Rebekah—a Woman of Great Integrity or a Schemer and Liar?

I want to honor the mothers of the congregation this afternoon. As we always do on Mother’s Day, using the word of the Lord as our starting point, basis, and foundation, for a meditation inspired in us by our mothers, whom we want to bless. At times like these, I like to meditate on something—the family, women recorded in the word of God—and today we have something that fits very, very well, something very appropriate; we do not even have to force it.

Last Sunday and the Sunday before that, when I preached, you heard me speak about two figures, Samson and Esau. And we talked about the importance of living up to our calling and the endowment we have received from God.

We said that Esau and Samson are two figures who, despite having a great calling, a great anointing, and a great purpose that God had for them, did not know how to live up to their calling. And you will remember the sad story of Esau, the last one we spoke about, who scorned and despised the blessing of being the firstborn and sort of took the birthright for granted, and who, in a moment of merely physical need, despised the birthright and sold it for a meal, a plate of food. We do not know whether it was lentils; it could have been something else—a sancocho if he had been in the Caribbean, or some well-made pupusas from El Salvador or Guatemala—we do not know.

But the fact is that this man was ravenously hungry; he did not appreciate the great privilege of being the man through whom his family’s spiritual lineage would flow, and he threw it away for an immediate need, as we ourselves can sometimes do.

But what is interesting is that a brother said to me after the nine o’clock Sunday sermon, “Pastor, I think there were some things you wanted to say that you left there because time got the better of you. Why don’t you give us another sermon on that same subject and develop it a little further?” And you know what? The brother was right, because today, on Mother’s Day, when we sometimes meditate on women of God and subjects like that, there is a figure who plays a key role in that drama of Esau and Jacob whom we often do not focus on directly. And we can derive a great deal of benefit from our sister Rebekah, the mother of Jacob and Esau, who plays a somewhat sinister role in the story of her sons; her involvement in the life of her family is somewhat complex.

In one sense, Rebekah appears to be a scheming, calculating person who takes advantage of an opportunity to put her favorite son out in front and to take the right away from her first son, Esau.

But I would like you to join me in exploring this figure, this very interesting woman, a little. I believe we can derive a great deal of spiritual benefit from her and perhaps even restore the image of poor Rebekah a little, since she has always appeared to be merely a Machiavellian woman who played favorites, when I believe she is much more complex than that.

So first we see this in Genesis 26 and 27, where the drama of Jacob and Esau is recorded. It is not only the story of Isaac and his two sons, but also the story of a very strong, very determined woman, with a very clear character, who was very sure of what she wanted to do and of the role she had to play in her family. I could say that every so often the Bible shows us these fascinating women, strong and determined women such as Leah and Rachel, Lot’s daughters, Ruth, Abigail, and Esther—women who defy this image of the oppressed, repressed, abused woman, always shut away in the closet, which we sometimes imagine when we think of the Old Testament.

These women knew what they wanted, and many times they were miles ahead of their husbands. Think of Abigail, for example, when she saves the life of her family and even that of her foolish husband by making an important intervention in the life of her family.

Think of Rahab, who, when she sees that destruction is coming upon the Canaanite tribes, acts in advance and makes a deal with the Jews who are going to invade, saving her own life and the lives of her entire family. Like a good negotiator, she makes a covenant with the Israelites.

These women are worthy of respect and admiration. And that makes me clearly understand that God has no favorites. I believe that in Scripture we see great women of God as well as great men of God. They may have been dealing with very problematic and socially difficult circumstances, but we see that God endows, blesses, supports, and uses the heart that makes itself available and places itself at his disposal, whether it belongs to a man, a young person, an elderly person, a woman—whoever it may be. And these women have always fascinated me because of their strength and character amid difficult situations that sought, as it were, to oppress them, yet they always overcame.

These women were true leaders, even though they moved within a culture that apparently did not recognize many rights for them. But they learned to assert their rights in other ways. And from this account of Esau and Jacob we learn many spiritual lessons about family dynamics. That is what I want: to derive benefit from the family dynamics that we see implicitly recorded in this passage.

We also see the mysterious and complex way in which God moves within human affairs. There are many things that make one wonder: Well, what is God’s opinion, decree, or precise judgment regarding the conduct of Rebekah or Isaac? What judicial ruling would God have handed down concerning this woman’s conduct? God moves in very complex ways, as we are going to see. At times he moves through the sin of human beings, but he is always advancing his purposes.

This account is typical of the accounts in Genesis. I say that we do not need to turn to the novels of our time or to reality shows from the United States to find human complexity, rich literary narrative, and tremendous drama such as we find among the figures, especially those in the book of Genesis.

This particular passage about Rebekah, Esau, Jacob, and Isaac is, to me, one of the Bible’s most representative accounts, because we see a host of theological, human, literary, philosophical, and ethical problems portrayed there, and the truth is that we are not given a categorical, clear, and simple answer. We come away from this with many doubts. Who acted rightly, and who acted wrongly? Where is the evil, and where is the good? How much did God have to do with this, and how much was simply due to human carnality? All of this is here in a very complex form.

It lends itself to many different interpretations. And that is something that impresses me about the Bible, especially the Old Testament accounts. There is a great deal of literary complexity in these accounts. Not everything is black or white. There is a great deal of gray, as in every great literary text.

In my literary studies, I was always taught that the great texts and the great characters of literature are ambiguous characters, difficult to categorize; evil and good coexist within them. They love God or love what is good, but they also do bad things. Sometimes they are evil, but they also love their family, a wife, or a child; no one is entirely demonic or entirely good.

Think of David, for example, a man who loves God tremendously and is willing to risk his life many times, but who also commits incredible atrocities that brought God’s judgment upon him for generations. You will remember that the book I wrote about Jehoshaphat, ‘Feet of Clay,’ deals extensively with the moral ambiguity of human beings that we see in the Bible. Jehoshaphat himself, a man passionate about God, made serious mistakes, and I have always said that in that zone of ambiguity, indecision, and lack of definition, there is great richness for our lives.

And the Bible specializes in that; it specializes in presenting us with flesh-and-blood human beings. They are not one hundred percent good or one hundred percent evil. And that is one of the things that convinces me that the Bible is a historical book, a trustworthy book. Because it is not there to portray artificially adorned and sanitized people; it presents us with the foul odor of their humanity, and it also presents us with the sublimity of their loyalty to God and their nobility of spirit. And we are invited to enter into that complexity, draw out what is good, and learn from what is bad.

The Bible is not interested in presenting plaster saints, but men and women of flesh and blood, with blood running through their veins, and God dealing with them and advancing his purposes—just like you and me. Do not be offended, because that is what we are like too, isn’t that right?

We know and love God, but we are struggling with ourselves. And this literary and biblical passage teaches us much about this. Above all, it records for us a Rebekah and a Jacob who are difficult to categorize. Were they evil, or were they people who loved God? Take Rebekah herself, for example. It is important for you to learn that many times, even though the Bible does not give you a final verdict on an issue or a person, the fact that you have to deal with that complex reality exercises your ethical, moral, and spiritual muscles.

Simply having to ask yourself those questions will help you think about life in a more complex way, even if you do not have an answer. For example, is Rebekah, as a mother, an obstinate woman who is biased in favor of her son Jacob? Or is she a woman of integrity who is obeying the voice of God, who years earlier, while her sons were in her womb, had told her what the destiny of each of her two sons would be, spiritually speaking? Did she merely carry out the will of God? Because God told her, “There are two nations in your womb; there are two men in your womb who are struggling with one another, and when they come forth into life, one of them—the younger, not the older, but the younger—will serve his older brother, and a day will come when the older brother will free himself from the dominion of his younger brother, but in the meantime he will serve; he will be the principal one in the household.”

She received that through a prophetic word that, as you will remember, God gave her when she went to the temple to ask God, “Why do I feel this anguish in my womb? Why are these two children of mine fighting with each other?” And God gave her a clear word about what was taking place spiritually within her.

So what was Rebekah doing when she fought for her son Jacob? Was she simply obeying a spiritual voice, and was she simply saying, “You know what? God said that Jacob was the one through whom the birthright should flow. And I do not see that my son Esau possesses the gifts of a man of God. I love him, but the truth is that he was born to be a hunter and a man of action. And he has not necessarily lived in keeping with the calling that his birthright would presuppose, or with the life his calling would presuppose.”

So was Rebekah actually simply serving as the hand of God that carried out his intention? And in that case, perhaps we would see Rebekah as a woman of great integrity instead of a schemer and a liar.

But I am not sure about that, and neither are you. So we can go home disagreeing. If you believe she is a villain, amen. But do not crucify her either, because I believe there are good things in her, and personally I think that this woman, as the mother who had carried them inside her, had a very special intuition regarding the spiritual makeup of her two sons.

And as often happens in the Old Testament and in Scripture, women are more sensitive to God’s spiritual intentions, and it is possible that this woman was, rather, carrying out the divine decree, unlike her husband, who was simply obeying the social convention that the eldest had to receive the blessing, inherit the double portion, and be the spiritual authority of the family.

But God does not necessarily move within what is conventional; rather, God often chooses what is unconventional. And God places whomever he sovereignly pleases in positions of spiritual authority. Because God looks for the heart, God looks for the gifting, God looks for love, God looks for loyalty to his kingdom, God looks for appreciation for his things, and in this case it seems that Jacob, from childhood—in fact, from his mother’s womb—longed for and appreciated what the birthright entailed.

Whereas Esau was a man of the belly and the body, a man of the field, a man of action, Jacob was a boy more attached to his mother and to spiritual things, I believe. And he instinctively knew that his family had been called to a universal mission, that the blessing for humanity flowed through his family, that through his lineage an entire nation would be formed that would bless the world spiritually, and that there was a universal promise running through his family’s DNA, and he wanted to be part of that miracle. He wanted to have a place within the Kingdom of God and its priesthood.

It did not even occur to Esau that this was important. And God saw that. And He saw it beforehand and determined that the one who honors Me must be the one who bears the right. Because I believe that God was also teaching us a universal lesson, as I said last Sunday: with God, it is not the gifted person in the sense of the one who holds first place, the one who has gone to seminary, the one who comes from a distinguished family, the person whose father or grandfather was a distinguished pastor. None of that matters to God. God goes to the person who is there at that moment in your life; perhaps you do not come from some great family background or anything like that, but if your heart is perfect toward God, God wants to show you His favor.

And if you yearn and are crying out to the Lord, God will bless you and use you even though perhaps others ought to be at the front of the line. Because God has always used people like that—those who love, yearn, and pant, as the psalmist says: ‘As the deer pants for the streams of water, so my soul cries out for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.’

Those are the people God blesses. And I believe Rebekah sensed this in her two sons. And like a wild beast, she sprang into action to do the Lord’s will.

In that sense, personally, I believe Rebekah had more integrity than Isaac. She went beyond biological law and obeyed God’s spiritual law, which had established that Jacob would be the heir to the birthright.

And remember something else: it was Esau who sold his birthright. I believe the decisive moment in Esau’s life was not when his mother plotted with Jacob to trip up poor old Isaac—perhaps a little senile and blind—and deceive him by putting animal skins on Jacob’s smooth forearms and dressing him in the garment of his brother Esau, a garment that smelled like a man, like a man’s sweat. Perhaps Jacob’s garment smelled of incense and delicate perfumes, because he was a delicate young man who had never been out in the fields, amid the smoke from the firewood and exposed to the elements; his smells were different.

So his mother says, no, put on Esau’s garment so that when he smells you, he will smell Esau the man. And so they plot, and Jacob approaches and tries to make his voice as deep as possible: Dad, it’s me, Esau. And he says, but son, that does not sound like the voice of my son Esau. No, it’s me, Dad, yes. And then he makes something up and tells poor Isaac a story so that he will believe he is Esau, and then he receives the promise and the blessing.

But remember that possibly years earlier, at a decisive moment, Esau had already made an agreement with Jacob. He is starving; he comes back from hunting, he comes back from exercising, and Jacob says to him, hey, what do you think? Let’s make a deal. Give me your birthright, and I’ll give you this good stew I have prepared here. And Esau, unaware that at that very moment all the angels of heaven and all the demons of hell, and God and Satan, are watching to see what he will do, thinks it is just another ordinary moment. But it is a moment pregnant with destiny, as so often happens in our lives: we think we are living an everyday moment while the whole universe is crouching, waiting to see what we will do. And perhaps we will die without ever knowing that this moment was decisive for all humanity. Who knows how many people have died without knowing that they played a terrible role with respect to humanity.

And at that moment Esau, who values nothing spiritual, says, look, don’t worry, fine, give me the food, because all that stuff about a birthright is nothing but old wives’ tales anyway; so give me the food and take my birthright. And Jacob says to him, no, wait, swear it to me. Because this man was a businessman and he was wise, and he knew that oaths before God are serious, and that when a word is given, God is there watching and He is a witness. So swear it to me. Okay, fine, I swear it to you. Give me the food. And he did not know that this was where the matter was settled. The deal had been made, the contract had been signed, and the transfer had taken place. What Rebekah and Jacob do afterward is simply the realization, confirmation, and execution of what had already been determined in the spiritual and judicial realm when Esau handed his spiritual right over to his brother.

The rest, to me, is almost secondary; it is simply theater, because the decision had already been made—not by Jacob or Rebekah, but by Esau himself. That is what God holds us accountable for. God is a God of covenant.

So when the moment comes when Rebekah plots with her son for him to dress like Esau and speak like Esau and steal Esau’s blessing, everything has already been decided. And so I believe Rebekah was probably a very ambiguous character. It is true that she did not do things in the most elegant way, and we must learn something from that as well.

That is why I tell you that Scripture is very complicated. You see, it is not that God is necessarily supporting and/or endorsing the method; but the truth is, brothers and sisters, that in the world and throughout human history many things happen that are not elegant or beautiful, yet God makes use of them to advance His purposes.

And throughout my life, from reading the Bible, I have learned that God wants us to be as nuanced as the Bible when analyzing the events of history, culture, our family life, and our own lives, and not to be so categorical. Because God uses whomever He wants, however He wants. I think, for example, of the drama of the Pilgrims. I believe I have said this before: the coming of this group from Europe to the United States in search of religious freedom to worship.

And I believe that the birth of the United States—this great nation that has blessed humanity for so many years and has also been a pain in the bones of many other nations—was from God. This nation was born on powerful spiritual foundations, from people who loved the Lord, but who also gave the poor Native Americans who were here in the United States a great big kick, gradually driving and casting them out while taking possession of the land themselves.

Because they felt as though the Israelites were entering Canaan and driving out the pagans. That is how the Puritans viewed the drama of their coming. In reality, legally, they drove them out; and I say that the first illegals were those white people who now tell us that we are illegal, honestly. Historically, they pushed these nations aside and used legalistic tricks to say that because they had not created a complex culture, they therefore had no legal rights. But they did; they were here first.

But notice how here we seem to see God moving in a complex way amid the sin of these people, who later often did not even want to teach the Gospel to the Indigenous people so that they would not then have to deal with Christian men and women. Notice how terrible this is.

And from this God created a great nation that feared God for centuries. But now, in this time, I believe this nation has been drifting farther and farther away, both officially and at the governmental level. Look at President Obama’s recent decision, his declaration that he endorses and supports same-sex marriage. He could no longer hide it, and he had to do it because his hand was forced.

I believe this nation is moving farther and farther away, and now a whole lot of Latin Americans, Africans, Haitians, and people from other countries are coming here, and little by little they are taking possession of the land. There are 14, 12 million Latinos, and now these white people who stole the land from the Indigenous people say that we are stealing the land from them. I do not know whether God is also moving through these processes to renew the spirituality of this nation, bringing men and women from their countries who fear God and love the Lord—many of them—and who are blessing this nation with their prayers and their fear of God, or their love of family and their wholesome values, although we are not perfect.

But I believe there is something similar in this process as well: God using, yes, illegality and illegitimate and not entirely sacred means to bring about a process. Because God sometimes uses sin to renew His purposes. So, when I look at that, I see it in that complex way, and that enables me to bless what is happening because I believe that, in the long run, God’s purposes are being advanced in ways that are very complex and difficult to identify completely.

So live at peace in your heart, brother, sister. But what I mean is that these are the kinds of reflections the Bible invites us to make. Because Rebekah is here; yes, she is showing partiality, she is playing an ambiguous role. But I personally believe that she was more shrewd and more spiritually discerning than Isaac, who, if left to himself, would have handed the birthright over to a man who did not deserve it. Because it is interesting that Esau first marries and chooses two pagan women, which already implies something—just as with Samson—about his low regard for his family’s values and for his spiritual life.

The Bible says that those women were a—like a thorn, a wound in the soul—because they were unredeemed women, pagan women, and they caused Esau’s parents great pain. And then what happens to Esau’s descendants? They become the Edomite nation. Edom, which appears in the Bible: bitter enemies of Israel, people who, as the centuries passed, even seized opportunities to persecute their own blood relatives. But Esau’s descendants strayed completely from the ways of the Lord and became a people far removed from God’s ways because, I believe, they had DNA, a spiritual genetic code, very different from Jacob’s. And that is why Scripture speaks of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, because God does things in very strange ways in the world, brothers and sisters.

I believe Rebekah understood this. This is the mystery of Rebekah. Yes, she did things in a somewhat improper way, but in the long run, I believe she carried out God’s design because that was what God wanted.

So these kinds of reflections illustrate for us how complex the moral matters recorded in Scripture can sometimes be, and the complex way in which God proceeds in history to carry out the sublime purposes He has.

I am going to skip a lot, and now let me conclude with a couple of things specifically for you concerning the family dynamics that I see recorded here. And I believe this can be of benefit to us at the grassroots level. One of the things I see here is that this story invites me to reflect on the fact that God gives His gifts to whomever He wants, and not necessarily to the one who has the biological right. God looks at the quality of the heart, the individual’s spiritual makeup, and not necessarily at the person who reached the line first.

Number two, I believe this also teaches me that partiality and favoritism must be avoided in family dynamics. Again, I am not sure whether Rebekah defended Jacob out of mere human preference, as a mother who took one son’s side, or whether she did so, as I was saying, for sublime spiritual reasons.

But in any case, when I examined the text and reflected on it, it suddenly invited me to meditate on that, because there is this problem of favoritism. Whatever the case may have been, the text is there and reminds us of it; it is as though it says to us, you know what? Even though you cannot determine it completely, think about it. What is important is that we avoid favoritism and partiality in family dynamics.

If you have children, make sure you distribute your love equally among them. No matter how they behave, no matter whether one went to university and earned a doctorate while the other was a scatterbrain, love them both. And express your love to them in every possible way; avoid showing favoritism, and treat them equally and lovingly, even if one is more beneficial to you and makes you proud of his great achievements and of the medals he has won playing soccer and this and that. No, bless them both, and treat your children equitably, brothers and sisters, because when parents take sides among their children and send them signals that say, you are more useful to me—as Isaac loved the game and the food his son brought him from outside—regardless of how useful they may be to you, love them, because God loves His children equally, even though they cause Him headaches. But He makes His sun rise, it says, on the righteous and the unrighteous. He sends His rain upon the evil and the good.

Love your children with equal affection, and try to ensure that they always see the love of a father or mother distributed equally, because when there is no equality of treatment, it creates terrible wounds in children—deformities, resentments, and inferiority complexes that follow them every day of their lives. Always try to identify whether this concern is present in your children, and you can tell because young people often give you signs of insecurity. When you hug one child, you see the other immediately looking to find out whether you are going to hug him in the same way or not. Watch for those signs, and make sure you always treat your children equally.

That is important. I do not know exactly where Isaac and Rebekah stand in all of this, but the text invites us to be sober about it. Now, another thing: we must remain faithful to the principles of Scripture above love. Notice what I have just said: let us love our children equally, but we must also love Scripture more than our children. Do you understand what I mean?

In other words, as parents, the guide for how we raise our children is the Word of God. If I have to confront my favorite child, even though I love him desperately, because the Word of God compels me to confront him, I will do it. Nowadays I see so many parents, for example, whose children have adopted a sexually inappropriate lifestyle, and I see many of them saying, “Well, he is my son and I love him, and he is struggling with a situation, and I have to support him no matter what.” I believe that we should support our children, but we should not support their sin. You have to say to your son, “You know what, son? I love you, I will love you until I die, you can count on me, but I do not accept your lifestyle, and I am not going to change the values of the Gospel and the Word of God because of my love for you.”

Do you understand? And in that, brothers and sisters, there is health. When we parents tell our children, “You know what? I love you until death, but I love God and the Word of God more than I love you,” that is a blessing for our children. Love the Word; always use the Word, because what I see here is this: Rebekah understands God’s decree concerning her children. She sees that Esau is not a suitable man for the lofty purpose God has for him, and I believe she went beyond that and said, “You know what? God said Jacob, and Jacob is the one I am going to support.”

Isaac does not do that. Instead, Isaac simply allows himself to be led by the conventions of society: the eldest is the one who should receive the blessing, so let us bless him—without realizing or discerning that God had much more complex purposes and that much deeper spiritual elements were at stake between his two sons. And he is willing to override God’s strange purposes in order to support a mere human convention. And I believe that is wrong. In the spiritual life of churches, for example, I am a pastor; I love my spiritual children, my spiritual brothers and sisters, but I cannot show partiality toward any member of the congregation simply because I love him, because he speaks more, or because he gives more money. No. In the life of the church and the Kingdom of God, family comes second; God and his principles come first.

I have shared with the brothers and sisters the drama I have been witnessing recently: a very renowned, well-known church. But with pain in my soul and with much fear and trembling I say this: the pastor, who has been the pastor for many years, has shown partiality toward his family in a very obvious, very clear way, and also toward one person—a son whom he should never have chosen as his successor, because that person does not have a spiritual calling. But because he loves his son—and there are so many pastors like that nowadays, which I think is terrible—we believe the church is like a dynasty. I am the pastor, I have my son, and when I die, I am going to appoint my son to be the pastor. A pastor has no right to do that. The church belongs to the Kingdom of God and to the people of God, truly.

Now, I believe that if a son or daughter has a spiritual gifting, the congregation recognizes it, and there is a process of recognition, then how wonderful it is for the blessing to continue flowing through people who have grown up in the church and are blessed by the church. Amen. But if not, look, brothers and sisters: in the Kingdom of God, family, friends, and personal interests must come last; God’s purpose and the values of the Word of God must come first. Be a fierce defender of God’s purposes. When you discern them, throw yourself into them, and if you have to die or stand before the devil and say, “You shall not pass this way,” then tell him so. No matter what it costs you, God will bless you and support you for it. Amen.

So that is another very important element. We must remain faithful to the principles of Scripture above our love and loyalty toward our children, relatives, or friends. Another thing, a third principle: we must foster good communication in the family, including the airing of disagreements and conflict.

Because I believe that one of the problems in this family of Isaac and Rebekah is that we do not see good communication. At no point do we see Isaac and Rebekah sitting down to talk about their differences, intuitions, and longings. No, each one is off on their own: Isaac with his son Esau, and Rebekah with her son Jacob. Each one scheming to reach an outcome that suits them.

And I wonder what would have happened if Rebekah had said to Isaac, “You know what, Isaac? I see that a correction needs to be made here, because our son Esau seems as though he should be the chosen one, but you know very well—look at how he behaves, look at the kind of woman he has chosen as his wife, look at his detachment from the things of God. And what do you think of Jacob? Look at how he loves the Lord; look at how God is working in him and equipping him; look at his passion for spiritual things. Don’t you think Jacob is better suited to possess the birthright?”

I believe that in the family, whatever the case may be, there is room in this interpretation to remember that in the home there must be an airing of views; there must be communication. Mom and Dad are not always going to agree. And we must avoid families where the father is the one who gives the orders because he is the head, and whatever he says is what must be done. There must be room for differences of opinion to be aired, including those of the children as well.

I believe that children—even though it makes us uncomfortable; I do not like it when my daughters criticize me—should be heard. I think Meche is a little more tolerant than I am; she has a gentler nature. And as a man, perhaps I do not like it, but I have learned to listen. And although I often do it while grumbling, afterward I go to my room and say, “You know what? I have to learn something from this.” And over the years—Meche knows, because we talk about this—there has been a struggle, but I know that in the end I have to do what God says, which is that I have to open the valves of communication a little. There has to be room; there has to be questioning; there has to be friction and wrestling. That is part of our children’s moral education.

And I believe that here, in this case, I do not see that. There is no communication, only scheming, as sometimes happens in marriages. Mom wants to get her way, Dad wants to get his way, and the children are off somewhere else. There is no integration of family life, and that is something about which you must be proactive with your wife or your husband. Make yourselves communicate; make yourselves talk. Do not simply act instinctively: “Oh, because I am the one in charge here! How dare you?” No. Listen and ask yourself whether God might not be mysteriously working through that little voice. Because God spoke through a donkey when he had to do so with Balaam, and he can do it through anyone. He can even use a baby to correct you. Remain open.

In this case, I believe there is something about that as well. I also believe that when we do not allow this, in a family that is hermetically sealed, where there is no communication, dialogue, negotiation, or process, what happens is that this gives rise to neurotic, dysfunctional, and deformed families. The children—and often the mothers, because the problem is frequently with the father; forgive me, fathers, but that is the reality—are affected. What often happens is that when a child grows up in a home where he is not given the opportunity to express himself, to negotiate, to learn to be a man or a woman, sometimes by questioning and doing so inappropriately—but how else does one learn?—manipulative and deceitful children are created, as are manipulative and deceitful women, mothers, and wives. Because that is the only way the poor things can defend themselves.

Then their originality and creativity find covert and secret, but also grotesque and sinister, ways to express their energy. It is better for those energies to be expressed within the legitimate space offered in the family environment. Creating men and women who are serious, discerning, morally complex, intelligent, and cultured requires the loving wrestling of the home—a home where there is room for all those processes to take place, and fathers and mothers who are willing to pay the price of feeling uncomfortable and even resentful many times. But they must understand that this is human dynamics, this is reality, and this is how it must be if we want to raise strong children. For the alternative is a very obedient young person who lacks psychological and ethical complexity.

There are many children who behave perfectly but are complete nonentities intellectually, academically, and morally, because everything is simply whatever Mom and Dad say. But do you know what happens? When they go out into the world and meet some girl who manipulates them and pushes them around, they are not prepared. They go out into the world and, in a single moment, take revenge for all that repression, immediately squeezing every drop they can out of disobedience and immorality. And they do it with interest.

It is better for you to oversee that process within the home. I believe that the home of Esau, Rebekah, Jacob, and Isaac was a home that was not functioning. There was no dialogue; there was no airing of what this woman thought or what Isaac thought. There was no mutual enrichment, and those boys grew up like two wild plants off on their own. Esau’s spiritual sensitivity was not formed in order to prepare him for his lineage and his destiny.

That is to say, all these things are at stake here. I hope we learn a little from them. I am going to be quiet, because otherwise you are going to be here all afternoon.

Brothers and sisters, this is an extraordinarily rich passage that invites us to see the mysterious, elusive, complex God whom we have. And it shows us how serious the spiritual life is. Do not underestimate the importance of your calling. Let us not underestimate how serious life is and how important it is to live it each day while thinking soberly about the place you occupy. Perhaps Esau never imagined that 3,500 years—who knows, perhaps more—later, we would be talking about him, and that his story would be used in an extraordinary way, instead, as a negative illustration of what a man should not do. But that is how it is.

His drama has instructed generations, and so will yours. You have a great cloud of witnesses around you, and you must live life with great seriousness. You have a calling. Your life has tremendous importance, and you must always live it mindful that you are being watched: your children are watching you; your friends, your community, your church, the people driving alongside you on Route 93 at four in the afternoon are watching you. And you must live life seriously. You are a man or woman of God, a priestess, a king, a pastor, a female pastor, a counselor, and you must live very seriously before God, make weighty, sound decisions, and ask God to give you wisdom and enlighten you.

Do not live life according to the conventions of the world. Instead, live asking: What does God say? What does God want? And how can I be an instrument at this moment in my life to advance the interests of the Kingdom? What others think of me, what the spiritually superficial want to do—that is their business. I am going to live according to the values of the Kingdom of God. And I am going to be an instrument in his hands.

May God bless you; may his grace be with you. Let us stand. Take a moment to receive that word into your heart; press it deep. Do not leave here without bringing it to a conclusion, but then take it home with you, continue meditating on it, and take it deep into your heart.

Let us offer a prayer of surrender and acknowledgment to the Lord in your spirit. God has great things for us in this time. But that requires a people who rise to the occasion, who live morally, who live ethically, who live seriously, who live with holy fear and trembling, aware that God has entrusted the birthright to us. God has entrusted great things to us; he has placed great things in our hands. Neither you nor I can imagine the future of this community. The future of the Church of Jesus Christ in the coming decades, if Christ does not come first, is incredibly weighty and serious, and it requires men and women, young people, children, and the elderly who walk possessed by that sense of awe and reverence.

You are something very special that God has created; you are a spear in the Lord’s hands. Do not live like a scoundrel; do not live like a child of the streets. Live like a prince, like a princess, without pride but very conscious of the great and fearsome calling God has placed in your hands. We live in times pregnant with intentionality, in which God has great things he wants to do, and he needs men and women who are like antennas that receive his messages and receive his energies. Do not squander the calling. Do not lose yourself in a conventional, religious, lukewarm, ordinary spirituality. Go out into the dark and dangerous yet sublime waters of the spirituality of God and his Word, and live there at that level: a hero, an adventurer, a soldier, a warrior of God, a woman warrior of God.

I bless your life, and I bless the life of this community. I declare the grace of God over our families and over this church: those who are here, those who were here this morning, those who did not come, the Hispanic, North American, Asian, African American, and African communities—all these groups that God is assembling and bringing to this nation so that his purposes may be fulfilled. We want to be part of the move of God, and we ask that his Word become deeply embodied in our hearts and our lives.

Father, thank you; send us out of here possessed by a sense of your presence and your companionship. We bless our mothers, these noble women—single mothers and mothers with their husbands at home—and we ask that your grace be with them. Also bless the single women, Father, those who do not have a husband and those who do not have children, and may they feel fully supported by you and fully endowed, Lord, with the complete identity they have in you, Father. Thank you, Lord, thank you. Bless us on this day, and we surrender our time to you with a deep sense of the privilege of being in your presence, in Jesus’ name. Amen. God bless you, my brothers and sisters; may the grace of the Lord be with you.

You never fail, Lord, and you always have purposes even when we cannot understand them; you always have purposes, Lord. Let us declare that chorus once again; let us say that you are infinite, God.