'It Was the Best of Times'

I will not let you go, unless you bless me.

—Genesis 32:26b

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

It was the best of times, because I was young and I was rich. I’d moved north to live among my mother’s people, and there near the city of Haran, I went from having nothing to having everything. I admit that some of it was at my uncle’s expense. But Uncle Laban could give as good as he could get. If I’d tricked him out of a few herds, he started it by saddling me with both his daughters.

Don’t get me wrong. I loved one of them. But in order to marry her I had to work for my uncle for many years. And since she was the younger daughter, I had to marry her older sister before I could marry her. In the end, I had two wives, and thousands of sheep.

But it was also the worst of times.

Dreams of God

Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!

—Gen. 28:16

Prologue: Pet Elephants

Elephants aren’t directly mentioned in the Bible. But the idea of elephants as house pets is found throughout the first book of the Bible. I say this, because when we read the stories of the main characters in Genesis, we can’t help but notice that there’s an elephant in the room. And the elephant looks like this: The people—especially the men—who are our ancestors in the faith were not good people. At least not by our standards. Noah and Abraham, even Sarah and Rebekah—all of them did things that we would be deeply ashamed of.

I’ve saved this observation until this morning because nowhere is it more obvious than in the life of the subject of today’s sermon: Jacob.

'What Use Is a Birthright?

I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?

—Gen. 25:32

Introduction: Harry & The Heel

How many of you all have heard the story before of Esau and Jacob? It’s somehow hard to imagine and easy to react to at the same time. First we have twin brothers, whose future relationship is played out in the womb—and not just their relationship, but the relationship of all their descendants: The two boys struggled with each other in Rebekah’s womb; so she asked God why she had to go on living this way.

Sade: Smooth Operator

The first twin to be born was hairy and red, so he was named Esau, which means hairy. But his brother—already a smooth operator—came out holding on to Esau’s heel. And so they named him Jacob, which means heel. I suppose it’s just a happy coïncidence that when we call somebody a heel in English, we mean something totally different… something that might also apply to Jacob. For the pejorative meaning of heel fit just as well in this case as the literal meaning of of the name Jacob.

It’s not long before we find out why.

'Happy Families Are All Alike'

Isaac said to his father Abraham, ‘Father!’ And he said, ‘Here I am, my son.’ He said, ‘The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?’ 

—Gen. 22:7

I. An Only Child

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.* So let me just say that my family was unique and leave it at that for now. The irony is that I probably have the happiest name in the history of the universe. You see, my name’s Isaac, a name that means Laughter in my native tongue. My parents were a couple of wandering Arameans, and I was their only child.

That’s sort of misleading, because I wasn’t an only child—but I didn’t find that out till I was practically grown. I had a half-