Face to Face -- July Sermon Series

Genesis 32:22-32

July 13, 2025

            The Pink Panther movies were popular when I was a kid. Peter Sellers starred as Inspector Clouseau, who was a bumbling but very funny detective. While I was more attuned to the Saturday morning Pink Panther cartoon, I do remember one aspect of each film. Clouseau had a manservant named Cato. Cato was a master of martial arts, and it was his job to attack Clouseau at unexpected times. This was meant to keep the inspector vigilant and, on his toes, when dealing with criminals. What was funny is that Cato would ambush him anyplace, any time, even at home. But if the telephone rang or someone came to the door, he would immediately return to his role as the devoted valet. 

            When I read this story about Jacob wrestling this mysterious man by the river Jabbok, the ongoing Cato/Clouseau ambush attack came to my mind. It's not that I find humor in this story from Genesis. It's not a funny story. But reading about the struggle between Jacob and this man, I can't help but get the sense that this was an ambush of sorts. I doubt the man presented himself to Jacob and said, "Hey Jacob, wanna wrestle?" And I don’t think it was a friendly match between buddies. It was a slugfest. 

            It is nighttime and Jacob has sent his family, his wives and children, ahead of him. He is left alone, and in the dark a man wrestles with him. I cannot imagine how exhausting it would have been to wrestle back and forth like this for hours. And it must have been hours, because it is just before daybreak that this man realizes that Jacob won’t be overcome, so he touches his hip and dislocates that joint between hip and thigh.

As the sky around them begins to change from dark to light, the man demands release. But Jacob won’t let him go. Jacob was given the name, Jacob, because it means grasper, and he was born grasping, clinging and clutching his older brother's heel. Jacob, the grasper, refuses to let the man go. He wants a blessing. Jacob has stood his ground after all. The mysterious man who attacked him in the dark of night could not best Jacob. The man demands release and Jacob demands a blessing. The man asks Jacob his name. When Jacob replies, "Jacob," the man gives him a new name; Israel. The name Israel, according to the text, means one who has striven against God and humans and prevailed. 

This is the story that we are wrestling with today. It is a strange and a somewhat disturbing story. However, I think to understand a little better what's happening in this text, we have to know more about the larger context that surrounds this story. What events led up to this nighttime wrestling match?

Jacob, who ran away from his home after tricking his twin brother, Esau, and stealing Esau’s blessing by tricking his father, Isaac, was tricked by Laban, into marrying both of his daughters, Leah and Rachel. Jacob has now worked for his father-in-law for 20 years. While Jacob was growing his family, he was also growing Laban's flocks. Jacob's labor for Laban has made Laban wealthy and prosperous. When Rachel, who was barren for so long, gives birth to Joseph, Jacob goes to Laban and asks to be released from his bonds to Laban. He wishes to return to his homeland, to make things right with his brother Esau.

Laban agrees to divide the flocks with Jacob. Jacob will take the goats, the sheep that are striped, spotted or speckled and leave the rest for Laban. Laban orders that any animal with those markings must be separated from the flocks and herds before Jacob can take them. Jacob knows what his father-in-law has done, and in either the first instance of genetic engineering or through some sort of supernatural trickery, is able to manipulate the animals as they breed. So more lambs and kids are born striped, speckled or spotted than any other kind. Thus they belong to Jacob. 

            Jacob hears Laban's sons grumbling that he has more of their father’s wealth than he deserves. He also knows that his esteem in Laban's eyes has decreased significantly. Being told by God in a dream that it's time to leave, Jacob talks it over with Leah and Rachel. They pack up, people and animals alike, and leave early in the morning. When Laban hears about it, he chases after them. Amid the packing and the leaving, Rachel stole her father's household gods. Laban thinks Jacob stole them and accuses him of it when he finally catches up to them. Jacob doesn't know what Rachel has done, so he tells Laban to freely search for them. Rachel hides the gods by stuffing them into a saddle bag and sitting on them. When her father comes into her tent to search, she apologizes for not standing up in the presence of her father, but she is "in the way of women." When Laban is satisfied that his gods are not with Jacob and company, they make a covenant and mark it with two pillars of stone. I find it almost funny that the beginning words of their covenant – “The Lord watch between you and me, when we are absent one from the other" – are used on matching necklaces to be shared with friends, and embroidered on sentimental little pillows. However when you read them in their actual context, it's not a sweet sentiment between father and son-in-law. It is an uneasy truce at best. And before he leaves, Laban reminds Jacob that if he does anything to hurt Laban's daughters, God will know.

Laban and his posse leave, and now Jacob must face the prospect of seeing his brother again. He divides his entourage into groups and sends them ahead one after the other, both to offer gifts to Esau, and most likely to show off his wealth and resources. Finally he sends his wives and children ahead, and we come at last to our part of the story. Jacob, alone at night, on the run from one angry man whom he tricked and deceived and about to face another, Esau, also tricked and deceived by Jacob. Whatever Jacob was thinking or feeling in that darkness on that night, he most likely did not realize that the ground beneath his feet was holy.             

            Up until this moment, I’ve always seen Jacob as sort of the Justin Bieber of the Old Testament. I can't understand why a punk like him has been chosen in the first place, and there’s something about him that makes me think he needs to be smacked upside his head. But something about this night is different. Something about this encounter with the divine is different. The encounter with God that he had many years before when he dreamed of staircases and angels was a holy moment to be sure, but it was merely a portent of what was to come. That dream didn't seem to fundamentally change Jacob. But this night is different. As one commentator noted on this night, in the darkness, faced with an unexpected ambush, for the first time Jacob, the trickster, the deceiver, doesn't try to weasel his way out of a confrontation. He doesn't bargain or try to slip away. He wrestles the man face-to-face. He struggles. He stands his ground as surely as the other man stands his. And from those dark hours of struggle and wrestling, as the new day dawns, Jacob is changed. He is transformed. He becomes Israel. He has been wrestling on holy ground.

            But how could it be holy ground if Jacob walks away with a limp? Wouldn’t meeting God face-to-face on holy ground be a healing moment instead of a wounding one? Jacob’s wound is not temporary either. He will limp for the rest of his life. He will bear a physical reminder of his night spent on holy ground. Maybe this seems counterintuitive to us, because surely we should not walk away from holy ground with scars. We should walk away from holy ground, from encountering the divine, with shining faces not scarred and limping. But if you’ve lived for any amount of time, you bear the scars of that life, don’t you? And it is our scars and our healed over wounds that tell our stories. The scars on my knees tell the story of how many times I tried to skateboard down the street I grew up on. I have a scar on the top of my foot from the summer when I was expecting Zach and tried to cut rhubarb and dropped the knife.

            And I bear other scars too, scars that can’t be seen but are there. Scars from the long dark nights of the soul. Scars that come from wrestling with God and my inner demons and my fears and doubts. Scars that were made while I stood on holy ground, even if I didn’t know it was holy ground at the time. Because standing on holy ground is not always nice. It is not necessarily a place of optimism or sweetness and light. Holy ground may be the place where we wrestle and struggle and strive with God. Holy ground may be the ground we stand on when we wrestle with our fears and our failures, when we wrestle with the parts of ourselves we would rather not come to the light. Standing on holy ground may leave us limping.

Meeting God on holy ground did not leave Jacob unscathed. But he was transformed. He walked away from this encounter with God, away from this holy ground not only with a limp but with a blessing and with a new name. Jacob, who has been living up to his name his whole life as a grasper of others, a trickster, a cunning deceiver, now bears the name Israel – one who has striven with God and with humans and prevailed. Israel is the name that he will live into and live up to from this moment on.

Holy ground, the places and times when we encounter God, reveals our call and reveals ourselves. Holy ground can be uncomfortable and even frightening, but it can transform us, body and soul. Thanks be to God for those times we stand on holy ground, for those long nights when we wrestle with God, for those encounters with God that transform us even if that transformation comes with a limp. Thanks be to God.

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

Amen.