivalry is “Everybody Loves Raymond.”  The star of the show is Ray, who is the younger brother in this somewhat dysfunctional Italian family.  Ray is a sports writer for a local newspaper, and his older brother Robert is a NY City police officer.  Their father, Frank, is a grumpy old man with a bad attitude and their mother, Marie, is the classic over-protective, over-bearing mother who is clearly partial toward her younger son, Ray.  In one particular episode, Ray decides to go with Robert on a “ride along,” accompanying him while he’s on patrol.  They’re in a restaurant when an attempted armed robbery unfolds.  Robert bravely subdues and arrests the suspect.  Then, this is what happens the next morning:

[[“Everybody Loves Raymond” video clip]]
   
    Robert was the hero, Raymond got the credit.  Robert was jealous.  Ray gets undeserved attention.

    My brother and I, Jacob and Esau, Raymond and Robert.  One thing we see in these examples is the truth that every family is different.  No two families are the same; they all have their own baggage, struggles, quirks, and expected patterns of behavior.  But we also see something that is true across the board.  In these three families or in any family that you might encounter, there is something in particular that you are going to find with every single person and every single family:  the need for love, recognition, and significance.

    Self-esteem is in short supply.  Self-worth and the feeling of being significant is what we run on.  Human beings have a built-in need to be “needed,” to feel that we are contributing something of value, to feel that we are worth something.  It’s the way God designed us…our very soul demands a sense of purpose because we were created with one.  Some people substitute pride for self-esteem and make themselves and others think they’re confident, but deep down there’s something fundamental lacking.  And we see all around us the tragic consequences of what happens when a human being, especially a child or teenager, is deprived of feeling significant.  They find it somewhere – wherever they have to.  Low self-esteem makes us overcompensate and overreact to certain situations.  And low self-esteem can make us turn off to the feelings and needs of others.

    My brother and I.  I had low self-esteem and was picked on a lot at school.  What did I do?  I came home and took it out on my brother.  I picked on him and dominated him to compensate for the self-worth I was lacking.

    Jacob and Esau.  Jacob wanted status.  Jacob felt like he was cheated.  He used deception to get what he wanted and claim what he believed was his rightful place.

    Raymond and Robert.  Both brothers struggle with self esteem and deal with it in different ways.  Robert is often openly resentful towards Ray and the attention he gets.  Ray is the type that shuts down or withdraws and can’t express himself. 

    All of us have been there; most of us are still there…struggling for a sense of self-worth.  You know, when you think about all the ways that we cope with how we feel about ourselves…put others down, withdraw, avoid trying new things, some turn to drugs and alcohol…all these things are ways that we try to find our self-worth in a place that we’re never going to find it.  We try to find it in other people, other things, other places.  Where should we find it?

[[Psalm 139:13-16]]

    God doesn’t mess up.  He created each and every one of us with an awesome purpose.  We find our self-worth in knowing that God’s fingerprints are all over us.  You see, what we try to do sometimes is be everything.  Or we look at what we can’t do, instead of what we can.  We focus on our failures instead of our successes.  But this is why we talk about our spiritual gifts.  [[SLIDE 3 – “God has given each one of us gifts, talents, abilities that were given to us in order to build up the church.”]]  Our value rests in the fact that the Creator of the universe made us and shaped us to be who we are.  I had always heard about how children develop personalities incredibly early; now I’m keenly aware of it having one of my own.  Of course, this is not an excuse to be lazy and not worry about being the best we can be.  As Paul said in Ephesians 4:1, “Live a life worthy of the calling you have received.” 

    Accept where God has placed you.  Accept what he has and has not given you.  Remember the serenity prayer?
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.”  Accept where God has placed you, take what He’s given you, and put it to work for His kingdom.

[[Romans 12:1-8]]