June 28, 2020: Between Exile and Homecoming
Genesis 32:24-31
Rev. Dr. Rhonda Blevins
June 28, 2020
So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”
But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
The man asked him, “What is your name?”
“Jacob,” he answered.
Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”
Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”
But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.
So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”
The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip.
______
Welcome home, Chapel!
What a glorious homecoming day this is! The last time we gathered together in this space was March 8. That was fifteen weeks ago. So welcome home. I’ve missed you!
Let me ask a question: who here has been a little scared to return to worship? I spoke with one of our board members after our “soft opening” last week about how she felt coming back to church. She confessed that she was dealing with a low-grade anxiety being in the room with other people—her first outing since the pandemic started except for the grocery store. How about you guys watching via YouTube? Maybe you’re not here with us because you are too frightened to return to home to church. And let me just name, that’s OK. We have to make our own decisions during these unprecedented times. We each have to look at our risk factors, the health of our family members. This homecoming, while glorious, is just a little bit terrifying for some of us.
The patriarch, Jacob, knew what it meant to be scared to return home. We only read a snippet of Jacob’s story from the book of Genesis, so let me attempt to summarize what we know of Jacob’s life before we find him wrestling with God in the passage read earlier.
When we first meet Jacob in Genesis, we know Abraham and Sarah have finally given birth to a son they name Isaac. Then Isaac grows up and marries Rebecca, and Rebecca gives birth to twin boys: Esau and Jacob. Esau was born first, but Jacob was holding on to Esau’s heel at birth. So his parents name him Jacob, which means, literally, “leg-puller.” I’m not pulling your leg. So “Jacob” means “deceiver,” “trickster.” Jacob will live into this name we will soon discover.
When Esau and Jacob have grown, Jacob tricks his father, Isaac, into giving him the birthright blessing that belongs to his brother, the blessing reserved for the firstborn son in that culture. When Esau finds this out, he is livid. He plans to kill Jacob. So Jacob leaves home—he runs far away from the wrath of Esau. And there he lives. He gets married to his first cousin. Then he also marries his other first cousin. (Love these biblical family values!) Jacob has kids—a bunch of kids—by his cousin-wives Leah and Rachel, as well as by his wives’ slaves, Bilhah and Zilpah. (Some more biblical family values for you!) All told, Jacob had twelve sons and who knows how many daughters.
And now it’s been twenty years. Twenty years since he left home, and God calls him to return. And although Jacob decides to follow’s God’s instruction to go back home, Jacob is terrified. You remember why, right? Esau. Esau is still back home. The last Jacob knew, Esau was enraged and planning to murder Jacob. But twenty years later, Jacob sets out for home: his wives, his many sons and daughters, his slaves, all of the livestock he has accumulated (much of it by more trickery). The whole caravan sets out so that Jacob can return home.
With fear and trepidation, Jacob and his entourage near the land of his birth. Jacob sends some messengers ahead to find Esau and tell him they’re coming—hoping that this little bit of etiquette works to appease Esau’s anger. The messengers return to Jacob with this message, “We went to your brother Esau, and now he is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him.”
Gulp.
Four. Hundred. Men.
This will either be the biggest welcome home party ever or Jacob and his family are about to receive the sword of Esau’s vengeance as a welcome home gift. Jacob fears the latter. So Jacob prays, and devises a plan to send extravagant gifts ahead to his brother—over 550 animals: goats, sheep, cows, donkeys. He sends them ahead with his servants to meet Esau, hoping that by the time Esau and his 400 men finally come upon Jacob, the gifts will have appeased Esau’s anger. Then he sends his wives and kids on ahead (real stand-up guy, don’t you think?) And Jacob spends the night alone. Terrified.
And that’s where we find Jacob in the scripture passage we read earlier. Between exile and homecoming. Alone and scared.
And isn’t that where we usually are when we find ourselves wrestling with God? We’re not quite home in heaven. We find ourselves worried; we may feel alone. God is there, not so much to comfort us but to wrestle us. Jacob wrestled a mysterious stranger until daybreak.
Here’s what our wrestling can look like:
When we know what’s right, but we’re tempted to take a different path.
When God is calling us to something better, but we settle for “good.”
When what we’ve been taught and grown to believe about God does not square with reason or experience.
When we question how a loving God can allow so much pain and suffering in the world.
In these last two situations, our wrestling with God often takes the form of questions . . . so many questions:
Did God cause this? Create this? If so, why?
Or the softer form of this: why has God allowed this?
If God can fix this, why isn’t God fixing this?
If God exists, then (fill in the blank)?
Have you ever had these or similar questions? If so, you understand Jacob’s wrestling match with the Lord, because you have wrestled with God yourself.
Popular theology doesn’t help people who find themselves wrestling with God:
“God has a plan.”
“Everything happens for a reason.”
“God works in mysterious ways.”
(And the worst, when someone is grieving) “God just needed him/her in heaven.”
Most of these sayings imagine God either causing human suffering, or an accomplice to the crime by way of inaction when it comes to evil and suffering. It’s difficult to reconcile the notion of a loving God with a god who either causes or allows so much tragedy.
So we wrestle.
But here’s the kicker . . . wrestling with God is a prerequisite for growth in faith. As we grow in faith, we continually wrestle with, and then dismiss, understandings of God that are too small (spoiler alert—all of our understandings of God are too small).
Wrestling with God forces us come to terms with who God is, and who we are.
In the wrestling match we read about Jacob having with God, we find that Jacob is once again seeking a blessing—it seems like his whole life he’s been seeking a blessing. But the thing that sets this time apart— this is the first time we find Jacob being honest. The mysterious wrestler asks, “What is your name?” Flashback to when Jacob “borrowed” Esau’s name to receive a blessing. How will Jacob answer this time? Has Jacob learned anything in the twenty years he’s been away? “What is your name,” the wrestler asks. “Jacob,” the leg-puller confesses. He’s finally honest. He finally owns his name.
Only to receive a new name. “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.” Israel means “wrestles with God.” Wrestling with God has become a badge of honor.
Wrestling with God leaves its mark. Jacob would walk with a limp for the rest of his life. Like a scar that tells a story.
As we have found ourselves struggling through a pandemic these last weeks and months, I’ve heard several people say something to the effect of, “God is doing this to teach us a lesson.” Let me invite you to “wrestle” with that notion a bit.
Here’s where my own wrestling leaves me: I can’t/won’t believe in a god (little “g”) who sends or causes a pandemic to sweep through the human population killing over half a million people. My God is no mass murderer. My God has other ways to teach us humans than creating economic havoc, job loss, isolation and depression, sickness and death. My God didn’t send, cause, create, or even allow the coronavirus. Let me say this as strongly as I know how: it’s blasphemy to blame God for pandemics, hurricanes, tsunamis, holocausts. Affixing mass murder to God’s name is the epitome of taking the Lord’s name in vain.
Can God teach us through a pandemic and other human suffering? Yes, of course! Does God cause our human suffering? Does God sit in heaven like a mad scientist creating a batch of corona to unleash on an ungrateful population to teach them a lesson. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. If that’s what god is like, I want no part of god.
The God I serve, on the other hand:
Weeps with those who weep
Suffers with those who suffer
Mourns with those who mourn
That’s what Jesus teaches us from the cross. God has entered into suffering with us. God has redeemed our suffering. Thanks be to God!
Back to Jacob, now known as Israel, about to be reunited with his brother Esau along with 400 of Esau’s closest friends.
Israel sends the gifts, over 550 animals, on ahead to meet Esau. Then the slave women and their children. Then Leah and her children. Then Rachel and Joseph. Jacob (now Israel) spends the night wrestling with God.
And then the big moment came. The moment he has long dreaded. He sees Esau. Their eyes meet. Will Esau reject his twin brother? Will he destroy Israel and his entire family? Or will Esau welcome Jacob home?
Esau runs to his brother and the two men embrace! It’s a glorious homecoming! Israel is home!
Funny how that thing Jacob was terrified of . . . the thing that kept Jacob in exile, away from home . . . the thing that Jacob worried about for twenty years . . . never happened.
Isn’t that true for us as well? Most of the things we worry about never happen.
So, my dear friends. What’s keeping you from being where you want to be? Anne Lamott writes: “I decided that the single most subversive, revolutionary thing I could do was to show up for my life and not be ashamed.” Are you “showing up” for your life? Maybe you’ll “show up” for your life with a limp and a good story about how you wrestled with God and prevailed.
You’ve got this one life. Let go of the past. Walk into your future. You might be limping as you walk. That’s OK. It adds character. Let go of worry, child of God, and show up for the life God is calling you to. Claim it! Own it! Live it!