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Wrestling with God
In our story for today, Esau has come out to meet Jacob, and
Jacob is afraid. Jacob has not done right by Esau. He bought Esau’s birthright
for a bowl of soup, and stole his blessing with sheepskin on his arms. He took
everything that was Esau’s through manipulation and trickery, and the last he
saw Esau, Esau was angry and trying to kill him. Years had passed, and now Esau
was coming out to meet him, and had with him 400 men, the makings of an army.
Jacob feared for his life.
There are two versions of this story within the text. In
one, Jacob splits his family into two groups, so that if Esau’s army attacks
one, the other might flee and escape. In the other, he sends his family ahead
of him, perhaps hoping that it will soften Esau’s heart, or that Esau might
pass them by to get to him. In both, Jacob is left on the other side of the
river Jabbok from his family, spending the night alone and afraid. Somehow,
during the night, he finds himself wrestling with a stranger. They wrestle all
night. When the stranger saw that he could not defeat Jacob, he strikes him on
the hip. Jacob is wounded, but he refused to let go. They at it like this until
daybreak, when the stranger demands that Jacob let him go, because dawn is
coming. But Jacob will not go. “I will not let you go, unless you bless me,” he
says.
Then the stranger gives Jacob a new name, Israel, which
means, “God strives,” or “one who strives with God.” Jacob asks the strangers
name, but the volleys back with another question, “Why is it that you ask my
name?” and then blesses him. Once more, Jacob has received a blessing through
his own striving.
When the man leaves, Jacob realizes that this being with
which he wrestled, was no man, but God. He renames the place Peni-el, the face
of God, for, he says, “I have seen God face to face; and yet my life is
preserved.” He walks away from the encounter blessed, but with a limp.
This is my favorite story in the Bible. I love it. If you’ve
seen my sermon blog, or twitter handle, or a number of other online identities
I hold, you know. I use atthejabbok as my name online a lot. And the reason I
love this story so much is that I think it is emblematic of what it means for
us to be the people of God.
Jacob is a foundational figure for the people of Israel. The
twelve tribes of Israel take their names from Jacob’s sons and see Jacob as
their common ancestor. It is through him that they find their unity and identity.
And this story is where Jacob finds his
identity. Jacob, whose name previously meant “heel” but had connotations of
supplanting and trickery, is given a new name, Israel, which means, “one who
strives with God.” Jacob works with God in a different way from the one we’re
often taught. He bargains. He negotiates. He demands. He begs. He struggles to
believe. He acts with confidence in God’s blessing. His new name Israel is apt,
for Jacob has spent his whole life wrestling with God. I think one of the reasons I like this
so much is that my faith has been defined by this wrestling. For belief, for
understanding, for strength, courage, and confidence that I am loved.
This isn’t just a story about Jacob, it is an origin story
for the people of God. This is the first time that the word Israel appears in
the Bible. The name that comes to refer to the community of God comes from this
story of wrestling with God. And the fact that Israel traces its roots to this
story tells us that to be the community of Israel is to wrestle with God. And
since we are the heirs of Jacob, the nation of Israel, we too are called to
wrestle with God. We’re not called into the faith of easy answers or cheap
grace, we’re called to be a part of a community that struggles with what it
means to be the people of God.
Communities are messy places, full of disagreement and
difficulty, but communities are also the places where God's grace is most
evident, in forgiveness, in collaboration, and in sharing with one other in
suffering and celebration. Being a part of a community of faith pushes us to
great heights and pulls us into closeness with God.
We’re called into a faith that seeks interaction with the
divine, one that will transform us into new people. Like the faith of the
father in our passage from Mark, who cries out to Jesus “I believe! Help my
unbelief!” God calls us into a dynamic, challenging relationship that requires
much more than just obedience. It calls for us to struggle with our beliefs and
with each other, to question and challenge what we are told, and strive to
follow God wherever God leads us. And it is in the wrestling that we find
ourselves face to face with God.
But wrestling with God is not a safe activity. We cannot
expect to come out of it in the same shape that we came in. We might note that
Jacob is a different person after his encounter at the Jabbok River. He makes peace with his brother Esau,
seeks reconciliation with his neighbors, and condemns his sons when they are
deceitful and violent. He moves from a person who struggles against other
people to one who struggles with God, concerned not with his own gain but God’s
will. For us too, participation in God’s community involves transformation. To
wrestle with God is to allow ourselves to be marked as God’s. It calls us into
the very dangerous work of loving those who barely love themselves. It calls us
to reach out in support, even when we might be wounded in return. It calls us
to be peacemakers, even when others might see us as weak. Wrestling with God involves
opening ourselves up enough to become vulnerable to the piercing words of God’s
truth. In other words, when you put yourself in real, honest relationship with
God, do not expect to walk away without a limp.
But Jacob, in spite of his wounds, refuses to let go. Jacob
is not the type to give up because he didn’t get the answer he wanted. Even
when he’s hurt and cannot win, he will not let go. There are times in our lives
when wrestling with God seems to be more than we can bear. When it’s easier to
keep holding onto the faith of our childhood rather than braving the tough
questions that adult life brings. When we find ourselves living a life so
isolated that we cannot imagine what good a relationship with God could bring.
But in Jacob we see that, as the Psalmist says, “Joy comes in the morning.”
Jacob holds on tightly in this moment when he is at his most vulnerable, afraid
of losing his family. Alone and set upon by a stranger, he hangs on through the
darkest hours of the night, and is rewarded at dawn with God’s blessing for his
perseverance.
All too often we Christians come to faith looking for
solutions and easy answers, for comfort without obligation, or justification
for our behavior. We don’t come to wrestle with God, but to use God, to
manipulate things to our advantage. But this story implies that being God’s
people means more than some otherworldly reward and punishment system. When
Jacob wrestles with God he finds himself pulled into a challenging
relationship, wounded but transformed, and finally and most significantly,
blessed. He looks back on that night with newfound wisdom, the realization that
he has seen God face to face. When we come to God with openness, seeking
relationship, not justification for our actions, we too will find ourselves
transformed and blessed. Transformed, because you cannot open your heart to God
without being led to a deeper and more fulfilling understanding of what it
means to be God’s. Blessed, because if you hold on through the night you will
receive God’s favor and grace.
If we open ourselves to God and engage deeply with the
questions on our hearts and the worries on our minds, dispensing of the
platitudes so common in faith and searching for a deep and fulfilling
relationship with God made flesh, Christ, that even though now we see only in a
mirror dimly, we shall come to see God face to face. And when we do, we cannot
expect to walk away from the encounter anything but transformed, and we should
remember, to never let go without a blessing.
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