November 12, 2026

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“Once when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the open country, famished. He said to Jacob, ‘Quick, let me have some of that red stew! I’m famished!” (That is why he was also called Edom, which means red.) Jacob replied, ‘First sell me your birthright.’” (Genesis 25.29-31)

REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

Yesterday, I posed the aged old question parents face as “Which child do you love the best?” And I presented the typical pros and cons of trying to answer that question. The best answer is, of course, I love all of them equally. I do remember hearing one mother describe her child to another mother as “the ugliest baby she had ever seen, he looks just like his father.” She said it seriously dead pan with no expression, but I knew she was serious when she said it. I felt sorry for the son and the father and wondered if she had ever said it at home to their faces. I had to stop and pray as the woman she talked to was just stuck in place. What could she say to such an egregious comment? Was there no love lost? Hearing in the story of Esau and Jacob that Isaac loved Esau the hairy and Rebekah loved Jacob the fair makes me wonder if it meant that they truly did not love the other child as much or at all. In today’s reflection it seems that there is no love lost between the brothers. We will read in the days to come that apparently there was no love spent on one or the other parent depending on which child you were considering. Today, I would ask us to consider not “who do you love best,” whether between parent and child or sibling to sibling, but “what do you love best.” Was Jacob’s ploy to gain the birthright which legally belonged to Esau inspired by a mother’s coaching based on the word of God given her? Was she, as was Sarah before her, determined to take matters into her own hands in order to fulfill the prophecy? Was there no trust in God to bring the blessing into reality? We don’t know. We haven’t heard. We can only consider the answer of motivation with an assumption to the affirmative. Yes, Rebekah who loved Jacob and did or did not love Esau a little, a lot or at all, was both aware of God’s prompting of the elder submitting to the younger and be ruled over by him and must have continued to prompt and promote the superiority, and conniving deceit, in Jacob to, as in the words of Captain Jean Luc Picard, “Make it so!” Thus Jacob was moving forward to a place where “no man had gone before.” Oh, Cain killed Abel in jealousy over the appropriateness of a sacrifice or the insuffiency of one. That act had nothing to do with a birthright but rather it reflected the willingness to understand (and the failure of Adam apparently to instruct and disciple both his sons) what God required and the history of why. Why should Adam, right? It was, after all, his failure to instruct and protect his wife from evil for which they both suffered. It seems this is a failing of many men who are unable to accept the responsibility of being at fault and admitting it, accepting the consequence and then be reconciled back to a healthy relationship. It is the very thing which Jesus would teach His own disciples so that they would indeed be men of God to be fishers of others to be men of God as well. Not everyone of them learned that lesson and we know the consequence. Judas of Kerioth took his own life and Peter agonized almost into social paralysis until Jesus reconciled their differences. Was Isaac at fault here by not truly loving one son as the other? Remember, he was raised with Ishmael and the bitterness of a mother who had him exiled by his father at her command. Oh, mighty ones of God, how important it is to put an end to the vicious cycles of abuse, negativity and deceitfulness before family systems and other human systems fail exponentially.

So the question originally posed as “What do you love most?” fits this whole issue presented in the story of Jacob and Esau. Jacob, in his desire for the birthright which belongs to his brother, bargains with Esau to take it for himself. The deal is struck over a favored stew of his father which Esau likes as well. It should sound family because it is a “red” stew. Esau is reddish in color, reflecting the soil of the earth from which he toils. Scripture says he is also known as “Edom,” which means red. In this case, Esau, because of his love for the stew and his extreme hunger, loved the opportunity for stew more than a birthright. Of course, the birthright only meant something that would be given when his father died. His father was not yet dead, so it would have been the furthest thing from his mind at the time. This would be a lesson to us all about when we make important decisions. Every decision has a consequence. Jacob was thinking ahead, not wishing ill on his father, but on the future which God had promised. Perhaps Jacob thought he should have been born first and was cheated by Esau who somehow manipulated the position in his mother’s womb to exit first. Stranger stories have been told. Regardless, the question is valid and the lesson is poignant. What we love must never exceed who we love. Things are never more important that people. This is the truth of the gospel: For God so loved the world (people) that He sent His only begotten Son that whosoever believed in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

TODAYS’ PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING:

Father, in these days we are finding the need to believe even more than ever before. We all have known trouble, some in greater ways than others, but You are offering us the assurance that we will not be consumed by it forever. Regardless of the “time” we are in and the “time” we have been given, we ask for Your Holy Spirit which Jesus asked You to share with us, to lead and guide and direct us in the paths we should go. Teach us what we still need to learn. Empower us to put that learning into action. Bless our actions not as a works righteousness endeavor, but as righteous works of faith, hope and love in Jesus’ name. AMEN.