August 4, 2002 - Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
Genesis 32:22-31
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Matthew 14:13-21
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“Struggling with Self and with God”

" . . . and a man wrestled with him until daybreak."

When I was in high school I decided that I should undertake a sport. I tried out for football and the coach told me I had "good heft," but lacked the other necessary attribute of speed. Basketball was right out – for obvious reasons. So, I tried out for wrestling. I was sure that I could brute it out with the best of them. I discovered rather quickly that there is more finesse to a "take down" than the fellows on television demonstrated. A successful wrestler, I learned, not only understood his own approach, he also 'read' his opponent and then persisted in coming after him. Truth is, I never made the team. In fact, I think I was kept around as long as I was because I was a decent 'practice dummy.' Regardless, I learned something. I am a wrestler. Maybe I don't wrestle physically, but I do wrestle with ideas, with concepts, and with words. My wrestling experience was far from wasted – bruises and all – it taught me to work from my strengths and to 'read' my opponent. I learned and moved on. By the way, I lettered in debate.

My experience on the mat comes back to me each time I read this very famous story of 'wrestling Jacob.' Jacob had the makings of a wrestler; he was focused, self-confident, cunning, and supremely goal-oriented. He had not always manifested the more positive side of his character, however. Even his name, Jacob, meant 'supplanter' or 'grabber.' Hadn't he even come out of the womb holding on to his older brother's heel? The experiences of his life thus far were marked with deceit and trickery. As he fled his brother, now he was fleeing his father-in-law. His brother and his company once again waited ahead of him and Jacob was left all alone to wrestle; but with whom or with what;

The Jewish Publication Society's commentary on Genesis offers that the wrestling stranger is "none other than the celestial patron of Esau-Edom." Somehow Jacob is forced to wrestle with his relationship to his brother and to his past. In the course of his struggle he begins to understand that the One who has forced him to look deep inside is nothing mortal and he wrestles all the harder. "I will not let you go," he declares, "unless you bless me." Jacob wrestles with himself, but in the process he also wrestles with God.

If we are to really grow, to really become complete human beings there must come a time when each of us become wrestlers, like Jacob. As Jacob wrestles he is transformed. His determination to be blessed, to be in right relationship with God and God's creation changes him from the inside out. Jacob struggles with God and the mystery of life, but we have to also see in this story that God is striving with Jacob – as God strives with all of us. God desires us to know that God is present with us, that we are invited to a relationship that will bring our spirits into the closest possible union with the Creator of all that is. We must not forget that God strives with us and even the new name Jacob is given -–Israel – means "God strives." Jacob is changed from 'supplanter' to the one with whom God strives. His new name signals a new attitude and a new approach to God and to life itself.

For us, as for Jacob, the only way we come to this is by holding on, "I will not let you go." And in that moment we discover that it's been the other way around all along. It is God saying to us, "I will not let you go until you are blessed." What Jacob demonstrated in the wrestling match was the courage of faith. Courage, remember, isn't brute strength. The word derives from the French for 'heart' and it denotes mental or moral strength to do the right thing and to persevere in doing it. The theologian Paul Tillich wrote a book entitled The Dynamics of Faith in which he put courage at the heart of faith. He wrote: "Doubt is not overcome by repression, but by courage. Courage does not deny that there is doubt, but it take the doubt into itself as an expression of its own finitude and affirms the contents of an ultimate concern." In other words, courage allows us to believe, to know God is present, even when we're struggling with all the hard questions of life and even when we're frustrated because things haven't gone our way. The courage of faith allows us to grapple, but does not allow us to get bogged down. We may be limping like Jacob, but we're moving on and we're constantly being made new people because of it. The philosopher Henri Bergson put it this way, "For a conscious being, to exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly." Don't let go, don't stop growing.

Jacob's struggle as an individual gave birth to a whole people who came to bear his name, Israel. It seems to me that as Israel, both as an individual and a people, strove with God it becomes the task of the 'new Israel' – the Church – to do the same. I came across a book called Jacob's Blessing: Dreams, Hopes, And Visions for the Church. One of the authors, Donna Sinclair, is convinced that the story of the North American Churches is intertwined with that of Jacob. As he struggled with himself and with God, so too are we, as communities of faith, struggling with our sense of self and our identity. She wrote:

In what we used to happily call the "mainline" denominations, we struggle with the unknown in the darkness. While some congregations flourish, attendance is down in the majority and gray heads predominate. Finances are slipping. Where the large denominations once had the ear of cabinet ministers, the secular world now ignores these denominations, or – with the exception of a few television shows – portrays them as quaint. Our members are not of one mind: gay ordinations, women's rights, peace issues, the nature of Jesus, the very language we use to address God, the hymns we will or will not sing – these matters divide us, sometimes even within the same congregation. Like Jacob, we don't know how to name what is happening to us, we don't know if we will see daybreak, and we fear what tomorrow may bring. . .

I think she's on to something. As we must come to grips deep inside ourselves as individuals relating to God, so must we as God's gathered people in the Church. It is God's will to bless us and we must not allow ourselves to get caught up in issues that divide or trivialize the real issue here – God's will to relationship, gracious activity in Jesus Christ, and constant love. Jacob wrestled, so must we, but in the end Jacob emerged renewed and if we persevere we will do the same.  Sinclair says that Jacob's story assures us that blessing awaits us in the midst of the struggle.

I would venture to say that struggle or change is not on our list of most desirable experiences. However, if we are to become what we're called to become, we must open ourselves with the courage of faith to the presence of God and enter into the struggle with self and with God. In its one hundred and sixty years this Church has known growth and decline, it has known struggle and change, it has known times of deep peace and times of sharp conflict. Through it all this gathered people has held on to the covenant promise of God who says over and over "I will be with you."  How does the old hymn go, "all around me change and decay I see, O Thou Who changest not, abide with me"?

Whenever we come together in worship we are reminded of God's will to bless us, to call us by a new name of love as children of the Heavenly Father. When Jesus fed the five thousand he was acting in concert with the Divine attribute of compassion. He saw people's need and he reached to them. As we struggle with our selves and with God, we must never fear that there won't be enough blessing to go around. Our sharing in the Lord's Supper is a continual sign of God's willingness to renew us and to bless us. All over the world today people have been receiving the sacrament and yet there is still a blessing for all who come and there is still room to be brought into union with God.

As we are fed from this table today, may the simple signs of bread and cup become potent reminders of God's willingness to bless. When we receive these elements we should come to them, as did Jacob to his wrestling match and not leave without a blessing. And as we leave this meetinghouse today, we should go determined to be changed into a blessing for others, as Jacob was for all time. Jesus took the simple fare of the people and turned it into a rich feast, so should our lives be transformed so that others are fed by our loving attitudes each day. It all begins when we hold on and determine that we won't let go until we're blessed.