“Going to the Mat”

While I was on vacation, the pulpit was filled by seminarian, Elder Laura Bachmann. My thanks to her for her energy and leadership. Here is her sermon from August 6, 2017.

South Presbyterian Church                              Going to the Mat                     August 6, 2017

Genesis 32:22-31

The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.” The sun rose upon him as he passed Peniel, limping because of his hip.

 

I have a practice, when wrestling with my sermons, of reading the passage in question out loud. I am always surprised by how different the story sounds and by the new insights I receive when I listen this way, but, really, hearing the Bible has always been the best way to take it in. After all, the Bible began as an oral tradition, with stories passed down from generation to generation.

I imagine our Old Testament story today got told frequently around the campfires in the wilderness. Can you picture the people of Israel, huddled around the flames, complaining about the boring diet of manna and quail, wondering when they will get to the promised land?

And one of the sons of Levi says, I will tell you again the story of Jacob, when he was returning to his home for the first time since he fled from his brother, Esau.  “Oh great,” the people mumble, “that wrestling story again.”

Perhaps one of them pipes up, as did my son Aidan when he heard me reading the story this week: “that’s a terribly written story. There are so many parts that are unclear. Who is this man? Why are they wrestling? Why does Jacob want a blessing? How does he know the man is God?”

One of my favorite things about the Bible is that things are NOT always clear. Sometimes Jesus tells parables that make no sense. Sometimes the Hebrew Bible mixes different accounts of events, causing us to wonder which one is correct.

The thing is – when we start asking questions, wondering what is going on, feeling annoyed that nothing is clear – this is when we really start to wrestle with the word and consequently when we start to receive its blessing.

You see, it is in these mysterious cracks in the narration that the true meaning often hides. We worship a God whom we can only glimpse, one we know in the person of Jesus but one who remains deeply mysterious in the depth and awe and power and compassion of God’s self.

So, as always, I found myself wondering as I read today’s lesson – what has God hidden in this passage for us this morning?

First, I think we need to consider the context for this story. Jacob, you will remember, was born a twin. He followed his brother Esau out into the world, grasping his twin’s heel to be pulled into the light. His father, Isaac, loved Esau best, but his mother, Rebekah, loved Jacob.

In those days, it meant everything to be the first-born son. A family’s entire wealth and family name was passed on to the first-born. Daughters (of any birth order) and other sons had to fend for themselves. To be the first-born, then, was an important distinction that conferred life in many ways.

Jacob, knowing this, decides to embody one of the meanings of his name (trickster) and steal his brother’s birthright. As their father Isaac becomes old and largely blind, Jacob trades Esau his birthright for a bowl of stew. By the time Esau realizes that Jacob really wasn’t kidding about this, it is too late. Isaac has bestowed his blessing on the younger son.

Furious, Esau threatens to kill Jacob, and Rebekah spirits him away to her brother’s house where he marries Leah and Rachel, amasses a fortune in livestock and, eventually – a couple of decades later – in a spot of trouble with his father in law, decides to return home.

It is here that our story finds Jacob. He is preparing to meet Esau the following day. Scouts have seen his brother coming, with about 400 armed men, and Jacob has sent along gifts and made his prayer to God for a safe re-union. He has no idea what to expect.

Is Esau still ready to kill him? What will happen tomorrow? As night approaches, Jacob sends his wives, children and “everything that he had” across the Jabbok. Alone, he settles down to face a night of worry.

Then, out of nowhere the story continues by telling us that a man wrestled him until daybreak. Where did this man come from? He appears suddenly in the story and it brings us up short.

Interpreters offer various explanations for the man’s appearance. Some claim he is a demon. Demons were known to live in the streams, coming out only at night and disappearing at daybreak so they cannot be seen.

Other readers, mostly of our current day, like to imagine that Jacob is wrestling with himself. He is wondering – did I do the right thing all those years ago? How can I approach my brother now? What if he still wants to kill me?  I think Jacob is probably wondering about all of these things, but I am not sure they are embodied in this man.

There is a final group of commentators, and I count myself among them, who are content to sit with Jacob’s own interpretation, which is that this man is God.

Now I imagine Jacob is no stranger to actual or metaphorical wrestling. He wrestled with his brother in the womb. He wrestled with Esau when he stole his father’s blessing. He wrestled with his father-in-law over the ownership of the flocks and the acquisition of his two wives.

Truth be told, he’s a pretty good wrestler. The trickster Jacob finds success regularly. But until now, Jacob’s tricks have limited themselves to the strictly human community.

Jacob, it seems, has never wrestled directly with his God.

Can you picture the scene? Jacob has been traveling for a long time, worried about the upcoming meeting with his brother. He has been managing wives and children and flocks and household help. He must be exhausted and uncertain. He has sent everyone off across the stream in the hopes of having some solitude in which to prepare for the momentous meeting of the next day.

And now, he finds himself wrestling with an unknown man. What was that like? Did he know right away, what he later states – that this man is God? Can he feel some sort of divine spark? Is he unable to disengage? What is the fight really like? I always imagine a silent struggle. A confrontation mainly held together with darkness and fear and confusion. Maybe Jacob is just thinking about surviving.

Finally, as day breaks, the two begin to talk. The mysterious man, seeing he cannot prevail, strikes Jacob in the hip and wounds him. Then he says, “Let me go, for day is breaking.” Jacob immediately answers, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

Why does Jacob want a blessing? What has he recognized about this man that makes him ask for that? Blessings are generally given by the stronger to the weaker. Jacob knows that they carry power and promise. Why else would he have gone to such lengths to get the blessing due his brother? Perhaps he realizes that while he has received a blessing from his father, he has not received one from God.

But this man, perhaps God, does not immediately answer. Instead, he asks Jacob, “What is your name?” When he replies, “Jacob,” the man says, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans and have prevailed.”

Wow, can you imagine that? God has just told you that you have striven with God and prevailed. That goes against everything you know about God. God is all powerful, mighty, mysterious, demanding and loving all at once. What does prevail even mean in this context?

Does it just mean you have engaged in a struggle with God and you have refused to run away? There seems to be no clear physical victory here and Jacob is wounded, but he must retain some power because he has refused to let the man go.

Maybe prevailing looks like persistence and determination in the face of giant odds, in the face of dark and mysterious and confusing trouble, in the face of hurt and bewilderment and anxiety for the future.

Maybe to prevail is simply to cling to God and go with the struggle and the motion of the wrestling connection we have with the divine. Maybe it simply means going to the mat with God.

Just as he is coming to grips with having prevailed, Jacob also hears that he will receive a new name. Now as you have likely noticed, naming in the Bible is a big thing. In the very first story in the Bible, we find God naming things into creation.

Jacob has probably heard the story of his grandparents renaming hundreds of time. When Abram and Sarai received God’s promise of descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, they also received new names. By the time they welcomed Isaac into the world, they were called Abraham and Sarah.

To receive a new name is to be created anew. Here is perhaps the first sign that Jacob will not walk away from this encounter unscathed. Not only has he incurred an injury to his hip – which we later learn probably never heals – but he also has a new identity. Nothing is going to be the same after this night.

Perhaps this is when Jacob really understands with whom he has been wrestling. We can almost hear the slightly suspicious tone with which he utters his next comment. “Please tell me your name.” But the man does not answer, he just asks, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And he blesses him.

Why indeed. Jacob knows who this man is. Perhaps he has always known. He can hardly believe that he has survived an encounter with God. And, for the first time that we are aware, Jacob – Israel – has received God’s blessing. Now, he is armed not just with the birthright of his earthly father, but with the blessing of his God. And he has received a new identity.

A blessing and a wounding. An exhausting encounter but a euphoric outcome. A dawn breaking over a new day and a new era. Everything has changed. And Jacob names this place, Peniel – which means face of God – saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.”

The sun rose upon him as he passed Peniel, limping because of his hip.

Like Jacob, I have wrestled with this story of wounds and blessings. I don’t believe that God wills bad things to happen to us – that God wants us to struggle and wrestle and receive wounds. But I do believe that God remains present with us in our struggles.

 

I believe that out of these wrestling matches and lasting scars, God creates blessings for us; God renames and recreates us; God struggles alongside us until we can stand again on our own.

 

I have been studying John Calvin this summer and so I decided to see what he had to say about this passage. God, says Calvin, is wrestling against Jacob with the one hand and providing him strength for the struggle with the other.  I will admit that I found this answer, at first, deeply unsatisfactory. “You cannot have it both ways,” I want to protest.  But as I have sat with this, I realize that, as is quite often the case, Calvin has got this right.

 

Life is so very complicated. We want things to be black and white, easily understood and explained and justified. The thing is – life never unfolds that way. Maybe I am having trouble untangling this mess because it exists as one entity not two. Wounds and blessings and wrestling matches and renaming, all go together. We cannot have one aspect in the absence of the others. They form a tapestry of transformation; each strand a single vibrant thread but none alone telling the whole story.

 

Calvin is the first to say that some things about God are just a mystery. We have to accept them as a whole and stop trying to explain the mechanism for WHY they are so. At the heart of it, isn’t that what faith is all about?

 

And so, we arrive back at this story of Jacob. At the mystery of a wrestling match where Jacob prevails, but the mysterious man (God), exercising the privilege of the more powerful victor, provides the blessing. All these centuries later, what does this story say to us today?

 

As I continued to ask this question, last week, I received a wonderful answer in the form of an unexpected encounter with a modern day unnamed and mysterious man.

Aidan and I were volunteering at the regular Saturday feeding ministry at Third Church. Toward the end of the meal, I was in the main room, handing out Klondike bars for desert and chatting with one of the pastors, Lynnette, when a man approached us.

“Who’s in charge here?” he asked. I think neither of us was sure where he was going with this, so Lynette said, rather cautiously, “well, I’m one of the pastors here. I didn’t lead the meal team today, but I would be glad to receive your feedback.”

The next thing we knew, this man was propping his foot up on the nearby bench and reaching into his sock for a roll of bills. Pulling them out, he peeled off a one hundred dollar bill and handed it to Lynette, saying, “I really like what you are doing here and I want to give you something for next week. I brought a few people here and God has blessed me so I want to pass it on.”

When we asked the man his name, he did not even want to tell us or shake Lynette’s hand, but he was happy to share his story. “I know what it is like to be homeless,” he told us, “because I have been there.”

Then he went on to share that he was in his 27^th year of sobriety. He talked about his parents and how they counted on him after their death to take care of his mentally ill sister who has lived with him for the last 15 years.

Over and over he talked about the blessings God had given him, connecting them back to the wounds of his addiction and his homelessness.

For me, this mysterious man embodied the Jacob story of wounds and blessings, twined together to transform his life and reach out beyond himself to bless others.

What are we to take away from all this? I believe Jacob’s story invites us to reflect on our past in ways that help us see where God has created blessings for us out of the chaos of the deeply personal wrestling matches we encounter; it encourages us to lean into our current challenges, looking for the places where God will recreate our lives; and it prepares us for future struggles by offering a new perspective on what it means to wrestle with life and with God and to be renamed.

In short, Jacob’s story shows us that going to the mat with God, engaging in the wrestling match with every ounce of our beings, leaning into the uncertainty and fear of the moment with imperfect faith, offers us new life and new possibilities with a God who longs for our wholeness. May it be so for all of us this day and every day. AMEN.