Let's Hear It for Esau!

RCL Proper 15A

10 July 2011

Saint Faith’s Anglican Church

Vancouver BC

         On Saturday I travelled with Archdeacon John Struthers, the diocesan  Director of Deacons, to a meeting in Sardis.  He had programmed our destination into his GPS device, ‘Miss Creepie’, and off we went.  Just before we drove into the parking lot of our destination, ‘Miss Creepie’ announced, “You have arrived at your destination.”  John turned to me and said, “I have always wanted to ‘arrive’.  Haven’t you?”  I laughed at the double-meaning, but his comment stuck with me.

         Over the course of the last year I have learned something significant about myself.  While there are people who have a long-term objective towards which they work for most of their lives, I realized that I have had short- to medium-term objectives that have led me, step by step, to where I presently find myself.  My tendency towards short- and medium-term objectives means that I have not always been the greatest long-range planner among my peers.  Consequently I have responded to the various opportunities that have crossed my path without any conscious thought to where these opportunities might bring me as I approached retirement.

         Now I cannot complain about these opportunities.  I have taught every age from preschool to graduate school to senior citizens.  I have served in small parishes and large parishes, in a diocesan office and in a provincial theological college.  I have travelled to aboriginal communities in North America, the Solomon Islands and Myanmar.  I have been a member of national and international committees and commissions.  Any complaint on my part would the worst kind of ingratitude.

         But now that I am approaching what is likely to be the last seven to ten years of so-called ‘active’ ministry, I realize that I have never had a life’s destination to which all these opportunities where way-stations.  In many ways I have navigated the currents of the river of life with my eyes set only on the next bend or the next rapids rather than the journey’s end.

         While my life has been blessed, I have to admit that there have been some costs to this manner of living.  From time to time I have chased rabbits when I might have focused on keeping the main thing the main thing.  Like the grasshopper in Aesop’s fable, I have not been as successful as the ant in preparing for the coming years of retirement.  So, from time to time, I envy my peers who seem to have prepared for each step, each stage in the journey, and have ‘arrived’.  Unlike them, I do not feel as if I have ‘arrived’.

         Jacob has a plan and his brother, Esau, poses a bit of an obstacle.  Now Jacob is fortunate to have a mother who has always ‘loved him best’.  So the two of them keep their eyes open to every opportunity that will advance their cause:  to replace Esau, the older, with Jacob, the younger, as heir to Isaac.  Esau, like me and others, I suspect, has short- and medium-term objectives, the most immediate one being his deep hunger.  So when his brother, Jacob, offers  him food in exchange for Esau’s birthright, Esau cannot see beyond the bend of the river and takes the food.  The long-range planner triumphs over the short-term planner and the rest, as they say, is history.

         It is Jacob’s sons who will become the progenitors of the twelve tribes of Israel, not Esau’s.  We will come to speak of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob not the God of Abraham, Isaac and Esau.  Esau will become the hairy brute who is swindled by his smooth-skinned brother, perhaps giving rise to a frequent prejudiced among the descendants of Western Europeans who tend to prefer smooth-skinned men as public icons to more hairy fellows.  Poor old Esau, doomed to be known forever as the man who gave up his birthright for nothing.

         As members of this parish we have been bequeathed a precious birthright:  a vision of an Anglican presence in this part of the city of Vancouver that ministers to the needs of our neighbourhood and beyond.  It is not insignificant to say that it is a vision of an Anglican presence.  While we do not and never should disparage any other religious tradition, Anglicans have a particular heritage of valuing historic continuity without losing sight of the demands of the present.  We understand our heritage not so much as a precious commodity to be sealed away and protected from the elements but as a source of wisdom that empowers us to witness to our faith in the here and now.

         This vision has a concrete presence in our lands and buildings.  These lands and buildings were given into our stewardship in order to serve the vision of ministry in this neighbourhood and beyond.  Forty years ago the parish decided to sell the property just across the lane in part to fund the re-modelling of the present church to serve our ministry better.  Five months ago the Vestry made a similar decision to authorize the Trustees to sell the Rectory --- not to fund a deficit or to maintain the status quo --- but to provide the resources to continue the ministry begun almost sixty-five years ago.

         Selling the Rectory is not the only opportunity we must use to develop a long-term plan for ministry in this part of the city.  At some point in the coming months our Ministry Assessment Process team will be asking all of us to share in identifying what our preferred future as a congregation is.  This fall we shall be calling upon all our members to grow in their stewardship of the time, talents and treasure God has entrusted to us.  Each of these opportunities will be stages in our congregational journey and most journeys worth taking always involve stops and events along the way.

         I do want to close, however, with a good word for Esau and other short- to medium-term planners.  If you read Genesis 36, you will see that Esau does pretty well for himself and becomes the progenitor of a great family that rivals Jacob.  Esau may not have arrived at the destination that he thought would be his when he was Isaac’s heir, but he does not do badly.  He ‘arrives’, I think, because he forgives Jacob and begins to work on building a future despite the disappointment of his early short-sightedness.

         We cannot always see around the bend and know where the river will take us.  We can only do the best we can, with the resources we have, to arrive at the bend we can see, secure enough to be ready to undertake the next stage in our personal and communal journey of faith.  So let all of us unite, short-, medium- and long-range planners alike!  Let us so value our heritage that we are unafraid to use it to reach our journey’s end --- fullness of life with God.  Amen.