Wrestling with God preached at Leaside United Church July 13, 2014

During the night he got up, got his two wives, his two maidservants, and his eleven children and got them safely across the Jabbok brook, together with all his possessions. Jacob stayed behind by himself, and a man appeared and wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he couldn’t get the best of Jacob as they wrestled, he deliberately threw Jacob’s hip out of joint. The man said, “Let me go; it’s daybreak.” Jacob said, “I’m not letting you go until you bless me.”  The man said, “What’s your name?” He answered, “Jacob.” The man replied “Your name is no longer Jacob. From now on it’s Israel (God-Wrestler); you’ve wrestled with God and you’ve come through.”  Jacob asked, “And what’s your name?”

The man said, “Why do you want to know my name?” And then, right then and there, he blessed him. Jacob named the place Peniel (God’s Face) because, he said, “I saw God face-to-face and lived to tell the story!”  The sun came up as he left Peniel, limping because of his hip. (This is why Israelites to this day don’t eat the hip muscle; because Jacob’s hip was thrown out of joint.) (Genesis 32:22-32)

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When I was in seminary, I had a teacher of Homiletics (preaching) who gave me a low grade in preaching, because – he said – the Gospel and the Good News always had to be preached. My response was that sometimes the Good News isn’t found in the Gospel, and that we do our congregations a disservice by avoiding certain stories. A real preacher, I said, would be able to find something in Hebrew Scriptures which is equally valuable for a congregation. My comments didn’t go over well with the prof, but fortunately they did with the rest of the class. My second sermon (in a different class with a different professor) got an A+, a grade which he had to defend to the Basic Degree Committee, and yes that sermon was on a text from Hebrew Scripture.

Well, this isn’t meant to be a brag – but a lead-in to the story today. When we were kids in Sunday School, we did sort of hear the story of Jacob and Esau, which is almost “As the World Turns” from the Hebrew Scriptures; I am sure I never heard the bits about Uncle Laban cheating Jacob out of the wife he wanted; I am more than sure it was not preached in a sermon – and yet to me it is so packed with stuff which is relevant to us today. Sometimes the good stories, and the lessons to be learned really are in the Hebrew Scriptures. – and I think the whole story is important to set up how God decided Jacob needed a strong lesson.

The story of Jacob and Esau focuses on the loss of Esau’s birthright, and the conflict spawned between their descendent nations, because Jacob deceived their old and blind father, Isaac, in order to receive Esau's birthright and blessing as firstborn. Genesis tells us there was favoritism in this family: "Isaac loved Esau, because he ate venison, but Rebekah loved Jacob.”

Anyone here reading sibling rivalry? The oldest and the youngest – even if just by a few seconds? Anyone hear “Mom always loved you best; you were the youngest, you could always fool her.” “Dad always loved you best – you only ate that meat so he would love you more.” Genesis says "…the children struggled within her. Rebekah asked God “Why is this?”.

Esau was born with Jacob hanging on to his heel, as if trying to pull Esau back into the womb so that he could come first. The grasping of the heel also refers to deceptive behavior, and Jacob did develop a reputation as being dishonest and deceptive.

Esau returned to his younger brother, famished from working the fields. He begged his younger twin to give him some stew.  Jacob offered to give Esau a bowl of stew in exchange for his birthright (the right to be recognized as firstborn) and Esau agreed.

The birthright is the  inheritance of goods and position, usually the eldest son. But Esau acted impulsively, and valued his birthright less than red lentil stew. By his actions, he showed that he did not deserve to continue Abraham's responsibilities and rewards under God's covenant; he did not have the steady, thoughtful qualities which are required. What Jacob did was not illegal, but neither was it honorable. Plus he was insecure enough about the birthright, even then, to conspire with his mother to deceive his father so as to gain the blessing for the first-born as well. Neither one was really exemplary.

Esau married two wives, Hittite women, violating his father’s and God’s injunction not to take wives from among the Canaanite population. His marriages were described as a vexation to both Rebekah and Isaac. This alone ruled out Esau as the line of continuity in the family. He could have overcome the sale of his birthright; Isaac was still prepared to give him the blessing due the firstborn. Acquiring foreign wives meant the detachment of his children from the Abrahamic line. So despite the deception on the part of Jacob and Rebekah, Jacob's place as Isaac's legitimate heir in the continued founding of the Jewish people is reaffirmed. Essentially the Bible indicates that a bright, calculating person who is less than honest, is preferable as a founder over a bluff, impulsive one who cannot make thoughtful and wise choices.

Esau vowed to kill Jacob. Rebekah intervened to save her youngest son from being murdered At Rebekah's urging, Jacob fled to a distant land to work for a relative, Laban (Genesis 28:5).

Having fled for his life, Jacob left the wealth of Isaac's flocks, land and tents in Esau's hands – the inheritance he had obtained by deception. Instead, he was forced to sleep on open ground and work for wages as a servant in Laban's household. Jacob was deceived by Uncle Laban concerning his seven years of service (lacking money for a dowry) for the hand of Rachel, receiving Leah instead. Despite Laban, Jacob eventually became so rich as to cause jealousy of Laban and Laban's sons.

God has managed to tell Jacob that it’s probably time to relocate. Instead of doing it right, Jacob messes it up. While Laban is busy elsewhere, Jacob loads up his wives, concubines, servants, herds, flocks, tents, whatever, and just leaves without saying a word, taking Rachel and Leah with him. Laban and the relatives, furious, vow to kill Jacob. God intervenes and tells Laban to leave Jacob alone.

What would you do in a society in which revenge is a virtue? Esau was going after Jacob for being so dishonest, and sent four hundred troops after him! Jacob does what all of us do in a crisis/crunch - not one of those nicely written Sunday prayer the King’s English, this is panic zone prayer with some finger pointing: "God, I would have stayed but you said ‘go.’ Yes, I’ve been a lousy, low-down dirty rotten scoundrel, and yet received your blessing. Please God, just get me through this jam!" Just in case, he sent Esau herds from his own wealth - 100 cows, 50 camels, 75 donkeys, up to 550 animals, hoping that Esau’s anger would ease up.

And last, he moved his family in stages across the river. He placed Rachel, his most beloved wife, the furthest away from danger; Leah, his less loved wife a bit closer to camp; and the concubines even closer.

Jacob returned to an empty camp with little hope and has little hope, few options, and no escape. And someone tackled him, in the camp, and they wrestled – until dawn – all night in fact; and the writer is clear that God is the wrestler, and when it looked like God had not prevailed, God gave Jacob a kick that knocked his thigh out of joint, and left him with a permanent limp. Jacob will not let go, will not concede defeat.

"I won’t let go until you bless me!" and he grabs as God drags him across the ring. So God changes his name from Jacob-The-Deceiver to Israel-The-One-Who-Strives-With-God.

I find this astonishing - God takes on human form and encounters Jacob at his own level. God prevails, and names Jacob “Israel” – which is really a double entendre. It can mean either “one who strives with God”, or (and I prefer this meaning) “God prevails.”

Yesterday I was reading a story about Bob Jones University, in Greenville, South Carolina. Now, you may not know that Bob Jones U is the fundamentalist to end all fundamentalist universities. Want to look at the western version of Islamic Sharia law? Go no further than Bob Jones. Young women reporting rape were told by counsellors to look at their own “root sin” which would have caused the rape. While they may not be punished by stoning, they are punished by the suggestion that they caused their own rape, and they are ostracized within the community. Many eventually left the university, and some of their comments and stories are truly appalling. Bob Jones U will tell you that’s God’s understanding.

Two weeks ago the Supreme Court of the United States, ruled in favour of a company named Hobby Lobby, which claimed that for religious reasons they would not provide certain kinds of birth control for employees. The floodgates have been opened and all kinds of lawsuits now being prepared to get permission to refuse to hire gays for ‘religious reason’, or women for ‘religious reasons.’ There was a photo of George Bush JR, Mitt Romney, saying God wanted them to be president. There is the prosperity Gospel of Joel Osteen and Oral Roberts, which teaches that personal empowerment is of utmost importance, that it is God's will for his (note, only his people) to be happy. The atonement (reconciliation with God) is interpreted to include the alleviation of sickness and poverty, which are viewed as curses to be broken by faith. Note that: sickness and poverty are curses which are only broken by a very particular kind of faith. So not matter how sick or poor you are, if you just believe right it will all go away. If you look at all of these, you have to conclude that God is old, male, white, racist, bigoted, misogynist, and just plan out mean and nasty. The “love” ethic in the Bible doesn’t exist. In fact, looked at in this way, Jesus would have been kicked out and vilified.

These days, I see a wrestling with God – and in some ways, a kind of draw – just as God and Jacob encountered. Human beings were made in the image of God, we are told, and set a little lower than the angels, and yet somehow we seem to have wrestled God into our own image, to suit us, and put ourselves at the top of the heap, and God lower down. Where did we get the idea that God wants us to be rich, and that someone who is poor is cursed? Where did we get the notion that women cause rape? Where did we get the stupid notion that God wants some particular person to be President? Or that having stewardship of the earth means taking everything we can from it, and hang the consequences to future generations?

In early Israelite culture, blessings were never given without parallel curses. While Matthew’s Gospel gives us the Beatitudes only, Luke gives us the correct format; first the blessings and then the curses. It was a literary/oral format which prophets used. Remember in Deuteronomy, God says “I offer you blessings or curses, life or death. Choose life!”

So here we go. From Luke 6:24-26

“But woe be on you who are rich, for you have already received your consolation.
Woe be to you who are now full, for you shall hunger.
Woe be to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.
Woe be to you when people speak well of you, for so did their fathers to the false prophets.”

I have faith, though. I have faith that God prevails, that good prevails. God wrestles with us as humans, we wrestle with God in how we are to live our faith, and we do try to wrestle God into our own image, because then we can live with God without doing any real internal discernment. God may have to give us a good kick in the hip. But God will prevail. I believe that, even in the darkest of days. God prevails. May it be so.

*Limping With Grace *a sermon based on Genesis 32:22-31* */by Rev. Thomas Hall