“Nothing but a Sell-Out”

A Service of the Word for the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time
July 12, 2026: IN-PERSON and ONLINE at 10:30 a.m.
The Rev. Matthew Emery, lead minister, preaching
Romans 8:1-11 and Genesis 25:19-34

The stories we hear in Genesis, the first book of the Bible, set a foundation for who the people-of-God who come to be known as the Israelites understand themselves to be… the same family tree of faith into which we all are grafted through Jesus Christ. Sometimes the stories highlight something about who we understand God to be, and sometimes the stories highlight something important about who we understand ourselves to be. We started journeying alongside these stories a couple of weeks ago, and will continue to do so through much of the summer, meeting familiar names along the way like Abraham and Sarah, Issac and Rebekah, Jacob, and Joseph (the one with the amazing technicolour dreamcoat).

In this week’s scene, we meet up with Jacob and his brother Esau, sons of Isaac and grandsons of Abraham. Rivalry, tension, favourtism within the family—so many realities of the human condition we’re all too familiar with today were just as much the case so long ago. People don’t always get what they deserve. But, it turns out, with God, people don’t always get what they deserve, either… God can and does work through all kinds, giving us far better than we deserve and far more than all we could ask or imagine.