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Sunday April 27, 2008 "Wrestling with God" Genesis 32:22-31 |
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Location: Blogs Brad's BlogBrad's Sermons |
 | | Posted by: Brad Miller | 4/29/2008 4:25 AM | At the very beginning of our service, we heard Crystal Evans read parts of the 46th Psalm to help us prepare our hearts for worship. It begins, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear…” These have been words of great comfort to many, many generations of people of faith. They are also words that we sometimes have a hard time reconciling when our lives seem to have taken a turn for the worse, where anger or depression or fear or grief have overtaken us and God’s presence is hard to grasp.
When we are struggling with issues beyond our understanding, when the world seems to be spinning out of control, these are the times when we need to be assured that in fact, God will not leave us. But if we are truthful, those can be the times when we feel the most alone, the times when God does not seem near. And as much as we want to feel the loving touch of God with us, in our humanness, we cannot. The struggle within our own being can be titanic as we seek to understand where God is in our darkest moments. When we look at a world gone mad and cry out to God for a return to sanity, the conflict we feel can strike us at our very core. We want to be comforted. We want to trust God. But sometimes it is hard.
Those are the times when we must listen to how the 46th Psalm ends: “The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.”
We are nothing if not descendants of Jacob. If we seek to truly understand how God fulfills God’s promises, if we truly want to see an example of a real, flawed, human being who struggles with God and with his own instincts, and if we want to see how God loves unconditionally and honors our struggle, then Jacob’s story is the one to which we need to pay attention.
During last week’s sermon, we heard part of Jacob’s story. How he grew up a scheming, conniving child, who wronged his brother Esau by stealing his birthright and their father’s blessing, how he was blessed by God in a vision at Bethel, and how, in his own inimitable style, accepted God’s blessing…on the condition that God really did live up to the promise.
Quite a character. We would all be quick to say that we know people like Jacob. Some of us might even admit out loud that we are just a little like Jacob ourselves.
When Jacob was visited by God at Bethel, his life changed. He vowed to come back to hat holy place someday, and he did. He clearly was moved by his experience. But in the midst of all the power of the experience, the essence of the old Jacob still lived.
Today’s story of Jacob picks up from last time with Jacob at his Uncle Laban’s house in Haran, where he was welcomed and taken in. There he met Laban’s two daughters, the elder Leah and the younger Rachel. He fell in love with the beautiful Rachel and asked for her hand in marriage. Laban replied that if Jacob worked for him for 7 years, he could have Rachel as his wife.
And so, Jacob toiled for 7 years in virtual indentured servitude to Laban. After 7 years, a wedding was held, but Laban pulled a fast one and gave Leah as Jacob’s wife.
Jacob was furious, but Laban explained that it was tradition that the eldest daughter must be married first, and that’s just the way it was. Of course, those were days when men could marry more than one woman, and so Laban offered a deal: Jacob could marry Rachel next if he agreed to another 7 years of servitude and Jacob agreed, and they married.
This is a bit of a payback for Jacob, isn’t it? This man who had flaunted tradition and deceived his older brother Esau is now caught in 14 years of servitude because of deception and the power of tradition.
The next 7 years were a whirlwind of stress for Jacob, Leah and Rachel. Leah was jealous of Jacob’s love for Rachel, Rachel was jealous of Leah’s ability to bear children while she was barren. Handmaidens were brought in to become surrogate mothers, and the drama continued to grow. In the next 7 years, Jacob fathered 12 children with combination of wives and handmaidens.
I can see it in some of your eyes: and we’re supposed to identify with this man? Really? Could anything be so far removed from our reality? The circumstances may be well beyond our experience or understanding, but still, the human reactions involved are all too real.
After 14 years, Jacob is fed up with it all, and his more deceptive nature makes a comeback. He makes a deal with Laban to separate out all the imperfect sheep and goats from Laban’s herds and keep them, thus assuring that only the “perfect” unspotted, unmottled animals would be in Laban’s herds. But Laban had a dream in which he understood God to be telling him how to breed the animals so that all will be spotted, mottled and supposedly imperfect…and thus all belonging to Jacob!
Through this bit of trickery, Jacob’s holdings grow and grow and grow and he is by all measures, a wealthy man in his own right. And then, he makes plans to sneak away from Laban and return home.
Not so fast: Laban finds out and takes exception, Rachel gets into the act by stealing her father’s household idols, there is a tense standoff and finally, a pact is made and Jacob and his family are allowed to move on, to return to his homeland, the land of his father Isaac.
But there is one glitch in this plan. For Jacob to return home, he must first confront his brother Esau, who, if you remember in our last episode, threatened to kill Jacob the next time he saw him.
Afraid of what awaits him, and rightly so, Jacob sent a message to Esau. When his emissaries returned, they said, “Esau is coming out to meet you and he is bringing 400 men with him.”
This can’t be good.
Jacob devises a plan: he split up his caravan with the notion that Esau wouldn’t get all of it that way. He sent a gift of several hundred animals to Esau. And he prayed.
It is a prayer we would expect, sort of. He tells God that he is afraid. He tells God that Esau may kill them all, women and children alike. He gives thanks to God for taking him from poverty to wealth. And he reminds God that a promise was made: that God would protect Jacob, that God would bless Jacob, that God would do good by Jacob and Jacob’s offspring would be like the dust of the desert. Just in case you forgot, God. You promised.
The next day all was ready, Jacob moved toward his meeting with Esau. He sent his wives and children away from him and spent the night alone. And there, he wrestled with a man all night long.
Is this metaphor? Is it real? Did some guy just come upon Jacob and start wrestling with him? The writer of Genesis continually says Jacob wrestled with a man, but Jacob knew better. He knew he was wrestling with God. And he was winning…right up until the point where his hip was pulled out of place and he had to stop.
His opponent then blessed him and said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob – the supplanter – from now on, you shall be known as Israel, for you have wrestled with humans and with God and you have prevailed.
I ask the question again: was it real? Or is Jacob’s wrestling with God a metaphor for the internal struggles that he faced?
I personally think it was both.
I know that there are times when I have struggled mightily with issues of faith and belief and it is every bit as taxing as wrestling with a man for hours on end. And that struggle is just as real as a physical wrestling match could ever be. Both are hard; both are wearing; and in both cases, you can come away bruised, battered, battle worn. But you can also come away with new insight.
What would Jacob be wrestling with God about? His fear? His understanding of God’s promise and his own doubts? His own deceit and underhandedness being in direct conflict with God’s blessings in his life? Was he angry with God for putting him through so much adversity when God had promised to protect him? I don’t know, but I do know that we have all been in that place where the dark night of the soul visits us and we find ourselves wrestling with God.
When we find ourselves grieving over losses that don’t make sense to us; when we see innocent people become the victims of horrific abuse and violence; when evil raises it’s head in subtle and not-so-subtle ways; when we ourselves do things we should not do and do not do the things we should do; when we raise our fists to the heavens and shout “Why God?!?” we are wrestling with God just as much as Jacob wrestled with God so many years ago.
Over the past few weeks I have asked many people about what issues they found themselves “wrestling with God.” I also asked “what one question would you ask if you found yourself face to face with God, just as Jacob was."
The answers I received were thoughtful and heartfelt. They covered everything from the suffering of innocent people, to the evil that shows itself in random violence, to the free will that allows us to sin and then leads us to a place of guilt, to questions surrounding why some of us are blessed and others are not, to the pain that seems to pervade so much of this life.
Over and over again we ask: Why God? Why is life not fair? If you are all powerful and if you truly love humanity, why let them suffer? Why did you give us free will when you had to know that we would too often make the wrong choices? Why won’t you ease the pain that we are feeling?
Several years ago a friend of mine, a woman of great faith, lost a young grandson to an undetected heart defect. At his visitation, as we stood together, a woman came up to her and said “He’s in a better place now.” To which my friend quickly replied: “No, he’s not. He should be at home with his parents and his sister.” As the woman walked away stunned, my friend muttered under her breath, “moron.”
Truth be told, she wasn’t angry with the woman. She was angry with God. And just as Jacob wrestled with God, so did my friend. There was no sense to it. With all the medical advances, why didn’t they catch this defect? He had begun to play little league, how come the physical exertion didn’t show this problem? There were no answers.
Jacob found an answer that night that he did his wrestling. Oh, it wasn’t “Okay, here is the answer that is going to remove all your doubts. Here is the answer that is going to allow you to prevail over your brother Esau. Here is the answer that is going to set you up for life.”
No, the answer was simpler and subtler, and it came from Jacob’s mouth, not God’s. After the wrestling, after the blessing, after the name change, Jacob said, “I have stood before God face to face and I have survived! I can face anything!”
Note he didn’t say that he would prevail in anything he did. He didn’t say that he would prosper no matter what. He didn’t say that he would never be hurt again. He said, “I can face anything that can be thrown at me.” Why? Because God was with him.
I have shared with you before some of the most cherished advice I ever received from my mother. During a particularly difficult time in our life, Carol and I received a letter from my mother telling of a time when her life was completely out of her control, her grief was palpable, pain and fear were her constant companion. In the midst of all this, every morning she would pray, “Lord, get me through this day.” And every night, she would pray, “Lord, thank you for getting me through this day.”
She did not ask for the pain to go away. She knew that there was no adequate explanation coming her way. She knew the reality of what she dealt with and just needed to survive it. One day, she woke up and realized, the pain had passed. The fear had subsided. She had made it to the other side knowing full well she could face anything, because God was with her.
One of the people I asked to share their struggles with me wrote this in an e-mail: “I do believe that I’m not expected to understand all of what happens (whether God “lets it” or even “does it”) and it’s not a cop-out for me to stick to my faith…many, many times I have later come to realize how some mysterious event has had an important impact on me, and I believe the mystery has been revealed…and for others, still mysterious, I do believe the answers will come, if not in life, then in death.”
The key to all of this wrestling with God business may just be contained in the middle of that statement: “it’s not a cop-out to stick to my faith” when understanding is not there. But even as we “stick to our faith” we struggle with the question, we wrestle with God, and sometimes, something is revealed.
For my mother it was that she was strong enough to face anything. It didn’t change her circumstances, but it changed her.
For Jacob it was that he had nothing to fear, for God was with him always. It didn’t change the fact that he might indeed be killed the next day, but that was irrelevant. God did not walk away from God’s promise.
Many of you know the rest of the story: Jacob met Esau and while Jacob braced himself for a sword through his heart, or at least a fist to the jaw, Esau walked up and hugged his brother, and welcomed him home.
Jacob’s story gives us lots of good stuff to think about: the futility of fear when God has promised to be with us; the idea that God does not walk away from any promise, anytime, anywhere; that our struggle, our wrestling with God is honored.
Why does God cause suffering in the world? I don’t know but it causes me to ask another question: is it within my power to alleviate someone’s suffering today?
Why does God allow innocent people to be the victims of abuse? I don’t know but it causes me to ask another question: what can I do to make sure that those in my care are protected from abuse?
Why am I so blessed when others seem to have little or nothing? I don’t know but it causes me to ask another question: how can I best share my blessings with others?
In the end, I think the most important lesson Jacob teaches us is that answers are not always forthcoming, but sometimes, sometimes, where our struggles lead us is more important than the struggle itself. May it be so for you and for me.
Let us pray: We have so many questions, Lord. So many things that seem to be out of order, so many things that you could fix, so many things that make it hard to hear your voice. Thank you for honoring our struggles. May they lead us to understanding, and if we cannot fully understand, may our struggles lead us to ask, “What can I do?” In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.
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