August 3, 2008 - Twelfth Sunday After Pentecost

Genesis 32:22-31 - link to the NRSV text

The story of Jacob wrestling with the mysterious figure near the Jabbok is an ambiguous text.  Two figures, Jacob and the man, enter into conflict but neither walks away a true victor.  There is ambiguity, almost ambivalence, in the outcome.  It doesn’t lay out a clear, new path.  It doesn’t point Jacob in a new direction.  There is no giant shift in Jacob’s mission, no new pronouncement from on high.  Just two figures leaving the site of battle with things changed, but with no strong indication what those changes mean or what should be done about them.

It reminds me, actually, of the ending of the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “Once More, With Feeling,” when the villain leaves and the heroes are left standing there with no nice, clean resolution to the conflict, the cast sings:

            The battle’s done, and we kind of won,
            So we sound our victory cheer.
            Where do we go from here?

Not all battles, not all struggles conclude with a clear-cut victory.  It’s a messy, difficult fight for both.  The dialogue between the two in verses 26-29 echoes the back-and-forth struggle that they were engaging in.  In the first back and forth, the stranger speaks then Jacob responds asking for a blessing.  Jacob is the one with the leverage.  The next exchange suddenly shifts to the stranger having dominance, asking Jacob his name then granting him a new name in return.  Then it shifts again, with Jacob now demanding the name of the figure, and instead receiving the blessing he wanted in the first place.

There is a battle of both physical will and mental will going on here.  There is more going on here than a test of strength and skill.  Jacob, the one who wrestled even in the womb, who has wrestled with others through trickery and guile his entire life, has suddenly found himself an opponent that his tricks aren’t working on.  But Jacob finds himself holding his own, being able to keep pace if not actually overcome his adversary.

And though there is not a victory, this does not mean that nothing has happened.  Jacob does emerge from the night changed in two significant ways: Jacob has a new name, and a new wound.

In the biblical world, names are linked with character.  A name change often indicates a shift in status or character, like Abram becoming Abraham.  Jacob, which means something like “heel” or “supplanter,” possible related to the verb “to betray” (see BDB 784, HALOT 872), is changed to Israel.  As Brueggemann points out, the etymology (that is, origin and meaning) of the name is disputed, possible meaning “God preserves” or “God protects” or “God rules” (Brueggemann, Genesis, 268).  The point isn’t so much in the name meaning, but the fact that the name has changed.

No longer is this man the “deceiver” or “betrayer,” but is something else, something more.  No longer is he Jacob, he is now Israel.  And it is Israel that has struggled with God and emerged, if not victorious, at least as something changed, something new.  And there is something poignant in that idea: that in our struggles, we emerge changed, especially in our struggles with God.  There will be times in life when we wrestle with God, either over those dark places in life or just with what faithfulness demands of us.  Either way, there is something to be said for the struggle itself, and not just the outcome.  Thus the lack of “victory” or success doesn’t mean that our struggles in life are not beneficial, though they may not always seem that way a first glance.

Secondly, Jacob emerges changed into this new person Israel, but he emerges limping away from the conflict.  There is something poignant in this also.  Namely, life can sometimes hurt.  Life is struggle, it is not always easy, and sometimes when we emerge from our times of trouble we emerge wounded.  In Jacob’s case, meeting God “did not lead, as we are wont to imagine, to reconciliation, forgiveness, healing.  It resulted in a crippling” (Brueggemann 270).

There is something dangerous about encountering God.  This is demonstrated time again in the biblical witness.  Moses desires to see God’s glory but God allows Moses to only see the back of God’s form because “no one shall see me and live” (Exodus 33:20).  Uzzah reached out to steady the ark of the covenant and was struck down (2 Sam 6:6-7).  Isaiah cried, “Woe is me!” when he beheld God’s presence in the temple vision (Isaiah 6).  There is something dangerous, edgy about encountering the divine.

Encountering God and being changed by that encounter may bring about some pain.  Change is rarely without effort or sacrifice.  To emerge as Israel, Jacob also needed to be wounded.  The apostle Paul expressed a similar theme when he wrote about baptism: “Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4).  Jesus himself spoke about the kind of change life with God requires by describing it as taking up our cross, or taking up a death sentence.  The life of faith isn’t just something that is a heavy burden, but is something that might just call for something that will cause us pain, either physical or emotional.

The wrestling Jacob story is one that reminds us of what life with God often looks like when we move beyond the promises of prosperity preaching and tired cliché religion: it is often hard, it is often a struggle, and it might even bring us some hurt.  But the One whom we wrestle with is the One whom wants to see us grow, to see us flourish, to see us redeemed, the One who loves us beyond all comprehension or understanding. 

Or as Charles Wesley put it in his great poem “Wrestlin’ Jacob” (“Come O Thou Traveler Unknown” in The United Methodist Hymnal, 386-87):

            Yield to me now—for I am weak,
            but confident in self-despair!
            Speak to my heart, in blessing speak,
            be conquered by my instant prayer:
            speak, or thou never hence shalt move,
            And tell me if thy name is Love. 

            'Tis Love!  ‘tis Love!  Thou diedst for me,
            I hear thy whisper in my heart.
            The morning breaks, the shadows flee,
            pure Universal Love thou art:
            To me, to all, thy mercies move—
            thy nature, and thy name is Love. 

Shalom,
Geoff

Comments

[Tim Galloway]

Geoff,

I got this the day after you preached on Jacob and his wrestling match.

Thought you might find it interesting.

Tim Galloway

-----Original Message-----
From: A Slice of Infinity [mailto:slice@sliceofinfinity.org]
Sent: Monday, August 04, 2008 8:15 AM
To: slice-text@lists.rzim.org
Subject: [Slice 1737] A Congregation of One (August 4, 2008)

08/4/08
A Congregation of One
Jill Carattini

"Is persuasion dead?" an editorialist asked recently, admitting he felt the
signs were not good. And though his own editorializing was itself an
attempt to persuade, he brought up a subject often recognized but
unquestioned, seen but unseen: our capacity for selective hearing is
gigantic. "Best-selling books reinforce what folks thought when they
bought them. Talk radio and opinion journals preach to the converted...
Politicos huddle with like-minded souls in opinion cocoons that seem
impervious to facts."(1) Persuasion seems to have been replaced with
preaching to the choir, and we are all very particular about the choirs to
which we want to listen. The image may hit home, but it is usually the
home across the street we point at first.

When it comes to listening, we are quick to listen to the things we want
to hear. We are also quick to listen to the things we think other people
need to hear. In a book study with several couples on the subject of
marriage, several of us mentioned the struggle to actually read the book
for ourselves and not for our spouses. I found myself carefully reading
the sections I hoped my other half would carefully notice; another
admitted circling and highlighting and handing it over. I'm not even sure
you can call our behavior half-hearted; for our hearts were not the ones we
were putting on the line. Undoubtedly, we missed things that would have
been good for us to hear ourselves. Though reading with our own eyes, we
were listening for someone else.

Expanding on G.K. Chesterton's clever aphorism that between one and two
there is often a difference of millions, F.W. Boreham notes the massive
difference between a congregation of one and a congregation of two: "A
congregation of one takes every word in a direct and personal sense; but,
in a congregation of two, each auditor takes it for granted that the
preacher is referring to the other."

Long after Jacob had tricked Esau out of his birthright, Jacob stood at an
impasse. His brother was approaching and there was nowhere else to run.
Fearful and distressed, he sent his family and a peace offering ahead of
him. And Jacob was left alone. Yet, the text is sort of unclear about
this. Immediately after Jacob is reported to be alone, it seems to tell
us he is not: "And Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him
until daybreak" (Genesis 32:24).

The times in life when God seems to speak most clearly to me are often the
least pleasant. Yet perhaps it is in tears and distress that I stop
listening for others, and find myself most desperate to hear God myself.
Jacob was alone in the sense that there was no one else to put the words
on, no one else to listen for, no brother to trick or blame. He was a
congregation of one, wrestling with the beloved enemy who demands of us
everything. When the stranger asked Jacob the very question he had once
answered deceptively, there was no one to help twist words for him, no one
to answer but him. "What is your name?" the stranger asked. "Jacob," he
replied. And the man said, "You shall no longer be called Jacob, but
Israel, because you have striven with God and with humans, and have
prevailed" (Gen. 32:28).

While we are in Christ a body of believers transcending history, race, and
language, so we are a congregation of one, seeking the voice of our maker.
As the writer of James urges, "Do not merely listen to the word, and so
deceive yourselves. Do what it says" (James 1:22). Before giving
us life, God demands our lives, our hearts, our wills, and our attention.
Christ’s call is personal and specific, and we must answer for ourselves.

On his way to see Esau, Jacob watched the sun rise upon him as he passed
the place where he wrestled with God. Jacob left limping, but he had seen
God face to face. He had heard for himself the voice of God.

Jill Carattini is senior associate writer at Ravi Zacharias
International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) Matt Miller, “Is Persuasion Dead?” The New York Times Online,
June 4, 2005,
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/04/opinion/04miller_oped.html.

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