Why do we feel such self-righteous anger when we believe we have been cheated?  Why do deceptive numbers, undelivered promises, and broken vows stick to your memories or is that just me? Why is releasing our debtors so hard?  As I prayed my way through today’s Scriptures, I remembered a boss during college, whose final promise was “we will figure this out….” never panned out. Did he shrug, fix his hair, and avert his eyes before not paying a month’s wages?  I faked a smile and silently took one for Team Jesus, but the unresolved, unaddressed debt clung to my soul for years. 

Perhaps cheating sticks in our craw because God created us with an innate sense of injustice to protect us? Maybe injustice’s burn comes from the image of God within us?  The Deuteronomist tells, “For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers.” ( Duet 10)  Chapter 25 adds “all who deal dishonestly, are abhorrent to the Lord your God.”  Yes, “The Lord, the Lord, our God is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness”  (Exodus 34) but God abhors injustice. In Mark 11, Jesus, perfectly God and perfectly human, flipped over the money changers tables saying “you have made God’s house a den of robbers.”  I think cheating may be the opposite of grace. 

We have been talking about our Money Stories, I hope you have been praying about your 2026 giving to God, neighbor and Belmont. Wouldn’t it be beautiful if all of us prayed through our money stories and turned in a pledge card?  Today, we will pledge with our confirmands to uphold the church with our prayers, presence, giving, serving and bearing witness.  We know about financial stewardship, but what about the stewardship of our relationships? Do we think about our lives, the way we live, as an offering to God and neighbor?   

Jesus links finances and relationships, giving and forgiving. “Give to everyone…  Treat everyone as you would have them treat you.  Do good and lend to people expecting nothing in return.  Act like children of God, for God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. God is merciful be merciful…. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.  Give and it will be given to you.” ‭(adapted ‭Luke‬ ‭6‬) Forgiveness is a financial term: to forgive the loan, to cancel the debt, to release the obligation, to let someone go free. From the complexities of the stock market to simplicity of the offering plate, our finances and relationships are deeply interconnected. 

Jacob cheated Esau.  When they were young adults, Jacob refused to feed his brother a bowl of soup when Esau returned from an unsuccessful hunt. Not feeding the hungry violates the foundational tenants of every faith tradition. Not feeding a hungry sibling destroys any sense of family.      

Jacob and Esau grew up as rivals instead of brothers. ‭‭Genesis‬ 25‬ breaks my heart: “When the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, living in tents. Isaac loved Esau because he loved to hunt, but Rebekah loved Jacob.”  Was Jacob’s soul so famished for love, he could not give away a bowl of soup? Our fears that there is not enough soup, not enough wealth or not enough grace, spook us into doing harm.  Remember how we hoarded toilet paper during the pandemic?  Lacking love, Jacob, with his mothers blessing steals his brother’s blessing.   

Isaac told  the son he loved, “go out in the field and bring back some of that wild game that I love and prepare me one last savory meal before I die and you will have my blessing.”  Esua set out for the wilderness with his quiver, bow, and pack. Esau moved silently through the woods, remembering how his dad taught him to listen to the forest, read the tracks, notice the wind and see God all around them. It was a holy pilgrimage to give back to his dad.  

But the trickster was already cheating Esau.  Jacob slipped on Esau’s best garments, glued on a fake beard, modulated his voice, and stole Esau’s woodsy smell. Their Mom cooked a deceitful campfire meal.  Jacob stole his brother’s identity and blessing. 

When Esau returned from the hunt preparing wild pheasant  and bread cooked over an open fire, Jacob’s deception was uncovered. Esau cried out in a loud and bitter voice. Yoland Pierce shares that too often Christians rush to forgiveness without even accessing the victims wounds. (The Wounds Are the Witness) We need to hear Esau cry out , “Bless me, me also, father!”   Isaac believes he does not have enough blessing left over for Esua: “What then can I do for you, my son Esau?”  Esau weeps “Have you only one blessing, father? Bless me, me also, father!”   Thinking there is not enough grace,  we put limits, strings, conditions on God’s love. Believing there is not enough grace to go around, Isaac withholds Esau’s blessing.  

“Now Esau hated Jacob…and pondered killing him.  Before the season of grieving their father’s death was complete, Jacob will flee without a bedroll, birthright or a brother.    

It is curious that the Bible follows Jacob, the trickster telling us of “the  God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob”.  Yes, Jacob changes, wrestling all night with God and getting a new name “Israel”. But maybe, we are all Jacobs, maybe we are all tricksters needing grace. 

It is easy to grow angry at cheaters, exploiters, and systemic manipulators, but Yolanda Peirce writes in “The Wounds Are The Witness” “It is easier to imagine that we are the persecuted than the persecutor. It is easier to imagine that we are the injured party than the person holding the knife. Because that is the truth of our human condition: a willful forgetting of the harm we have done so that we can plead innocent to the crimes for which we are guilty.”  

As a refugee Jacob finds a very conditional refuge with his uncle. Uncle Laban cheated Jacob for decades until one night Jacob gathered up his wives and 13 children, hired hands, moving vans, and ran away from his second home.  Jacob leads herds of sheep, flocks of goats, and a camel train of possessions back to his homeland for a second immigration.  When Laban’s sons track Jacob down, he confronts them with the truth, “You know that I have served your father with all my strength, yet your father has cheated me and changed my wages ten times…” (Genesis 31) Could it be that being cheated transformed the cheater?  That too would be a work of grace! 

Coming back home to a place that holds wounds and hard memories, a place where there was not enough love, is an act of courage and grace. To come home Jacob must face Esau, who he cheated, a chieftain, so beloved as protector and leader of his clan that 400 warriors ride out with Esau to greet Jacob.  Jacob has no counter offensive to mount. Jacob sends his children first leading camels piled high with gifts for Esau.  His wives go next and finally a shoeless weaponless Jacob comes bowing down before his brother. Jacob lays everything he loves on the line. It is a risky move: forgiveness, reconciliation, and restoration always are.  

I imagine Jacob had  a speech prepared. How do you make amends for the sins you committed against your brother and your dying father? How do you say I am sorry? How do you restore what was never truly complete? 

Jacob comes bowing down every few feet  “But Esau ran to meet Jacob…. But Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept.”  

Esau finally looked up from the tears and saw the women and children, “Who are these with you?” Jacob said, “The children whom God has graciously given your servant.”  There is so much that scorekeeping, cheating and revenge has stolen from this family. In seeking to hold onto positions, privileges and possessions they lost forty years of family.  Jacob’s children do not yet know the stories of their grandfather hunting with Uncle Esau and sleeping under a million stars. They have not heard Esua tell about their grandfather’s own religious trauma at age 12, but restoration has begun as they watch the tears stream down their fathers faces. (Genesis 22)

Esau said, “What do you mean by all this company that I met?” Jacob answered, “To find favor with my Lord.” But Esau said, “I have enough, my brother; keep what you have for yourself.” Jacob said, “No, please; if I find favor with you, then accept my present from my hand, for truly to see your face is like seeing the face of God, since you have received me with such favor. please accept my gift that is brought to you, because God has dealt graciously with me and because I have everything I want.” 

The story of siblings estranged over birthrights, blessings, position and possessions ends with tears, restoration and grace, a kind of call and response “I have enough, my brother; keep what you have for yourself.”  and “God has dealt graciously with me and because I have everything I want.”   Oh that we might look around today and see that we have enough, that we have everything we want. 

Esau found enough to forgive, to love, to restore, to free.  Knowing an “enough” bigger than Jacob’s offense, Esau does not need a detailed accounting for every nickel, dime, debt and trespass. Perhaps, when we experience the boundless love of God, we find enough grace to stop collecting debts and to start releasing those who have trespassed against us?      

None of this is easy or simple, both men would have benefited from therapy, but Esau’s running, embracing, weeping and kissing has given Jacob the most beautiful gift, “for truly to see your face is like seeing the face of God, since you have received me with such favor… I have everything I ever wanted.”  To be  the face of God, even for a few seconds might be enough for a lifetime? What could we do in life that would be better? 

Oh that we might all come to know we have enough, that we are enough, that God’s love is enough.  If we knew the boundless love of God enough to release our debts and debtors, to risk restoration. Esau, there is a blessing for you, through your face, your brother will see the face of God, be restored and become a blessing to generations to come.  There is no limit on love, no cap on grace, may we know God’s love is enough to set us free. Amen. .