Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“So he went in to his father, and said, ‘My father’; and he said, ‘Here I am; who are you, my son?’ Jacob said to his father, ‘I am Esau your firstborn. I have done as you told me; now sit up and eat of my game, so that you may bless me.’”
NL Daily Devotion for Sunday, September 26, 2021
by Dr. Kimberly Leetch, Clergy Stuff
Main Idea: God’s blessing is not an abstract thought, it is a real, powerful, covenant solidified in relationship.
On first reading, it may be hard to understand why Rebekah and Jacob would go to all the trouble to trick Esau out of Isaac’s blessing. Why not just ask Isaac for a blessing? Why risk the wrath of Esau for a nice thought and a prayer?
Because the blessing was more than a thought and a prayer. God made a covenant with Abraham, which was handed on to Isaac, then to be passed on to Esau, the eldest son. As we learned last week, God’s blessing came with an enormous weight of responsibility. Abraham nearly killed his own son to earn God’s trust so that he might bear such a blessing. God’s covenant was not to be taken lightly. Esau, the eldest, was next in line to bear the blessing and the responsibility, and was likely to be groomed his entire life to carry it. Jacob, on the other hand, was not readied as such, but had perfected the craft of trickery. By tricking Isaac out of the blessing, Jacob became the bearer of the responsibility and the recipient of God’s promises. Indeed, we will learn later that Jacob was given the name Israel, “the one who prevails with God”— a name that remains to this day—and the line of descendants to inherit God’s promises. Jacob learned in a dream that he would be the one to carry the blessing. Later he would wrestle with an angel and become entangled in a relationship with God that would last generations.
God’s blessing has been given, not only to Jacob and his family, but to us as well. What might it look like if we took God’s blessing as seriously as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?
How might we become entangled in a relationship with God? How might we honor the enormity of the blessing and pass it on to all people?