Loving God, you invite us to wrestle with our doubts and fears and also to come to you in prayer.  Continue to strengthen us in our faith day by day, and speak to our hearts by the power of your Spirit; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

            Jacob, if the truth be told, did not have the greatest reputation.  In fact, his name – Jacob – means “he who takes by the heel” or “supplanter.”  A supplanter is somebody who takes somebody else’s place – kind of a like when somebody new takes over as the starting goalie. In Jacob’s case, he had supplanted his brother Esau twice, taking both his birthright and his blessing.  This is pretty much why, in today’s reading, Jacob fears that his brother Esau might still be angry with him.

         However, Jacob is also what you might call a scrapper.  He has just spent twenty years serving his uncle Laban, looking after his flocks and herds.  Laban changed his wages ten times, and also tricked Jacob into marrying his eldest daughter, Leah.  In return, however, Jacob somehow uses fresh rods of poplar, almond and plane in the watering troughs in order to get the strongest of the flock to breed young that were speckled, spotted and striped (Gen. 30:37-39).  He did this because his uncle Laban had agreed that all of the speckled, spotted and striped animals would belong to Jacob.  In the end, Jacob prevails against Laban, just as he had prevailed against Esau.

         Thus, we get to the all-night wrestling match in which Jacob also seems to prevail against God.  It is important to note that when this wrestling match happens, Jacob is alone, and it is dark out, and he is worried about meeting his brother Esau.  Surely at least some of you have experienced sleepless nights filled with wrestling?... In Jacob’s case, doubts and fears are very much a part of this sleepless night.

         While he has prayed for protection from his brother Esau, it also seems as though Jacob struggles to believe that God really has promised to do him good (Gen. 32:9). He prayed, but he also sent lots of animals on ahead of him as gifts for Esau, in the hopes of softening him up a bit. He prayed, but he still wrestled all night.  How very human of him!  And how many times have we struggled with similar doubts and fears?

         In Jacob’s case, God had promised to do him good, and yet he had endured many trials. God had promised him lots of descendants, but now he feared that the children that he did have would be killed by his brother.  He knew what God’s promises to him had been, but he was struggling to believe that God would keep those promises.  And so, he wrestles.  He wrestles with his doubts and fears.  He wrestles with a mysterious opponent who turns out to have the face of God. And in his wrestling, and in his persistence, he is blessed.

         In fact, God not only blesses him, but gives Jacob a new name.  He will now be known as “Israel,” for he has “striven with God and with humans” and has prevailed (Gen. 32:28).  No longer will he be called the supplanter, but Israel, which can mean “God strives” or “God rules” or “the one who strives with God” (workingpreacher.org).  It seems that Jacob has now entered a new phase in his life.  Perhaps the same could be said for anybody who has wrestled with their faith and with God and has come out on the other side with a new perspective.

         For myself, there have been a number of times in my life when I have wrestled with my faith and with God.  This was especially true during high school and university and seminary.  I wrestled with whether the Bible could be trusted or not. I wrestled with whether God really wanted me to be a pastor or not.  I wrestled with the inability to pay all of my bills.  In each case I received what seemed to me to be obvious answers to prayer, and I came out on the other side with a faith that was much stronger than before.  I would also hope and pray that many of you have had similar experiences.

         In reality, there are questions that have challenged people’s faith for centuries. One of the biggest of these questions has been why there is so much evil and suffering in the world.  Or, in the title of one of Phillip Yancey’s books, “Where is God When it Hurts?”  At the risk of being overly simplistic, one of the best answers to this “where is God” question is: right there with us.  We see in Jesus how God did not shrink back from sharing our suffering and our pain.

         As for the presence of sin and evil in the world, many answers come back to the ability that God has given us to think and to make choices for good or for ill. God does not just step in and do stuff without our consent so that all of the bad stuff goes away.  Instead, God invites us to pray, and God answers those prayers as is best for us and for all.

         You may have noticed in our gospel for today that not even Jesus was spared the suffering that awaited him.  However, you also may have noticed that in the midst of his prayer that he might be spared this suffering if at all possible, he also prayed “not what I want, but what you want” (Mk. 14:36).  Of course Jesus was not looking forward to pain and suffering, but his faith was such that he trusted God’s will for him above all else.  As a result, he did, indeed, endure all of the sin and torment and evil that human beings could throw at him.  He did this, not because of some twisted desire on God’s part, but for our sake, that the power of sin and death might be broken and the way opened for us to be reconciled with God.

         We might still have doubts and questions along the way, and there is nothing wrong with that.  However, in the end my prayer would always be that all would come to know the healing and saving love of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Pentecost 15 (NL 2)                                    Genesis 32:9-13, 22-30

September 22, 2019                                   Mark 14:32-36

St. Luke’s Zion Lutheran Church

Pastor Lynne Hutchison

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