Red Herring
Genesis 25:19-34; Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

July 10, 2005

Red herrings were originally exactly that: little dried smoked red fish dragged across the path in a fox hunting expedition with the intention of throwing off the hounds from the scent of the fox. A “red herring” is thus an irrelevant point raised in an argument that distracts people from the real topic and matter at hand.

Except for the red colours used at Pentecost to recall the fiery tongues of flame of the Holy Spirit descending upon the apostles, red is seldom a colour mentioned in the Bible. Purple, universally then the colour of royalty, was the hue everyone aspired to. But with the odd couple twins, Esau and Jacob, red kept coming to mind, full of puns.

When the twins were born, Esau emerged first and what everyone saw was red - red hair, reddish complexion. Esau would later be closely connected with the region of Edom, “the red land,” taken from the red soil. Actually, red is one of the fundamental colours of the Biblical narrative for after God created the heavens and the earth, God formed the first human out of the earth - adamah - again a reference to the red soil. God called this human being - Adam - “the red being.” Obviously given from a narrow racial perspective, one might say that Adam’s flesh gave off a pinkish glow.

As young adults, Esau and Jacob had established their vocations, and now the two come to complement and clash with one another. Esau comes home no doubt boasting of his hunting prowess. He got his deer, all right! Now part of that prowess has to be that he has used up all his considerable brawny strength and energy and so needs food immediately from those who are not strong enough to be hunters. No subtlety of power being exercised. He sees and smells Jacob’s creation, “I want some of that red stuff now!” The economy was barter, and Esau freely barters away his future life. Jacob proves himself to be a cunningly quick thinker, but he does not win our admiration.

An important digression now: like many an Old Testament artifact or event, there is no real certainty what that “red stuff” was that Esau lusted in his belly for and that Jacob had so skillfully brewed. Obviously must have been real power food. Some people imagine it was some lentil and bean mixture. One version is on the correct track when it translates this serving as “porridge.” I know that word has moved many of you to an emotional state akin to thinking about Marmite. Porridge has wonderful thoughts connected to it. Mmm, stick to your ribs. And now it has all become clear: the porridge of Biblical proportions is Red River Cereal. Look at that red stuff! Never mind that my son and daughter non-affectionately refer to Red River Cereal as “bird seed.” “Those who have mouths to taste” understand that this is why Esau was ready to throw away his birthright for a bowl of this stuff. Let’s face it, the red stuff had to be really good.

What’s a birthright worth anyway? Jacob was willing to play games to acquire it, and Esau acted as if his hunting prowess was of a lot more value than the fact that he was born first. When you hear this story for the first or perhaps the umpteenth time, the question remains why did Jacob think he had actually acquired this birthright? The exchange was just a bunch of silly words during the flashes of tension between two rival brothers, yet there appears to be almost a physical exchange of some piece of each other’s soul. Who did they think was listening and buying their agreement? God was evidently listening, along with every person who has ever read or heard the story. Esau gave away something he did not have the right to give away, and Jacob manipulated him to receive that which he did not really need. As the story progresses, Esau finally wakes up from his intellectual sloth and angrily declares he did not mean it, and Jacob, no longer arguing the subtleties of the exchange any more, decides it’s time to vanish and runs away.

What birthrights have we been willing to sell for a good bowl of Red River? Which birthrights are worth holding someone else hostage for? Who hears what we say in our innermost hearts, and how are we held to account for the sincerity or insincerity of our words?

Jesus knew that words are the most powerful gifts we have - and the emptiest. One of his first parables is the Sower, and what you have to pay attention to is that the only thing that matters is the quality of the soil into which the seed, the Word of God, falls and grows. No hint about the Sower’s bad aim or lack of systematic seeding, and no thought that the seed might not have been Grade A. When Jesus later interprets this parable, he does not mince words that our ears are the soil and our souls, our innermost hearts, determine the quality of that soil and how the seed will be able to grow and bear fruit, if at all.

When you take the coach bus into London from the west, it comes right off the M40 road and barrels right into the centre of the metropolis on Marylebone Road, turning right onto Baker Street passing by Sherlock Holmes’ literary address. But before you get that close you hit that wonderful traffic jam, allowing you lots of time to contemplate the marvels of a great crowded city. At one point the road is an elevated overpass, and inevitably the traffic comes to a complete halt. It always seemed to stop overlooking below the Edgware Road Tube station.

On Thursday morning, Archbishop Rowan Williams described how some of the seed had fallen on the soil of Edgware Road Station. “‘Dead silence, except for the occasional sirens.’ That was how people were describing what it was like in London yesterday afternoon. Just as when we face a personal shock or loss, there comes a moment when we don't know what to say, or how we feel, or what can be done: dead silence.

“Terrorist violence aims at just such a reaction and wants it to last. They want to silence human speech – not only by killing, but by paralysing us all.

“The terrorist’s goal is a situation in which our fear of violence and our grief and pain over violence have become stronger than our positive hopes and commitments.” (BBC Radio 4 Thought for the Day, Friday, July 08, 2005)

God is still speaking, though amidst the dead silence it is hard to hear the Word. Yet there is a Word still being sowed among us this week, but the dilemma of that seed is on which soil of your heart and soul and mind will it land and what kind of plant it will yield.

A red herring has been thrown down among us and it is very hard not to listen to its fallacious and irrelevant argument that distracts you and me from our mission. The al-Qaeda bombs in the London Underground have tossed seeds into our thorny soil, seeds about the character and nature of Islam and its adherents, the Muslims. As the seeds grow up quickly in our fertile and heated up, enraged soil, we will choke the plants and reject Islam as an evil ideology, not as one of the great world faiths. The terrorists want us to hate Islam, because that will help their cause immeasurably. The red herring is that they want us to believe that these are Islamic bombs, the vengeance of Allah upon us, that we will hate them - and make it all the easier to incite more Muslims to hate us and strap on the bombs. Just as when someone tries to win an argument deceptively by tossing in a red herring to make us forget the real issue at hand, we have to be smarter and more intelligent than that, more discerning and perceptive of the way God still moves and speaks among us.

An important seed we have to receive and bring to bear fruit 30-, 60-, 100-fold, is that we human beings are different, really different. Esau was a brawny hunter who insisted upon his machismo being acknowledged. Jacob was not macho, loved to cook and knew his way around the tents, and also knew how to seize the advantage through words and manipulation. But historically and spiritually, they are us. God kept and keeps speaking to us, on account of these brothers, not just in spite of them.

In a lot of ecumenical conversations, the tendency is to avoid politely our differences. With Jews and Muslims, we are careful never to mention the name “Jesus Christ,” and we feel uncomfortable, even a little offended when they keep referring to Rabbi Gamaliel and Muhammad. We are ecumenical only when we talk to one another in our particularity, our individuality, our different-ness. To believe we are ecumenical by acting as if they are anybody is to treat them as nobodies. We will only understand one another when we ask directly: what makes Muhammad so good, and why Jesus answers our dilemmas, and what are the virtues of being a hunter, a cook, a lawyer and plumber, a teacher and scientist? We are asking each other about the strength and weaknesses of our birthrights.

And we have all been blessed and endowed with a birthright: we are all human beings created by God as different individuals, truly and fundamentally different. The richness and depth in those different-nesses are far greater than any conflict that may arise because of them.

In God’s creation we are not meant to be alike. We as Christians need Islam in order to be good ourselves, in order for our religion and faith to be good. It is not even a question of needing Judaism; Judaism is an essential ingredient of our Christian self-identity. And so it goes for every other world religion and faith. Christianity can only have validity among the world religions, not separate and above all the others.

Which fruits, which plants, which spreading trees will these seeds plant in the earth of our hearts? What Word is God still speaking among the dead silences? May our ears come alive.

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan