Sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, Year A (7-12-26)

If you asked someone to name the great families of the Bible, you might expect stories of extraordinary faithfulness. After all, these are the people through whom God chooses to bless the world.

Instead, what we find is favoritism, deception, resentment, estrangement, and betrayal. The Bible is remarkably honest about the people it calls God's own. It doesn't sanitize their failures or hide their conflicts. If anything, it brings those very things into the light.

Today's story of Jacob and Esau is only one chapter in a family saga that seems determined to tear itself apart. Our reading begins with a bowl of stew, but Genesis assumes we know the rest of the story. This isn't really about one impulsive decision or one manipulative brother. It's about a family that spends decades wounding one another. And yet, somehow, God's promise survives.

Even before they're born, these twins are struggling against one another. God tells Rebekah that the older will serve the younger, a promise that hangs over the whole story. Then we meet Esau, exhausted from the hunt, so hungry he's willing to trade his birthright for a bowl of stew, and Jacob, who's more than willing to take advantage of the moment.

If this were the end of the story, we might simply conclude that Esau was foolish and Jacob was opportunistic. But what we hear this morning is only the beginning.

Years later, Jacob conspires with his mother to deceive his aging, blind father into giving him the family blessing that belonged to Esau. When the deception is uncovered, the family falls apart. Esau vows to kill his brother, and Jacob flees for his life. For twenty years the brothers are separated, and Jacob spends years deceiving other people, only to discover what it's like to be deceived himself.

It's only after years of wandering and wrestling with God in one form or another that Jacob finally returns home. Expecting Esau's revenge, Jacob is met with something he never imagined: Esau runs to meet him, embraces him, and weeps.

Sometimes we reduce this story to a lesson about family conflict or sibling rivalry. But I think Genesis is making a claim with a bit more staying power.

Again and again throughout Genesis, people create new reasons for God to walk away. Abraham lies to protect himself. Sarah takes matters into her own hands. Isaac plays favorites. Rebekah schemes. Jacob deceives. Heck, in a few weeks Joseph's brothers are going to sell him into slavery!

But through every chapter—through every lie, every betrayal, every broken relationship—God keeps showing up.

God renews the covenant with Abraham—not because Abraham has earned it, but because God is faithful. God hears Hagar crying in the wilderness. God blesses Isaac. God goes ahead of Joseph into Egypt, bringing life out of what his brothers intended for evil. At every point where people threaten to unravel the story, God is quietly, faithfully weaving it back together.

That's the story Genesis wants us to see. God's covenant is sturdier than our dysfunction. God's faithfulness doesn't depend on our perfection.

And I suspect that's good news for many of us.

Few of us come from uncomplicated families. Some of us know what it's like to live with old resentments that have never quite healed. Some have children or parents with whom the relationship is strained. Some carry the grief of divorce, addiction, betrayal, or loss. Others have learned that loving someone faithfully sometimes means maintaining healthy boundaries.

Family life can be beautiful, but it's rarely simple.

The promise of Scripture isn't that every broken relationship will be restored exactly as we hope. Jacob and Esau's reconciliation took decades, and not every story ends that way. Instead, Scripture offers something deeper: the assurance that God refuses to abandon God's people, even when they've made a mess of life together.

That promise reaches its fullest expression in Jesus, who—by the way—also had a complicated family history.

Think about it. While it might seem random and boring to begin the Gospel of Matthew with a long genealogy, Jacob is there. Judah is there. David is there. The family tree is filled with complicated people whose stories include deception, failure, violence... and mercy.

God doesn't wait for the perfect family before entering the world.

God enters ours.

God comes to us not after we've untangled our lives, but right in the middle of them—right in the middle of our unfinished stories and our fractured relationships.

So maybe the good news isn't that your family is less broken than you think—or even than you'd like.

Maybe the good news is that God's faithfulness is greater than your family's brokenness.

Jacob spent twenty years convinced Esau's anger would be the last word. Every step toward home must have felt like a step toward judgment.

Instead, his brother came running.

Not every story ends that way. Some relationships remain broken despite our deepest prayers. Some wounds take a lifetime to heal. But Jacob's story reminds us not to mistake today's reality for God's final word.

So leave room for God to surprise you. Leave room for forgiveness you can't yet imagine. Leave room for healing that seems impossible today. Leave room for the quiet work of God in hearts you cannot see—maybe including your own.

Because sometimes, by the grace of God, the one you expected to condemn you is the one who comes running.

Amen.