Genesis 33:12-16: Then Esau said, “Let us journey on our way, and I will go alongside you.” But Jacob said to him, “My lord knows that the children are frail and that the flocks and herds, which are nursing, are a care to me, and if they are overdriven for one day, all the flocks will die. Let my lord pass on ahead of his servant, and I will lead on slowly, according to the pace of the cattle that are before me and according to the pace of the children, until I come to my lord in Seir.” So, Esau said, “Let me leave with you some of the people who are with me.” But he said, “Why should my lord be so kind to me?” So, Esau returned that day on his way to Seir. But Jacob journeyed to Succoth and built himself a house and made booths for his cattle; therefore, the place is called Succoth.
Every so often—when I’m reading the Bible—a story or a set of stories will ring so true to me that I can feel the impact of it in my gut, and that is what happens to me every time that I read the ending of Jacob and Esau’s reconciliation story. Everything has gone well up to this point. Esau has been thrilled instead of angry to see his long-lost, no-good brother. Both Jacob and Esau have gotten to see and to experience that the other brother is no longer the same person who they were back when Jacob first stole Esau’s blessing. There has been forgiveness and grace, and a good, solid foundation has been built for the brothers to come back together and to be brothers again. But when Esau asks Jacob to come with him, Jacob refuses. Esau even tries to find a way for what he is offering to work—given Jacob’s excuse—and yet again, Jacob says no. The brothers part ways, and they never see each other again.
Oof. That stings, right? In the end, even humility and effort couldn’t repair had been broken between these twins.
The thing about unhappy endings, though, is that while a person is grieving the undesirable outcome and working through the disappointment of their unrealized expectations, life goes on. And eventually—as the person muddles through their lament and their pain—they will come out onto the other side and see that life has gone on. Celebrations will have been celebrated. Milestones will have been achieved. Flowers will have bloomed, and crops will have been planted and harvested. The sun will have risen and set a couple dozen or a couple hundred times. Most of the world will have been so busy dealing with their own stuff that they won’t have even realized that there is a person out there whose heart has been broken. Nothing will be as the person hoped that it would be, but it will be amazing all the same. And in that moment, that is all that a person could ask for. God kept the world going and continued to make it beautiful even in the midst of it all falling apart. So, even in what might feel like failure, God is making all things new. There is still hope, no matter where a person might find themselves.
It sucks when you have done the hard work of peacemaking, and when you have reached out, and reevaluated yourself, and submitted yourself to the give and take of cooperation, and when it goes nowhere. It absolutely sucks to have the other person not give you the same courtesy. It sucks when “happily ever after” gets dashed. It sucks when the other person doesn’t desire the same sort of reconciled relationship that you desire. It sucks, and it is unhealthy to pretend that it’s not.
But at the same time, there was an attempt made. There was a willingness to engage and to work through the conflict. There was an opening of eyes, a shifting of hearts, and a resetting of starting points. There was forgiveness made, extended, and received. And forgiveness is powerful. There is, after all, a reason why Jesus chose not to repay our violence with violence and willingly went to the cross. If God is a gardener, then forgiveness is His all-in-one planting and weeding tool. Forgiveness sets free and builds and creates and makes once poor soil fertile again. God doesn’t need for things to have gone our way for forgiveness to work. It brings about transformation and goodness and even when we don’t get to see it.
Have hope, friends. Have a little faith. Even when Jacob walks away and Esau’s heart is broken, God is reconciling things in the background. God is making beauty for us that which we cannot always make for ourselves.
Hannah Lutz is the pastor at both Ada Chapel Friends Meeting and Wilmington Friends Meeting in Wilmington.
