On Being Yourself

May 28, 1989

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Scripture: “Are you really my son Esau?” Genesis 27:24

“Are you really my son Esau?” Who are you anyway? What is your true identity? What a story! Skullduggery, scheming, sham, subterfuge...soap opera stuff...good old-fashioned underhanded deceit.... It’s all here in a vivid and tightly drawn story from early Genesis.

It’s a wonderful story. The question comes, though, for the interpreter---do you play it straight, or do you play it for laughs?

Is it essentially a comedy or a tragedy? It contains elements of both.

A young man, with the connivance of his mother, tricks both brother and father to receive a blessing that’s not rightly his.

He got away with it, too...sort of got away with it----that’s comedy, but, boy, was it an expensive victory----that’s tragedy. He triumphed...sort of triumphed----that’s comedy, but, boy, did it cost him----that’s tragedy.

He paid through the nose in the long run...or would it be better to say through the heart...WITH the heart...because something happened to him in the process that was not good at all, something that really WAS tragic.

He won the battle, but he very nearly lost the war.

DECEPTION, YOU SEE, IS EXPENSIVE. I guess that’s the point, and here it is. Ol’ Jacob, young Jacob here, in many ways the most interesting and complex character in the Old Testament. A lot of us can identify with him, because a lot of us, too, try to be what we’re not, and we miss so much. Jacob was fortunate; he finally made it through to maturity and honesty, but it was a close call.

And right here is where it started to unravel...that shoddy, uncalled-for masquerade caper...soap opera stuff.

I guess what strikes us first is how remarkably human and across-the-board it all is----Just change costumes and you have a modern story.

Dress ‘em up in cowboy outfits and you have a plot for Dallas, or Dynasty[1]. Put ‘em in Brooks Brothers’ suits and it could play in a corporate board room on Wall St... just as plausibly there as in the original setting---a tent on a hillside in ancient Palestine....

BECAUSE IT’S UNIVERSAL. The human emotions, the human dynamics would be the same whatever the background scenery. The more things change, they say, the more they remain the same. That’s why the Bible never gets stale.

But it’s the ravages of deception, the problem of misplaced identity I’d especially like to underscore right now.... May I invite you to examine it a little closer? I think there’s something here for nearly everybody.

Look at Jacob...it’s a lot like looking in a mirror---that, too, is why the Bible never gets stale.... Can you see him...bright, young, talented, clever...blessed with brains, charm, money...and an insufferable ego.

You see, there had never been any clamps put on it. No comedy in that. His brother, Esau, was certainly no match for him. Oh, Esau was bigger, more athletic. Esau could have beaten the tar out of him in a fist fight, but that wasn’t about to happen. Jacob was much too nimble to compete with his brother on that level.

But there’s more than one way to a skin a cat...or feed a starved esteem. Esau had something Jacob wanted...so badly he could taste it----the blessing of the father, the right of inheritance.... All the land, as far as the eye could see...the flocks, the herds, the servants, the whole spread...the Ponderosa...PLUS the prestige and community standing that went with it....a directorship down at the Bank, a spot on the Administrative Board...maybe those as much as anything.... ALL OF IT WOULD GO TO THE FIRST BORN, the old law of primogeniture. Isaac, the father, had gotten it from HIS father, and now he would pass it on to his son.

Esau was the older...just barely, by maybe two minutes, but that was enough. They were twins, but Esau was first, so it was his...UNLESS...Ah...UNLESS.

Jacob wrestled with it...staying up at night, looking for loopholes. If he had been born in the 20th Century, I’m sure he would have been enrolled in law school.

He tossed and turned on his sheepskin pallet, plotting and scheming the various angles....This is WRONG....Why should it go to Esau instead of me? What did he do to deserve it? An accident of birth...if it had been Caesarian....

For a two mealy minute difference I should be cut out?...it’s not FAIR. Arguments come quickly when the heart is already convinced. What is ever less objective than self-interest? Someone has defined a fanatic, you know, as one who, having lost sight of his goal, redoubles his effort.

Jacob was close to it...he was a good boy, in lots of ways; he had many fine qualities, but this became almost an obsession.

“Esau doesn’t know his head from a hole in the ground. All he cares about is hunting, fishing, and the N.R.A. I’m the one who by rights ought to receive the inheritance.” His mother didn’t help matters, either, bless her biased little heart. You have to come down on the side of tragedy here. No mother ever loved a child too much, don’t hear me to be saying that, but to idolize a child to the extent that you would sacrifice truth, and principle, and honor to see him get ahead is to come pretty close to sheer idolatry. I’m sure it’s happened more than once, but it’s certainly tragic when it does. The only true affection, the only worthy affection, between any two persons is that which pays allegiance to a higher. Jacob’s mother didn’t. Please don’t ever ask me to preach a Mother’s Day sermon on Rebekah.

But there they are. Together they work it out, the greedy boy and the shameless mother---he, letting his ambition override his scruples, and she, allowing her favoritism to distort her judgment.

It’s not pretty...as the Bible often is not...but it’s penetrating, it’s accurate, and it’s honest.

And you have to give them credit. At least on a certain level, it was a shrewd plan. I didn’t say smart. I certainly didn’t say wise. I said shrewd.

Poor old Isaac, and poor, dimwitted Esau never knew what hit ’em until it was too late. Even if you aren’t a male chauvinist, even if you’re Betty Friedan[2], you have to feel sorry for them.

Once it got underway, on it rolled....Isaac, feeble, almost blind, and nearing the end, in a curious blend of the earthy and the spiritual, sends Esau to the Forest on the last day of hunting season, to kill some fresh game for a pot of Brunswick Stew....

“It may be my last meal, son. Do it for your old Dad. When I finish, I’ll bless you, and sign over the deed to the property. It’ll all be yours.”

Rebekah overhears. Actually, she had bugged his pillow, and was sitting there all the time, twisting the dials.... That’s comic relief against a darkening backdrop.

They work quickly. While Esau is gone, mother and son head for the prop room....Some old clothes are found that look like Esau.

Some wool is attached that feels like Esau. Some sweat is applied that smells like Esau....Jacob steps into the shows of somebody else, assumes an identity that is not his own, to get something that’s not rightly his in the first place.

It’s a shoddy masquerade, an unconscionable deceit, but he pulls it off. Isaac is suspicious, but not enough to pull the plug. “Are you really my son, Esau?” he asks pathetically. Maybe by that time he was almost too tired to care. At any rate Jacob convinces him, brazenly, if hypocritically. “Feel my hands...are they not the hairy hands of your son, Esau?”

AND IT’S DONE...and once done, it’s irrevocable. He gets the blessing from the blind, old man, with all it implies. He tricks him, while Rebekah stands in the background, and GRINS. Isn’t it vivid? There may not be another scene in the Old Testament more exquisitely etched than this one.

But look! Now we come to it. THE SCHEME SUCCEEDED, BUT THE PRICE WAS ENORMOUS. Because, you see, something happened to Jacob in that transaction. Even as he went through the slippery machinations of his cunning duplicity, something deteriorated inside of him. You couldn’t see it, of course, you couldn’t measure it, but it was there. He wasn’t perfect before, but he was better.

The post-trick Jacob was not the same young man as the pre-trick Jacob. It may not have been a great difference, but it was a difference. A tendency was further strengthened; a certain hardening took place, and a deadening of sensitivity. Getting away with that stunt made it easier later to try another one...and another....AND HE DID, FOR A LONG TIME TO COME.

He may have gained a blessing, but he lost some valuable integrity. He may have gained an inheritance, but he lost some valuable decency. He may have gained something materially, but he lost something spiritually. He may have been a poorer person before, but he was a weaker person afterward. He may have been less affluent before, but he was certainly less authentic and genuine afterward....

What can you call it but tragedy?

DECEPTION IS EXPENSIVE. If affects character, and character, in turn, affects destiny. It may not be the way we like it, but it’s the way life is.

It took Jacob nearly 20 years to undo the damage of his sham-ridden unscrupulousness. And he was probably lucky at that....It cost him his reputation, it cost him his father’s respect, it cost him his brother’s respect...it even cost him his home...when the truth came out, he had to flee for his life...and it was almost 2 decades, after the death of both parents, whom he never saw again, that he finally came back and found reconciliation with Esau.

I guess he WAS lucky. The smaller-brained man, mercifully, was the larger-hearted man. How often it happens. Bright people like Jacob, especially seem to have trouble with it, but it’s really the glory of Christianity...It’s what keeps it from becoming elitist. Maybe Esau, despite being the goat here, was the real winner after all. He had less sham and pretense to take to the garbage pit.

Well, that’s the story. We’re not through, but we’re more than halfway. Before we tack on some quick application, I’m glad to tell you there IS a happy ending. The last word, the final word is NOT tragedy. Jacob finally understood, thank goodness, and got his priorities straight. It took a long time, and a lot of bodies littered the highway, but he did make it. That’s the end of the story. You can read about it in the chapters that follow this one.

It took an all-night, painful wrestling match with an angel...or was it really his own better self...to bring it at last to a head. He had to limp into the future, too, as a result of the encounter, but at least he got there....

He finally worked through his arrogance and dishonesty, the crippling consequences of his crookedness, but how much better it would have been if he could have done it sooner.

For all that period, from masquerade to self-mastery, from deceit to deliverance, he caused enormous damage to people all around him, hurt lives, severed precious relationships, and, most of all, wasted years, and talents, and authentic gifts because he thought he had to manipulate people and play a game to get what he thought he wanted.

Are there any lessons we can learn out of all this? Well, I don’t know if Jacob, the schemer, or ex-schemer would agree exactly with all this, or would want to express it in exactly the same way, but I have a few observations, or comments, I’d like to draw from the story that I think bear pondering, if not more direct application.

1) Observation Number ONE has to do with GRACE. DON’T you always have to start there? You see, the good news, the GOSPEL is that pretending to be something you’re not is not only deceitful, it’s UNNECESSARY. There’s no good reason to have to do it. It took Jacob nearly a lifetime to grasp that.

Dressing up in some sleazy masquerade to try to fool people, or to try to fool God doesn’t alter the contours of your heart, what’s down inside, one smidgen...and the truth about you, the real truth is really more beautiful, when God can work with it, than any deception you can play. If it’s genuine, even if it’s polluted, He can make it glow. It’s not my evaluation, or your evaluation, it’s God’s evaluation.... GRACE.

It’s another way of saying GOD ACCEPTS US AS WE ARE when we come to Him. You don’t have to do something first, you don’t have to accomplish something, you don’t have to prove something, you don’t have to pass something...there aren’t any minimum SAT scores here.... THERE’S NOT EVEN A TEST.

You simply show up...take off your mask...and that smelly old goat hair, AND LET THE FATHER THROW HIS ARMS AROUND YOU.

Astounding! Almost appalling! But that’s the way He’s chosen to make it. GRACE!

2) Observation Number TWO has to do with...let’s call it INDIVIDUALTIY.

YOU yourself...you individually...ARE IMPORTANT TO GOD...infinitely precious...and your worth is magnificently unrelated to how you’re alike, or unlike, anybody else.

That is, God doesn’t grade on the curve. What a relief, unless you’re an insufferable snob like Jacob was for a long time. You’re not competing with anyone for spiritual merit badges. It doesn’t work that way.

Just as Jacob was Jacob and couldn’t be Esau, in fact, perverted himself trying to play the role of Esau, so you are you, and that’s all you need to be and all you have to be. You should never be less, but you don’t have to be more.

I’ll never forget it as long as I live. It was during my first appointment after graduation from seminary. I was sent to the Micanopy Circuit, which had four little churches on it...still does. Things don’t change all that fast up there in North Florida where Alachua, Marion and Levy Counties merge. If you keep your eyes open, though, you can learn a lot.

My predecessor on that appointment was a fireball. I mean, he did it all. He was something. He had been there four years prior to my coming, and had revved up that circuit so it purred like a sewing machine....He planned ahead, he visited by appointment, he held revivals, he kept the books in order, he organized square dances on Friday nights....And he SANG...he sang...he had a tenor voice that could melt the heart of a frozen witch.

When I got there, single, inexperienced, intimidated, and impressionable, and heard all those stories, I tried to be just like him. I knocked myself out. I tried to do everything he had done....

I scheduled sermons months in advance, even if I didn’t know what I was going to say the next Sunday....I organized Work Areas, I made notes, I kept logs....I stayed up late.......and one day, seeing myself getting farther and farther behind, I decided to SING.

It was a mistake. It was a big mistake. The entire membership of the circuit was unanimous on that point. At the end of a sermon, having made my closing peroration, with what I thought was moving eloquence, I broke into alleged vocal music...and before I had committed 3 notes, the congregation broke into hysterics.

That night I had a visitation from the Lord. He was polite, maybe embarrassed, but persistent. I’m not sure now about all the details, but the gist of what He said was, “Tom” .... that’s what He called me.... He always calls me by my first name---doesn’t He you, too? He said, “Tom, I just want you to know, I’m never going to ask you why you weren’t Paul. But I may have to ask you why you weren’t TOM.

I learned more about identity and about being human that night than I did in all three years of seminary.

Don’t try to be Esau if you’re Jacob, or Jacob if you’re Esau. You yourself must be you...for you yourself are important to God.

3) Observation Number THREE has to do with HOW we come to know that real identity, that authentic identity we’re all seeking to experience, that real sense of personhood for which the masquerade is shoddy substitute. If we’re a mixture, like Jacob, and Esau, and everybody of talent and sham, gifts and deception, virtues and blemishes, lights and shadows, things we’re proud of and things we’re ashamed of, how do we sort out what ought to be salvaged, and what ought to be dumped?

The answer is, YOU DON’T. You don’t. You take it all, the good, the bad, the genuine, the shabby, the beautiful, the base.... You take it all, and just turn it over to God. You make a commitment.

Carl Michalson used to say, and I don’t know if it was original with him, or if he, in turn, got it elsewhere, but he used to say, “to find out who you really are, take as much of yourself as you can understand, and give as much as you can to as much of God in Jesus Christ as you can understand...and then let Him do the rest....AND TRUST HIM...TRUST HIM FOR THE RESULTS.”

Some winnowing will inevitably result, some renovation, some purging...part of it will be uncomfortable...there is almost never healing without pain.

But when you give yourself over to His control...everything...when you let Him take charge, and accept His acceptance, as Tillich put it---the acceptance that’s already there----Grace....THEN...you begin to breathe the fresh air of freedom, and you find those smelly old masquerade threads you used to wear turning into party clothes.

No one was ever more a slave than Jacob when he was bedecked in the garb of deceit, but no one was ever freer than Jacob when he limped away from the angel...beaten, but with a new name, and a new identity.

Now, one more thing. There’s another young man in the Bible who left home wearing false, masquerade clothing. It’s in the story Jesus told about a Father who had two sons. The younger brother in that story could well have been named Jacob.... Remember?

Do you think that young man was himself, his true self, when he was squandering his inheritance? Do you think he was himself when he was out there raising hell? Do you think he was himself when he was wallowing in the pigpen?

The Bible says, “when he came to himself....” THERE IT IS.... Who are you?.... When he came to himself, he said, I WILL ARISE AND GO TO MY FATHER. Commitment.

That was when he stopped being a slave, and became a Son again. The old clothes could be discarded, because the NEW clothes of life, and freedom and identity were waiting.

Are you really my son, Esau? Probably not. Not unless that really is your name. If it’s not, don’t dress up like him. The real you, by the grace of God, is better.

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[1] Popular TV shows in the 1980’s

[2] Betty Friedan was a leading figure in the woman’s movement in the U.S. in the 20 century (1921-2006)