(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
Commentary
Every morning when I read the “Daily Office” (an Anglican thing I’m learning to use), I’m presented first with Malachi 1:11
For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering. For my name will be great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts.
I love passages like this, and hints in John (and elsewhere) that Jesus’ being glorified was tied to an ingathering of people from every nation.
I’m impressed that God cares for the foreigner, and wants believers to follow His example.
But nowadays, there are Christians(?) in the United States who think righteousness includes hating foreigners. I wonder if they read about God hating Esau and feel none of the tension that inspired my little poem?
NOTE: I know that teachers will generally downplay the “hating” of Esau as merely God *choosing* Jacob instead of him. But mere choice doesn’t describe what God does to Esau and his descendants (see the first few verses of Malachi).