Eric Lemonholm – August 28, 2011 – Proper 17 A – altered Scripture

The Reading: Genesis 32:24-31, 33:1-11

Gospel            Matthew 16:21–28

 The God Wrestler

In Scripture there is so much that is foreign to our experience.

Sometimes that is masked by what we choose to read and what we ignore.

But today’s story from Genesis is an ancient story of an encounter with the divine.

 

 

Jacob and his family – Leah, Rachel, their children and all their possessions, including livestock and slaves – were traveling to Jacob’s ancestral home in Canaan.

Jacob’s brother Esau is on his way to meet Jacob – with 400 armed men.

Remember – Jacob had stolen Esau’s birthright and blessing as the eldest son.

Jacob is no dummy – he sends lavish gifts ahead of him for Esau, hoping to temper Esau’s wrath.

But Jacob still does not know if his brother will embrace him or kill him.

The night before he meets his brother, Jacob spends the night alone in the wilderness, “and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.”

Who is that mysterious wrestler?

Who do you think it is?

 

Is it an angel?  That’s what many have said, but he is not called an angel here.

Is it a demon?  Was Jacob wrestling with a demon that night?

Is it a member of the divine court?^[i]

Is it God?

 

The story calls the wrestler a man, but it is no ordinary man.

This being wrestles with Jacob all through the darkness of the night

When morning is dawning, this mysterious divine being has not been able to overcome Jacob or pin Jacob to the ground, so he touches Jacob on the hip and puts it out of joint.

It’s as if this wrestler does not want to be seen in the light of the sun.

It’s nothing for this being to dislocate Jacob’s hip with a touch.

But even with his hip out of joint, Jacob does not let go.

He’s holding on for a blessing.

Finally, the being asks Jacob’s name, and then gives him a new name: Israel.

One who strives with El – God.

God Wrestler!^[ii]

Jacob –the heel – is now Jacob-Israel – Jacob the God Wrestler.

Someday, the nation that traces their origin to Jacob will be called by his name, Israel.

Israel is the nation that wrestles with God.

 

Somehow, this person wrestling with Jacob-Israel is God.

In the dim light of dawn, Jacob saw God face to face, and yet his life was preserved.

From his experience of wrestling God, Jacob received a new name, a blessing, and a limp.

 

Do you wrestle with God?

Does God wrestle with you?

Sometimes, we don’t even recognize that God is trying to pin us down.

Perhaps you wake up in the middle of the night, and suddenly you can see a problem in your life more clearly than you can see it in the light of day.

We see the image of God in our neighbors.

God has your full attention.

 

Or perhaps you have experienced a physical ailment, and you come face to face with your own mortality.

You realize that we all limp through life, more or less.

God has your full attention.

 

This past week, the East Coast has experienced both an earthquake and a hurricane.

With climate change, extreme weather events are getting more common and more extreme.

We realize how precious and fragile our lives really are.

God has your full attention.

 

Sometimes we encounter God in other people.

God wrestles with us in the guise of our neighbors.

Our neighbor’s truth, our neighbor’s needs challenge our opinions about life in the world.

God has your full attention.

 

This past week God has been wrestling with me.

Breaking down my defenses.

Waking me up in the middle of the night.

Trying to pin me down.

God has my full attention.  Wrestling with God tends to focus one’s heart and mind.

 

Here’s the context.

At the beginning of the week, I was feeling overwhelmed by the number and scope of our church’s ministries.

So I started mapping out Good Shepherd’s ministries in this place, this neighborhood, and beyond.

I realized that we are doing a lot of good things, and many people are involved!

I also realized that our challenge is not, at first, to start new ministries or new programs, but to focus on what we are already doing, go deeper, get more people involved, and spread the word.

 

By God’s grace and power, we are already engaging our mission, Living and Sharing Jesus.  Our challenge is to renew and deepen our engagement in that mission.

As one pastor put it, renewing our church is “not rocket science…  You preach the gospel, offer hospitality, and pay attention to worship and people’s spiritual lives.  Frankly, you take Christianity seriously as a way of life.”^[iii]

Taking our faith seriously as a way of life; living and sharing Jesus as a way of life, as part of our individual and community DNA.

That’s what it’s all about.

 

This past week, I also spent some time at West Middle School helping new students find their classrooms and basically being a caring adult presence in the school.

It’s going to be a good year at West.

The students there face many challenges at home, in their neighborhoods, and at school.

But it’s amazing to experience the diversity at West: being there is like seeing a microcosm of the world.

One of our challenges here at Good Shepherd is to reach out to our brothers and sisters of different nationalities or ethnic backgrounds with the love of Jesus.

And again, it’s not rocket science!  As pastor and brother Denver Bitner told me this week, the secret to being a multicultural or multiracial church is to be a multicultural or multiracial church.

Reach out, and then reach out, and then reach out again.

Don’t give up seeing and meeting Jesus in your neighbors.

Don’t give up welcoming them to Good Shepherd.

Take the ministries that Good Shepherd already has and create entry points to the congregation.

 

This week, Denver took me and some other pastors around Rockford, and showed us some of the ministries of Lutheran Social Services of Illinois.

We often don’t realize that, as members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, we own – or steward – one of the largest social service agencies in the nation, with an annual budget of $16 billion, affecting the lives of millions of people.

In Rockford alone, LSSI is involved in foster care, adoptions, affordable housing, tutoring programs, senior care, community development, and more.

Through RALM (Rockford Area Lutheran Ministries), we are involved in even more, including Becca’s Closet housed here at Good Shepherd and the summer Park Players youth leadership and anti-violence program.

It’s amazing, but those are all ministries of our church, as we work together as brothers and sisters in Christ.

 

That, at least, is how God has been wrestling with me this week.

I invite you on a pilgrimage.

Come and wrestle with God, not just alone in the dark of the night, but together in the light of the day as well.

Renew your commitment to live and share Jesus every day, with our families and friends, our coworkers, and our neighbors.

The point is not to beat ourselves up, as if we’re never doing enough so we have to do more and more until we’re good enough for God to accept us.

No, God’s with us and within us and among us.

God loves us as we are.

God accepts us by grace as a gift, not by anything we do to earn that acceptance.

We want to grow deeper and wider as a community of Jesus people not out of obligation but out of joy.

We wrestle with God, and we invite others to wrestle too.

We hold on for a blessing.

We may leave limping, but we have been blessed and we have been named – God Wrestlers.