Confession: I have long judged Esau. Hard.

I mean, who sells their birthright for a bowl of red lentil soup? The whole story is equal parts laughable and sad, at least on the surface level: twins who could not be more different, parents who favor the twin most like themselves, boiling soup and boiling brotherly contention (Genesis 25: 29-34).

While neither brother stands out as an exemplar in this story, Esau is clearly the brunt of the joke. But the more I have thought about Esau, the less funny it becomes. In fact, I have grown to see far more Esau in myself than I care to admit.

This past year, I have been both reading about and experiencing the power of disordered attachments. If the story of Esau selling his birthright for a bowl of soup is anything, it is a story of the dangers of disordered attachments.

The Danger of Disordered Attachments

Our hearts and their longings are terribly adhesive. Initially, this was a beautiful gift, as we were intended to be attached to God. There is no such thing as an excessive attachment to God. For he alone is worthy of our affection, longing, and attachment. He alone can bear the weight of human longing.

Yet with one slithering lie from a cunning serpent, our hearts shifted their attachment and attention from the Creator to the creation (see Genesis 3 and Romans 1). Ever since then, our adhesive hearts attach to anything and everything we want, imagine, or see. MacLaren wisely notes in his commentary on Psalm 37, “Whatsoever we make necessary for our contentment, we make Lord of our happiness.” It seems we have many lords of our happiness, none of which deserve to be our master and all of which will wildly disappoint us while maiming our souls.

As silly as it sounds that Esau would sell his future security for a sip of soup, this is the seriousness of our disordered affections and attachments. As I have gotten a glimpse of the strength of my own disordered affections (known as epithumia or over-desires in the New Testament), Esau has moved from being an object of judgement to an instrument of sober warning in my heart and mind.

Sure, I may not pant after red soup, but I sadly attach my soul to my children’s success in academics or athletics, my own writing projects or potential, and even the growth of our little church. All good desires gone wildly out of control. All dangers of my excessive attachment which jeopardize my joy in Jesus. Lately, the Lord and I have a little code word. When I find my heart overly obsessing over or attached to any outcome or event, I catch myself and say aloud, “This is beginning to look like red soup, isn’t it, Lord?”

It helps me see my sin for what it is, notice the ridiculousness of what I am doing, and bring it immediately to Jesus who simply nods in gentle, warning agreement.

Exhaustion and Epithumia

I find it interesting in our case study (Esau and the red soup) and in my own life that exhaustion exacerbates our epithumia and the power of our disordered attachments. When Esau comes in from the frontiers, he admits (twice) to being exhausted. Repetition in the Old Testament is a form of emphasis, so Moses wants us to be aware of this reality. When we are emotionally, spiritually, or physically exhausted, we are more vulnerable to making poor decisions blinded by our epithumia. We begin to think short-term rather than long-term, or as MacLaren so aptly describes in his commentary on our story, “Buying present gratification of appetite…at the price of giving up the greater good.”

The One Who Shared His Birthright

I find that the emphasis on Esau coming in from the wilderness exhausted and hungry reminds me of another man in the wilderness who was tempted with excessive attachments but did not give in (Luke 4: 1–13).

When Christ was led by the Spirit into the wilderness on the heels of his baptism, he did what Esau (and Jacob, for that matter) failed to do. In the face of exhaustion, he proved that his heart was attached only to the Father who delighted in him. When tempted with power, position, prestige, and comfort, Jesus proved that his heart had only one master: God, his Father.

Yet, this same Christ, the only One worthy of the inheritance of the Father, paid the penalty of our excessive and disordered attachments. He never sold his birthright, he gave it up so he might take it back up and share it with us, the very ones who continue to attach to ourselves to everything and everyone but him. What manner of love is this!

The more we see this Christ, the more we will find our hearts attaching to him and detaching from the things of self and the world. The more we experience the scent of his presence, the less the allures of our own red soups will have upon us.