Birthright

Ever so slowly and laboriously, I’ve been writing about being cheated, using the Biblical story of Jacob and Esau as a springboard because this was the idea that came to me one day as I cleaned house. Perhaps bringing into the light of consciousness what had been hidden before was a sort of house cleaning I needed in my spirit. Whatever the case, Jacob and Esau presented themselves to be part of the cure.

When dissecting a story, myth, or fable for analytical purposes, we look at it and mull it over from as many angles as we can, much as a person views a painting or sculpture from many angles. One of the things I like most about visiting art museums is the benches placed here and there in front of major pieces of art. One can sit and mull, absorb, sketch, write, and finally interpret the work.

INHERITANCE

One obvious question that arises when mulling over the story of Jacob and Esau is what was the blessing these brothers wrangled over? What was the fuss about? What constituted a Biblical birthright or paternal blessing? Is there a difference between a blessing and a birthright? How can we apply this knowledge today?

The Biblical birthright referred to the special privileges and advantages that belonged to the first-born son. The first-born son was the priest of the family and received a double portion of the father’s wealth. He inherited whatever honorable title and judicial or royal authority the father had. Jesus Christ was said to be “the first-born among many brethren.” To the Hebrews, the Biblical birthright was quite important.

Although the birthright was just that, a right, it was a right that could be removed by God or the father of the first-born son. Although Reuben was the first born of the sons of Israel, God removed his right to become high priest and gave the right of perpetual priesthood the tribe of Levi, from whom Jesus was descended. Because of Reuben’s poor conduct, God also removed the double portion of wealth he should have inherited. In another Biblical case of disenfranchisement, King David passed his judicial authority to Solomon rather than to his first-born son, Adonijah.

The only Biblical case of a first-born son who willingly gave up his own birthright is that of Esau, who traded his birthright to his twin brother Jacob for a bowl of lentil soup. Esau’s action is particularly scandalous because only God or the father had the authority to confer or rescind the birthright and its attendant blessing. Esau’s decision to give up his birthright for something temporal and cheap wasn’t only willful, it was arrogant and showed the height of disrespect. In effect, Esau told his heavenly and earthly fathers that their treasures and titles were worth no more than a bowl of soup.

During patriarchal times, the effects and bounty of the birthright were not clearly defined except by custom. Once small clans or tribes grew into larger entities or nations, the royal right of succession applied to the firstborn son. Eventually, the rights of the eldest son became specific:

• The rights, authority, and spiritual functions of the priesthood accrued to the firstborn son and his family, including the right to give prophetic blessings.
• A double portion of the paternal property was given to the firstborn under Mosaic law.
• The eldest son succeeded to the official political authority of the father. Thus, the first-born of the king was his successor by law.
• The eldest son became the head of the family when the father died, and was thus responsible for the family property and property.

THE BLESSING

The spiritual and prophetic blessing given to the first-born son differs from the entire birthright, although the blessing can (and should be) part of the birthright of the first-born. In Biblical times, because parents were inexorably bound to Yahweh in a theocracy, spiritual possessions were assumed to exist alongside the temporal. Parents thus saw their children through spiritual as well as physical eyes. When the parents became elderly and frail, or whenever they thought it was time to confer this spiritual blessing, they called the children to them and, laying hands on them, blessed them.

The blessing can be divided from the birthright, as was the case with Esau and Jacob. Initially, Esau traded only his birthright to Jacob, reserving the blessing for himself. Jacob and Rebekah, their mother, conspired together to cheat Esau out of his blessing, too, and managed to succeed (Genesis 27). Thus Jacob received the birthright because Esau willingly gave it up; but the prophetic, spiritual blessing he received through deceit.

Biblical blessings such as the one Esau lost had several elements, which Gary Smalley and John Trent identify in their book, The Blessing:

• Meaningful touch
• Spoken words
• Expressing high value
• Picturing a special future
• An active commitment

As Smalley and Trent write, “Esau was willing to trade [the birthright] away without a second thought to meet a momentary hunger pang, but losing the family blessing was another story. When Esau lost his blessing from his father, he was devastated” (19).

As I mulled over the story of Jacob and Esau, it was helpful to understand that the birthright and blessing were two different things. Esau was never able to regain either; Jacob received the blessing and the birthright, but as far as anyone can tell, never inherited his father Isaac’s material property.

In my personal myth, what is my birthright? Where is my blessing? What meaningful touch and words were conveyed to me by my parents? And if my parents failed to convey a unique picture to me for my future path, what did God have to say about it? For what birthright and blessing was I willing to wrestle all night with an angel? For what have I been willing to be crippled for life? What truths and callings keep welling up inside of me, unbidden but irrepressible?

99 Balloons

Nine years ago today, our 12-year-old daughter died of renal failure. The way the parents in this video handled their son’s birth, catastrophic diagnosis, and death seems very beautiful to me. I wanted to share it as an expression of how we too feel about our daughter’s short but blessed life.

This is for you, honey. I miss you and love you, carry you in my heart, and always thank God for you.

Lost

We’d had heavy thunderstorms for several days, but the temperature had not dropped. When I took the dogs out first thing that morning, the air felt heavy, warm, and wet. Low-lying clouds hung over the woods in the distance, teats full of rain. Another storm was coming.

As I waited on the dogs, a small movement caught my eye to the left. With surprise, I noticed a fledgling bird on our back porch, peering up at me and seeming as surprised to see me as I was to see him. “Why, hello there,” I said, bending down to get a better look. “What are you doing here?”

The little bird looked at me soberly, craning his neck. Not the least bit afraid, he stared me full in the face as if to say, “What do you think I’m doing here? I’m lost!”

He didn’t appear to be wounded or hurt in any way, but was so still he looked carved of wood. Only his eyes blinked. As I ushered the oblivious dogs back into our house, I speculated about how he might have become lost. I knew of no nests near that part of the house, but scanned the trees for them anyway.

I went back inside and watched the little bird through the window, mulling over what to do. I could capture the bird, cage him, and feed him until he was old enough to fly and care for himself. Our youngest girls would be thrilled. I could leave him alone and see if he worked out his destiny on his own. I could wait and see whether his mother might find him. Surely by now she had noticed him missing.

“What are you looking at?” my daughter Juniper asked as she entered the room. “This fledgling,” I pointed. He’s fallen from his nest somewhere and is lost on our porch.” Juniper observed the little fellow with interest. “What are you gonna do about him?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I was just wondering about that,” I said as I fixed my second cup of tea for the day.

After a few minutes, Juniper exclaimed, “Mom! Look! I think his mother’s out there!”

Sure enough, a larger bird with his same coloring and markings was perched on the plant hook above the little fellow, chirping. “Chirp! Chirp! Chirp!” she’d say, and “Peep! Peep! Peep!” he’d reply. Once a hearty litany of chirping and peeping had been established, the mother began to move a foot away from her baby with each series of chirps. The fledgling followed, flapping his stubby little wings with excited salutes and standing tall on tippy-toes as if to say, “I’m with you, Mum! Aye-aye, Mum!”

Attracted by all the chirping and peeping, three or four birds of other varieties joined in the chorus and began to flutter around the mother-child pair with some excitement, one settling in our Redbud tree, another perching on the edge of a flower pot, one hopping between the roof and the top of a deck chair.

The mother and baby appeared to be Scissor-tailed Flycatchers, our state bird. With tails four times longer than their bodies, they can do air stunts and acrobatics like nobody’s business. But the fledgling had still the stubby wings and short tail of a child; without his mother’s help he was unlikely to find his way to safety.

I followed the pair past our pool house and to the mature pear tree near the fence dividing our yard from our pasture. In spite of the other bird calls surrounding him, the fledgling steadfastly followed his mother’s voice. The mother appeared to be leading her baby toward our barn. I worried about his ability to survive in the open as he crossed the field, and about what would happen when he couldn’t be returned to the nest due to his inability to fly. Still, his mother continued to chirp with confidence, insisting, “Follow me! Come this way!”

The last time I observed the pair, he had taken shelter under a lawnmower and she was perched on a branch above him, urging him forward. My husband had driven past us with a load of lumber and it was as if the mother had called, “Hide under that thing, junior, until Danger has passed!” Once my husband drove away, their journey commenced. Though a part of me fretted about what prey this baby might become in the open field, I had confidence in the mother’s ability to direct her offspring. She had gotten him this far; what she did with her baby was her business. She had not, after all, ever tried to interfere with my childrearing.

As I went about my morning chores, I thought about the small drama I’d witnessed over the past 45 minutes and a parable of Jesus came to mind. St. John the Apostle records that after Jesus healed the man who had been blind from birth, the religious leaders of the day confronted the healed man, accusing him of being a blasphemer and follower of Jesus rather than a true Jew and follower of Moses. Jesus had healed the blind man on the Sabbath, an act prohibited by law according to the religious leaders, who began to bicker over whether Jesus could truly be from God and be a Sabbath-breaker at the same time.

In response to all the bickering, Jesus told his followers,

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name, and leads them out. When he puts forth all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. And a stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers.”

This figure of speech Jesus spoke to them, but they did not understand what those things were which He had been saying to them.

Jesus therefore said to them again, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal, and kill, and destroy; I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. He who is a hireling, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, beholds the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep, and flees, and the wolf snatches them, and scatters them. He flees because he is a hireling, and is not concerned about the sheep. I am the good shepherd; and I know My own, and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. (John 10:1-18)

“A stranger they simply will not follow.” Like the fledgling who knew his mother’s voice and followed it, beloved children hear the voice of the Good Mother, the Good Father, the Good Shepherd, and follow. It is the simplest thing in the world to follow the good shepherd of our souls when we know his voice, when we know from long experience that this voice can be trusted.

Children who have not been loved, but who have been abused and neglected and grown up unprotected do not know the voice of the good shepherd. Having been trained by parents who act like thieves, hirelings, and robbers, they became habituated to the voices of thieves, hirelings, and robbers. Their childhoods were lived in emotional war zones rather than sunny, verdant pastures fit for lambs. Never knowing from which direction danger might come, they lost the ability to hear the good voice and became accustomed to the survival mentality necessary for those raised in war zones. They cannot live in true community, do not understand or manifest loyalty, and deeply mistrust everyone, including themselves. Without a spiritual rebirth, they are doomed; this is why Jesus said, “You must be born again.”

Where is the hope for the lost lamb, the lamb who has been raised by hirelings, thieves and robbers, by shepherds who flee when danger approaches and teach their sheep that they’re on their own? It is in being born again, in somehow being taken to a place where they are once again protected in womb-like safety, nurtured and protected until the time comes when they are ready to come out of the womb (the tomb) and live.