The trickster stirred the pot and knew what was about to happen.
Esau was hangry (hunger that makes you angry). Maybe it was merely his unsuccessful hunt for food. Maybe he was upset by the high cost of groceries. Who really knows since we all carry around lots of baggage that affects the decisions we make.
But here’s twin brother, Jacob, skillfully simmering a stew so scintillating it will strip his stupid sibling of his birthright. Oh, man! That smells so good, and I’m starving!
Steve Cothran
I’ll give you some, but it’s gonna cost you everything.
Who cares! I’m dying over here and “everything” can’t help me if I’m dead!
OK, then swear it, and I’ll give you this bread and some stew.
I swear!
“So Esau ate and drank, and got up and left. And he despised his birthright.” — Genesis 25:29-34
Although Jacob gets glamorized by the Judeo-Christian faith, he is one of the most unsavory characters in Scripture. What kind of a jerk screws over his own brother, lies to his dying father, and tricks the old blind man to seal the deal before finally running for his life to avoid the consequences of his deception?
Look, normally, I try to veil these a bit and let you scratch your heads and ponder them, but we can’t afford that luxury today. Besides, Esau’s not the sharpest tool in the shed anyway so let’s just make it plain.
A conniving con artist has been stirring the pot because he wants what you have. And he’s scammed you into believing you’ll die if you don’t lap up the lies he’s ladling.
With the slipperiness of a fly-by-night used car salesman, he knows you want to go somewhere and so he promises you the moon.
“Trust me, I can fix it! It’ll be so amazing you won’t believe it, a once in a lifetime deal,” he lies, nudging your hand to the dotted signature line.
“But where is this amazing vehicle you keep talking about?” you wonder. “Trust me,” he says. “You’ve never seen anything like this before.”
“No matter how hangry you feel right now and no matter how good that stew might seem, the cost is way too high.”
You glance across the street at the much more reputable establishment, one that hasn’t gone out of business multiple times or been convicted of fraud. It’s a place that actually has vehicles on the lot and where sales have steadily increased over the past four years.
Sensing he might be losing the sale, he plugs in the blower and an inflatable-flapping-arm man suddenly springs to life and begins to jerk and dance, distracting you from reality.
You watch the orange balloon — contorting, convulsing, flip-flopping all over the place — and you realize he looks a lot like Jacob, the trickster, pulling your leg.
These feeble attempts to gaslight you — to contradict reality confirmed by your own eyes and ears — are as laughable as a child in a Star Wars Halloween costume waving his hand while saying, “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.”
You flashback to Esau, selling out his progeny for some momentary comfort food, staring at his now empty bowl and reflecting on the regret of this moment for the rest of his life. It split the family in two and made him so angry he wanted to kill his brother.
Your gut rumbles. Synapses might still be signaling hunger, but you realize it’s just not worth it.
No matter how hangry you feel right now and no matter how good that stew might seem, the cost is way too high.
Steve Cothran is a native of Greenville, S.C., and holds degrees from Furman University, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Campbell Divinity School. He has served churches in Florida, North Carolina and Georgia, as well as six years in Kentucky where he and his wife, Nancy, were on the same staff together. He has written curriculum for Smyth & Helwys, CBF and d365, enjoys writing regular columns for the Newnan Times-Herald, and dreams of being the oldest cast member on Saturday Night Live.