Saw a great ad in the newspaper last week for the Great Clips for Hair salon. Lots of young, thin, athletic people including a mom with two moppets filled the page. The headline read: “Your image is everything, how much it costs can be our little secret.”
This is brilliant advertising. It appeals to every piece of our shadow imaginable. It promises to fix our loser insides with a cosmetic outside called “image”. It promises to do this magic work out of sight, behind the curtain--it will be our little in secret. The ad says: “You may be pathetic, but we’ll keep your secret for a price you can afford. We’ll help you fool everyone into thinking you are actually acceptable and adequate.
Jacob availed himself of the Great Clips for Hair promise. Jacob was the younger of twin boys, living in the shadow of Esau on whose heels he was literally born.
Esau was always first. Like Tommy Smothers, his mom loved him best! He played the right sports to be popular with the cheerleaders. He had hair. Lots of it. The right kind of hair, great manes of wild, wooly hair. He had hair on his head, hair on his chest and according to scripture, hair on his hands. Esau was quite simply and by his own description, an hairy man.
Unfortunately Esau had a psychopath for a brother. Esau almost didn’t get born because Jacob was hauling on his heels during delivery. Jacob became his mother’s favorite which pales in comparison to being daddy’s little boy. Jacob stayed home growing his vegetable garden and currying favor with the parents. Esau was out killing things and not paying attention to business.
One day Esau came home from a hunting trip in the outback, he was starved. He asked Jacob for some bean soup. “I’ll give you some if you give up your inheritance,” says Jacob knowing how desperate Esau was.
Esau went for this devil’s ploy. Later on Jacob conspired with his mother to defraud Esau not only of his inheritance, but his father’s blessing as well. This is how he did it.
Jacob went to Great Clips Hair Salon and got a wig. He dressed up as a hairy man like his brother Esau. Even with his great costume his high, squeaky voice almost gave him away. But Great Hair Clips hair fooled old man Isaac who was really old and really blind. Not only did Jacob have a high, squeaky voice, but he stank of cow manure. He smelled like a farmer and this almost gave him away too. Once again Great Clips came to the rescue with Testosterscent, the He Man Hunter Cologne. The ruse worked perfectly on poor old Isaac. Jacob’s false front took first place at the Halloween party. Isaac gave Esau’s paternal blessing to Jacob. Poor Esau, he went from hero to goat in three painful lessons.
Have you ever met anyone named Esau? I suspect not. He is such a loser. There are lots of Jacobs, but nary an Esau. Even though Esau comes across as an innocent, he is still a dupe in his younger brother’s wily imagination.
Jacob on the other hand is a pragmatist. Never held back by scruple, he always did what he needed to do to get where he wanted to go. The story isn’t pretty although it has one of the greatest romances in history in his pursuit of Rachel.
In this morning’s scripture we are watching the trailer of the “Tale of Two Brothers” movie which includes the spoiler of the plot. Esau is coming home for a final shootout with Jacob and he is not coming alone.
All Jacob cares about is survival. So he does what practical fellows have always done. He prepares to sacrifice ½ of his property and family to Esau. No anguish; no agony for him. Divide ‘em in half and hope that Esau kills the right half.
Jacob is all image, all persona. There really is no one home. Into this moral vacuum comes an angel, a messenger of God. The angel introduces Jacob to the depths and intricacies of life. He introduces moral and ethical struggle. Even though Jacob is a moral lightweight he is a feisty antagonist. He and the angel fight all night to a draw. Even after Jacob suffers a dislocated hip, he still won’t let go. He is like my hero Bruce Willlis. Maimed, bleeding, torn and disheveled he is still wise-cracking and persevering beyond the end.
“I won’t let go unless you bless me” says Jacob. As he did from his earthly father so many years before, Jacob receives a blessing from his heavenly father. Blessings cost something. In this case Jacob’s blessing means his old life is over and a new one is to begin.
He gets a new name; a new identity. Jacob who has always been on the run, will still run, but as a marked, limping man.
No one really knows with whom Jacob wrestled. Himself? The Devil? With God? An Angel? The powers of darkness in himself? With his own conscience?
It doesn’t really matter. The answer is: all of them. God is certainly in our struggles for wholeness. What we call our antagonists in the battles in the night doesn’t make much difference. Practically speaking they are all the same.
Jacob’s struggle is ours. We live lives dedicated to survival and many of our strategies involve creating a workable image that will get us by. God’s plan is for us to be full of a real person. God wants us to be full, complete, holy. God wants us to know who we are, to know whose we are, and to find out how our behavior affects people besides ourselves.