Genesis 25: 19-34 and Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

 There‘s a cute little saying about the human brain that goes something like this: “The brain is an amazing organ. It starts working the moment you are born … and doesn’t stop until the minute you stand up to speak in public.”

I like that! And that little saying about the brain has inspired me to think up a similar saying about human life: “Life is an amazing, joyful and powerful gift! It starts the moment you are born and doesn’t stop until the minute you start eating red stew.”

That’s a reference, of course, to our first reading from the book of Genesis. It’s the story of Esau and Jacob – the twin boys born to Isaac and Rebekkah. At birth, Esau exited the womb first, with his younger brother Jacob just seconds behind and holding onto the ankle of his older brother as if trying to win the race into their mother’s arms – or more accurately – into their father’s will. You see, in those days the firstborn son was entitled to inherit the majority of his father’s estate which, in the case of Isaac, was quite substantial. This was called “the birthright.” So Jacob tried, but failed, to win the birthright from his brother Esau.

Now Esau – which means “hairy man” – was the apple of his father’s eye. He was a man’s man – a hunter – fisherman – an outdoorsman just like his dad. The two of them used to love to shop at the Bass Pro Shop, and to sit in front of the TV on Sunday afternoon watching NFL football and discussing the importance of protecting the 2nd amendment right to own and bear arms. Esau was a GUY!

Jacob … liked hanging around with his mom and the neighbor ladies – not that there’s anything wrong with that. In fact, the great benefit of that was that Jacob learned to cook! And he was good at it!

One day in the middle of hunting season, Jacob cooked up a big pot of what the Bible literally calls “red stuff.” The translators of many Bibles apparently decided that “red stuff” was not all that appealing, so they changed the words to “red stew.” And there was Jacob, stirring up this red stew when his brother Esau came in from hunting.

“I’m starving!” Esau declared. “Give me some of that red stew to eat!”

“Sure,” said Jacob, “but it’ll cost you.”

“I don’t care WHAT it costs,” answered Esau. “I’m so hungry I’ll die if I don’t get something to eat this very moment.”

Then Jacob told his older brother – the future heir of their father’s estate – what the price of the red stew would be. “Sell me your birthright,” Jacob said.

And drooling over the delicious aroma of that red stew, Esau said, “Well, if I die of starvation that inheritance won’t do me any good anyway. So, okay. It’s yours!”

And Esau sold the birthright to his brother – for a bowl of red stew.

I wonder if we could possibly add up the ultimate price of that bowl of red stew.

I would say it pretty much cost Esau his life – his future!

You see, the Bible shows us that life is not just about being alive! Life is meant to be LIVED, and the life God created us for is a life with three basic components – a past, a present, and a future. And these three components of life give us the best possible life when they are held in balance. It is the past that gives us the experience and knowledge we need to live in the present. It is the present in which we enjoy life and make decisions and take actions that create the future. And the future is that yet unseen component of life that is God’s ultimate gift to us!

As Paul writes in 1 Cor. 2:9, “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor heart even imagined the things God has in store for those who love him.”

So God created us to be creatures who receive the gift of the past to guide and inform us, the gift of the present to enjoy the moment and step forward into the future, and a future that is overflowing withwonderful , surprises, experiences, discoveries and gifts we cannot even imagine today, but are hidden in God’s storehouse awaiting our stepping through its doors!

As I was watching the news coverage the other day of the last space shuttle mission, I was feeling a little sad because I’ve always wanted to ride on the shuttle. That fantastic contraption has fascinated me from the time years and years ago when they tested its flight characteristics by launching it piggyback-style from a big Boeing 747. Do you remember? And then the first launch from Cape Canaveral in 1981, 30 years and 135 missions ago. There were tragedies along the way. And triumphs of science and technology. And as I watched the coverage this past Friday of the last launch of Atlantis – the last of the shuttles – I found myself feeling great joy for having been able to witness and experience all this.

And then I remembered something. It was back in the 1970’s. Sandy and I were enjoying lunch with some friends at the Depot St. Tavern in Hillsboro, NH. At the table next to us was a group of young men who looked like engineers. I could tell by the pocket protectors and the 15 Cross pens precisely lined up inside them. And I could tell they were engineers of some sort because they were talking about some very strange things that just sounded like the geeky things engineers would talk about. I had no idea what they meant when they said words like “launch angle” and “booster separation” and “G-forces at transonic speeds.” What in the world was a command capsule, or an external fuel tank, or any of the other things they were discussing that day? It wasn’t until almost a decade later when I heard many of those same words again when the space shuttle Columbia roared off the pad on STS-1 – the first space shuttle mission. And that day, it clicked for me. Those young guys had been talking about things they were probably working on way back in the 1970’s that ultimately became reality in the 1980’s and brought great meaning to all our lives right to this very day.

The ultimate destination of life – is the future.

That’s why God made little babies with an inner urge to get up and crawl – then to stand up and walk – and then to follow dreams – and to step into an always-inviting future.

The ultimate destination of your life – is the future!

And the decisions we make in the present, the actions we take in this moment now, determine what the future will bring.

I was listening a while ago to an interview with Ivan Lendl who is considered to be one of the best tennis players of all time. Lendl no longer plays tennis, but has become a pretty good amateur golfer. And his daughters are all about golf. Two of them play golf for the University of Florida, and a third has signed a national letter of intent with the University of – Alabama. The person interviewing Ivan pointed out the irony that the children of a star tennis player had become golfers. He responded that when the girls were little, he and his wife Samantha decided they wanted to give them a sport they could enjoy all their lives. Competitive tennis at the highest levels has a comparatively short lifespan. So they taught their girls golf. The decisions they made in the present made all the difference to their kids in the future.

Sandy and I are proud of the fact that when our grandson Ryan was born his parents – Pete and Melissa – decided to give him the gift of reading. He’s been reading since he was a tiny tot. And Ryan loves to read! Now – at 9 years old – we can see the impact of the decision his parents made way back when he was an infant. Reading has given Ryan a wonderful imagination – and a rather sophisticated  understanding of the larger world in which he lives – and the gift of language. Oh, can that boy talk! And negotiate! A while back, Ryan misbehaved and his father told him to go to his room. Ryan said, “Well, dad, I suppose I could go to my room…or perhaps I could just go downstairs and watch TV quietly.”

The decisions we make today have an impact upon the future. Learning to live toward the future is one of the best things you can do for yourself and others. It’s how God made us to be!

But sometimes, we get hung up in the present. Sometimes we let go of the future for the sake of slurping down the red stew of today. And that’s when life as God intends it comes to an end. Sometimes people die long before they are dead.

I once knew a woman named Carol. She was a member of a church I once served, and it didn’t take long after meeting Carol that I learned what a mistake it was to ever ask Carol how she was. She’d tell you. And it was never good. Carol had a way of pointing out all that was wrong with the church, her husband, her neighbors, the country – you name it, Carol complained about it. And everybody knew this about Carol. In fact, if someone in passing just happened to say, “Hey Carol, how are you?” you could almost see them trying to push the words back into their mouths!

Complaining about things made Carol feel good. It was like eating red stew! It fulfilled some present need in her life. But it drove people away. For the sake of indulging the need of the present, Carol lost the ability to form friendships into the future. Her husband eventually left. Her friends backed away. And when she died, she died pretty much alone.

Red stew comes at a very high price. It costs you relationships. It costs you happiness. It costs you the future!

Sometimes in significant moments of transition – when we are stricken with a serious illness – when we make a terrible mistake – when we accomplish a great goal – or even when we achieve some milestone like retirement – we can become so focused on where we are right now – what our wants are right now – what we think we need right now – that we lose sight of where we are going tomorrow. And when that happens, we begin to die spiritually. God did not make babies with the idea they would remain in diapers forever. Kids were not created to ride only tricycles. The human brain was not made to take in a certain amount of information and then just stop. People were not fashioned to reach a point in life where all that is left is to play bad golf and drink boxed wine.

That’s why FAITH is so important. Faith, the Bible says, is confidence in what we HOPE for, and the assurance about what we don’t yet see! Faith is living today for the FUTURE God has in store! If you want to see what faith looks like, look at people who are forward thinking about all that God can bring about tomorrow through the decisions and actions they make and  take today.

In our second reading today, we heard once again the parable of the sower. The image Jesus wants us to imagine is that of God going out among people and – like a farmer – spreading seeds of new life and growth. But human hearts are like different kinds of soil. Some peoples’ hearts – like Carol’s – are hard, and nothing new can grow. Other hearts are tangled up with all sorts of thorns and bristles – the concerns of today – and even if the seed starts growing, it eventually gets choked out. But other people have hearts that are like good soil – ready and waiting and willing to grow NEW things that will bring about the future and make life exciting and good.

My friend Don Langille had one of those good-soil hearts. How sad I was when Don got cancer. Bone cancer. By the time they found it, it was too late. Don was going to die.

Once, when I was visiting with Don, I was sharing with him how sad I was about the situation he was in. He got upset with me. “Marty,” he said, “you’re talking to me as if I’m a cancer patient – as if this cancer is who I am. But its not. I’m a human being who happens to have cancer. And I have to deal with that. But this cancer does not define who and what I am.”

Wow!

If anyone was entitled to anchor himself in the present, slurping up a bowl of red stew seasoned with lots of self-pity, it was Don. No one could possibly blame him for becoming solely focused on his present health dilemma. But he would have none of that. Don was not going to lose the future to the present of his terminal illness.

Some weeks later, Don came to me and said, “I got an idea!”

“Oh? What’s your idea?”

“You know how we always collect money for turkeys at Thanksgiving time?”

“Yeah.”

“Well I have an idea how we can maybe double or even triple the number of turkeys we give to people in need.”

“Tell me more.”

“What if we treated the appeal like a big turkey hunt? We can say, ‘It’s turkey hunting season at Greendale Peoples’ Church!’ I’ll dress up like a hunter – I’ve got this Archie Bunker kind of outfit – and we’ll ask people to buy turkey hunting licenses that will let me go and bag a bird and all the fixin’s in their name! What do you think?”

“I think it’s a great idea. Let’s give it a try!”

And that next November, Don’s Great Turkey Hunt provided more turkeys for more people than ever before. When I moved down here, I brought Don’s idea with me, and everybody knows how Dr. Deadeye Puckett has made our turkey hunt just as successful. Today, back at Greendale People’s Church, it’s now called the Don Langille Memorial Turkey Hunt. Don passed away shortly after the first one. But right up to very last day of his life on earth, Don Langille was giving life to God’s future. His was a heart of good soil, and it still brings forth a good harvest even to this very day. Thousands of people have been blessed by what Don did back then as a person who happened to have cancer.

So where are YOU these days? Are you living only for the present? Or are you living toward the future?

Today, God sets before us a menu and on it are only two items.

Red stew.

Or our future inheritance as the children of God.

Which one will it be for you?

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Originally preached July 10, 2011 – Pentecost 04, Year A