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By Michael Wilson Pastoral Letters July 31, 2026

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August 2 Worship Service Video

 

Join us for Sunday morning worship at CUC at 10:00 AM
with the He/SheBrews Café following in the Van Roon Community Hall

 

 

  • Six Month Statements are available for pick-up. Please remember that summer office hours are in effect Monday to Friday 9:00 – 2:00.

 

 

Dear Friends

Welcome to worship for Sunday, August 2, 2026.

 

Three Sundays ago, the Old Testament reading in the lectionary was the relatively benign story of the birthright of Jacob and Esau. It can be told fairly simply. Jacob and Esau were twins but Esau was born moments before Jacob and thus was the ‘oldest son’ is a culture where that title carried some significance. Genesis 25 says that the name Jacob literally means ‘he supplants’. In other words, the text prepares us for the story that follows with the naming of the child.

 

As if to illustrate that Jacob was well named, the first episode in the life of the twins is told when they are essentially adolescents. Esau had been hunting but returned empty handed. Jacob, as was his nature, remained among the tents and was cooking ‘red broth’ or ‘lentil soup’ (depending on translations). Esau was famished and exhausted and asks for a bowl of his brother’s labour. Jacob, ever ready to live up to his name, seizes the opportunity to make a deal. Esau can have a bowl of soup in exchange for his birthright.

 

The exasperation of Esau shows forth in his response, “What good is a birthright if I starve to death?” and the deal is struck. In fairness, this does not reflect well on Esau who clearly would not have starved to death in a household full of food and perhaps was blind to the implications of his brother’s offer. But neither does Jacob come across well as he fails the first rule of hospitality among nomadic people, feed the hungry. It is a story that serves mostly to move the narrative forward. Here is Jacob seeking to supplant his brother in a story with echoes of Cain and Abel, Isaac and Ishmael, and the forthcoming Joseph.

 

But it is also a story that allows us to pause and reflect on the question of birthright. What are the rights to which we are endowed and/or enabled simply as a consequence of our birth? For the moment let us set aside the idea that those rights differ depending on gender or birth order. And we need not be sidetracked by the question some raise about citizenship and birthright. If we are not citizens of the place we are born, we are citizens of no-where. But to what are we entitled by virtue of our existence?

If I take the gospel to heart then I begin by saying that simply because of my birth I have the right to be accepted. This right cannot be taken away by race or class or colour or orientation or identity. We are made, each and every one of us, in the image of God our Maker and thus are born with the right to be accepted as such.

 

We have the right to be joyful. Jesus says that he came that we might have joy and have it in abundance. In story after story Jesus greets people with grace and grants them healing with no regard to whether they believe the right things or say the right things or do the right things. As the song says God is the ‘giver of immortal gladness’ a gift I argue, given from our birth.

 

We have the right to be forgiven. It is a right the world would like to take away. But it is not a right the world has to give. It is inherent that from our birth that we are redeemable creatures.

 

I suppose a list of birthrights could be long if not endless. But any rights we would add to the list are but variations on the first.

 

We are accepted, loved, forgiven, and free.

 

Thanks be to God.

 

Grace and peace,

Michael

 

 

 

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Michael Wilson
Michael Wilson / About Author
Michael’s involvement in the wider church has included ministry with children and youth, membership on the National Division of World Outreach, supervision of campus ministry, and the Ten Days for Global Justice National Committee. He has been blessed by the opportunity to represent the United Church of Canada in the Bahamas, Cuba, and Africa on different occasions. Michael has taught at the University of Winnipeg – Faculty of Theology and is past President of the Conference of Manitoba and North Western Ontario.
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