The Favored Son

Mom always liked you best.

If you are old enough, you might remember that classic line from the Smothers Brothers routines.  The heart of the matter was a competition between brothers.  One was the favored one and that led to many funny dialogues with us finding ourselves pitying the unloved Tommy while alternating in our support of his favored brother Dick.

It is a classic battle that goes back to the earliest stories in The Bible, with Cain and Abel, and Isaac and Ishmael.

Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, ‘Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Can Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?’ And Abraham said to God, ‘O that Ishmael might live in your sight!’ - Genesis 17:17-18

In today's reading, we encounter Abraham at 99.  He is content. His desire to be a father has left him with a 13 year old boy of whom he is proud.  That boy is Ishmael, son of Hagar, the maid of Sarah.

Now we could pause the story here and consider the consequences before Abraham.  He was promised a son and he got a son, and now thirteen years later he is laughing at the idea of having another son at his age, even though he was quite old when Ishmael was born.

So, there must be more to the story than that. Abraham is troubled, and the trouble just keep getting worse.  Today, we are still dealing with the consequences of the decision to have two sons.

What bothers me is why would God get in the middle of such a mess?

All throughout The Bible, God chooses sides, picking one over another, not always favoring the firstborn, siding with the weak or the least likely to succeed.

Why does he do that?  He knows we will be troubled, that someone will get angry, that the decision will lead to violence and death.  So, I ask, why does it matter to us?

For the Smothers Brothers, the formula worked well.  They had many successful comedy albums and a television show.  People related to the struggle between the brothers, laughing at themselves for choosing sides in the ridiculous debate.

In the end, we all knew the joke was on us.  Because we care about being loved and wanted we watched and listened.  So, what is God trying to teach us by choosing?

If we believe we got the stories right, that they were passed down the way they really happened, we might wonder why.  But in the end, we cannot change the outcomes, so we have to live with the stories we have and accept them as the best interpretations of reality we could have.

That leaves us with our own reactions to them.

Interestingly, as a Christian who cannot yet trace my ancestry back to either of the brothers, I have no real skin in the game.  I am an outsider of sorts, brought to the table by Paul and later Constantine who forced Christianity on an empire.

For me, all the bickering and choosing sides ended with Jesus.  He welcomed all the lost and rejected, all who were not at all favored.  And we believe his words, his actions, his love are from the one true God, the Father.

So, we tend to take the past with a grain of salt, appreciating the significance of the stories, and connecting with the love God has for his chosen people, but we also accept that all became chosen through Christ.

Radical, I know.  But is it better to believe God loves one and not the other?

No matter what I think, there will continue to be hatred and jealousy, brotherly infighting in the struggle to be the favored sons and daughters.

It's a shame, really, because we could be spending our time working together to help the ones who have nothing, rather than tearing up the world trying to prove we have the eye of God upon us.

So, I pray for sanity.  I pray for the sons and daughters of Ishmael and Isaac, that one day they may come together in peace.

Then, of course, the one who makes the first move, may claim to be the wiser, and it  will start all over again.

More to come...