"Wrestling with god"

Dr. George Sinclair, Pastor

Gen. 32:22-31; Ps. 17:1-7, 15; Rom. 9:1-5 Matt. 14:13-21

August 3, 2008

                 I sometimes walk with a limp, especially when I’m tired.  It started about twenty-five years ago when I hurt my knee, and then it got worse about six months ago when I started having problems with my hip.  I went to the doctor, and when he read the X-ray he says to me, “I bet you can’t sleep, can’t find a good side, can you?”

                 And I say, “That’s about right.”

                 And he says, “Well, both your hips are wearing out.”

“Both?” I say. “My left seems worse than the right.”

“Both,” he says.

“Well, how long do I have?” I ask.

And he says, “About ten years or until you can’t stand it—then you’ll be back.”

I can sympathize with Jacob.  Jacob walked with a limp—got it in a fight, took one in the hip.

Jacob was a scrapper.  He wasn’t always, not exactly. He started life “a quiet man, living in tents.” His twin, his older brother, Esau, was “a man of the field,” a manly man.  Esau was the natural-born fighter.  Jacob was “a quiet man.”  He stayed at home, learned how to cook, which came in handy the day Esau came in from the field, “famished.”

As firstborn, Esau, was supposed to inherit everything—all of his father’s flocks, all of his fields, his servants, everything. Esau was  supposed to get it all and be head of the household. It was his right. That was how they did things in the old days.  That was the way it had always been.  Everything went to the eldest.  But Esau gave it up.  The Bible says Esau “despised his birthright,” and that’s true enough, but Jacob, his brother, more or less swindled him.

Esau comes across; well, he’s not the sharpest arrow in the quiver—kind of a big, dumb, lug.  And Jacob, well, he might be a mama’s boy, but he’s quick. He’s fast on his feet. And he is ambitious. Esau might have “despised his birthright,” but Jacob knew a bargain when he saw one. So, he made Esau a deal:  “Give me your birthright, and I’ll give you some stew.”  And that’s just what happened.  Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for a pot of stew.

Since the beginning of the twin’s story, we’ve been waiting for something like this to happen, maybe not just this, but the Bible says these two brothers were born fighting and that one day “the elder shall serve the younger.”  Fact is, when they were born, Jacob came out “gripping Esau’s heel.”  Esau was the firstborn, but not by much. Jacob was right behind, on his heel. The name Jacob means “heel-grabber, he who supplants, usurper.”  Jacob would not      disappoint.  The Heel Grabber would not only steal his brother’s birthright, he also stole his  dying father’s blessing.

You remember the story.  Isaac, the   father of Jacob and Esau, is dying or near death. Isaac’s an old man, blind and feeble. And he has one last request. He wants Esau to kill some game and make him his favorite meal so he can bless him before he dies. 

 Jacob’s mother, Rebekah, slinking around the tent door, hears the old man’s     request. Before Esau can return and before he gets the blessing, she tells Jacob, her favorite, to cook up some nice stew from his father’s flock.  Mama Rebekah then dresses Jacob in Esau’s clothes, disguises Jacob’s smooth skin with wool from the sheep, and sends him in to imitate his hairy brother. 

When dinner is served the old man suspects something’s up. He asks Jacob for a kiss, “Give your old papa a kiss.”  The old man not only gets a whiff of the “man of the field,” but also latches on to his son’s hairy arms. The deception works. Isaac thinks Jacob is Esau and gives him the blessing. 

Just as the blessing is ending, Esau walks in. But it’s too late.  The deed is done.  Destinies are set. When the old man realizes his mistake he “trembles violently.” It’s, oh, so pitiful.  Faithful Esau, who’s been out hunting all day, trying to honor his dying father’s last request, cries out, “Bless me, Father. Bless me.” 

But it’s too late. Destinies are set.   The Heel Grabber Jacob now has both Birthright and Blessing.  Esau, meanwhile,  broken-hearted, crushed, vows that when his father dies he will kill Jacob.  Jacob knows it’s no idle threat.  So he flees the country.  He  escapes to Grandfather Abraham’s ancestral home across the Euphrates. Twenty years will go by before he returns.  That’s where our  reading for today picks up.  Father Isaac is dead.  Esau has sent out four hundred men. And Jacob, heel grabbing brother Jacob is about to be not so happily welcomed home.  It was on this night that Jacob developed a limp—the night before his family reunion.

Jacob went to bed alone that night.  Earlier he sent his family on ahead.  They crossed the Jabbok, a stream that fed the      Jordan, just east of Canaan and home.  Jacob was left alone.  That day Jacob also sent a “welcome me home” present to Esau—some five hundred cattle, sheep, camels, donkeys, and goats—a little gift to soften up Esau.  When “I see his face; perhaps he will accept me.”  That was Jacob’s hope. He hoped Esau would accept him, welcome and best of all—not kill him.

Jacob was “left alone.” It was night.

I saw an article last week that said that seventy percent of us have trouble sleeping.  I sometimes have trouble sleeping.  I go to sleep, but then I wake up—two, sometimes three am—can’t go back to sleep.  You ever do that?  The wheels start turning and you can’t shut them off?  I don’t do that every night, just a few nights a week. I didn’t do that on vacation at all. Slept like a baby.  Come back to work, can’t sleep.  Toss and turn, watch the clock.  The article said it helped to have some milk and cookies.  Maybe I’ll start doing that—milk and cookies before bed.

Jacob was alone and it was night.  We’re told that “a man wrestled with him until daybreak.” By the end of the story we learn that the “man” is not a man at all, but God.  I’m not sure what it means to say Jacob wrestled with God.  I mean, it’s a very odd story.  The story says that “when the man saw that he could not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip.”  Was that a cheap shot, a low blow, some kind of foul?  Why would God do a thing like that?  Wouldn’t God fight fair? 

For a “quiet man,” Jacob must have been some kind of scrapper or some kind of scared.  It seems to me, though, if you’re the Lord God Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth, you could make short work of a “quiet man” like Jacob.  But no, they fight all night long, and when it appears that the man can’t prevail, he socks Jacob in the hip.  And that pretty much was it. Or almost.  Just as at birth Jacob grabbed his brother’s heel, so Jacob grabs the man at sunrise and won’t let him go. And just as Jacob made Esau a deal so he makes the man a deal, “Bless me, and I’ll let you go.” 

“What’s your name?”

“Jacob.”

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

Jacob got his blessing, a new name.  He was called “Israel.” The meaning is disputed but may be translated “God rules.” Jacob the Heel Grabber becomes God Rules. The heel grabbing Jacob becomes one ruled by God. 

That was Jacob’s blessing.  He is ruled by God.  But that’s not all Jacob got. Jacob got a limp. The blessing was costly. It came with a price. Jacob left that place, which he named, Face of God, “limping because of his hip.”

The moment we’ve been waiting for has arrived—the Brothers Reunion and what will it bring?  Esau came out with four hundred men.  Give him credit; heel grabbing Jacob, now God Rules put himself out front.  And when he saw Esau, he bowed to the ground not once but seven times. It had been twenty years. Twenty years is a long time for a man to think.  And what will Esau do?

“Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept.”  Jacob said, “to see your face is like seeing the face of God.”

What are we to make of this story, this very odd, this very peculiar story?  Here’s my take. 

First of all, it’s a story about both a man and a nation, actually two nations: Israel and its near neighbor, Edom, represented by Jacob and Esau respectively. Edom was a sometimes friend and sometimes foe—close enough to be a cousin, a brother, but sometimes also mortal enemy.

Certainly, the story can be read as a story about what happens to the man, Jacob, and his brother Esau.  But Jacob stands for the nation of Israel, just as Esau stands for the people of Edom.  This story is about God and politics, more      specifically, foreign relations.  At the risk of oversimplification, nations ruled by God, walk with a limp.  They are bowed.  And when bowed,     nations have a better than even chance of getting along with each other. 

Secondly, this is a very clear-eyed story.  The storyteller doesn’t suffer any illusions about human nature or foreign relations.  Nations act deceptively.  They are conniving. They plot. They fight and contend.  Life is complicated.  The   storyteller is not an idealist but a realist.  People and nations act out of self-interest, self-preservation.  People and nations are capable of great stupidity—they will sell their birthright for pottage or oil or anything else they think will keep them alive.  Nations have and make        enemies.  The stakes for survival are that high.  But combatants can’t remain combatants.  Peace between brothers, peace between nations is     always better than war and the threat of war. 

Thirdly, if it takes punching us in the hip to get our attention, then that’s what God will do to rule us.  Heel-Grabbers don’t become One  Nation Under God without a fight.  God knows this.  And God is prepared to do battle. God will go to the mat.  God will humble us if that’s what it takes, and it usually does. 

Fourth, nations ruled by God limp.  And when nations limp they are willing to bow down.  Maybe we have to limp before we bow.  That seems true enough.  The best people I’ve met in life all have a limp—they’ve got some kind of wound.  They’ve been knocked down.  They’ve taken some licks.  And the thing is, they’ve    gotten back on their feet, but they never walk the same way again. The same is true for nations.  Those ruled by God walk with a limp.  They know what’s it’s like to be down.  They know what it’s like to “have striven with God and with humans.”  The fight doesn’t make you proud. It makes you humble. It makes you realize your limitations. It makes you realize you have a brother and even if you’ve cheated your brother and even if your brother has threatened to kill you, he’s still your brother. He’s all you’ve got. You’ve got to talk. You’ve got to bow down.  Bowing down is not a sign of defeat. Bowing is what nations ruled by God do.  They humble themselves that they might be exalted.  They humble themselves that they might live in peace.

Finally, whatever else this story teaches, it teaches that we’re never going to see the face of God until we’re willing to see the face of our brother.  Jacob wrestled God in the night and his face is obscured, hidden. It is only in the light of day, when he sees his brother that he is able to say, “Seeing your face is like seeing the face of God.”  The New Testament teaches the same thing: “those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.” 

It’s not very pleasant to say it much less to admit, but people and nations are Heel-Grabbers. But when we go to the mat, we can become those whom God Rules. And when God rules, we walk with our brothers and not against them.  We live in peace. Amen.