Grace and peace to you, from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Last week, we heard the story of Abraham and Isaac. And this week, we hear the story of Isaac and his twin sons, Esau and Jacob. But some of the juicer parts are left out! Like when Rebekah convinces her son, Jacob, to steal the blessing meant for his brother. We also skip over the story of how Esau plans to kill his brother. Rebekah warns Jacob about his brother’s plans. So he runs away t

Grace and peace to you, from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. This is a tough text. I think that’s why we don’t often read it in church. But I think that this story tells us a lot about God's relationship with God’s people. We have to remind ourselves that this is an old, old, story. Thousands of years old, written for the people of that time, not this. I was reminded as I was studying this story, that in ancient times people did not have any explana

Grace and peace to you, from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. We are the end of our time in Chapter 6 of John’s gospel. It started out so well. Jesus fed 5,000 people, gained a huge following. He was almost made king against his will. And yet in this passage, he has gone too far. The talk of eating his flesh and drinking his blood was his first mistake. The law against consuming blood was part of the ingrained taboos in this culture. Blood was life.