A Condition-less compassion

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A condition-less compassion

Genesis 25:18-34

Do you have an older sibling? Are you a younger sibling who wished they get the rights and responsibility of the eldest? Or are you the oldest sibling? DO you understand the value of your position in the birth order? Was there things you got or rules made which benefitted you over your siblings?

In my family I am a middle child.  The second girl . before the arrival of the golden child – a boy.  In my extended step family of 5 now adult children. I’m still a middle child. 

I‘ve tried every middle child complaint in the book and the middle child realities has been well lived out in my life. I was the only one to receive all the hand me downs.  I was the only one to have to wait until I was 13 for a mobile phone. I was the only child in my family to pay for my own credit and my phone bill since I got a phone. There were many things which seemed flat out un fair.  Things like youth group, dance group and netball was always seen as my sisters thing which the little sister got in on eventually. I mean the only reason I didn’t do most of those things earlier was simply because I wasn’t old enough and my sister was 2 years older than me so had the opportunity too first.

Esau is the oldest, by just a few seconds to his twin brother Jacob.  It was those seconds that determined the customs and responsibilities in their lives within their family.  The place of the older child was so fought after that Jacob came out of the womb grabbing the heel of Esau. He wasn’t giving up the fight that easily.  The name Jacob related to the Hebrew word heel. Not only was Jacob second, but his name would forever remind him of that. 

In this passage today we have two stories about this family.  The first story, found in verse 18-27 we hear about Isaac and Rebekah and how they were childless but desired children.  Isaac prayed and the Lord answered his prayer.  It appears in this story that Rebekah’s pregnancy wasn’t the easiest of pregnancies.  Twins. The babies jostled each other within her and she inquired to God as to why this was happening.  Seems to me it wasn’t a pregnancy that could be described as a walk in the park.  The Lord explains to Rebekah that there are two nations within her, one will be stronger than the other and that the older will serve the younger. 

I wonder what Rebekah thought when she heard the Lord say that?

Mothers can be quite persistent when it’s a matter of family unity. I wonder if throughout Rebekah’s pregnancy she thought about all the ways she was going to make her boys get along and be a strong family.

 The second story within this passage is found in verses 28-34.  The boys are born. They grew up and what became of them?

Well Esau was a hunter, his father loved him, because he loved the wild game that hunting was. Jacob was happy to be at home among the tents.  I think this suggests that Jacob was a handy man, helpful around the place, fixing things, stoking fires and cooking up a mean feed.  Rebekah loved Jacob. 

Jacob is cooking a stew when Esau returns from the open country for his time hunting.  Esau is famished.  He asks Jacob for some stew because he is so famished.  Jacobs’s first response isn’t one of compassion and flat out helping out his brother.  It is one with conditions. I’ll feed you if you give me your birthright.  Jacob uses Esau’s moment of desperation to exploit him for what would benefit himself.  Esau was honest about the desperate situation he was faced with.  He was hungry, hunting hadn’t gone well and if he didn’t get something to eat he would die. 

I wonder if in a moment like that Rebekah would have reflected back to her thoughts during pregnancy and hoped that the boys would get along and stick together as family?

Jacob should have offered compassion to Esau in that moment, but instead he put conditions on his compassion.  Are there times when we put conditions on our willingness to be compassionate?  What are the times when we have a responsibility to look after people but yet still choose to condition it with things which will better ourselves first? 

I think in Australia our compassion comes with conditions when we think of refugees and asylum seekers.  We welcome them here in Australia, if they follow the ‘proper process’ of arrival. If English is a skill they have to offer and if they prove themselves to be worth the effort. 

Many of the young people I work with have conditions of the compassion they receive in the mental health sector.  They will have access to a bed in a mental health ward or access to the therapy they need if they prove they are ‘bad enough’ and need it. The conditions for their treatment is that they have to have attempted suicide or serious harm just to receive the help and even get an appointment. 

How many times are both these groups of people honest about the desperate situation that they are faced with and yet how many times do  we as a society look to placing conditions on what we offer  them?

Esau agreed to Jacob’s conditions and sold his birthright for some stew.  It wasn’t a fair deal it was fuelled by desperation in the moment. 

Jesus’ example of compassion wasn’t one with conditions.  People came to him looking for healing and he healed them. Jesus encouraged the little children to come to him, without the conditions the disciples were trying to impose.  Jesus said come to me all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. He didn’t offer rest if they agreed to his conditions. The compassion was given when people came to him.

As we look at our own lives, where are we called to offer compassion? Where do you see conditions placed on that compassion? What can you do to remove those conditions?

This passage teaches me to be willing to express compassion to those around me in desperate situations, compassion that extends past what would be seen as normal or reasonable in our society.  I am challenged as I head to work this week to approach situations and pastoral care which extends beyond ticking boxes and the conditions and offers a real compassionate response to the desperate need facing me.

How are you going to offer condition-less compassion this week?