One starts
to see the wisdom in the Lord’s decision to entrust His promise to a single
family out of all the families on earth in today’s reading. First, we remember from previous readings
that Isaac and Ishmael didn’t get along.
Specifically, Ishmael picked on the young Isaac. In today’s reading, they do get together to
bury their father, but that’s about it.
Then, in today’s reading, we hear how Ishmael’s descendants didn’t get
along among themselves. (That, at least,
is how the NIV interprets Genesis 25:18.
I’ll admit the limitations of my Hebrew skills, and just say the NIV was
translated by smarter people than me.) Finally,
we read that Esau and Jacob ‘jostled’ in Rebekah’s womb. Contention seems to be a pretty common theme
when humans dwell close together.
In some
ways this may be related to the incident with the tower of Babel. I’ve had the question a couple of times, “What
was God thinking in the confusion of languages and the scattering of the people?” This insight came to me about the incident. It seems to me that humanity altogether was
like a family with lots of children, and the children were given to mischief
and squabbling. Babel is the moment at
with the Father, God, said to them, “Go sit in a corner! You!
Over there! You! Over there!
If you can’t get along, I’ll separate you!” And that strategy keeps working. If Ishmael’s descendants can’t get along,
then they have to separate. If Jacob and
Esau can’t get along, they’ll have to separate.
(That separation is still coming.)
I’m reminded of Rodney King’s plaintive cry, “Can’t we all just get
along?” Apparently not!
So, all
through Genesis, we have this centrifugal
force, a movement away, a scattering.
Humanity continues the disintegration begun in Genesis 3.
Two ‘application’
thoughts come to mind. First, this centrifuge reaches its climax in the
death of Jesus. The Gospels want us to
see Jesus completely alone. Israel has
spurned Him. The nations have rejected
Him. His disciples have abandoned Him. Jesus on the cross is in a way, the last
human left. Everyone else has spun away
from God’s center. But Jesus is faithful
even to death.
The second
thought is an implication of the first.
If humanity has been separating out and incapable of living together
since Genesis 3, a spinning off that reaches its climax in the death of Jesus,
then the result of Jesus’ death and resurrection is that the ‘force’
reverses. Jesus becomes a gravitational
force, centripetal force. (Yes, I know those are different sorts of
forces. Work with me here. I’m a theologian, not a physicist.) The point is that in Jesus we have humanity
being drawn back together into one place.
Jesus is the gravity that pulls us toward God; He is the centripetal
force that holds us together in the Church.
And the Church
is supposed to be the undoing of chapters like Genesis 25-26. I mean, read Paul’s letters and discover for
yourself how important unity is for the Church.
It’s not some optional, secondary virtue. It is in some ways the Church’s identifying
virtue. At least, it’s supposed to
be. The Church is supposed to be a new
family, composed of members drawn out of the warring families of the earth,
learning and demonstrating what it means to be forgiven and so to grant
forgiveness first to one another and then beyond. It is supposed to be a demonstration and an
enactment of the peace of God which surpasses understanding.
In a season
in which we speak of peace often, say an extra prayer for your congregation,
your particular slice of the Church.
Pray that it may live in peace and unity, that it may be filled with the
children of God, not the children of Ishmael.
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