Community Church Sermons
Year C
October 20,
2013
Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost
Wrestling Divinity
Genesis 32:22-31
Rev. Rhonda A. Blevins
Associate Pastor
On September 14,
2007, Nebraska State Senator Ernie Chambers walked into the Douglas County
Courthouse in Omaha and filed a lawsuit. The defendant he named: God. The suit
asked for a “permanent injunction ordering Defendant
to cease certain harmful activities and the making of terroristic threats.”
Senator Chambers claimed that God, the Defendant, “directly and proximately has
caused, [among other things],
fearsome floods, egregious earthquakes, horrendous hurricanes, terrifying
tornados, pestilential plagues . . .” [1] The
list went on. Though the
lawsuit was no joke, it was an attempt by Senator Chambers to make a statement
about frivolous lawsuits. I’m not sure how the suit turned out, but it made me
stop and wonder about God’s liability insurance. I don’t think the cattle on
even a thousand hills could pay for all the lawsuits that folks would want to
file.
Speaking
of cattle, who hasn’t had a beef with God at some point or another? C’mon, you
know you’ve shaken your fist in the air when rain drops start falling on your
tee time. How dare God! Or your team (which is somehow ALWAYS God’s team) can’t
quite pull off that win. Or maybe you’ve had a complaint or two against God for
something a little more serious than tee times and touchdowns. Perhaps you
would like to take God to court. Hey, maybe we should all take God to court!
In
the book of Genesis we learn about Jacob, a guy who bypasses the legal system
and takes the Lord into his own hands. He had a wrestling match with God. It
takes more than a little moxie to step into the ring with Yahweh, the Lord God
of the Universe, doesn’t it? Now, this wasn’t one of those World Wrestling
Federation events with grown men prancing around in their underwear, but a
knock-down, drag-out brawl lasting all night long with dirt and blood. . .I
love this story, because it is so raw yet so full of mystery. Much like life . . . so raw and so full of mystery. Here’s
what we learn from the passage:
·
Jacob,
all alone, wrestles God (v. 24)
·
Jacob
suffers as a result of the wrestling (v. 25)
·
Jacob
receives a new name, becomes a “new man” (v. 26-28)
What
we know from the surrounding passages is that Jacob is at a critical juncture
in his journey. He is running from a less-than-stellar past and facing a very
uncertain and scary future. Jacob’s very name gives us a hint into his
personality. The name “Jacob” meant “trickster” or “deceiver.” So in this story
we catch Jacob the trickster fleeing from a father-in-law whom he tricked out
of a lot of money, and he is about to face his brother, Esau, whom he tricked
out of their father’s blessing and inheritance. Jacob hasn’t seen Esau in
twenty years—the last time Jacob saw his Esau, Esau was threatening to kill
him. So Jacob left town.
Now
it’s 20 years later. Jacob is on a journey back home, and about to see his
brother for the first time since he snookered him. Jacob receives word that his
big brother, Esau, is there to welcome him home . . . with 400 other men! This
is either going to be the biggest homecoming party in history, or a battle of
epic proportions. Jacob sends ahead his entire family, all of his possessions,
and a whole lot of presents to appease Esau before seeing him again face to
face. After he sends ahead everything and everyone, he finds himself alone. His
unsettling past and worrisome future were his only companions.
Alone.
Alone is the place where we often find God, isn’t it? When
the distractions are gone and the noise has settled God often comes calling,
sometimes whether we’ve issued an invitation or not. Sometimes the
still, small voice of God booms like thunder in the silence of our aloneness. Jacob
issued no invitation that we know of, and when God showed up, God didn’t have
too much interest in sipping tea and talking about the weather. God wanted to
wrestle.
I have to admit, there are some things
about this story that make me uneasy. Some things I have to twist around in
order to make them fit into the pretty little boxes I’ve constructed for God. It’s
a mysterious passage. For instance, Jacob seems unsure until the end whether
his battle is against man or God. And, it seems to be God that initiates the
wrestling match. My God of peace and love and flowers and
puppies? Then it seems that Jacob gains the advantage in this story? My super-hero God of omnipotence? But what troubles me
perhaps more than anything from this passage is that Jacob ends up permanently
wounded. I don’t know about you, but when I pray for the touch of God I’m not
thinking hip dislocation! But that’s just what Jacob received.
I
want to be very careful here. It’s tempting to us preacher-types to theologize
and explain away why God would seemingly injure Jacob. If I were to do that,
I’d be just another preacher creating yet another pretty little box and we’d
all put our little god in there and tie our cute little ribbon around it and go
to lunch.
Jacob prayed for protection against
his brother, Esau. What he received was a midnight warrior who left him
crippled. What can we learn about God from that?
The God of History can not be reduced
to peace and love and flowers and puppies. Nor can God be likened to our
cartoon-book fantasies of Superman or Mighty Mouse always pulling us frail
mortals out of harm’s way. I like the way Robert Owens says it: “[God] is on no
one’s leash. [God] establishes governments and overthrows them. [God] builds,
and [God] tears down. There are times when God answers our prayers with a
parting of the seas, with an almost miraculous easing of the way. But there are
other times when [God] answers us with toughness and hard, hard challenges.”[2}
Fortunately for us, however, that’s not the end of the
story. That toughness and those hard, hard challenges are followed by the
blessing of God.
Finally the dawn begins to break for our boy, Jacob,
and the wrestling match is drawing to a close. The stuff metaphors are made of.
“Then the man said, ‘Let me go, for it is daybreak.’ But
Jacob replied, ‘I will not let you go unless you bless me.’
Jacob has been after blessings his
whole life, hasn’t he? He tricked his father for a blessing. He tricked his
father-in-law for a blessing. But now, it seems, he’s got no more tricks up his
tunic. And then a telling exchange: “The man asked him, ‘What is your name?’ ‘Jacob,’
he answered.”
The last time in the scriptures
someone asks Jacob his name, he flat-out lies. He tells his father that he is
Esau. But in this story, he comes clean. “I am Jacob. The
trickster. The deceiver.”
The mysterious stranger does not
immediately give Jacob what he has requested, the blessing. Instead, “the man
said, ‘Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because
you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.’” When Jacob asked
God for protection from Esau, what he got was a midnight wrestling match. Now
when Jacob asks for a blessing, he gets a new name. And where Jacob came from,
the name made the man. In that instant, Jacob not only received a new name, but
a new identity. From “trickster” to “wrestles with God.”
Jacob
left his wrestling match with God crippled, but a new man. There’s a great
irony to this story. Struggle is sometimes a gift from God. Like the mama eagle
helping her babies grow up. She builds her nest using first thorns, broken
branches, and sharp rocks, lining it with a cozy padding of wool, feathers, and
fur. Then when it’s time for the little birds to leave the comfort of her nest,
she pulls up the fluff, exposing the sharp rocks and branches. Pretty soon, the
nest becomes less cozy prompting the fledglings to leave their once-comfortable
abode and move on to maturity.
Struggle is sometimes a gift from
God. It’s sure hard to see the gift in the middle of the battle. That kind of
vision is only in retrospect. But most of us, when we think about times in our
lives when we’ve really struggled, we can think of a blessing or two that
followed. And our boy Jacob? Well, he became a little
weaker on the outside, but so much stronger within. Then, almost as an
afterthought, the mystery man gave Jacob the blessing he requested. And even
later, when Jacob finally saw Esau along with 400 of his closest friends, “Esau
ran to meet Jacob and embraced him; he threw his arms around his neck and
kissed him. And they wept.” An old liar had a new limp. And Jacob was no longer
alone.
There are lots of folks out there who
like to keep God in cute, simple little boxes with very neatly tied ribbons. And
if that kind of faith works for you, great! It’s much simpler when everything
can be labeled black or white and faith isn’t messy. But for the rest of us . .
. for those of us who want more than the fancy packaging of the Bible teachers
and preachers . . . to the rest of us God says, “Step
into the ring with me. I can handle it.” Like Jacob, we may walk away from wrestling
divinity with a bit of a limp. But like Jacob, we may receive a new name and a
restored identity; we may just find our new and deeper life as a result of our
struggle with The Divine. “The Trickster” became “Israel.” Who might you become
if you find the courage to step into the ring with God?
Oh, by the way, I didn’t
finish the story about the lawsuit filed against God in Nebraska. I understand
they had a heck of a time serving the subpoena.
___________________________________
[1] Fox News, September 17, 2007. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,297121,00.html
[2] [1] Owens, Robert J. Jr. “Wrestling With God.” Princeton University Office of Religious Life. http://web.princeton.edu/sites/chapel/wrestlingwithgod.html