Wrestling With God

Here is my sermon from yesterday. The text was Genesis 32:22-31.

When Linda was pregnant with our first child, we had already decided that we would name her Samantha if we had a girl, but had not yet have a boy’s name. Being a huge New York Yankees fan, I suggested that we should name him after whoever it was we saw hit the first homerun at the next Yankees game we attended in person, which happened to be a Yankees-Cubs game. In the first inning, Gary Sheffield hit what everyone in the stadium thought was a homerun. We thought, well Gary’s not a bad name, we could settle for that. But as I said, everyone in the stadium thought it was a homerun except for the umpire who ruled that it was a foul ball. In the fourth inning Derek Jeter came up to bat with the bases loaded. Now Derek had never hit a grand slam before, so we were all ready. What would have been great about this scenario is that we could have chosen either Derek or Jeter as a name, and what better name for a Yankee fan to give to their son, then to name him after the greatest Yankee of my generation, but Jeter flew out. Then in the seventh inning, Hideki Matsui, our hard hitting Japanese right fielder came up, and sure enough he hit one out, and as soon as it was clear it was going to be a homerun, Linda turned to me and said “we are not naming our son Hideki,” and so my dreams of a Yankee name were out. There is something powerful about a name.
Now I’m sure that some of you are probably saying to yourselves “when John said a few weeks ago that most preachers did not want to deal with Jacob, and even though I had never heard a sermon about him, I certainly did not expect that he was got to be talking about Jacob for weeks after week,” but put your concerns aside because today is the last day, at least for a while, that we will look directly at Jacob’s story. Now just as a refresher for those of you who haven’t been here to hear the whole story, or for those who have forgotten. Jacob is the second born of a set of twins born to Isaac and Rebekah. When Jacob is born, he comes out holding onto his brothers heal, which is how he gets his name, which translates roughly as usurper or supplanter. The name Jacob comes from the Hebrew word for heel, and he certainly lives into his name, as he does indeed become a heel, which the Merriam Webster’s dictionary defines as a contemptible person, and that certainly describes who Jacob is. First he tricks his brother out of his birthright, and then under the guidance of his mother, he tricks his father into giving him the blessing that is also due to his brother by lying when Isaac, who is in the dark, asks who is in the room with him, and Jacob claims that he is Esau.
After tricking his father and receiving the blessing, he learns that Esau is plotting to kill him and so he flees for his life, where he encounters God in a dream, then he travels back to his family’s home land where he is tricked by his uncle and first ends up marrying the wrong girl, only to get the one he really wants in exchange for fourteen years of labor. From these marriages, as well as liaisons with his wives handmaidens, he has twelve sons who will become the heads of the twelve tribes of Israel. Jacob ends up getting revenge on his uncle Laban for his trickery, by tricking Laban out of his best sheep and goats through a little selective breeding process.
And so today we find him, twenty years after he first fled from his brother’s wrath, freed from his service to uncle, going back across the desert to meet his brother taking with him all that he has. He sends some servants out to let Esau know that he is coming, and they return telling Jacob that Esau is on his way and that he has 400 men with him. Now as you might imagine, this has Jacob greatly concerned, after all the last time he saw Esau he wanted to kill Jacob, and so Jacob thinks Esau is still a little upset, and so to protect himself he divides all of his possessions and people into two groups thinking that then even if Esau destroys one group Jacob will not have lost everything, and then he sends both groups, along with a bunch of presents, out in front of him, staying behind with his wives and children.
Then for some reason that is not entirely clear, Jacob takes his family and crosses the Jabbok River with them, and then crosses back to the other side alone, and then just like before, when he is alone in the desert, Jacob encounters God, and they wrestle all night long. I don’t imagine this was like a WWF match; there were no folding chairs or jumping off the ropes involved. Nor can we merely attribute this to another dream because Jacob comes away from the incident injured, and he does so because the man is not able to prevail against Jacob. Now some commentators have said that clearly God must not have been using all of God’s power, but that is to read something into the text that is not there. Instead, we need to see this as it is presented, that is God is not playing games with Jacob, toying with him, like a cat plays with a mouse, instead we should see that God actually struggles with Jacob, and Jacob struggles as well and has such a grip that God cannot escape.
As the morning approaches, seeing that Jacob cannot be overcome in their struggles, God touches Jacob’s hip and puts it out of joint, although the Hebrew here is not clear exactly what happens, and to be honest I find it a little hard to believe that Jacob could continue to wrestle, let alone walk, with his hip out of joint, but that is what the tradition tells us. Anyways, God asks Jacob to let him go, to which Jacob says he will only do so if he receives a blessing, and so God asks him who he is. Sound familiar? The set-up is just like with his father Isaac, but this time, rather than lying, Jacob says his real name and with that admits everything that goes along with it, he admits that he is a heal to God. He can no longer hide. He is all alone, he has no one to protect him, he has none of his possessions to give him comfort or identity, he has nothing but his name. It might be said that this is Jacob’s dark night of the soul. And then God says that because of Jacob’s wrestling that he will no longer be called Jacob, but instead will be called Israel, which means struggles or strives with God. In other words, the name of the people to come and of the land they will inhabit is all about the idea of struggling or striving with God. This idea is found throughout the scriptures, and it even continues today, even extending to the role rabbis play in their congregations, as they see it as part of their job to question and probe and prod the members of their congregation to take them deeper in their faith.
Within Christianity this understanding has certainly been tampered to some degree. At annual conference this year, one of the speakers was talking about how Jesus practically ran to the cross he was so excited to complete his assigned task. That is how the Gospel of John portrays Jesus, at least to a degree although I think that’s a stretch, but it is certainly not how the other gospels portray Jesus, in particular Matthew and most especially Mark. Mark says that Jesus was driven into the wilderness to be tempted, has Jesus ask God to remove the cup from him, and then has him cry out on the cross, quoting the 22nd Psalm, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” That is the picture of Jesus striving with God. Of course, Mark also has the disciples striving with Jesus, with each other and with God, and they never quite seem to get it. We are supposed to be struggling and striving with God, it is inherent to our faith, to deepening our faith. If we are not asking questions then there is no way we can be learning; to ask a question is in and of itself a form of striving.
Just three months into my first pastoral appointment I received a call to perform the funeral for an 18-month-old boy. At the time Samantha was just a little bit older than Ethan was when he had died. The meeting with Ethan’s parents, Jane and Anil, is seared into my mind in hearing them tell me the story of Ethan, his very short life and the night he died as they held him in their arms. To say that I strived with God would be an understatement. Over the course of those days as I walked with the family, I yelled at God, I cried a lot, I prayed, I asked for strength and guidance, and I searched for answers. I know that some of you have lost children and I can only imagine that your strivings were and are even greater. But in my striving I did not let go of God and God did not let go of me. In the end I became a better pastor, in that you might say I was blessed. But, if given the choice and I could do it all over again would I hope the same thing happened? Absolutely not. It is an experience I would not wish on my worst enemy. Nor am I saying that a blessing comes out of everything bad that happens to us, but what I am saying is that in striving with God and also in refusing to let go that we are forever changed, we are marked, just like Jacob, and we are never the same people.
When Jesus was approached and asked what the greatest commandment was, he didn’t say that it was that you shouldn’t make graven images, or that you shouldn’t covet your neighbor’s donkey, wife or large screen HD television with surround sound. Instead what does he say? “You should love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” And then he continues, “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” In my opinion, as Christians we should push to have the billboard you see heading into Clovis which contains the Ten Commandments read this command from Jesus instead. But it is impossible to live into Jesus command without striving with God. It is impossible to love God with your heart and strength and soul and most importantly with you mind and not struggle and strive with God. We are not commanded to check our minds at the door, as it so often seems we are being told, instead we are told that we are to use our mind, to use our intellect, which is given to us by God and to strive and struggle with God. But here is the key.
It is not just enough to question and struggle, but we also have to not let go of God in the process. That is where so many people go wrong. They begin struggling and in the struggle they let go of God and therefore fall away. But in his striving Jacob holds on to God so tightly in the dark of that night that God has to ask Jacob to let go. Our problems arise not in struggling with God, not in questioning God, not in challenging God, not in yelling at God, not is crying out to God, after all scripture is full of plenty of examples of people doing this, we need look no further than the Psalms, although they can easily be found elsewhere. We are encouraged to do those things in our striving with God, that is the only way we can love God with our whole being, instead our problems arise in letting go of God, in distancing ourselves from God when we are striving and struggling.
But, there is one more piece of information that is crucial to understanding this story of struggle, and our own struggle. In addition to Israel meaning one who strives with God it also means God strives. It is God who takes the initiative and begins the struggle with Jacob and with us, so then the question becomes what is our response to God’s invitation to this relationship. As Methodists we believe that we can either choose or reject to have a relationship with God, that it is our choice. That is certainly not the case with other denominations. Nor do we believe that our response is merely a passive acquiescence to God’s movement in our direction. Instead, we are engaged in more of a dance, in which there is a give and take, there is a movement together and, for lack of a better term, there is a sort of mixing it up, sometimes we have to wrestle. God challenges and we challenge. God questions and we question. God evaluates and we evaluate. God does not let go, and we too should not let go. God loves and we love.
In order to be in relationship with God, in order to love the Lord our God with all our heart, all our soul, all our heart and all our strength, then we have to be ready to say everything to God, to question everything with God, to bring all of who we are to that relationship. We cannot say that we are only going to bring God the good stuff, that we cannot take our anger or pain or suffering or sorrow or doubts to God, as if somehow God could handle that if we could, or maybe that God would not love us because of those things. But, as Paul tells us, there is nothing which can separate us from God’s love. Indeed, who is the first person in the Gospel of John to make a profession of faith in Jesus saying “My Lord and my God.” It is Thomas, immediately following his doubt, which leads him to deeper faith. A name is a powerful thing, and we all have a name that God calls us, because we are all God’s children, and as every parent knows children strive and struggle, indeed it is the only way they learn and can come to be the people we want them to be, to be the people that God has called us to be. Struggling with God is not a sign of weakness, but of strength, but we had to remember that in our struggling we have to hold on to God, do not let go, and know that God will never let go of us. May it be so. Amen.

The S&P Makes Me Moody

So the US has been downgraded in our bond rating by the S&P, and I suspect that a move by Moody’s is not far behind. I understand the importance of this move, and five years ago I would be a lot more upset about it. But here is my problem with it now: S&P and Moody’s, the two biggest credit rating agencies, are a joke.

These are the exact same groups that rated tranches full of sub-prime mortgages as AAA investments. Why did they do this? Several reasons. One is that they didn’t understand the bonds they were rating. Second is that they weren’t paying any attention. And third, and maybe most important, is that they didn’t want to upset the Wall Street firms who were creating these devices and paying them to rate them. And so they rated terrible investments as AAA.

Now after the crash when the bottom literally fell out of these investments, what was their response? “Oh, the ratings are just are opinion, they shouldn’t actually be used to say that these are good investments.” And since it was only their "opinion” they therefore were not culpable for all of the losses that people sustained based on what they thought were their approval that these were good investments. I know that I certainly did not think that their ratings were merely an opinion, and I am sure that almost every other person thought the same thing. We thought the ratings actually meant something, that they were not things that could be bought. But it turns out we were wrong.

So, with that history, here is my question: Why does anyone care what S&P or Moody’s actually think anymore? They have proven themselves as ultimately unreliable. Here’s my opinion, which might be just as good as their opinion, our bonds are just fine.

I do have to say though that the entire debt ceiling episode continues to show all the things that are wrong with Washington. It’s solely about winning, not about what is right for the country, and not just winning immediately but also doing things so that they can win in the longer term. If the country is in bad shape at the next election then Republicans think they can win the White House again, and so they have every incentive to make sure the country is doing badly rather than actually doing what is right.

Now I think Republicans are misreading the electorate and definitely misreading the last election. It had nothing to do with Republican versus Democrat, and everything to do with those in power. People want to see something different, and since the Democrats weren’t getting it done they went the other way. But the Republicans are certainly not getting anything done either, and the polls seem to indicate that people are even more fed up now and want to vote all the bums out. So, unless something changes, I don’t think they will fare all that well in the next election.

Pricing Problems

I recently purchased a Kindle and I did so for several reasons. The first is that, being a manuscript preacher, I wanted to use it so that I didn't have to rustle any more pages during my sermon. The second is that I love to read and thought this might help me in lots of ways, such as not having to carry three or four physical books when I go on vacation. Since the library here is not anywhere as comprehensive as the system we are used to, I also thought it would help in giving me access to books I want to read.

Now while I like the Kindle, and using it for preaching has been great, I have found that my other reasons have not been very applicable yet. We just went on vacation and I took three "real" books with me in addition to my Kindle, and a large reason was simply the cost of most Kindle books. Often they are more expensive than buying a real book, which has me totally confused. Since a Kindle edition does not require the actual printing of a book, how can one without paper be more expensive than one with paper?

Now where prices seem outrageous Amazon has on their website that the price is set by the publisher. While I accept their reasoning on pricing, this can be true only to a point. Amazon, and most other major book sellers, sells lots of books well below the price established by the publisher, so what is the difference here? I simply don't know. But what I do know is that I will not pay more for a Kindle edition of a book when I can get the same book in a printed version for less.

Just as an example, Free: The Future of a Radical Price currently costs $9.83 for hardcover ($26.99 suggested retail price) and $9.99 for the Kindle edition. How does that make any sense? Of course one of the great ironies here is that a book which touts the idea of having more and more things given away rather than being "sold" costs so much.

Another glaring error that Amazon has made, and which I am not the only one to point out, is that when you receive the Kindle it has no books on it. Now of course what Amazon wants to do is have you go on and buy a bunch of new books right away, but they also tout all the free books they offer. So why don't they include some of these? Say pick out ten of the best classics they have available and have them already included.

The first book I downloaded was War and Peace. I have since deleted it because I've already read it, but they could have been able to wow me with how much storage is really available on the device by showing me that even with War and Peace there I still had lots and lots of room for other things. Another missed opportunity....

Kids Say the Darndest Things

Perhaps showing my age, as I got out of the car I was singing "U Can't Touch This" and my daughter said "What can't we touch?"

Setting Expectations

Our printer started acting up last week, and it is so old that with several upgrades in windows I can no longer calibrate the print cartridges, and so I needed to go to Walmart to buy a new one. Now I should stipulate here that I am not a fan of Walmart. Before moving we hadn't shopped there in years, but where we are now they are about the only game in town.

As I waited in line, the wrong line as it turned out since the other cashier ran two people through in the time it took my cashier to do one, there was a sign which said that the manager wanted my experience to be 10 and if it wasn't to call the number to talk with the manager and let them know. Well, that's a great piece of marketing, and although I certainly did not think my experience was a 10 I wasn't going to call anyone about it.

But, then the register would not take the barcode. The cashier tried every barcode on the box, tried manually entering it in, and nothing worked. So then she called for assistance. As we sat there and waited and everyone's frustrations escalated, especially those behind me, I decided to call the number and let them know we were having a problem and someone should come and help the poor cashier. Well, instead of getting a real person it went straight to a voicemail, and there was not even an option to pushing zero and getting a real person.

This only served to increase my frustration and level of unhappiness. When the other person finally came, she did not apologize for the delay, all she said was "yeah, sometimes the number doesn't work." She then punched in the number, the same one the cashier had tried, and then walked away. I do have to say that the cashier apologized, but she was not really the one causing all my frustration.

Walmart set an expectation that they were concerned about my happiness as a customer, and then failed to live up to those expectations. Actually they failed all together. They would have been much better off not setting the expectation at all then in setting it and failing so miserably. Saying "talk to the manager" and then having that exchange be with a machine is an absolute fail.

We will not always match expectations, that's a given, but our procedures to correct problems when expectations are not met need to also match the expectations, and talking to a machine does not do that. I have now left a phone message and sent an email to the store about my displeasure. I will let you know what Walmart's response is, if any. Will they continue to fail to meet expectations?

Kids Say The Darndest Things

Here are three great statements from my daughters:

My oldest is learning how to cross the road safely, so each time she goes to the corner she has to look both way. She also loves "Why did the chicken cross the road jokes," so recently after crossing the street she turned to me and said "did the chicken look both ways before he crossed the road?"

She has also discovered the Smurfs, so last week on vacation we were trying to explain who the smurfs were and my wife told her that they lived in mushrooms. She then asked if they lived in the mushrooms we ate, and she was told no that they live in wild mushrooms and we don't eat wild mushrooms because they could be poisonous, to which she responded, "they're poisonous because they have smurfs living in them.

Finally, my youngest is potty training and watching the Elmo potty video, which talks about going number one or number two. When watching it last week at this point, she turned to her sister and said, "in Spanish it's numero dos."

Baptists/Methodist/Presbyterians

There is an old joke that says that a Methodist is just a Baptist who can read, and a Presbyterian is just a Methodist with money (although that could also be an Episcopalian). Well maybe there's something to that, at least the last part. Here is a graph from the Pew Forum ranking denominations on percentage of college graduates and families with household incomes over $75,000. (click on the image to enlarge it.)

I don't think the results are totally unexpected. For those surprised by the Hindu's at the far end, this is only based on Americans. The one that surprised me was Mormons. Based on my experience in the southwest I would have expected them to be higher in both categories.

Catching Up

Well it's been more than two months since I last posted and those two months have seen a lot of changes and a lot of stress.

First, as many of you know, I am now a pastor in New Mexico having left New England in order to come back home. The packing, the move and the unpacking have certainly dominated my time and is one of the reasons why I have not been active on the blog.

But, in addition to what comes with having to move across the country, I was also having some major medical concerns. I went to the ER twice with a kidney stone the week after Ash Wednesday. In the scan of my abdomen to confirm the stone, they found a spot on my liver and also some spots on my hip bones. This engendered some concern on the doctors, and so since then I have had 3 MRI's, a bone scan, two endoscopy's and a colonoscopy, which I am sure has not made my insurance company very happy. Although I give thanks that I actually had insurance, if I didn't I don't know what would have happened.

In the end the spots on the bones are things that are like freckles, who knew. They know what the spot on my liver isn't, but they have no idea what it is, but they are not concerned at the moment. Which I give thanks for as well because the worst case for either situation was not good. I do have a fatty liver and am being told to change my diet, and while I would like to, I am not yet fully ready to commit to doing that just yet. But I will be seeing a nutritionist at some point in the near future to find out what all that will entail.

So, now I am in a new church, in a new state, with a somewhat clean bill of health and hope to returning to posting on this blog at least once a week again. I know I've said that in the past, but this time I mean it....

Appointment Changes

When I dragged my beautiful bride away from her family so that I could attend Boston University to study for the ministry, I promised her twin sister that we would be gone three years. That was in 2003. We have talked many times over the years about the appropriate time to move back to New Mexico, but there was always something else going on that kept us here.

But, last spring, knowing that the conference was probably going to want to move us soon, as well as being ready for the opportunities that leading my own church would afford, Linda said “it’s time to go back home.” So in consultation with the District Superintendent as well as with the Staff Parish Relations Committee, we began working with the New Mexico Annual Conference to seek an appointment there.

There have been many ups and downs to the process and after it looked like we might have to move to a different conference to start or take a part-time appointment in New Mexico, through God’s grace, two weeks ago a full-time appointment opened up and it was offered to us. This is a true blessing for us as transferring between conferences can be very difficult. For example, the New England Annual Conference has stopped taking in transfers unless they are specifically recruited by the conference, and New Mexico is only taking in one person this year, and that, obviously, is me.

The appointment is a two-point charge, meaning I will serve two churches. The main church and the parsonage are located in Melrose, New Mexico, which is about 25 miles outside of Clovis. (Clovis is famous for being the site of the earliest known human habitation in North America, as well as the “Clovis sound” made famous by Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison and Waylon Jennings.) Melrose is a town of about 700 people, 10% of whom attend the Methodist church. The smaller church is in House, about thirty miles from Melrose, a town of 70, 15 of whom come to the Methodist church.

On Easter morning I talked about times in our lives when we can be both fearful and joyful at the same time, just like the women at the tomb, and this is one of those times. We are joyful to be heading home and being closer to our families, but with all change comes fear of the unknown. We are excited about new possibilities and opportunities, but sad to be leaving our community here at Sudbury UMC.

Our last Sunday here will be June 19th during which I have been asked to deliver my final sermon to you. More information will come out about the service and other special events that day in an invitation from SPRC. We will be packing the truck on the weekend of June 25th, when we will need some help, and we will also be having several moving sales and would love for you to come take some of our stuff.

We have been blessed to have been able to serve here for four years and the entire family has wonderful memories of this congregation that we will carry for the rest of our lives. It is where Abigail was baptized, and where both of them have grown up. You have allowed Linda to be the “pastor’s wife” in the way she chose, which is a true blessing, and I have learned a lot about what it means to be a minister here. Please know that wherever we go to serve we will carry you with us.

I thank you for the opportunity of being able to serve you and I pray that God will continue to bless you and this congregation.

Mother's Day Prayer

This Sunday we celebrate Mother’s Day; a day in which I hope we all recognize and give thanks not just to our mothers but to all of the women in our lives who have been special to us, who have mothered us in their own unique ways. This year I am approaching Mother’s Day in a different frame of mind because of two experiences I had last Sunday.

The confirmation class went to attend worship at our sister church, Greenwood Memorial UMC, in Dorchester. During the worship, Marilyn Forman talked about the upcoming Mother’s Day Walk for Peace which raises money to work on ending the violence that takes the lives of our young people on the streets of Boston every year. As Marilyn was asking for support of the congregation she talked about how violence had affected the lives of their friends, neighbors and some of the members of their congregation, and this was the opportunity to bring attention to this important issue. It was, she said, the time for mothers to take a stand against violence in their community.

After returning to Sudbury, I then made my way over to the library to offer a prayer at a gathering of families from Sudbury whose children and spouses are serving in the military. The event was organized by the Sudbury Military Family Support Network which was created by our own Patty Houpt. During the course of the event, the families of our soldiers (including the Houpts and Tom Gerbe) stood to introduce themselves and to say where their children are serving or had served. The majority of those speaking were mothers who talked about the sleepless nights they have experienced while their children are/were in harms way. With the Milley family present the sense of danger and loss was just as prevalent as it was in hearing Marilyn speak at Greenwood. Although I did not hear the testimonies in worship last Sunday, I have been told that they too were moving reflections on the many aspects of being a mother.

In the Buddhist tradition there is a form of a breath prayer called tonglen. In this practice, you breathe in the suffering of the world and breathe out happiness and peace. It is an offering of compassion to ourselves, to others and to the world. Here is a tonglen prayer written by DeLona Campos-Davis for Mother’s Day:

I breathe in the daily frustrations small as they are, big as they can seem
I breath out patience for us all.

I breathe in the loneliness of days spent mothering on our own
I breathe out connection, community, compassion.

I breathe in the brokenness not being enough in the world
I breathe out wholeness leaving ideals behind, truth.

I breathe in the boredom: diapers, cooking, same every day
I breathe out simple pleasures: swings, finger painting, rocks.

I breathe in the exhaustion, the worry, the fear
I breathe out the calm energy, excitement.

I breathe in the rage at your plight, your place, your life
I breathe out peace, contentment, courage.

On this Mother’s Day, as on every other day, may we pray for peace, for comfort, for reconciliation, for understanding, for mutuality and community, and, in the words of Julia Ward Howe, whose poem started it all, “charity, mercy and patience.”