Lentil Soup

My homemade lentil soup which is quite good, but I've not
yet been sold anyone's birthright for a bowl of it

One of the critical skills I try to teach (and try to practice) in reading the Bible is to slow down and pay attention to detail. Whether the context has been teaching undergraduates or leading a Bible Study or offering an interfaith class with a rabbi friend for senior learners, I've found this to be a necessary  and learnable skill. But it takes practice. Most of us read too fast. We scan. But reading the Bible is more like reading a poem; we need to hear it (with our ears) whenever possible, even if others wonder why we are reading out loud. I was blessed to have good teachers myself who said that a close reading of the text is more important than how many commentaries one consults. Amen. 

There is a little detail in the reading from Genesis 25 appointed for this coming Sunday that the narrative itself seems not to explore much, but that I think invites our curiosity and our imagination and our experience before we rush headfirst into this text. This is simply that the narrator tells us that Isaac was forty when he married Rebecca and that he was sixty when the twins were born. 

Two decades pass during these few verses, between marriage to parenthood. That's a fairly long time. (In identifying Rebecca as "the sister of Laban" we also get introduced to an uncle we'll encounter again...but I'll save that for another post.) So when the narrator says that "Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife, because she was barren; and the Lord granted his prayer, and his wife Rebecca conceived" we need to remember that even when it seems this happens fast in the Bible (because it took no time to read it!) that one little verse covers the span of two decades. Twenty years. Two hundred and forty months. One thousand and forty weeks. You get the point. 

That little verse invites us to linger a bit as we remember all who have struggled with infertility, and prayed. And prayed. And prayed. Prayed because they so desperately wanted a child. 

God answers prayer. But almost never on our timelines. And sometimes it's the answer we didn't really want to hear. But in this case we are, once again, dealing with the promise delayed. Abraham and Sarah had to deal with that too. But we got into all the details of what they went through; prayer, surrogacy, and finally Laughter at the tent. But here we only get half a sentence. 

We should linger on it nevertheless. Isaac prayed. And prayed. And waited. And prayed. And waited...because they were unable to conceive a child. In lingering we begin to see that these characters in Genesis were not so different from us. Whether or not we have faced that particular challenge we have waited and prayed and worried and had sleepless nights. At least I assume most of us have. 

And then, finally, after much heartache and maybe when they thought it was never going to happen, suddenly there is not one, but two, fighting from the start. That happens too, in "real life" sometimes, doesn't it? 

There is a second point I want to make about reading the Bible that it took me even longer to internalize than slowing down. In fact it wasn't really until I had been ordained for fifteen years or so and preaching all that time, upon entering into a doctorate in ministry program where I had the good fortune to study with Walter Brueggemann, that I heard this second point so clearly emphasized. 

In addition to a close rhetorical reading of texts, Walter also emphasized repeatedly that every narrative is told "from a slant." That it has a narrative perspective. That it takes sides. That there is no such thing as a "fair and balanced" Biblical text. There is only ever telling the story from the slant. 

This is so ridiculously true, and so obvious, that it makes me blush to say it took me that long,. And yet, I don't think I'm alone. Many of us come to Holy Scripture assuming it's "true" and that we are getting the whole story. That the narrator is omniscient. Or, at the every least, is trying to be fair. But in order to uncover a "word of the Lord" there, it is also quite clear that every text has a context and a perspective. Or as Walter puts it, "who is grinding what ax in this text?" (One example may suffice and that is First and Second Samuel which so clearly comes to us from an anti-Saul and pro-David perspective.) Even Bathsheba-gate isn't the end of the story for David; although even this pro-David narrator cannot ignore that scandal. 

In writing about the text for this Sunday, Julianna Claassens, who is Professor of Old Testament at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa, puts it this way:   

One should keep in mind that these narratives are told from a pro-Jacob/pro-Israel perspective. (emphasis mine) The portrayal of a God who sides with the powerless, the weak, the younger brother, the barren woman is moreover a theological perspective that reveals something of Israel's self-understanding as a tiny, powerless people who lived in the midst of much stronger nations - a reality that became even more evident in the run-up to the exile with superpowers who were quite able to crush a people like Israel without blinking.Working Preacher

Again, this is so obvious. We will meet Esau again in what I consider to be one of the most poignant moments in all of the Old Testament, right up there with the reconciliation between Joseph and his brothers, who tried to kill him, near the very end of Genesis. But here, again, the preacher and the student of this text does well to linger on this notion. 

Why? Because this idea that Jacob (the trickster) had every right to take the birthright because Esau was a barbarian who did not care less about such things and sold his birthright when he was hungry for some lentil soup is so clearly told from the slant, or as Dr. Claassens puts it, from a pro-Jacob perspective. We do well to remember that if the two brothers were sitting together in a therapist's office that perhaps Esau would remember that day quite differently. (Maybe that would be a way to come at this sermon, to give Esau a voice as to what happened that day, as he remembers it. Because here is the thing: if it didn't happen exactly that way, then Jacob (and Rebecca) really had no right to steal Esau's birthright in the more famous story that this foreshadows.)

Even so, as Claassens goes on to point out, while the narrative no doubt has "an ax to grind" (Brueggemann's language, not hers) it is nevertheless pretty honest about Jacob, who will come to be called Israel. He is not portrayed in the best light. He's a heel-grabber. He's a trickster, like his Uncle Laban. Nothing seems to merit him being the one to whom The Promise will pass. 

Except that it does. As Claassen puts it, " this line of interpretation makes a strong case for God's grace - a God who already is involved with people in their mother's womb - within the very messiness and conflict of relationships." 

That'll preach! Jacob/Israel/Followers of Jesus may make bad choices along the way, but there is no reason to keep those secrets. God is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. God is merciful. In the midst of life, our lives, God is faithful.