Sermon: Favorite Son – 7 August, Rev. Dr. Katherine M. Lehman

In the nomadic patriarchy of the ancient Mideast, there were customs and expectations about authority, obligation, and inheritance. There was frequent contention among wives and sons, about privileges, and friction with daughters usually about marriage rights. Such family dynamics are still in play across centuries and cultures. We do well to consider them, in the news and in our families.

The scriptures talk about the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. As trackers of the promise, we often add Sarah, Rebecca, and Rachel, for they continue the lineage, with their husbands, who bore the public face of their families. Years ago, when Charles Gibbs was teasing me about feminism, he objected that I’d left out Leah, so I’ve included her in the litany since. But many other names are still missing in the line of the promise. And that’s what all the squabbling is about. Who has the final word? Who’s the favorite? Who’s left out? It’s human nature and the nature of families.

For instance, Abraham had a firstborn son, named Ishmael, by Hagar, Sarah’s servant, according to custom. When Sarah bore Isaac in old age, she sent Hagar and Ishmael away, also according to custom, as they were rivals within the tent. And thereby hangs a tale, doesn’t it? Muslims count themselves Abrahamic heirs through Hagar. There’s a throwaway line in the Genesis story, a caravan of Ishmaelite traders, carrying precious commodities for use in binders, ointments, and incense. These people are our cousins through Abraham. We do well to consider them our relations today, despite the estrangements of centuries and present conflict.

Another instance, in the next generation, involves Jacob and his older brother Esau, sons of Isaac by Rebecca.  She conspires with Jacob to wrest Esau’s blessing from his blind and dying father. Scholars suggest that the clever theft of Esau’s birthright represents a shift in custom from ultimogeniture to primogeniture, that is, whether the youngest or oldest son inherits. Who gets to inherit is the question, and in a nomadic culture of scarcity, inheritance is not split, but designated entire, so as to keep the assets pooled, to prosper the family’s future.

The background helps us, as we hear of the contention among Jacob’s twelve sons, by their various mothers. Family dynamics reverberate through generations.  Joseph is the youngest son, and his mother Rachel is the favored wife, Jacob’s first love and first cousin. Marriage between cousins kept the assets pooled within the larger tribe. Reuben is Jacob’s eldest son, by Leah, Rachel’s older sister. It was their father Laban who tricked Jacob into marrying Leah first, as was the custom. As she was veiled, Jacob assumed it was Rachel. Only after Leah bore Reuben did Laban grant Rachel to his nephew Jacob. If anyone had reason to resent Joseph, it was Reuben. The other ten sons were Jacob’s by Leah and Rachel’s servants, Bilhah and Zilpah, all according to custom.

We know the story because of Joseph’s technicolor dreamcoat, made famous on Broadway and here at Trinity School last year. It’s a story of surprising grace, despite betrayal. The brothers conspire to kill Joseph, when he comes out to their grazing camp. Reuben convinces them to sell him into service to Midianite traders instead, so to save his life. Not only are they stepbrothers, but they are also first cousins. And that’s how Joseph ends up in Egypt.

The psalm gives us the outcome of the story. Because Joseph has the gift of dream interpretation, he ends up serving in pharoah’s household, where he eventually becomes vizier, or chief steward. Severe famine in Israel sends Jacob’s sons begging to pharoah, and their audience is with their younger brother, unrecognizable after so many years. Eventually, Joseph makes himself known to them, at which point they are doubly fearful, for past perfidy and present present emergency. But Joseph forgives and absolves them, saying, what you meant for ill, God used for good. The psalmist’s point is that God’s purpose was not only to save Jacob’s line, but also to instruct the Egyptians in the power of the living God, the Holy One of Israel. Joseph functioned as what Christians would later call an apostle and evangelist, one sent with good news.

As I pondered this story, I kept flashing to the eldest son in the parable of the prodigal. Reuben had just as much reason to bear a grudge against his younger brother, but he didn’t. Instead, he hatched a plot to convince his stepbrothers of a more profitable alternative to fratricide, saved Joseph’s life, and saved the family itself, giving them grain from pharoah’s stores, to avert disaster from drought.

We never can tell how things will emerge and converge, can we?  One of the lessons of these stories is that doing what is right seems to compound the right, pooling the assets, accumulating goodness over time, as it were. And another of the lessons is that God can take our wrongdoings and redirect them to foster the grand plan, even though the wrongs entail incremental collateral damage along the way.

As I considered the patriarchal story for today, these questions arise from the New Testament. Am I my brother’s keeper? How about my cousins? Who are my mother and my brothers? And in relation to Jesus’ betrayal, what some meant for ill, God certainly used for good!

Let’s turn to the gospel scene. Jesus has been teaching. At day’s end, he withdraws to pray and sends the disciples ahead. They are fishermen, and they can fish the night, en route to the next stop, on the far shore, where he’ll join them. Praying is Jesus’ way of debriefing himself and preparing for the next round. His practice demonstrates his priority. His check-in time is his return to the well. He seeks to be still and know the will of God, of his abba.

Then he sets out to catch up with them, taking a short cut on the sea. There are many stories of yogis able to travel more swiftly than the rest of us, and I always thought of them as figures of speech. But then I saw one, bounding along the bike path by Chrissy Field, his gold and saffron robes flying in the wind and his feet unmistakably off the ground, apparently striding airborne. I recall seeing horses’ strides shot in slow motion, all four feet off the ground. It astonished and exhilarated me, because I intuited that his unusual capacity was due to his spiritual practice. That’s the way I picture Jesus in this story, so I can well imagine Peter wanting to join in the thrill of it. Obviously, Peter hadn’t logged the hours of prayer and needed more practice before he was safe for solo.

In the tumult and then in the ensuing calm, the disciples recognize Jesus’ sonship. Truly you are the Son of God, they say to him. Many leaders were called sons of God, not least the emperor. It was an honorific for the powerful. Also the pious were called sons of God. And Paul extends the metaphor by calling Christians children and heirs of God. It wasn’t until later that John the Evangelist coined the term only- begotten, to carry the notion of Jesus’ unique nature and work, later codified in the creed. For now, let’s use the term to refer to a spectrum of kinship.

There’s familial kinship. Reuben intervenes for Joseph, saying, lay not a hand on him, for he is our brother, our own flesh. Then there’s kinship of spirit. Jesus, whose family comes to see him, objects, insisting that his truest relations are those who share God’s service. My brothers and sisters are those who do the will of my Father. So we say that the children of God are all people, generically, each person created by God. And we add the distinction that God’s children are especially the godly, those who seek to serve God’s will.

And further, we claim Jesus to be the preeminent example of obedience to God’s will. We might call him God’s vizier. In large and prosperous families of the first century, the firstborn son and heir would act as chief steward, in charge of the father’s household. The lessons teach us that the father’s beloved is the one who cares for the whole family, the one who proves to be his brother’s keeper. Reuben does. And Jesus does. Later, so do Paul and Peter.

Paul is working with a predominantly Jewish congregation in Rome, helping them distinguish between the Mosaic covenant and the messianic covenant. Who better then Paul the Syrian rabbi and a Roman citizen to do so? This has to do with who are brothers and cousins. Paul says there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, male and female, slave and free. There is one distinct person, the most faithful servant, the one who does the will of God, as a beloved son of the beloved father. The man Jesus, who is called messiah/Christ is that one, from whom they take their example and through whom they gain access to the promise, becoming heirs through Christ, as younger siblings would through relationship to a firstborn.

Paul is urging the Romans to quit arguing about who’s the favorite, who’s the executor, who’s the heir, who’s in and who’s left out. The example of Jesus will answer such questions, and we will know his answers to be true only as we imitate his obedient service to the will of God. For the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call upon him. How can we grow into so hospitably inclusive a purpose as Paul has come to trust God to intend in Christ?

But first, many more need to hear the story of Jesus and his abba, to know that they’re invited and included inside the big tent, within the vast tribe, among the extended families of the peoples. Jesus’ self- offering is for the sake of the whole world, namely everyone and everything, all creation inheriting the promise. As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!

And so, what about the good news? It’s good news when we’re the ones being included, most of us being gentiles. But we’re not taking these lessons to heart until we also ask about their less comfortable implications, especially about who we might be excluding. What about the cousins? Did not the Jews teach us all we know about calling upon the God of their forebears? Did we not included by adoption and grace? Did not the Jews also teach the Ishmaelites to do the same?  Are they not our cousins in faith?

What if we learned to respect that, while Jews come to the living God through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses, so do we through Christ Jesus, and so do Muslims through the prophet Mohammed? What if we could coexist, witnessing to our shared service, to the God of all who call upon him and seek to do his will? Would not that be the best news yet for this vexed and troubled world? Could we not  at least start there, to repair the damage? Would our ancestors in faith applaud such efforts, with 20/20 hindsight? Most crucially, would God want us to do so? Is it God’s will that the faithful of every race, creed, tribe, and nation make peace, for the sake of the Holy One who created us all, and in whose Spirit we all live, move, and have our being?

We are being called to such questions by these lessons and by the grievous conflict of our day and time. Is not God the God of all? Are we not related as children of God? Are we not obligated to forge peace in our father’s household, in order to be convincing stewards and witnesses of God’s shalom abroad? We are told that the word is near us, on our lips and in our hearts. It convicts us, claims us, and impels our proclamation to accord with God’s most ample purpose. We are being urged to be both faithful and hospitable to those of other faiths, trusting in grace available to make common cause for the sake of the common good. May the people say AMEN.

The Rev. Dr. Katherine M. Lehman+
Rector

Favorite Son                              Genesis 37: 1-4,12-28
8 Pentecost, Proper 14            Psalm 105: 1-6,16-22
August 7, 2011                           Romans 10: 5-15
St. Bede’s, Menlo Park            Matthew 14: 22-33