Wrestling with God

Unfolding story of Genesis

Series of crises that shape the story of God and God’s people.

Adam and Eve

Noah and his family

Abram and Sarai

Abraham and Isaac

Jacob and Esau

Grasping of the heel

The birthright and the red stew

The Father’s blessing

Jacob gets his name from his relationship with Esau. Supplanter. Grasper.

Jacob has the birthrigth, he has the blessing of his father, and the blessing of God, but he also has the enmity of his brother. And he leaves. 20 years go by. Jacob courts, marries, courts again, marries again, and has a family.

He becomes a wealthy man, but while he he has a home with Laban, he is never truly at home. While there is a prosperous relationship for both of them, there is an undercurrent of dissension.

Jacob and his family are going home.

After 20 years.

There’s something tragically relateable about this story. How many of us have that difficult relationship that, no matter what good things happen, continues to shape our lives in untold ways. Jacob’s contention with Esau shapes his whole life until he leaves home, and then for 20 years it is a shadow on his horizon.

Finally, things come to a head. Jacob is most of the way home. The river Jordan is in sight. Once he crosses, then there is no turning back. He is returning to the land and the people that was promised to his father, that was promised, after a fashion, to him.

And as he approaches the place Jacob sends his servants, his flocks, even his family away and spends a night wrestling with a stranger. A stranger, that as they contend, Jacob realises is none other than God himself.

Wrestling with God

Throughout the night they wrestle. And Jacob will not let go until he receives a blessing from God.

Again, this is relateable. All of us have times when we wrestle with God. Times when the path in front of us is hidden, or fearful, or unfair. Where are you Lord? Will yougive me your blessing even here? Even now?

In fact, I think that there is something to be learned from Jacob here. All too often we are meek in our life of prayer. Diffident. Skirting around the edges of the issue.

Jacob lays it all out before God and will not let go until God responds.

There are times when we need that tenacity in prayer. There are times when we need to express that raw emotion. God is bigger than our fears, our hurts, our borkenness. There is nothing that we cannot bring beofre God in rawness and passion.

In this long night, Jacob is transforemd given a new name. No longer is he the grasper, the supplanter of Esau, now he is Israel - he who contends with God.

He is still the same person - grasping after a blessing - but he is no longer defined by his relationship with Esau. Instead he is defined by his relationship with God.

It’s the transformation he didn’t know that he needed.

Contention and Blessing

As much as there is a model for us in our life of prayer, there is also a cautionary tale from the life of Jacob, and his constant struggle with the world and with God.

Jacob never ceases trying to wrestle another blessing from God and from others.

I don’t know if there’s anyone in scripture who is blessed so often. Before he is even born he is blessed by God. As a child he and his brother are the promise of his father’s blessing.

He receives the birthright.

He receives his father’s blessing not once, but twice. He is blessed by his mother, by God himself, by his father in law, and even, in the very next chapter, by the brother that he has feared for 20 years.

As much as he is unceasingly blessed, Jacob never gives up struggling for jus one blessing more.

It’s like he afraid that the last one will wear out.

For all of his many blessings. Despite his transformation from little brother syndrome to an undying relationship with Go, Jacob has no sense of assurance.

How often do we suffer the same?

How often do we continue to worry, even when have received God’s blessing in our time of crisis?

Jacob has built this moment up in his head for 20 years, working through every scenario in his head, trying to second guess how he might trick Esau into welcoming him home.

When the moment comes, Jacob encounters the one thing he never planned for: Esau welcomes him with open arms. Even then, Jacob is back to his old tricks. No sooner has he procured Esau’s blessing, than he deceives his brother once more. Maybe he saw the writing on the wall. Maybe Esau’s welcome was false. But Jacob never takes the chance of finding out. He poisons the well of blessing that he has just finished digging.

Even though Jacob receives God’s blessing many times over, he never ceases to grasp for more.

Jacob wrestles the Angel, but he carries the scars for life.

How often do we prepare for the worst? How hard is it for us to trust that God really is at work beyond what we can see and comprehend?

Jacob and Jesus

The lectionary pairs today’s reading from Genesis with Matthew’s account of the feeding of the 5,000 at the sea of Galilee.

Although these stories are so different, there are some remarkable parallels.\

Bothe Jacob and Jesus are preparing themselves to cross the Jordan and head towards their destiny in Jerusalem

Both Jacob and Judah wrestle with God.

Jesus goes off by himself, Jacob sends his family away

Both occasions are moments of encounter with God

Jacob’s relationships are transformed. Jesus’ true identity is beginning to be revealed.

Jacob wrestles with God to keep the blessing for himself

Jesus shares the blessing with all

Jacob still cannot quite trust that God is in control.

Jesus submits his life to God even as he begins to perceive the cross on the horizon.

Jacob lacks assurance. Jesus invites his disciples, invites all of us into the assurance that no matter what struggle is in fronot of us, no matter what shadow is hanging over us, God’s blessing goes ahead of us.

God’s blessing of life, in all of its miraculous abundance.

Amen