Wrestling

Genesis 32:22-31

August 6, 2023

 

            Phoebe and I saw the Barbie movie yesterday. When I first began to prep for this sermon, I had a completely different beginning in mind, but then Phoebe and I saw the Barbie movie, and I felt compelled to share a little bit of what I gleaned.

            Now, I don’t want to wade into the controversy that apparently is swirling around this movie. I will say that both Phoebe and I loved it. This was Phoebe’s second time seeing it and my first, but I would like to see it again. It was fun and silly and unexpectedly poignant. I won’t give away the plot, but essentially Barbie and Ken experience the real world outside of Barbie Land. Going into the real world causes Barbie, and Ken too, to have an existential crisis.

            They find themselves questioning who they are and why they are and what really matters. And if there are two characters who you would never expect to have an existential crisis, it’s these two. But that’s what makes the movie so compelling and thought-provoking. And I realized as I watched it that in this existential crisis Barbie was wrestling with herself. She was wrestling with what she thought life was supposed to be. She was wrestling with her previous expectations and understanding. If you have ever experienced that kind of wrestling in your life, than you know a little of what Barbie was going through.

            And if you add God and faith and call into the mix, then we also can get a glimpse of understanding into the wrestling that Jacob experiences in our story from Genesis this morning.

Jacob, our trickster, our grasper, our scoundrel, has done well for himself. He met his match in his father-in-law, Laban, who tricked him into marrying first his oldest daughter, Leah, then the true desire of Jacob’s heart, Rachel. Jacob has had children with both women, and their maidservants. There are eleven offspring at this point. But Jacob has made the decision to leave his father-in-law’s home and try to make peace with his brother Esau. While this sounds as though Jacob has mellowed some, the old trickster still had some tricks up his sleeves.

When he and Laban agreed to part company, Laban told him he could take some of the livestock that bore certain physical traits. Jacob engaged in what might be understood as an example of the earliest genetic engineering and manipulated quite a few of the animals that would eventually be taken by him. Rachel must have learned from her husband, because before they left her father, she stole some of her father’s household gods.

Laban, realizing they were gone, took after them. Jacob did not know any of this, so he encouraged Laban and his men to search the tents. But Rachel had hid them in such a clever and such a sneaky way, that she proved herself to be just as cunning as Jacob.

But now we come to our part in the story. Through messengers, Jacob let Esau know that they were coming. The messengers have reported back that Esau is advancing toward them with 400 of his men. Jacob fears the worst, so he divides his group into two, and works out a plan to make Esau think that he is better equipped for a fight than he truly was. And now, he has sent his wives and his children across the Jabbok, and he is alone. Without any pause in the narrative, without any hesitation or explanation, a man begins to wrestle Jacob in the darkness.

The wrestling that Barbie went through was emotional rather than physical. But the wrestling we read about in our story is very physical and deadly serious. The unknown person and Jacob wrestle until daybreak. They seem to be an even match, because neither one can overcome the other. Finally, as the light of the new morning begins to creep out from its bedclothes, the man realized that he could not stop Jacob. So he strikes Jacob on his hip socket. Jacob’s hip is immediately dislocated, and I would suspect the pain would have been excruciating. But Jacob was not named for his grasping tendencies for nothing. He holds onto his opponent. The man demands to be let go because the day is breaking. But Jacob won’t release him until he receives a blessing. The man asks Jacob his name.

The man asks Jacob his name. You would think that the man would throw some tricky move into the mix and release himself from Jacob’s grasp, but instead he asks Jacob his name.

This was not a moment of introduction. In the near Eastern culture, names were not just designations or unique identifications. To know someone’s name was to have a power over that person. It was as if knowing someone’s name was to hold that person’s soul, that person’s innermost being, in your grip. Asking for Jacob’s name was not just a getting to know you kind of question. To know Jacob’s name was to make Jacob vulnerable. But Jacob responds. He tells this man, this man with whom he has wrestled and struggled and grasped, he tells him his name.

“Jacob.”

The man says,

“You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans and have prevailed.”

The man gave Jacob a new name, and then this person blessed Jacob and the wrestling match was over. Jacob did the same as when he had the dream of the angels and the ladder, he named the place where he stood. He named it Peniel, which in Hebrew translates to seeing God face to face but not losing his life in the process.

Jacob wrestled with God. He wrestled and received both a blessing and a limp. Jacob wrestled and although he did not prevail, the person he wrestled did not either. Jacob wrestled and came out of the encounter transformed, with a new name and a thigh that would never fully heal. He left his encounter with God with a blessing and a limp.

Now, I have never physically wrestled in my life, unless you count the wrestling that occurs when you’re trying to get a squirmy toddler into clothes. But I have wrestled with myself, with who I think I’m supposed to be. And I have definitely wrestled with my call and with my faith. I have spent long nights wrestling with God, demanding both to be left alone and to be blessed. In that way, I have done more than my share of wrestling.

Maybe that’s why this story of Jacob wrestling with this unnamed person, with God as it turns out, all night long resonates with me so deeply. I get it. Some people seem to find their way into themselves easier than others. Some people seem to walk their life of faith easier than others. But some of us have to wrestle. I have often looked at my friends and colleagues who seem so easy and solid in their faith, who seem to just accept without question what they read and hear and understand about God. But I don’t do that. I question and struggle and wrestle. Figuring out who I am has never been easy. It wasn’t made any easier when I discerned my particular call. In fact, it got harder. Part of my call, it seems, is to wrestle even more than I did before. I understand the wrestling that Jacob experienced in this story, and I suspect throughout his whole life.

I am not alone in my resonating feelings with this story either. Theologian and essayist, Debie Thomas, writes that she is deeply indebted to this story. It allowed her, as she writes, to “bring my whole turbulent self before God, and to engage with the Divine in ways that feel contentious before they become consoling.” Jacob is alone and vulnerable and in a desolate dark place. And it is in that state that this stranger comes to him and wrestles with him. How many long, dark nights have I spent wrestling with … self-doubt, fear, anxiety, sadness, loneliness, anger, shame. But even if my wrestling was not directly linked to God, in those long nights of the soul, God has always been there too.

Maybe that is where the blessing lies in this story. Yes, there is wrestling. Yes, there is struggle, but maybe it’s not about winning and losing, but about refusing to let go. God doesn’t let Jacob go, no matter how hard Jacob fights. Perhaps the dislocation of Jacob’s thigh was not to defeat Jacob but to end the struggle, to end Jacob’s relentless pushing back against God. We don’t get through our lives without scars, and having faith does not change that. Jacob walked with a limp the rest of his life. We may walk with scars unseen. But God refused to let Jacob go. God refuses to let us go as well.

In those long nights of wrestling, God has never not been there. Maybe in those long nights of the soul that I’ve experienced the only one who was doing the wrestling was me. Maybe God’s arms were around me not to contend with me, but to hold me as I wrestled with my demons, my very self.

Perhaps my take on this passage is all wrong, and if so, I hope grace abounds. But whether or not I have or haven’t, I know that God calls us to be who we are, not who we think we should be. God calls us as we are and works through us so that we are transformed and that others are too. God worked through Jacob, trickster and heel grasper that he was. God worked through Jacob to bring blessing to the whole world. God transformed Jacob, yes that lifelong limp, was part of the transformation, and gave him a new name. God refused to let Jacob go. God refuses to let us go as well. So, if you wrestle, keep wrestling, and trust that God is right there with you, contending, consoling, transforming. Thanks be to God.

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

Amen.

All In

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

July 30, 2023

 

            The story goes that he was just the weird, eccentric old man of the village. Every day at dawn he would go into the hills with his shovel, and he would not return until sunset. He never told anyone why he went up there or what he did. He just went, day after day, year after year. One day the strange old man did not wake up. He died peacefully in his sleep. After he was buried, the villagers decided to go up to the hills and see if they could find what he had been doing all those years.

            This village was in a remote location on one side of a steep hill. To get to the closest city that had a hospital, you had to take the road which wound its way around the hill. It took hours, and someone could die in route. That is how the old man’s wife died. She was sick, and he was trying to get her to the hospital for treatment. But the road around the hill was too long. She died before they could reach help.

            What had this old man been doing all those years? He was digging a road through the hill. He was digging a road through the hill. It was wide and smooth, and it shortened the journey from the village to the city from hours to one, from many kilometers to four. The strange old man was not so strange after all. He did not want anyone else to suffer what his wife suffered. He did not want anyone else to lose their loved one so needlessly, as he had lost so needlessly. So, he took his shovel and dug a road through the hill.

            No one knew what he was doing. They assumed he was just eccentric and strange and went off by himself to do whatever eccentric, strange old men did. No one apparently asked him, or if they did, he did not answer. But he took a small thing and made it large. He did something in secret that became a visible blessing. The kingdom of heaven just might be like this strange old man.

            Sometimes when I start a sermon, I struggle because it feels like I don’t have enough to work with. But these verses caused me to struggle because there is so much information to contend with, it’s hard to know where to begin. Jesus told these parables in rapid-fire succession. The first two, the parable of the mustard seed and the parable of the yeast, Jesus told to the crowds gathered around him. The last three Jesus shared only with his disciples.

            The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that grows from its infinitesimal size to a large and flowering bush that welcomes birds of every kind. The kingdom of heaven is like a woman who hides yeast – yes, that is the literal translation. She is not “mixing in” yeast, she is hiding it – into three measures of flour. That is an enormous amount of flour. It’s estimated to be about fifty pounds! That would make enough bread to feed an entire community. I imagine that looking like that scene from I Love Lucy when Lucy attempts to make bread, and a gigantic loaf bursts out of the oven and pushes her across the room.

            After Jesus left the crowds and was gathered with his disciples, he told them that the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure that was hidden in a field. When a person finds that treasure, he joyfully goes and sells everything he possesses to buy that field and obtain that treasure. The kingdom of heaven is like a pearl of great value. A merchant, when he finds that one magnificent pearl, sells off all his other wares just to own that pearl. And the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet that hauls in fish of every kind. When the dragnet was full, it was hauled to shore, and the fish were sorted. The good fish were kept and put into baskets. The bad fish were thrown out. That will be what happens at the end of the age. The good will be kept. The bad will be thrown into the fire, and there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

            When Jesus finished telling these parables, he asked his disciples,

            “Have you understood all this?”

            They answered, “Yes.”

            In previous sermons, I’ve read the disciples response as “Yes!” Yes, with an exclamation point. But this time around, I wonder if they didn’t respond more like this,      “Yeeesss?”

            As though the disciples were trying to understand what he was saying, but weren’t entirely sure, and they were going to have to discuss it later when he wasn’t around. It would be like someone asking a question that you don’t understand, but you say yes until you have time to google it later.

            I’m not convinced that the disciples fully understood what Jesus was telling them about the kingdom, and I know I’m struggling to understand as well. Because these parables seem to cause more confusion about the kingdom of heaven, rather than less. The kingdom of heaven is a plant that will grow fast and quickly overtake all the other crops that have been planted? The kingdom of heaven is something that is hidden? Why did the woman hide the yeast? In other passages in scripture, yeast has a negative connotation. Beware the yeast of the Pharisees. It can be a corrupting influence. But for bread to rise, yeast is necessary. Unless that bread was supposed to be unleavened, like matzo bread. Finding yeast hidden in that dough would be quite a surprise indeed.

            Why is the kingdom of heaven like a treasure that is hidden in a field? It seems kind of dubious. It makes me uncomfortable to think of the person who found the treasure buying the field from the owner and not telling that person about the treasure. It makes me think of all the people who live on land that is rich with minerals of various kinds, only to have the land bought by others for a fraction of what the land is worth.

            The kingdom of heaven sounds like it caused someone to make a bad business decision. The merchant sold everything he had in order to own that one pearl. That pearl was splendid, but if you sell off all your merchandise, you are no longer a merchant, you are a collector.

            The dragnet seems the most familiar to me because it hearkens back to what I learned about God as a child. God is the God of fire and brimstone. Be good or watch out!

            All in all the kingdom of heaven as Jesus describes it sounds unlike anything I would ever expect. Where are the angels? Where are the perfect people wandering around in robes with halos and harps? Where are the endless blue skies and the perfectly green, green hills and the fluffy white clouds, outlined in gold? Isn’t the kingdom of heaven supposed to be about perfection? If so, then what Jesus describes seems far from perfect.

            But Jesus was not describing a geographical location that we reach only when we die. Nor was he describing utopia. What I think Jesus was describing was a kingdom that was already in their midst. And although it might have started small and hidden, it would grow and flourish, and spread with abandon.

            One other possibility to ponder in these parables is that Jesus was not only describing the kingdom of heaven, but he was also describing the response to the kingdom of heaven. One member of our lectionary group said that the behavior of the person who bought the field or the merchant who sold everything off for one pearl is almost like describing people with addictions or obsessions. The only thing that matters is that treasure or that pearl. While on the surface, this kind of behavior seems troubling to our modern ears, maybe what Jesus wanted the disciples to understand was that if you are going to work for the kingdom of heaven, you have to be all in There is no room for halfhearted response. There is no time for lukewarm. You have to be, you must be all in.

            And as we know, we who know the rest of the story, the disciples will struggle with this until after Jesus’ death and resurrection, until after the coming of the Holy Spirit. They will struggle to be all in as his followers, even though they have left family and livelihoods behind. They will wrestle with Jesus’ teachings about what being the Messiah means. They will argue amongst themselves. They will vie for power and position in their ranks. They will misunderstand and mishear and just miss the point more often than not. Just as we do. Right?

            But just as the kingdom of heaven starts small and grows, just as it begins hidden and is suddenly revealed, the disciples will also grow and discover more in themselves than perhaps they believed was there.

            Maybe that is what Jesus’ final admonition to them in these verses is hinting at. One day, you will be the teachers of this kingdom, and just like the head of a household has to discern what part of their treasure is old and new, what should be kept and what should be let go of, you must do that as well. The kingdom of heaven requires those who will follow to be all in. It requires a complete giving of one’s heart, mind, body, and soul. It seems to me that when Jesus tells these parables about the kingdom, he is not just describing he is asking. Are you all in? Are we?

            The kingdom of heaven is unlikely and weird and unexpected. The kingdom of heaven is like stories that seem to have no end and music that seems to have no resolution. The kingdom of heaven does not provide answers, only more questions. The kingdom of heaven requires a wholehearted response, and a willingness to follow based on trust rather than on seeing the end of the journey. The kingdom of heaven requires us to be all in? May it be so.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.