Goods for sale? Does the sale of one’s birth-right compare?

No. When merchandise is near the end of its shelf life, or when the merchant needs to make way for newer, maybe better saleable stuff, the prices of goods are marked down.

An item purchased today may have been bought for a fraction of the price paid last week. That does not mean that it has diminished in real value, in the sense of what one can do with it. But in terms of money, its worth decreases. That’s devaluation.

One thing I cannot imagine decreasing in worth is one’s birth-right. Even if your parent turned out to be notorious, that does not change who you are. Giving up your birth-right sounds like giving up on title to where you’ve come from. It’s actually disinheritance; but whereas it is usually parents (the fortune owners) who disinherit unfavoured children (would-be owners), in this case, it is the child who does the severance with ownership of what would be his in the future. It is called short-sightedness.

Yes, some self-denying persons have forsaken riches, and adopted frugal lifestyles for the sake of a particular cause. I don’t know how we’d describe Prince Harry’s shedding his title as a royal, since his family has not publicised the details of his/ their cause.

In the above cases, the persons who gave up money or title, wealth or power, did so for some calculated reason.

Here we have Esau totally controlled by his physical desire for food. He is hungry and thinks that his brother’s soup is worth more than all that would be due him as inheritance. “I am about to die; of what use is a birth-right to me?”

My oh my! He was gonna get hungry again!

Are we going to grasp the value of sacrifice; and as people would say in one place where I’ve lived “Ban up you belly”. It means “take the grind” if you must. Look ahead through your discomfort and affirm, “This too, shall come to pass.”

It is a real pity that hard times do last overly long for some people; (that’s another story)  but Esau was such a fool, I think, to let go of everything just for a bowl of soup.

And who knows? Some say the easy way is the stress-free way. If you choose to have nothing, you have nothing to lose, nothing to worry about.

O Lord, our God, help us to choose wisely and not what seems easiest at the moment. Amen.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *