Sermon 09.24.2023: Wrestlemania

Who wins in a wrestling match with God? Believe it or not, God invites us to strive and struggle with God; in fact, God prefers that to a lack-luster, lukewarm faith. Perhaps what awaits us on the other side of a wrestling match is a blessing.

Scripture

Genesis 32:22-30

The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had.

Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 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.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.”

Sermon Text

Our scripture passage for today is the story of Jacob wrestling with God in the wilderness. And while most of us can say with certainty that we have not done that, I do think most of us can say that we have struggled with faith or grappled with doubt. And while some faith traditions will say that doubt or struggle are failures of faith, we come from a tradition that believes that doubt and struggle are imperative for faith to grow.

Anne Lamott, in fact, considers it a form of prayer. She says:

I say to God sometimes, “You have got to be kidding.”
Or I say, “Would it be so much skin off your nose to cut this person a little slack?”
And I think you can say anything [to God].
You can say, “I’m mad at you. And I’m not going to be a good sport about it.
How about that?” And that’s prayer.
Silence can be prayer. Rage can be prayer. It’s truth. It’s all prayer.
When we are talking to something that the rest of the world may not be seeing right then, and when we’re talking from the deepest part of our hearts, we’re trying to tell the truth. That’s prayer.

Genesis 32:22-30

The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had.

Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 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.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.”

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Some of you may know that I have an older brother who is eight years older than I am. And for whatever reason, when we were growing up, he really liked wrestling. Not the kind of wrestling you find at the summer Olympics, but the kind of wrestling you would find on TV on a Friday night in the late 80s.

Sometimes it was called Friday Night Smackdown; other times it was called WrestleMania. And as his younger sister, it was my duty to make sure he had that body slam technique down.

Now, if you’ve ever watched these WWE or WWF wrestling matches, you know that they’re not actually real. It’s pageantry and show. But it tells a story. It’s choreographed and designed for entertainment.

And it makes me wonder, when this story of Jacob wrestling God was told around campfires,
passed down from generation to generation, did the storytellers mean for it to be taken as facts or as a story from which we can learn?

I also wonder, did they ever act out these scenes, and if so, were body-slams involved?

…

Now, who do you think wins? I’d be curious to know what you all think. Show of hands: Who think God wins this wrestling match, raise your hand? Who thinks Jacob, renamed Israel wins this wrestling match?

Honestly, Jacob was quite unevenly-matched, but I think there are no losers in this match. Both get what they want or need. And while Jacob doesn’t come out of it unscathed, he does get that blessing.

So, backing up a little bit, in today’s scripture, we find Jacob, who is having trouble sleeping. We’ve all had nights when we’ve tossed and turned in bed and couldn’t fall asleep: the night before a big exam; the night of a big game or a trip; the night before a hospital procedure; or simply a night when our worry, fear & anxiety simply get the best of us. And today, we meet Jacob on that kind of night.

Behind him, he has left the household of his father-in-law Laban. And before him, Jacob faces his first encounter with his twin brother Esau.

Now, the last time they were together, Jacob stole Esau’s birthright and blessing and had to flee his home to escape his brother’s well-warranted rage. And now, after all these years, they will be reunited.

At the banks of Jabbok; Jacob is sandwiched between what was and what will be, between a life that he has left, and a life he does not yet know. And it is on this night, when he’s tossing and turning, unhappy with his past and uncertain of his future, that he is greeted with a visitor who wrestles him until daybreak.

We can’t know, for sure, who he’s wrestling, the text seems ambivalent on that matter. Some say it was a man; some say an angel; some even say it might have been a mystical river god or creature of the night.

We don’t know for certain who it was, but we do know that Jacob claims it was God, asserting that through this wrestling match he has “seen God face to face.”

The idea of a wrestling match between God and humanity is so wild that it’s hard to believe that such things are possible, that such things were ever possible.

And while we cannot be certain that it was actually God whom Jacob wrestled or that such a story actually took place in human history, could a story, even if it may not be literally or factually true, still hold truth?

We talk about that here at Calvary, about how even if we might not always take the Bible literally, we do take the Bible seriously, and how these long-held beliefs and often-told stories still hold truth, even if they may not have happened exactly as they’re described.

Mark Twain, an American weaver of stories once said, “Truth is stranger than fiction, but that’s because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.” Truth is not bound to only what we can understand, and may far surpass what we can ever imagine.

So when have you, like Jacob, been on a journey and now await at the banks of a river, preparing and getting ready to cross? Perhaps, like Jacob, you were on the precipice of a life-changing moment, and you stood there, not with certainty and unwavering faith, but with questions, with doubts, and with anxiety. And perhaps, like Jacob, you were not able to cross this particular threshold of your life without first wrestling with God.

I think all things worth doing require some struggle. And that includes our lives of faith.

If we’ve never had moments of grappling with and questioning our faith, our faith has never had the opportunity to grow or get stronger.

I hope that everyone gathered here this morning, online or in person, has had the opportunity, at one time or another, to find ourselves at a crossroads, standing at the border of what was and what will be, because that is where growth happens.

There are moments in our lives, those borders and thresholds that were crossed only after much deliberation and struggle; only after we’ve wrestled with God and with our faith, could we move forward.

And I believe these are the moments we remember most; the ones we look back on and realize that they were the ones that shaped and formed us. For it is in the wrestling, in the struggle, that we are transformed by God.

Perhaps it was when you were deciding whether to relocate and start life in a new city or country. Perhaps it was as you decided to start or end a relationship or to start or end a career. Maybe it was when you were choosing a church or committing to become a member of an organization.

The Benedictine nun and writer Joan Chittister uses the Jacob story as a paradigm for a “spirituality of struggle.” In her book Scarred By Struggle, Transformed By Hope, she uses Jacob’s story to identify eight elements of our human struggle—change, isolation, darkness, fear, powerlessness, vulnerability, exhaustion, and scarring.

But God does not leave us there, says Chittister, and in each human struggle there is a corresponding divine gift available to us—conversion, independence, faith, courage, surrender, limitations, endurance, and transformation.

”Jacob does what all of us must do,” writes Chittister, “if, in the end, we too are to become true.
Jacob confronts in himself the things that are wounding him, admits his limitations, accepts his situation, rejoins the world, and moves on.”

It is through these threshold moments, often filled with sleepless nights, struggle, and tears,
that we are changed and blessed. When we are able to finally walk away from that wrestling match, we are forever transformed, perhaps limping, like Jacob, perhaps newly named, like Israel, but changed forever in some way.

Israel, by the way, means “one who struggles with God.” That is Jacob’s new identity, and the identity of the people of God.

So whether Jacob actually and factually wrestled God or not, we find in this story several truths:
truths about God, truths about the nature of our relationship with God, and truths about the nature of our relationship with each other.

First, we hear in this story the truth about our God who is not afraid to get dirty. Embedded in the Hebrew word for “wrestle” is the idea of getting down on the ground into the dust and dirt.

A God who wrestles is a God who does not run from that which is messy, but gets right there in it with us. All too often, we try to clean things up before welcoming God into our lives. We want to put everything in its right place, make sure we have all the right words and all the right answers. Then and only then is God invited to join us.

But the truth is, God is already in the messy, not to come and straighten everything out, but to be with us in the midst of the messiness.

Elie Wiesel in his book Night which tells of his horrific experiences during the Jewish Holocaust
records a fellow prisoner’s answer to the question, “where is God?” In the midst of all the suffering, the pain, the sickness and broken humanity, the prisoner answers, “God is in the muck with us.”

Today’s scripture reveals the truth of a God who is willing to get dirty and join us in the muck.

Second, we hear the truth about a God who relates with us. And the very same God, who created the heavens and the earth, chooses to wrestle with us, not to forcefully overpower us, not to demand faith from us, but to wrestle with us—to meet us in our struggle.

Now, admittedly, I am no expert on wrestling. Aside from those few nights I spent in my childhood with my brother watching Hulk Hogan beat whoever his opponent happened to be that night, I don’t know a whole lot.

But I have learned that wrestling is a full contact sport where a lot of what you do is find the best way to hold your opponent. And according to a wrestler in my former congregation, a match rarely lasts more than 6 minutes, let alone all through the night.

I imagine that in their wrestling, God & Jacob are not necessarily looking to win, but looking to simply wrestle. And in their wrestling, God finds ways to hold Jacob, and Jacob finds ways to hold onto God. Even after Jacob’s hip is out of joint, he is still able to hold on.

Jacob’s story is not only his own, but the story of a people, the story of God’s people, of Israel, who is both held by God and desperately holds onto God. And though we may not always realize it, it is God who initiates this struggle. God who approaches us and invites us into this wrestling match. God who is always willing to strive with us and meet us where we are.

And finally, today’s passage reveals to us truths about our relationships with each other. The story of Jacob wrestling with God precedes the story of Jacob & Esau’s reunion. And, spoiler alert, the reunion leads to reconciliation as Esau forgives past transgressions. And when they meet, Jacob says to Esau, “truly to see your face is like seeing the face of God” (Gen 33:10), “to see your face is like seeing the face of God.”

After his wrestling match with God, Jacob is able to see the face of God in others. Perhaps that is what our encounters with God are all about in the first place—to help us see God in each other.

As we come together each week to worship, as we eat from the bread and the cup that sustains our faith, as we seek God and wrestle with God, we become equipped to see God in the world and in those whom we meet.

For many, our connections to faith have been through our connection to a community of faith. It is through others who have walked with us on this journey that we have come to know God and see God’s face. And it is because of those people, those relationships, that we continue to participate in the life and ministry of the church.

The problem is, the loudest voices of Christianity and the global church, don’t always uphold the love and welcome of God for all people. It’s hard to believe a God who you can’t see loves you,
when a churh you can see acts like they don’t even like you.

And that’s why we, as members of the church, must be about radical welcome and radical love.
We have to show this city and the world that God in, indeed, love.

When hate is loud, love must be louder. That’s why our social media presence has been stepped up. That’s why there are more quotes and signage on the outside of the church. That’s why we have t-shirts and Calvary gear. That’s why we have Faith in Action Sunday. It’s not to be provocative. It’s so that we can bear witness to a God who is love.

So, in this time of continuing to come out of a global pandemic; in this time of reclaiming the church of God as one of love; in this time of proclaiming our commitment to justice and love; what awaits us on the other side of that river?

We cannot cross without some wrestling, and God knows Calvary has done some wrestling! But how will our wrestling with God prepare us for what lies ahead? And how might God bless us, so that we might be a blessing?

Because friends, no one loses in a wrestling match with God. We all get what we need, and leave with a blessing. So roll up your sleeves and get in the ring. God awaits us. Amen.