“WRESTLING
JACOB”
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A sermon preached Gen
32:22-32, Matthew 14:13-21 |
“Jacob was
left alone and a man wrestled with him until daybreak”
(Gen
32:24)
The hero
– or should I say antihero –
of today’s OT lesson is Jacob -
described succinctly by one Biblical commentator
as an “ugly piece of work”
which seems to sum up his early life pretty well –
he’s manipulative and aggressive -
it is said that he was already fighting his twin brother in the womb.
You will
recall how in due course
he cheated his brother Esau out of his birthright for a mess of potage –
and also cheated his old father Isaac of a blessing.
Now after
many years apart,
Jacob is once again to meet his brother Esau whom he swindled.
He is
perhaps naturally apprehensive and fearful –
so He prays to God for protection from his hairy brother’s anger –
but hedging his bets he also sends his family ahead with many gifts.
Jacob
remains for the night alone by the River Jabbok –
and here we pick up the story as told in today’s set lesson.
By the
River Jacob wrestles all night long with –
well is it God, man or angel? –
Jacob for one is clear that he is wrestling with God himself.
As dawn
approaches, they are still locked in combat –
Jacob says he will not release his opponent
unless he is given a blessing.
But the
stranger does not immediately bless him –
rather he asks him his name –
and tells him that from now on
he shall be called not Jacob but
The
stranger dislocates Jacob’s thigh –
so Jacob limps from the wound –
but finally his opponent does bless Jacob.
And so as
he limps away Jacob calls the place Peniel –
the place where I saw God’s face and survived.
It is a remarkable, complex and evocative story.
It is a bit like an old Church building,
which has been worked on and added to
over the years by many different hands and styles -
Maybe at its heart is an ancient long lost pre-Jewish myth
of a river God or Spirit barring the way across the River –
but the author of Genesis as so often
takes an ancient myth and gives it new depth and meaning –
he retells the story
as an encounter with the one true God himself….
So what
are we to make of this three, four thousand years on?
Let me
suggest three things:
1. Like
Jacob, We have to Wrestle with God
There is
a dangerous heresy
which treats the Christian life as a casual walk in the park,
with no stress, no strain.
·
It
is just a matter of popping along to the chapel
when you feel like it
·
If
you’ve got a question, just dip into the Scriptures
and the answer will pop out as easy as that
·
If
you’ve got a problem, just say a quick prayer to God
and he will put everything right at the drop of a hat…..
But of
course the Christian life isn’t like that.
Even
Jesus himself struggled with temptation
in the wilderness and in
If you
want to know God,
you need to be prepared to wrestle –
·
To
wrestle in prayer –
Prayer isn’t like phoning through a shopping list –
its about identifying with the heartache of life
and holding it up in God’s presence –
an agony of loving effort …
·
To
wrestle with doubt and uncertainty –
what does God want me to do, and can I be sure??
“All you need is love”
in the words of the Lennon lyrics sold this week –
but exactly what does love demand in difficult situations?
It is not always clear
·
To
wrestle with temptation –
even when I know what God wants of me,
have I the bottle, the faith and determination
to see it through?
All this
isn’t a stroll it’s a struggle –
with ourselves,
with God,
with our failings, our hopes, our
fears…..
At the
end of the wrestling match,
significantly Jacob does not stroll away –
he limps away injured -
for when we meet with God
we should expect that he will challenge us
and
that more than likely
he will put our carefully and selfishly ordered lives out of joint.
2. Like Jacob, we can find a
blessing
in the midst of the conflict
Again
this week our TV screens
have been full of terrorism and the fight against terrorism.
As a world we are yet again going through a dark night of conflict –
for some of us here in this Church
the terrorist carnage of recent weeks has struck very personally –
as we mourn the loss of loved ones in the bomb blasts -
for all of us we recognize that life can suddenly turn very dark.
And here
in this old story, God sees Jacob,
a flawed and frightened man sweating in the dark.
God could just watch him, whilst he, God,
sat safe and secure on his heavenly throne –
God could have just looked on at planet earth
as we might look at the newly discovered planet beyond Pluto –
spinning dark and cold in the hopeless depths of infinite space.
But no –
God comes down to earth to the River Jabbok
to struggle and risk himself
in order to be alongside Jacob in the battle of life.
This is
the same God who was to come down to a cross
to be alongside us in our deepest darkest life and death struggles.
For the darker the night, the closer our God.
As the
Psalmist says:
7Where can I flee from your
presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in hell, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
Ps 139:7-12
Here is Jacob
in his darkest night fighting for his life -
To those
of you in the darkness,
here is the Gospel –
when you are at your lowest most vulnerable,
then are you nearest the cross.
God will not let you go
nor deny his blessing on you.
So the
wrestling match brings both pain & blessing,
judgement & salvation
So here
at the Lord’s table
we recall how bread was taken, broken and blessed –
breaking and blessing go together –
to be blessed by God is to be taken, broken and remade by him,
destroying the old life and beginning new life in his image.
3. Like
Jacob, being blessed sets us on a new path
As they
fight, God gives Jacob a new name –
he is no longer to be Jacob (meaning a heel or a cheat) –
now he is to be called
Jacob is
to be a nation,
and he and his nation are given a new name Israel and a blessing –
but like a new Baptismal name and blessing,
this is not a retirement present,
the name and blessing are a commission
(for Jacob as an individual and Israel as a nation)
to begin a new life.
As a nation we can perhaps identify with the sins of
Jacob.
We know what it means to steal Esau’s birthright –
look into the faces of the children of
here is your brother and your sister.
As a human race we have stolen the birthright
of the poor of the world –
And we fear the consequences –
fear that the world order is beginning to crumble
for a million reasons –
but not a few relating to the avarice of the rich nations.
So God
says to us – as he said to Jacob -
yes life will be a struggle and yes you will limp –
but it is better to hobble painfully into the Kingdom of God
than walk comfortably into oblivion -
So having wounded and blessed him,
God send Jacob off to begin his new life as Israel -
hobbling on his way to his brother Esau –
not to fight him or cheat him, but
(amazingly after all the earlier parts of the story)
for a great scene of reconciliation.
Conclusion
So, come
to the Lord’s table -
Here may you, like Jacob so long ago, find here your Penuel
–
that here in this place you may
·
See
God face to face
·
Learn
who you are and who God wants you to be
·
Know
what it means for your life to be
broken, blessed, and redirected
·
See
a new future leading to restored love and community
Then as
you return from the table,
not only will you have survived meeting God -
you will have been blessed indeed!