Dear Friends,
Today, we continue the story of Jacob that we started two weeks ago. Now we find Jacob traveling back to his family’s land after years of service to Laban, his mother’s brother, and Laban’s sons, who covet both the animal stock and family that Jacob has acquired. As he flees from the threat that they pose to his home and security, he brings with him his two wives, Rachel and Leah, who are Laban’s daughters; two maids, with each of whom his wives had asked him to father a child; and his children. It’s been many years since he left his father and mother after tricking his older twin brother, Esau, out of his rightful birthright, but it appears that the years haven’t brought him forgiveness, because Esau is coming to greet him with a small army of 400 men. What is Jacob to do now?
Before we find out, take a moment for this prayer for illumination:
All-knowing God, you satisfy our hunger at sunset and hold us close through nights of wrestling with all the anxious questions that keep us from sleep. Now let the day break with your blessing. Awaken and illumine us by your Word that we may behold your wisdom and guidance and be blessed by them. Amen.
With threats all around him, Jacob tries to keep his family safe by setting up their encampment on one side of a stream while he keeps watch on the other. That night, however, it wasn’t Laban and his sons or Esau’s army that accosted him; rather, “a man wrestled with him until daybreak.” (32:24) This mysterious man did not seem to be able to gain the upper hand; “he did not prevail against Jacob.” (32:25) Even after the man had put Jacob’s hip out of joint, they apparently remained evenly matched, and the struggle continued. When the man asked Jacob to let him go, Jacob continued to resist, responding, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” (32:26)
Are you as surprised by Jacob’s request as I was when I first read this story in Sunday School? Of all the things to trade for letting the man go, why would Jacob ask for a blessing? I can hardly imagine that would have been his first thought, especially in the midst of danger on all sides. After all, he and his family were in flight from the covetous Laban, nearly as much of a trickster as he was, and his sons. His still-angry brother’s army was coming and presumably ready to strike. In the midst of so many threats, why would he seek a blessing from his adversary? Did he know that it was God with whom he was struggling?
Despite his displaced hip, the struggle had continued through the night and remained a draw. With muscles honed from years of hard work for Laban, Jacob was very strong. Could Jacob have been so smug as to think no one but God could have been such a strong adversary? Or was the clue that the man said “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” (32:26) God does not allow anyone to see God’s face; could the threat of the rising sun be what prompted the strange boldness of Jacob’s request?
“Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.” (32:28) Not telling Jacob/Israel his name, he blessed him. (32:29)
What is going on here? Jacob (whose name, reflecting his theft of Esau’s birthright, means “one who supplants,” as we learned in our earlier note) has had a change of names imposed on him, just as did Abraham and Sarah, his grandparents. Who but God could make such a change? Jacob’s new name says it all: he is now to be called Israel, which means “one who struggles with God.”
Jacob is clear about who his adversary is. “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.” (32:30) Jacob may be renamed, but he is still the trickster he always was, so I’m on the fence about whether he actually saw God face to face. What’s clear from this passage, however, is that he struggled with God, and though the outcome of the struggle itself was apparently a tie, God blessed Jacob and renamed him with the profound name of Israel.
The Scriptures don’t answer any of these questions directly, yet as often as I read this Biblical account of Jacob’s encounter with God, it always rings true for me. The details of the story are not the point; it is the struggle that is the story. It is the struggle that refines and perfects our efforts. Even though it may be painful, it is the struggle that enables us to make decisions and see the right path.
At various times in my life, I have had to struggle with difficult decisions, and the most difficult ones were those that centered on my understanding of my Christian faith. These were the times when it was almost as if I were wrestling with God. My decision to enter the ministry was one such struggle. My father’s dream for me was that I would become a lawyer like him. I was able to tell my parents that I wanted to go to divinity school only after I shared my needs and desires and my struggle with this decision with good friends and mentors. I still believe to this day that they were God’s representatives in my life at that time, letting me find the words for my call and strengthening my resolve to pursue a different path from my father’s dreams.
I trust that many of you have also struggled in various ways with life-changing and life-affirming decisions; these, too, were undoubtedly struggles with God that sharpened and focused your thoughts. Just as Jacob did, we spend long, weary nights in painful struggle with God, who wants nothing so much as the chance to bless us as we labor so hard in our battles with our will and God’s will. And the struggle isn’t always between individuals and God. Sometimes the struggle is between communities, including communities of faith, and God.
What is our struggle as a community, and especially as a community of faith? Shortly after World War II, as suburbs blossomed across our nation, inner-city churches struggled with difficult decisions. Should they remain in the city or pull up their tents and move with their congregations to the suburbs? Today, churches struggle with simply paying their bills and how best to serve their communities in the pews and the wider world. Decisions about everyday matters like what color to paint their walls or whether to install new pew cushions can break the spirit of churches, even those that seem most secure and focused. Families struggle as well, with children no longer interested in church, or marrying outside the faith, or following a different path from the one they dreamed of for them; or with hidden issues like addiction, self-worth, and unshared financial pain.
Some struggles seem too mundane to even imagine that they have much to do with our understanding of the Bible, our faith, and our God, but they can be as painful as a displaced hip. Other struggles are so obviously consequential that we can easily understand them as the very essence of all we have been taught, believed, and lived; those are crossroads struggles.
I believe we are now at such a time, at such a crossroads. My work as a Christian social ethicist focuses on institutional, collective injustices more than on individual transgressions, and as I look at the broader, institutional picture, I see a very obvious crossroad before us. Once again, we are struggling as a nation with the profound and painful issues of racism. Especially in recent months, we’ve heard this called “implicit racism” and, more broadly, “institutional racism.”
Racism is not an affliction – a sin – of individuals only. It can be, has been, and continues to be a sin of institutions, and as part of such institutions, we are both individually and institutionally complicit. Either by choice or circumstance, each of us is inevitably part of sinful institutions.
The struggle seems most apparent now, but it’s been going on for centuries. It didn’t start in these recent months with the deaths of unarmed black men and women at the hands of police officers. Nor did it begin with the development and growth of the Black Lives Matter movement. It didn’t start during the Civil Rights movement of the 1950’s, ’60’s, and early ’70’s. It didn’t start at any particular point in any of our lifetimes. It didn’t start with Jim Crow, the Civil War, or even in 1619, when enslaved Africans were first brought to the shores of Virginia.
The struggle began earlier than even Biblical times, and it continues today. Every single one of us is a part of it, if only because it is part of our national, cultural, and religious history. Today, we stand at the forward point of those histories. We all have much work to do, and we will have to discern the parameters of that work before we can effectively be about the work itself. We must be rigorous and careful, tenacious and strong, if we are to unearth painful truths and make faithful changes to our lives.
Cathey Reele, our Clerk of Session, has shared a statement that a committee of the Presbytery of the James has developed in response to an earlier statement created by a teaching elder in the Presbytery. Some among us have problems with it for a wide variety of reasons; others do not; and others have suggested that we write our own statement. As we wrestle with our individual responses – including whether we want to endorse the statement as individuals and/or create a different one to offer as the Scottsville Presbyterian Church – we are wrestling with our pasts, our faith, and with God. Throughout this struggle, I pray that, even if we are unable to see the face of God, we will be able to ask for God’s blessing as we take our hesitant but trusting steps on the forward path of our history.
And this brings us back to God and Jacob wrestling with one another in their long night of struggle. Jacob had the insight to perceive God as his adversary and then the utter nerve to ask for God’s blessing. Jacob had proved his strength to God; he had proved his care for his family; he had shown his ability to withstand pain. But those were not what made him worthy of God’s blessing. God blessed Jacob because he showed such perseverance.
I pray that we will show the same perseverance in the face of pain and confusion as we struggle with the many-faceted aspects of racism, and that we will thereby become worthy of God’s blessing. This is not a “one and done” type of problem. Only in our tenacity and endurance, only as we struggle with each other and the wider community, only as we keep our hearts open to perceive God in our midst and in our struggle, will we be able to move in the direction that God would have us go. Thanks be to God who gives us the strength to be alive and to persevere in the midst of these struggles.
Let us pray together:
Life-changing God, you have touched us and transformed us. Inspire and strengthen us so that we can reach out to all who hunger for what only you can give. Keep our feet on your paths, and bless us so that we can multiply those blessings to others.
God who hears us, holds us, and helps us, you are our eternal source of blessing. You are our endless source of provision. In your compassion, you see our need; you heal our sickness, and satisfy our hunger.
For the healing and preservation of your creation, and especially for the insight, wisdom, and strength for us to confront our racism and to find new ways to heal the pain we’ve caused: give ear to our prayer.
For the needs of our nation, and all nations – wisdom for leaders, vindication and relief for the oppressed, guidance and inspiration for those who labor to defeat the corona virus: give ear to our prayer.
For those who are hungry, ill, vulnerable, or seeking refuge from adversaries and injustice: give ear to our prayer.
For all who need you, near and far, give ear to our prayer.
O Compassionate God, give ear to our prayer, through Christ Jesus, we pray. Amen.