Originally preached on July 31, 2011

Pentecost 7

Text: Genesis 32:22-31

Well, after reading the text, now you know why Jacob walked with a limp, and why Jewish people don’t eat the tendon attached to the hip. Aren’t you glad you know all that?

The story of Jacob is one of my favorites. Let me tell you the short version which isn’t very short, but is worth hearing, especially if you don’t know it. Once upon a time, there were twin boys born to a couple by the name of Isaac and Rebekah. The boys’ names were Esau and Jacob. Because Esau was the first out of the womb, he was entitled to the family birthright which means that Esau would inherit his father’s estate. Jacob was jealous of this fact and their relationship was filled with rancor because of it. Their father Isaac loved Esau more than he loved Jacob. Their mother Rebekah loved Jacob more than she loved Esau. And you know as well as I do that when parents start playing favorites among their kids, all hell is going to break out and someone’s going to get messed up. And in this case, it was the whole family. If you look in the dictionary under the term “dysfunctional family” you may well see a family portrait of Isaac, Rebekah, Esau and Jacob.

Esau loved to hunt. Jacob loved to cook. One day, Esau came in from hunting and was very hungry. Jacob was stirring up a pot of red stew. Esau said, “Give me some stew, brother. I’m starving to death!” Jacob said, “I’ll give ya some stew…but it’ll cost ya!” Esau said, “What will it cost me?” “Your birthright,” Jacob replied.

And Esau rationalized it this way: “If I die of starvation, the birthright won’t be worth a lick to me.”

So he sold his birthright…for a bowl of red stew.

This, of course, delighted the mother – Rebekah – because she loved Jacob more than she loved Esau. And so she manipulated the situation so that when Isaac – who was blind – was dying, he mistakenly placed his blessing upon Jacob and that sealed the deal. Jacob would inherit the family estate.

But Esau was still in the picture and sooner or later would come to his senses and probably hire Jose Baez to go to court and blame everything on George Anthony and get the birthright back. So Rebekah told Jacob to get out of town. So he did. Jacob went on the lam to the countryside where his mother’s brother Laban lived. And Jacob went to work for his uncle.

While he was there, Jacob was utterly smitten by Laban’s beautiful daughter, Rachel. She was a bombshell! So Jacob told Laban he wanted to marry Rachel. Laban said, “Okay, I’ll give her to you if you work seven years for me.” So Jacob went to work breeding the flocks of his uncle Laban. Seven years passed, the wedding day came. But when Jacob awakened the next morning after the sheer delight of a wildly passionate wedding night, he was horrified to discover that the woman lying next to him snoring was not Rachel! It was her older sister Leah who was – well, very much NOT a bombshell.

Jacob went to Laban and said, “There’s been a terrible mistake. I was married to the wrong woman! I got hitched to Leah and not Rachel!”

Laban said, “Oops!” But then he added, “It would not be right for the younger sister to be married before the older sister. It is the older sister’s birthright, so I gave you Leah.”

Isn’t that interesting! Jacob, who cheated his older brother out of his birthright gets cheated out of the girl of his dreams because of an older sister’s birthright! I think this proves that the Bible supports the idea of karma. What goes around, sooner or later comes around!

But Laban makes an offer. “Tell you what. Work for me another seven years, and I’ll give you Rachel, too.”

So Jacob goes to work. For another seven years. And after the seven years are up, Jacob finally gets the girl of his dreams. Now I wish I could say that Jacob, Leah and Rachel all rode off into the sunset and maybe became the stars of a reality show called “Sister Wives” or something like that. But they didn’t. Jacob had no resources to support a family on his own. So he offers to go back to work for Laban another seven years during which he will be paid in goats and sheep as his wages. Laban agrees.

But over the next six years, Laban tries to cheat Jacob out of the good sheep and goats. All the while, Jacob tries to cheat Laban by using some weird form of animal husbandry that produces supersheep andsupergoats! And while all this is going on, Leah is popping out babies left and right. Rachel is barren, but she gives Jacob her handmaid, Bilhah to have his way with and bear children for her. Oh…the next time you hear someone ranting and raving that we need to get back to biblical family values, I hope you remember this story! American family values – as bad as they may be – are often way more moral and wholesome than Biblical family values.

Well, in year six of Jacob’s seven year contract with uncle Laban, the sons of Laban figure out that Jacob is getting rich off his breeding scheme. They tell their father that he’s getting cheated. Laban gets angry. Jacob hears about it and does what any man of integrity would do. He packs up his wives, twelve children, all the supersheep and supergoats he has bred, and heads for the hills. Laban comes after him, but before he catches Jacob, God intervenes and tells Laban to cut him a break – that Jacob is a part of God’s plan – that, as crummy a guy as Jacob is, God is using him for God’s own purposes.

So when Laban finally catches up to Jacob, he does no harm. Jacob explains that after 20 years working for the man, he was simply afraid that Laban would cheat him again. That’s why he ran. Laban expresses sadness that Jacob has taken away his daughters and grandchildren without so much as a kiss goodbye. The two men have a reconciliation of sorts. They build two rock piles and make a covenant. Laban will not go past Jacob’s rock pile to do him harm. Jacob will not go past Laban’s rock pile to do him harm. And they seal the deal with these words that many Christians today say as a benediction in their churches, although they don’t have a clue about its true meaning. Jacob and Laban say, “May the Lord watch between me and thee while we are absent one from the other.” Has anybody here ever heard those words? Here’s what they mean: “May God watch my back and protect me when my back is turned on you, ya rat.”

So Laban goes home. Jacob, Rachel, Leah, their twelve kids and all Jacob’s flocks head back to Israel to claim the estate waiting for them. Everything is going to be okay! But then word comes to Jacob. “Your brother Esau is coming to meet you with 400 men!”

Karma? Bad karma!

Well, Jacob does what any self-respecting man/husband/father would do in the face of an advancing enemy. He sends his wives and kids on ahead!

And that night – alone in the desert – with all this on his mind – an intruder attacks Jacob. They fight. They wrestle. They struggle. They flip each other. And put headlocks on each other. They use the double chicken wing hold and the whizzer series for all you wrestling buffs out there. And the struggle goes on all night long until the first rays of dawn appear above the horizon. And then the attacker says, “Hey, I gottago. I’ve got a Universe to run!”

That morning, the stranger gives Jacob a new name – Israel – which means, “He wrestled with God!” And then God – the stranger – just so Jacob knows the real score – touches Jacob’s hip and instantly dislocates it. And that’s why for the rest of his life Jacob walked with a limp, and why the Israelites don’t eat the tendon attached to the hip.

Now I tell you this long short story in order to ask you a simple question.

Do YOU ever wrestle with God?

Does God ever wrestle with you?

The journey of faith is not about worship services filled with enjoyable music and good feelings. Faith is really an ongoing wrestling match between God and God’s people. Faith involves struggle – you struggling with God – and God struggling with you. Faith is the Main Event and you have to get ready to rumble! And the story of Jacob offers some insight as to why.

First of all, after wrestling with God, Jacob knew he had to go and make amends to his brother Esau. Somehow in that engagement with God, Jacob came to know himself as a flawed person. Jacob came to understand that his brother was not the problem. He was the problem.

In Philip Gulley’s new book he tells the story of a minister he once knew who did nothing but criticize him, reject his thoughts, and was so narrow in his own thinking and so full of judgment that Philip couldn’t stand the man and avoided him at all costs. You know how that goes. We all have people in our lives we don’t like – people we disagree with – people we see as “the problem.”

But in Phil Gulley’s own wrestling match with God over this, he came to see things differently. The other man was not the problem. He was just being human. Philip was the problem. And the problem was that Philip had no grace to offer this man.

Do you know what grace is? Grace is unearned, undeserved, unmerited love. Grace is love freely given even in the face of our sin – simply because it is right to love – it is good to love – and it is the way God is, the way people were created to be, and the way the world was wired to work. God operates out of grace toward you – and me. “Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me!” And just as we have received grace, God calls us to be gracious toward others.

The person you have a problem with is not the problem. You are the problem, Jacob.

Now I’m not talking here about letting off the hook people who are a danger to you and from whom you need to protect yourself. I’m talking about US and how we need to learn to live graciously toward others even if we need to set up stone pillars and pray, “May the Lord watch my back when it is turned toward you.”

Last week at our Annual Conference I had a similar experience. There is a person there who irritates me no end. This person is hyper-critical and seems to enjoy pointing out all that’s wrong with others. This person makes me crazy.

Well, coming out of a meeting last week, this person made a beeline for me. “Brother Singley, I didn’t get a chance to talk to you after that sermon you preached at Conference last year.”

I thought, “Oh brother! Here it comes. So I braced myself for what was coming next.”

“Brother Singley, I just want to tell you how blessed I was with what the Lord said through you in that sermon last year and how the Lord used you to fill my heart with blessing. Thank you so much!!!!”

I guess that’s when I realized that this person is not the problem. I’m the problem. This person offered me grace. I offered criticism, judgment, disdain.

If the Bible is true and following Jesus is all about extending God’s grace through our lives toward others, we truly need to examine our own lives to see where we are lacking in grace toward others.

Esau was not Jacob’s problem. Jacob was Jacob’s problem.

A second discovery to be found in this story is that this wrestling match between us and God always leads us from individualism and into community. When the struggle started that night in the desert, Jacob was one lone man. When it was over, he was “Israel” – a whole nation.

Martin Marty says that when people today are asked about their religious beliefs they more and more answer that they are not religious. They are “spiritual”, they say. Marty points out that what this really means is that they don’t believe in organized religion, religious institutions –they don’t relate to the Church.

And yet, God created people to belong to each other – to live in community – and to be nurtured and grown into the image of God through the Church which is best described in the Bible as “the body of Christ in the world.”

So Jacob had to become Israel. The one had to become part of the many. And so do you!

Let me tell you what happens when you move away from individualistic spirituality into a community of faith.

For one thing, you get a team to help you through life. My recent bout with pneumonia reminded me of this gift of community. The team of people with whom I work insisted that I focus on taking care of myself and getting well. They would cover my responsibilities for me, and they did – beautifully – especially Tim who quite late in the week volunteered to pick up the sermon duty and on short notice did a great job. But that’s not all. I felt surrounded by your prayers, and then notes, cards and emails started pouring in offering healing thoughts. Food came to the house! And I was awestruck by the thought that I was not left to battle pneumonia alone. We were in the battle together, and you brought strength to me that I did not have myself. Being part of a church gives you a team that will help you live life!

The church also multiplies your ability to impact the world for the better. A few Sundays ago, when we welcomed the 20+ recipients of our scholarship ministry, I found myself thinking that not one of us could have impacted the lives of so many kids over the years by ourselves. But together we have accomplished an amazing thing! Being part of a church lets you do more good for others than you could ever do by yourself.

And being part of a community teaches you humility. You can’t be the center of the universe anymore. You have to eat a little humble pie. Others in the community will see things differently than you do. The group will make decisions and take actions you may not agree with. And then comes the test: am I in this for myself, or am I willing to lay down my life and my own self-interest for the sake of others? Jesus, you know, did not want to go to the cross. But he did. For us – for the sake of his Church.

So leaving behind individualistic spirituality to become part of the community of faith teaches us the power of what it means to live in relationship with God and each other. It’s not all about you or me. It’s about all of us together – walking graciously with one another as we seek to know and to live God’s will.

And then one more thing about this big wrestling match with God. Jacob learned that his greatest need in life was not a birthright, not a skill set in animal husbandry, not the wealth of cornering the commodities market in sheep and goats.

His greatest need was God.

One of our young I.C.C.C. preachers put it well last week when he said, “You only learn that God is all you need, when God is all you got.”

Let me tell you about Las Vegas. Sandy and I love Vegas. It’s one of our favorite places to go. But it is NOT a place to hold a church conference! Especially when young people come to be part of the Youth Conference. In all the years I served on the Board, I consistently voted against going to Vegas. But my term on the Board is over now, and they voted to hold this year’s Conference at a casino hotel. What were they thinking? What would happen to our kids as they were exposed to all the temptations that city has to offer?

But even disagreeing with the decision, we went to Conference because we are part of that community whether we agree with the decision or not. We are part of the I.C.C.C. family through thick or thin.

On Thursday morning, the young people presented the morning worship service. It’s usually a nice service where the kids sing and perform skits and basically entertain us adults. But this year, the youth worship service was different.

Their program during the week did not hide them from Las Vegas. Instead, they went into the very heart of the city. They spent a day working at Catholic Charities, getting to know and caring for poor and homeless people. They spent another day working at the Las Vegas Rescue Mission.

And on Thursday morning, these kids stood up one after the other and told us about the experiences they had, what they learned, and what it meant to them. They used words like “life-changing,” “inspiring,” “humbling,” “transforming,” “faith-building.” They told about some of the people they met – homeless drug addicts, runaway kids, and others who – they said – turned out to be regular people just like themselves. And they told of the loving people who volunteer at these centers to help others.

When the worship service was over, many of us were weeping. We wept at the beauty of what they had experienced and were sharing about. And those of us who had long ago figured out that this was one of the worst decisions ever made had to consume some big slices of humble pie.

You see, the one thing we hadn’t taken into account with all our thinking, figuring, rationalizing, and analyzing – was…God.

God with them!

And that, my friends, is the reason for the struggle – for this wrestling match between us and God.

The only way we can ever learn that God is all we need, is when we go through times when God is all we got.

And this God who is revealed to us most clearly in the man Jesus is a God whose love never lets us go – even when we have failed, even when we have gotten lost in our sins, even when everyone else has abandoned us and run away.

This God will help you become a better person. This God will teach you the power of belonging to a community. This God will be WITH you, even in the desert – or in Las Vegas.

So, dear friends, let’s get ready to rumble!