Wrestling With God

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

Names are important things and convey things about a person. They can give some connection to heritage or family or culture, or perhaps the name means something specific that is supposed to be conveyed. There is also a certain type of person that we associate with some names. So, if I say Cindy of Jennifer, we have an idea of who that person is, or we make a preconceived notion based on other Cindys and Jennifers we have known. And I’m sure you’ve probably met someone and they told you there name, and you wanted to say “No” because they name didn’t match them. And then there is the idea that not naming someone or not using their name is a way of negating them, as we talked about in the story of Hagar in Abraham and Sarah refusing to use her name. That’s why the black lives matter movement has the emphasis of using say their names in order to give identity and belonging and purpose. Names are important things. When Linda was pregnant with our first child Samantha, we already had a girl’s name picked out, But, we didn’t have a boy’s name. So I suggested that we consider using the name of the first Yankee who hit a homerun at the next Yankee game we attended, and Linda was on board.

It happened to be that we were going to see the Yankees play the Cubs, at Yankee stadium. Early in the game, almost everyone in the stadium thought that Gary Sheffield had hit a homer down the left field line, and we thought “well, Gary’s not a bad name.” But, as I said, it was almost everyone, but the one person who didn’t think that was the only one who mattered, which was the third base umpire who called it fair, and this was before instant replay was allowed. Later in the game, Derek Jeter, the Yankee captain, came up with the bases loaded. Jeter had never hit a grand slam in his career, and we thought, this is it. And what was great is you had two options of using either Derek or Jeter, but Jeter flied out, although he did hit his first grand slam the next day. Then in the seventh inning our hard hitting left fielder Hideki Matsui came up, and, of course, he corked one, and Linda immediately turned to me and said “we are not naming our son Hideki,” although Matsui could have worked as well. But, in the end it didn’t matter because we had all girls, and so never got to use our boy name, which was cooper by the way, for Cooperstown, New York. Names are important things, and they matter, and we see that in scripture as well.

Adam names his wife Eve after they are expelled from the garden, and Eve means something like mother of all. Sarai and Abram have their names changed after they covenant with God, with Abram meaning something like father or ancestor, but Abraham means father of many nations. Sarai’s name is changed to Sarah, which best guess means princess. And so the name change recognizes the change in relationship and the promise God has made with them. And of course Ishmael means God hears, which Sarah and Abraham do not, and Isaac means “he laughs.” These names have meaning, and of course the name of God is also changing, there is Elohim, and YHWH, and El Shaddai, and each has a different meaning and understanding of God, and of course Hagar even names God, something no one else does, calling God El-Roi, which means God sees, or more likely God sees me, because God sees and listens to her when no one else will. And then there is Jacob. His name too is significant, and tells us much about who he is, as his name is a play off of some Hebrew words, the first being aqeb, which means heel, as he comes our grabbing onto his brother Esau’s heel when he is born, and so also then has the meaning of usurper or grasper, although calling him a heel wouldn’t be far off. Esau will then later make a play off of his name as related to the Hebrew word aqub, which means crooked, after he steels Esau’s blessing. Names are significant, and there is still one more change to come as we heard in today’s passage.

And so just a little pick up to the story, after Jacob, living into his name, deceives his father to steal his brother’s blessing, Esau plans to kill him, and so his mother Rebekah has his father send him back to her family to find a wife, and on the way there, Jacob is utterly alone in the wilderness, and he has a dream, which has come to be called Jacob’s ladder as he sees angels ascending and descending from heaven, and God speaks to him and makes the same promises to Jacob that had been made to Isaac and Abraham before him. In the morning Jacob makes a promise that if God will protect him and feed and clothe him then God will be his God. we had a hint of this sense of unbelief in the story we heard last week, when Isaac asks how Jacob has returned from hunting so quickly, thinking it’s Esau, Jacob replied “Your God granted me success.” That is, it’s not Jacob’s God, but the God of his father. He is not yet a believer or follower, even after God speaks with him in this dream.

Jacob then moves on and encounters Rachel, at a well, who is his cousin, and he falls in love and agrees with his uncle to work for him for seven years in order to earn the right to marry her. But, Jacob is tricked by Laban, and in the dark, so that he cannot see, harkening back to Isaac, he is given the older sister Leah, and so he is forced to work another seven years to marry Rachel. Jacob then plots to trick Laban out of his best animals, and he has Rachel and Leah, along with their maids, whom Jacob also marries, and their eleven children then flee from Laban and as they are going back to the promised land, Laban catches up to them, and this time it is Rachel who tricks her father, and long complicated story short, Jacob and Laban reach an agreement and make covenant with each other. But the conflict is not yet over because he Jacob knows he is going to have to deal with Esau, and so he sends messengers to his brother to “find favor in his sight.” But the messengers return and tell him that Esau and 400 men are now on the way to meet him. Jacob, of course, doesn’t know what this means because the last thing he knew about Esau was that he was plotting to kill Jacob. So is that what Esau is coming to do? The large accumulation of men certainly seems to indicate that, and so Jacob prays to God for protection, perhaps the first indication that he is now accepting God as his own, or is he just using God for his own purposes? Then he sends servants with gifts to Esau to try and buy some favor, and then he takes his wife and children across the river, and then returns back to the other side, and we are told that he is now alone.

So first, we might question Jacob’s behavior here in that he is not out in front. He is not facing his brother face-to-face, he wants to buy his acquiesce, and the reality is that if Esau is aimed at revenge, then Jacob’s servants will bear the first of it, not him. Even his family will have to encounter Esau before he does, and so we might wonder, again, at what type of man Jacob truly is. And yet, in this moment, he is totally alone. He has no one around him, nor any possessions. He is just as he is the first time he encountered God. His identity is not in anything else, and he, perhaps, has to answer the question of who he is and what type of man is he. And then we are told that a man begins to wrestle with him, and they wrestle until daybreak. It’s important to note that we are not told that this is a dream, like Jacob’s prior encounter with God, but this appears to be a real event. And although we are initially told that it is a man who wrestles with him, Jacob refers to the man as Elohim, a name for God. So he certainly considers this to be a divine encounter. 

But as the sun starts coming up, seeing that Jacob has not been overcome, the man strikes Jacob’s hip, which puts it out of place, which you know hurts, but does Jacob let go? No. Jacob refuses to let go, and that’s a key point. In the struggle, in the pain, in the suffering, Jacob refuses to let go of God. Even when God says let go, so I can go, Jacob refuses to let go, and says “I won’t let you go, unless you bless me.” And then the man/God says, “What is your name?” and so we have a similar set-up again. Jacob is seeking a blessing, and just like with Isaac, he is asked his name. What happened what Isaac asked that question? Jacob lied. He deceived. He grasped. And he said, “I am Esau.” And so Jacob has the opportunity here again for the same thing. But what does he say this time? He says “I am Jacob.” I am Jacob. He is alone, without anything to protect him, to give him identity, and he could certainly do what he has done most of his life and work to deceive, but this time he tells the truth. I am Jacob. And God says, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.” And then Jacob asks for God’s name, but God doesn’t give him one, but God blesses him and Jacob leaves the place limping because of his hip.

Jacob is a lot of things, and he pretends to be things he’s not, but here, in this encounter, he confesses exactly who he is, and God changes him, or at least his name. We too may try to do the same thing. But, as I’ve said before, God cannot encounter us where we want to be, God can only encounter us where we are. And God can only encounter us as who we are. If we try and be something, or someone we are not, we cannot truly meet God. And that’s not because God isn’t there, but because we are not there or ready to be encountered by God. And this story should ultimately refute any idea that God isn’t ready to encounter us, be there for us, or bless us, because if God can bless Jacob, then God is there for us. But, we have to ready to admit who we are, and be ready to wrestle with God, to strive with God. We often have this idea that we are just to follow God, ask no questions, never doubt or question, but the witness we have here is Jacob wrestling with God, and indeed the name he is given, the name for the people coming from his 12 sons, is striving, wrestling with God. And seeing that that is okay, not just for us, but it’s okay with God. That it’s okay to challenge God and question God, be mad at God, that God can handle it. When we wrestle and struggle with God, it does not represent a separation from God. In fact, it’s exactly the opposite.

When we wrestle with God there is an intimacy there that’s not present in other things. I mean we talk about the close relationship between Abraham and God, but those conversations are nothing compared to Jacob wrestling with God. But the key to this intimacy is not to let go. That’s the mistake we often make. When we doubt, when we question, when we struggle, when life is just getting too hard or too painful, we want to let go of God, but that’s the worst point to let go. That’s the time we need to hold on even stronger. To grasp even tighter, because that’s what we God is doing in return. And the final thing we have to know and to remember is that when we struggle with God we will never be the same again.  There’s a great gospel song called You Will Never be the Same by O’Landa Draper, who we unfortunately lost too soon, that perfectly describes this. Jacob does not leave this encounter unchanged. He limps away, and while we may not limp, when we accept Jesus into our lives, when we turn our lives over to God, we should be fundamentally changed because we die to our old selves and are reborn, transformed, renewed and it is Christ Jesus who lives in us. we will indeed never be the same again. And in limping away, not only is Jacob’s relationship with God changed, but he is changed and he goes to face his brother, who welcomes him and they reconcile their brokenness, just as God does for us. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen