Reconciliation or Revenge
I am scheduled to preach this week, with Genesis 33 as my text. The story is superficially straightforward: Esau welcomes Jacob back to Palestine 20 years after Jacob fled from Esau. The brothers are reconciled. But there is much to consider between the lines.
First, we should remember that for ancient Israel, Jacob is the patriarch and Esau the father of Edom. Attitudes toward the international neighbor lie close to the surface. Second, the prior chapters of Genesis make it clear that Jacob treated Esau badly, swindling him out of his inheritance as the older brother (though they were twins) and cheating him out of their father Isaac’s blessing. Esau had good reason to resent Jacob.
Jacob came back from twenty years in Paddan-Aram—the home of his mother Rebekah, where Jacob had acquired two wives, two lesser wives, eleven sons, and a great deal of wealth (mostly in the form of herds of cattle and flocks of sheep). There may well have been a few hired men as part of his caravan, but Jacob had nothing like the 400 armed men with which Esau came to meet him.
The meeting was a crisis for Jacob. He feared Esau, for good reason. The text describes Jacob’s elaborate attempt to appease Esau. Before meeting Esau, Jacob wrestled with a “man” and received God’s blessing: Jacob became Israel.
God had chosen Abraham. The promise to Abraham was extended to Isaac and Jacob, though the story honestly shows Jacob’s unworthiness. It is a story of grace and forgiveness, not righteousness. The brothers are reconciled because Esau—icon of the foreigner—forgives.
Notice how this story contrasts with many of the morality tales of our culture. We do have “moral stories” after all; every culture does. Our entertainment often offers us stories of good versus evil. Consider some generic antagonists: 1) the murderer who exults in his power and taunts the good guy; 2) the manipulator who is always one step ahead of her victim, convincing everyone that her victim is guilty of some crime, and cleverly closing off any avenue of escape; 3) the illegal gangster whose organization sells addictive and deadly drugs and yet lives in luxury; or 4) the legal gangster whose organization swindles widows out of their life savings via robocalls selling empty promises.
It’s not hard to point to examples of these bad guys. Consider how you feel when watching these morality tales. Consider also how, in these stories, there is “pay back”: the protagonist corners the murderer and shoots him; the victim turns the corner on the manipulator by fooling some other manipulator and creating a war between two manipulators; a team of police officers lure the gangster and his men into a battle where most of the gang is killed; the otherwise peaceful protagonist walks into the swindlers’ headquarters with gasoline and explosives, leaving it a smoldering wreck.
Be honest with yourself. How do the “pay back” scenes make you feel? Do you rejoice at the destruction of the bad guys? What does this say about the moral education we are giving ourselves?
The problem isn’t only with our feelings. Sometimes we are convinced by the “logic of intolerance,” which I described in The Virtue of Civility in the Practice of Politics (p. 59).
1. Truth is of infinite value.
2. We can identify the liars.
3. Therefore, we have an overriding duty to stop the liars.
The logic of intolerance seemingly gives us good reason to do whatever it takes to stop the liars. (Imagine a proposal to invite a pro-choice speaker to a National Right to Life convention or the reverse, inviting a pro-life speaker to a NARAL meeting.) In class lectures, I often illustrated the logic of intolerance with the example of Queen Mary, “bloody Mary,” who in the sixteenth century undermined her own authority in England by persecuting protestants. As a Catholic, Mary thought she had a duty to suppress protestant preaching.
We can escape the logic of intolerance through Fallibilism. This is the well-founded belief: “I might be wrong.” Fallibilists will support civility because they can see the political enemy as a resource for better decision making. As my friend Ron Mock often says, disagreement is a gift from God. We ought to steward our disagreements by learning from each other.
“Wait a minute!” Someone will object. “I can be a fallibilist about many things, but some of my beliefs are commitments; I stake my life on them. I cannot be a fallibilist about certain beliefs. About some things, I cannot be open-minded.”
As a follower of Jesus, I agree with the objection. I am committed to Jesus. (Also, as a philosopher, it’s impossible to be open-minded about everything. Some things stand fast for us, in Wittgenstein’s words.)
So, what should a follower of Jesus think about reconciliation vs. revenge? The question only needs to be raised to see the answer. “If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.” (Matthew 5:23, 24)
