Double trouble

Martyn Payne

Bible links: Genesis 25:21-34 (selling the birthright); Genesis 27 (obtaining the blessing); Genesis 32 and 33 (the reunion)

On Your Marks:

General introduction to the theme:

When God made people, one way they were like God was the ability to offer and receive the gift of friendship. However, following the choice to betray that trust in their friendship with God, this gift became easily broken. People often chose to hate others, turning friends into enemies. God never stopped longing for friendship with and between all. Finally, when God stepped into this world as Jesus, everyone could see the forever friendship that God offered. It was a friendship that was greater than the power of revenge, hatred and death and this was made available to anyone when Jesus rose from the dead. Again and again God showed through the stories in the Bible how hatred can be turned into love and enemies can become friends. This is the good news that we as Christians can pass on to a broken world.

Introduction to the story:

Esau and Jacob may have been twins but they had very different personalities and temperaments. They were opposites in so many ways —their appearance, their giftings and their tastes and, what is more, mum and dad disagreed as to whom they liked the best. This was a recipe for a family disaster! They should have been friends but instead they became deadly enemies. Jacob took advantage of his brother by lying and cheating in order to ensure that he would be the one who would be in charge of the family business and fortune one day and receive his father’s blessing. However, this did mean that Jacob had to run for his life in fear of Esau. Can God change such enemies into friends? Can God bring good out of this evil? Can God mend and use what is so broken? The story in Genesis shows God’s working in Jacob. Through strange experience at prayer and the long years of waiting and service away from home, God did change Jacob’s life. No wonder the Bible encourages us again and again to trust in the God of Jacob!

The following idea picks up on the theme of God reconciling these two enemies and focuses on the moment when Jacob and Esau prepared to meet again after many years. By the power of the Holy Spirit, God can turn hatred into love.

Get Set:

Use the retelling of the story from The Barnabas Children’s Bible, story 22, 'Esau and Jacob', pages 30 - 31.

Go!

1. Introduce the story, and particularly the incidents where Jacob tricks and takes advantage of his brother, with some of the following activities:

Arrange for some tasting of various lentil mixes that you have prepared earlier. Which ones do they like the best? Alternatively, and more simply, have a variety of different makes and flavours of crisps in various bowls. Can they identify which is which and which they like the best?

Play a game in which one child is blindfolded and has to try to guess who comes to sit in the chair beside him or her, just by touching their face (carefully and respectfully!), their hands and their arms. You could add an extra dimension to this by wrapping the arms and hands of the child being identified in some sort of furry material!

Talk about the group’s favourite foods. Just how much do they like these and to what lengths are they prepared to go to get these foods?

Talk about what the group finds fair and unfair in everyday life. What sort of things cause tensions in the family? Between friends? Between brothers and sisters? Between parents and children? (N.B. Be sensitive to your group and to what is shared.)

Link each of these activities to the sorry tale of what happens between Jacob and Esau!

2. Use the following sound effects and actions as scaffolding for the whole story of Jacob:
baby crying sounds
slurping food noises
stroking hands and hair
running fast on the spot
sleeping noises
a loud exclamation of ‘Wow’
a distressed shout of ‘Oh no!’
sheep noises
a cry for help
wrestling and struggling sounds

Link each of these sounds and actions to events in Jacobs’ life, like the birth of the twins; the bargaining for the birthright; the cheating to get the blessing; the running away from home; the sleeping outdoors and then waking to see angels; marrying Laban’s daughter… but the wrong bride!; working on Laban’s farm; fear at meeting Esau again; wrestling with an angel.

3. In groups work on making some props for different parts of the story:

• the recipe for Esau’s favourite food plus some pictures, of course
• Isaac’s last will and testament with alterations to give everything to Jacob, not to Esau
• use some raffia or some furry felt to make a hand and arm wrap to ‘deceive Isaac’
• Jacob’s diary entries for the night he dreamt of angels; for the day he got married to the wrong sister; for the evening before he met Esau

4. The Bible has amazing stories, for example there is lion-taming (Daniel), giant-killing (David and Goliath), big-fish-swallowing (that is, the big fish’s swallowing Jonah) and here, in Genesis 32:22-32, we have angel-wrestling! It’s a strange incident. Talk with the group about the following:
Why they think God sent an angel to wrestle with Jacob?
What did Jacob think this was all about?
Why wouldn’t Jacob let go?
What was Jacob trying to prove?
What did he learn from this incident and from all the years he’s been away from home?

Before Jacob meet Esau, he also planned and prayed a lot. He sent gifts ahead along with messengers. He was expecting the worst but God had clearly been working in Esau’s life, too. Whenever enemies become friends like this, it is God at work. In the story Jacob says that seeing Esau’s face ‘is like seeing the face of God’ (Genesis 33:10).

5. I wonder what the whole story is trying to teach us today? What is God saying about friendship?

Read Hebrews 12:14-17. The writer here is telling us that being at peace with each other is God’s grace at work and a blessing that we should seek. In the beginning Esau had been so careless with this wonderful blessing from God. We should learn to avoid treating God’s blessing in the same way.

In a time of prayer, pray for situations both local and global where friends have become enemies; where people who live in the same country are at war with each other; where people who believe in the same God have nevertheless fallen out with each other; and where people have been forced to run away from home. You could make the prayer very visual by arranging some figures to be available and whenever a particular prayer is made, two figures could be placed in the circle next to each other, together as friends and not as enemies.

6. There is a Barnabas craft idea for this story: see The Bible Make and Do Book 2—a lentil stewpot.

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