Loving God, you invite us to enter the struggle, and in the end to be called by your name.  Thank you for calling us your very own children, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Leader: Let us tell each other the names.
Congregation: It began with Spirit, Word, God, the Holy One, the Creator of heaven and earth.

Leader: Then came the human ones, formed from the fertile land, and from one another.
Congregation: And then, the names: Abraham and Sarah and the Holy One begat Isaac, bringer of laughter.

Leader: Isaac and Rebekah and the Holy One begat the twins, Jacob and Esau, the trickster and the tricked.
Congregation: It had been a long time since Jacob stole his brother’s inheritance and fled into the desert.

Leader: Jacob had many names: “Grabber of brother’s heel.” “Mama’s boy.” “Maker of delicious stew.” “Deceiver and blessing stealer.” “Frightened One.” “Running One.” What goes around comes around; some time later he was “Deceived One” and “Cheated One.”
Congregation: And then it was time to return home and face the past. Jacob would be the “Leaving and Returning One.”

Leader: As Genesis, the book of beginnings tells it, Jacob got up during the night, took his household and everything they owned, across the river –
Congregation: – the mothers: Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah –

Leader: – and their children: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Dan, Napthali, Asher, Zebulun, Gad, Joseph, Dinah!
Congregation: He helped them cross the river.

Leader: But Jacob stayed apart by himself, and there he met a stranger. They wrestled through the night, well matched. The man, seeing that he couldn’t defeat Jacob, grabbed Jacob’s thigh and the muscle ripped apart.
Congregation: The man said, “Let me go because the dawn is breaking.”

Leader: But Jacob said, “I won’t let you go until you bless me.”
Congregation: The man said to Jacob, “What’s your name?” He said, “Jacob.”

Leader: Then he said, “Your name won’t be Jacob any longer, but Israel, because you struggled with God and with humans and won.”
Congregation: Jacob also asked, “Tell me your name.”

Leader: But he said, “Why do you ask for my name?” and he blessed Jacob there. Jacob named the place Peniel, “because I’ve seen God face to face, and my life has been saved.”
Congregation: And so Jacob, Israel, Struggler With God, Struggler with Humans, went limping on his way.

(Litany from Clergystuff.com Narrative Lectionary resources)

    In this litany of names that we have just shared, we are given the broader context for the story that we heard today about Jacob.  After all, it is not just a story about Jacob wrestling.  Rather, it is a story of the origins of Israel, and of a significant change in the life of Jacob.

    As with many of the stories in Genesis, there is a bit of a mythical quality about it.  It’s not really clear whether Jacob is wrestling with a man, or an angel, or some sort of supernatural being that only comes out at night, or even with God.  However, the name Israel suggests that Jacob has, in fact, wrestled with God, as the name means “the one who strives with God.”  We also find an interpretation of what happened many years later in the prophet Hosea.  When speaking about Jacob, Hosea says,

In the womb he tried to supplant his brother, and in his manhood he strove with God.  He strove with the angel and prevailed, he wept and sought his favor (Hos. 12:3-4).

As in other stories in the Old Testament, striving with God and striving with the angel of the Lord seem to be pretty much the same thing.

    The thing is that Jacob had every reason to be struggling with God, not just physically, but spiritually.  He had exhibited all kinds of behaviour that isn’t particularly godly, having tricked his brother Esau out of his birthright and his blessing and his inheritance.  And then, in his ongoing struggle with his uncle Laban, Laban tricks Jacob a couple of times, and then Jacob devises a way to make off with both of Laban’s daughters and most of his flocks and herds.  Jacob has taken from others to suit himself, and left his brother Esau so angry that Esau wanted to kill him.

    Now, after many years spent away from Esau, Jacob is headed back to the land of his ancestors and has sent word to Esau to let him know.  Esau is on his way to meet Jacob - along with 400 men - at the time when Jacob has this encounter by the river Jabbok.  And so Jacob is quite likely experiencing fear and guilt and all kinds of difficult emotions as he spends the night wrestling with God.

    This is, perhaps, the first time in his life that Jacob has faced head-on what he has done in his life.  He is confronting his fear and his guilt and his need for forgiveness, all in the presence of God.  And after he spends this night wrestling - struggling with God, he is transformed into a far more mature version of himself.  While there are still glimpses of his former self at first, he becomes a far more faith-filled man in his remaining years.

    I can’t help but think that the same sort of transformation happens to us when we dare to encounter and to struggle with God.  For some people, this struggle with God happens when we become aware of our own sinfulness and of how we have failed to be the people whom God has created us to be.  When we actually face that truth in the presence of God and confess our sins and our need of forgiveness, it is this struggle that sets up our transformation.  To honestly confess our sins and then to hear the good news that we are forgiven through Jesus sets us free and transforms us into new and more mature versions of ourselves – kind of like the blessing that Jacob received.

    At the same time, there are times when our struggle with God takes different forms: like struggling to understand why God allows certain things to happen; or struggling to figure out or to accept what God is calling us to do; or struggling with questions about our faith and about the Bible.  In each case, when we actually engage in these difficult things rather than avoiding them - through prayer and through conversations with other Christians - once again we emerge out of the struggle transformed – “transformed by the renewing of [our] minds,” as Paul says (Rom. 12:2).

    In the end, though, the good news is that Jesus has engaged in the most difficult struggle of all on our behalf.  We don’t need to conquer the power of sin and death.  We don’t need to endure the pain caused by the sins of the whole world.  We don’t need to live a perfect life in order to be accepted by God.  It is Jesus who has done those things in order that we might receive the gift of salvation through him.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Pentecost 18 (NL 2)                            Genesis 32:22-30
September 27, 2015                            Mark 14:32-36
St. Luke’s Zion Lutheran Church
Pastor Lynne Hutchison

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