Genesis and Matthew 37: Topsy-Turvy

May those who curse you be cursed and those who bless you be blessed.

And the final condition of that person is worse than the first.

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We have, in Jacob, perhaps one of the most devious people in all of Scripture. And yet . . . he becomes the person after whom the nation of Israel is named. 

In the Scriptural narrative, there's something about bad people actually being the ones that fulfill God's plan. You might have hard workers like Esau, and Cain . . . and all of Joseph's brothers; or all of David's brothers - - - these were men that were society's best. They worked. They saved. They invested. 

I would bet that these others were considered leaders and role models within their communities. 

Not so with Abel, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. These were idle, dreamy, and even soft products of a hardened culture. Somehow they managed to make it through life, to find themselves to be the last ones standing; the prosperous ones; the powerful ones. 

We're not going to get what we expect, if we think we are open to God's unfolding plan. We have to remember that Abel, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph were not nature-lovers. They were more prone to indulge in the arts. They read more. They thought more. They stayed away from rugged and boisterous activities. They avoided dangerous situations. They were likable. But they were rarely called upon to help with any physical heavy-lifting. 

And quite often, they are conniving gas-lighters. 

And yet here we are. The world today is topsy-turvy. What's good is bad. What's bad is good. Everything is fluid. Nothing is certain. Nothing is absolute. We are told not to trust our own eyes, and ears, and good sense; but to just let any old idea sift through our porous minds. 

Likewise, the person that presumes to be on good terms with the Lord, doing all the right things, keeping the right schedule and routines . . . these people may be okay for a while, but then later find themselves in a worst state than when they started.

This, too, is trust, and faith. We will not get what we expect. But what we do get, we must learn to accept, especially if adherence to eternal truths requires such acceptance. 

Genesis and Matthew 36: A Word for Isaac

We saw clearly that the Lord was with you.

For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.

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Isaac seems to be quite a different personality, from his father, Abraham. There's the sense that, while Abraham was bold and visionary, prone to great gestures of faith and power; Isaac was more of a soft-spoken, but strong, man. 

People didn't take Isaac on directly. He was too nice of a guy. He stayed out of other people's way. He did not want to offend. But he worked hard, and steadily. He was a tiller, a gardener, like Cain. But unlike Cain, he had a pure heart and warm tendency towards others. He grew and prospered. People enjoyed working for him, and making deals with him, because he was so likable. 

He was like my Dad. 

Isaac was not considered a threat to others. But the jealous types - and there are always plenty of those - did not like seeing his easy prosperity. It seemed to come so naturally to Isaac, as if he had some special secret, or magic. But there was no secret about it. He worked hard, lived modestly, and saved. His wealth may have come more from lack of spending, than from skill in increasing one's riches. 

He appeared to be a commoner that came into money. He did not appear to be as successful as he was. 

So, when they wanted to hurt him, they did it like cowards, sneaking around at night, and plugging up his wells. 

But you'd never catch him actually saying something hurtful about, or towards, someone else. This, too, frustrated his would-be enemies. He never gave them much to work with, in building any case against him, (sound familiar?)

Do not look at the externals for whether or not to respect, or like, another person. But listen to them. What do they say? What do they intend? And what is the result of their words? 

Do they divide, or do they heal? Do they lord it over others, or serve them? Do they draw attention to themselves, or deflect it upon others? Do they listen? Do they listen to other viewpoints?

Do they love dialogue and the gathering of different viewpoints?

We need more real people, good people, like Isaac, and less degreed and self-important people like the Pharisees in the time of Christ. They were all talk, and their talk was destructive. 

Be like Isaac. 

Genesis and Matthew 35: The Blown Inheritance

So Esau despised his birthright.

Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. 

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We don't know the entire story, when it comes to the incident where Jacob got Esau to trade his birthright with him. It had been customary for the oldest son to receive all of an inheritance. It's easy to think the whole thing took place during a single afternoon. 

But more likely, the Jacob and Esau Birthright Saga developed over months . . . maybe years. 

We've got Jacob, an excellent cook that was content to stay in the home all day, keeping house, managing affairs at the family HQ. This got him in good with the mom. Jacob was, from the start, rather a conniving, scheming guy. He would learn to be patient, and trust God. But for the first period of his life, he was impatient and insecure. 

Esau would work hard, all day. He spent the days out in the field. We can imagine that the result of Esau's industry was very good for the family. Perhaps he managed the business exceedingly well, multiplying the worth of his parents' estate. The two brothers were archetypical of two nearly perfect, opposing, personality styles. 

Esau was probably not as careless and dense as he appears in the biblical, summary version of his life. The two brothers did what all siblings do: they talked about family business, divided up responsibilities, had different roles to fulfill as the family grew, the business prospered, and their parents aged. 

Esau may have built up his own holdings, and assets. It's not like he gave up everything, in order to have a good bowl of soup. He only traded his inheritance from his father, in exchange for Jacob taking care of the home base. Not every man wants the job of caring for aging parents (in fact . . . very few do). 

But, this amounted to Esau "despising" his inheritance. He may have gotten tired of "Jacob this, Jacob that," while Esau did all the work. Truth be told, Esau wanted no part of it. Let Jacob have it. He'll spoil it, and after a few years he'll come back, begging for Esau to take it all back. 

It all amounted to short-term gain, in favor of satisfying a temporal desire. Esau did not see the big picture. But indeed, he did look a gift horse in the mouth, and liked his chances better, by separating from the family. 

We have a generation today, that is all too willing to burn down its inheritance. It has elevated carnal desires above eternal needs - putting pleasure and temporary comfort ahead of long-term virtues like freedom and overall prosperity (well-being) for everybody. The Esau-Jacob story plays out again, in American life, as two factions that couldn't be more different, split the national fabric down the middle in a scenario that cannot result in win-win. 

The modern Esaus also share a trait with the Pharisees of the time of Christ. They are trying to criminalize good works driven by faith. But that's another narrative, for another time. 

Genesis and Matthew 34: Experts

The Lord, the God of heaven . . . will send his angel before you. 

I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.

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The most powerful attitude on earth, is faith. Faith is hard to come by. It is hard to cultivate. 

Life is a continuous process of learning, which is a good thing. But learning can take our eyes away from faith. We can begin to trust, too much, in what we see, hear, and feel. We become too comfortable with the known; what can be empirically demonstrated to others. We begin to want evidence, expertise, facts . . . too much.

This is why it's easier for children, in their world full of magic and imagination, to practice simple, life-changing faith. The degree to which we practice faith, in our adult lives, is the degree to which we may return ourselves to the happiness and simplicity of our youth - - - and isn't that something we all desire, at least occasionally?

I hold it, as a basic tenet, that people with learning, degrees, credentials, and expertise, are to be held in some level of suspicion. Yes, they know their stuff. They have studied medicine, or the law, or theology, for years, and years. They insist you call them by their title: "Doctor." They want everybody around them to realize that they are expert. They are paramount. They are above the rest. 

Celebrity has taken over our modern culture. When once some personage has had a few moments on national TV, it is impossible, it seems, to get them to return back to their life of anonymity. Fame is a drug. It churns those internal juices that make us feel good. You get a little high from it. 

In our passion, today, to make sense out of it, we need a cultural movement to seek the wisdom, first, of the unlearned. The unlettered. People of modest means. People that aren't in the news. People that aren't famous news celebrities. People that aren't experts. 

We just need to trust the person with the simple faith to trust God. This is the wisest one of all. This is the real expert. 

Genesis and Matthew 33: Violence

So the field and the cave in it were deeded to Abraham.

From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been subjected to violence, and violent people have been raiding it. 

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Abraham looked to the east, to the west, to the north, and to the south. And all that he could see, God said, became his. Here was a barren region, completely unproductive, ignored, the domain of wanderers and the homeless. But it became the land of Abraham . . . a future site of a country populated by millions of people: the family of Abraham. 

The story of Abraham, beginning even before the Hebrew nation was launched, is steeped in violence. Bloodshed attended every forward step, it seems. But the territory now claimed by Abraham, belonged to no one before him. It was not stolen. It was not occupied. It was Abraham's. And the aspect of family took great root there. Nations are families grown very, very large. 

There is such a thing as owning land as property. There is such a thing as property. We can't help it. We want things that are our own. Any person, any child . . . anybody, of any age, wants that sense of possession, of pride. 

My toys. My hobbies. My job. My car. My health. My accomplishments. My talents. My family. 

There's nothing wrong with the word my. George Harrison sang about it, in the Beatles song I, Me, Mine. And yet, he rather enjoyed the fruits of his life's labors: his estate, and privacy, and money. Possessions are good. Individual traits are good. It can fill us with a sense of purpose, of pride. 

And nothing tops the sense of satisfaction one attains, when they stop wanting more. We should be happy with what he have. Possessions are wonderful. But they become a problem when we are more concerned with what we don't have, than what we have. 

That's where violence creeps in. 

The human condition descends into a violent state, unless it keeps its eyes firmly on forward movement, on thankfulness, on acceptance, on service, on spiritual things. 

When we enter eternity, I believe, we will be painfully embarrassed at our emphasis, in this life, on things, and not people. Even politicians that feign concern for the "needy" are only doing it to line their own pockets. 

John the Baptist was the simplest man ever. He posed no threat to anybody . . . except that he called out wrongdoing by others. He was a whistle-blower of the Jordan Valley. And wrongdoers, rather than fix the wrong, too often respond by hurting the whistle blower, making things worse for others, and for themselves. 

Property, wealth, want, poverty . . . doesn't matter. Violent people will find a way to be mad. And we seem stuck with that condition, until Christ returns. 

Genesis and Matthew 32: Prepare

On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided. 

I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.

There is a lot to be said for preparedness. The person that does not do sound financial planning almost certainly ends up in trouble. The best financial advice that I have ever heard, goes like this:

Set aside 20% of your income. Always. 10% for charity, 10% for savings. And in fact, there is more to this in Deuteronomy, where it talks about the "food tithe." But the bottom line is: Spend less than you make, always, and you will never have trouble.

But the best way to make that work, is to make it your only practice, from the day you're born. Money management is the ultimate preparedness. In fact . . . the simple act of saving is perfect; it's a nearly ideal spiritual practice. Because it doesn't take any time to spend no money. It's the one most fruitful and productive thing you can do: the perfect paradigm of practice faith: Spend no money . . . i.e., do nothing with it . . . and you will receive it back many times over. 

That goes against the idea of cast your bread upon the waters . . . but before you do that, you have to have bread. And the best way to have bread is to keep it. 

Perhaps we focus too much on planning. Planning takes time, perhaps, valuable time. But think about it --- Planning itself has to do with a sense of scarce resources. Taken to its completion: saving money also saves time. The less money we spend, the less we have to plan . . . because planning is the result of scarce resources. 

The person of faith is not going to go around spending money, anyway. God says that He will provide. All we have to do is go. But as in the money illustration above, we always hesitate. We decide to go back and plan . . . yes, that's what I need to do. Let me be prudent, and then I'll go out and do the Lord's will. 

It is speaking to me this morning, as I contemplate an entire life of waiting for everything to line up just right. Just go . . . and if you're worried about resources, remember to spend less than you have. Always.