I’ve had the story of Jacob and Esau in my head for the last little while, and all the different parts to it.
In the story there are the two brothers — twins, from the same family, the same background, the same raising. Then there’s the birthright, which was the bigger part of the father’s inheritance that was always left to the oldest son (so he could take care of the mom and any other dependents when the father died, and as the new family-head also make sure that the family name carried on.) Then there are some beans.
The story goes that Esau, the older of the twins, was basically set for life. The dad was old and blind, he was going to die and leave him two-thirds of his stuff, and Esau was going to be rich. Not only was he going to be rich, but he also had a really great place in the family that God loved the best in the whole world. His grandfather and his dad, they were the ones God picked to be the start of a much bigger story, the big story. And Esau was next.
Esau, though, he kinda liked to do his own thing. Yeah, there was lots around home to do, but he liked to live more on the wild side. He was a hunter, a man’s man, and was often gone on his own for long periods of time, away from his father, away from his family. He was strong. He was capable. He could provide for himself. His way.
The next part of the story is Esau’s not-much-younger brother, Jacob — the twin. Jacob was different. He liked home-life. He liked his family. He liked his mom. And he liked to cook. In fact, he could make a mean stew.
That’s where the beans come in.
Beans are good. They’ve got a nice flavor. They fill you up. In fact, there’s not much better then to come in out of the cold or be just plain starving and there be a hot bowl of beans waiting. With cornbread, as chili, doesn’t matter. Beans are awesome. And that’s what Jacob was a-stirring in a pot on the particular day this story took place.
Just plain starving is what Esau was on that fateful day that Jacob made his mean bean stew. He’d been out on a hunting trip, running through the country, chasing, I don’t know, animals and stuff. This time, though, as skilled as he was, he hadn’t gotten anything. And he was starving hungry. Like, man-hungry.
(Ok. Side note. I’m not a man, maybe it’s different for them, but I know that after three days or so without eating you don’t really feel hungry any more. And I know that you can live for much longer than three foodless days without dying. So Esau couldn’t have gone longer than three days with an empty stomach, so he couldn’t have actually been starving to his actual death. But whatever. Maybe that’s a rabbit trail.)
SO. Esau came home as Jacob was making stew. Esau wanted some, of course, and Jacob, seeing an opportunity to give Esau what he wanted in exchange for what Jacob wanted, offered to trade Esau the birthright… for beans.
See, Jacob did want it. He wanted the inheritance. He wanted to be the family-head. He wanted the place in the big story. I guess he must have wanted to take care of his mom, too, since that went with it.
Esau didn’t even think. He had to have what he had to have, and he rationalized that no big-story stuff or inheritance or family-head-anything was going to help him out if he was dead (again, perhaps a slight overreaction), so Esau agreed. He swore it all away… for beans. He ate them till he was full again, and then got up and left. He was satisfied, and, for a while at least, nothing changed for him. But everything changed.
For Jacob, the situation was kind of… opposite. He traded up, for sure, but he missed lunch that day. He had to give up his lunch of beans to get what he wanted in the long run. That afternoon, since Jacob was a man, you can bet he was starving. Probably felt like he was going to just die. For him it felt like everything changed for the worse. It only lasted a little while, though. Dinner time came around before long. He didn’t have a crockpot, but… how long does it take to cook beans, Mom?
The rest of the Bible doesn’t have nice things to say about Esau. In fact, one place I found in Hebrews says, “See that no one… is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son.”
Seems pretty harsh to call him godless, right? All he did was trade down for something that seemed more important to him at the time. But then, the more I think about it, maybe that’s what it actually means to be… godless.
Esau was actually not much different than the rest of us. He wasn’t much different than me. In fact, he was a lot like me when I’ve been the most godless, when I’ve chosen what I want right now, what I feel like I have to have, and have sacrificed what’s really important to have it. I’ve traded what’s important for a single meal, so to speak. I’ve traded big-story things for beans.
There have been times when I’ve said something I shouldn’t have, because biting my tongue would have been painful and I just had to say it or I felt like I’d just die. In the long run, though, I traded peace, what I really wanted, for what I wanted at the moment. And that was godless. My words were beans. And on it goes. I’ve been godless with my money — buying what I’ve wanted now instead of saving it for something more valuable later. I guess I’ve rationalized and compromised and traded down in just about every area at some point in life.
The opposite of that though, trading up, that’s being godly. I guess there’s a sense in which Jacob did the right thing when he gave up his lunch that day. It’s kind of like what Jesus did much later in the big story, when he counted his life, he counted what he wanted, as beans. When he gave it up, even though it hurt for a while. When he traded it for something much greater.
Maybe that’s why the Bible makes such a big deal about not living like Esau. We’re not supposed to trade the important things in life for ones that don’t matter in the long run, we’re supposed to trade the little stuff for things that last.
I don’t know, the story just makes me ask myself a bunch of questions, like where my place is in the big story, in God’s faith-family that he’s picked out of the whole world to be his. It makes me ask if I’m the kind of person who’s out running around to make it on my own or one who loves to be around God’s people and wants to look out for them and take care of them. It makes me ask myself what single meal I would sell my place in God’s family for, or what all-important single meal I would give up to keep it. It makes me ask myself if I really want the things that last.
Big-story stuff. That’s what’s really important. The rest is just… beans.
