A Condition-less compassion
...In an attempt to develop further as a christian leader, I am posting sermons I have prepared for my studies or for ministry opportunities. Please feel free to comment to add helpful hints so I can develop. ....
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?
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