Sermon 7/31/05
Ready to Rumble - Genesis 32:22-31
(view lectionary notes for this text)
Our United Methodist Hymnal is filled with many of our favorite hymns, and many so strange and difficult to sing that even I won’t pick them for Sunday morning worship. But as a United Methodist, I find myself particularly drawn to the hymns of Charles Wesley. Charles was the younger brother of John Wesley, founder of the Methodist movement. I love John Wesley, but even I must admit that he often got very caught up in details. He was a bit obsessive about schedules, rules, order, and specifics. He had to be, to an extent, of course – someone had to flesh out the theology that would under gird the movement that was bringing people to God with a new energy and spirit. But John – you couldn’t exactly call him a free spirit. Charles, on the other hand, was the poet. He too found theology important and followed the methods that John was creating, but he was, at heart, the poet, setting the theology John wrote about to verse, putting the beliefs into songs that everyday people could remember, bringing alive scriptures in melodies that people more easily could commit to memory. If you turn to page – in your hymnals, you will see just how many hymns Wesley gave to the church – and these are just a small portion of those he wrote.
“Come, O Thou Traveler Unknown” is one of my favorite Charles Wesley hymns. The hymn brings to life today’s Old Testament lesson, where Jacob wrestles with the man. Written in 1742, the hymn has several verses that are included on one page in our hymnal, many more than those we typically sing today, but they all unfold to tell the story we read today – Jacob happening upon the stranger in the night and wrestling with him “til the break of day.” We can read in our own hymnals that John tried to teach the hymn shortly after Charles’ death, but he broke into tears when he reached the line, “my company before is gone, and I am left alone with Thee.” Charles’ hymn brings to life for us the struggle between Jacob and the man, between Jacob and God.
We must remember, to see where Jacob is today, where Jacob has come from up to this point in the story. Jacob has one of a set of twins. He was the younger twin to his brother Esau, and they were the children of Isaac and Rebekah. Isaac loved Esau but Rebekah favored Jacob. Esau never did anything intentionally wrong, but he let Jacob claim his first-born birthright in exchange for some stew one day, not his smartest or most well-thought out move. But then, when Isaac was on his deathbed, Jacob and Rebekah schemed together to further Jacobs usurpation of Esau’s place. He dressed up in animal skins to feel more like his hairy brother and went to meet his father, aging and poor in vision. He tricked his father and received the blessing meant for Esau – the blessing of the first born – serious business in ancient days. But once Esau figured out what had happened, Rebekah wisely advised her beloved Jacob to high-tail it out of town and flee to safety. That’s how Jacob ended up working for Laban, and marrying Laban’s daughters Rachel and Leah. After many years of service there, Jacob realizes he must break from Laban and move out on his own. He tricks Laban and runs away with the best animals of the flock, only to realize he is heading straight into the path of his brother Esau. He sends the rest of his family before him, and spends one night on his own. It is on this night that our passage today unfolds, this night when Jacob wrestles with an unknown man until daybreak.
Jacob, alone and vulnerable, has this encounter – with who is not even exactly clear. Jacob wrestles with him all night long, and the man, as he is called, seeing that he isn’t winning the battle, finally knocks Jacob’s hip out of its socket. This, apparently, still doesn’t shake Jacob, so the man says “let me go, for the day is breaking.” What an odd request, as if Jacob had arranged the wrestling match himself. But Jacob says he won’t let the man go unless he gets a blessing from the man, like a token of the struggle. Jacob gets more than he bargained for in response – he gets a new name – from Jacob, to Israel – a name that means “one who strives with God,” because Israel has striven with God and with humans and survived. Jacob is appropriately amazed that he survived the night, noting that he has “seen God face to face.” He leaves the place, after naming it Peniel, the Face of God, and prepares to meet his brother Esau, marked with a new name and a limp because of his hip.
I think Jacob’s journey, Jacob’s struggle is our struggle too. Perhaps we have not had a literal wrestling match with God, but we come pretty close in figurative ways to wrestling with God all night long. Jacob’s struggle is a struggle of Identity – who is he, and who is God? We wrestle with God because we are not sure of who we are and who God is and what kind of relationship we want there to be between us and God. Jacob’s identity so far has been as a trickster, a cheater, one who will take even from his own family. But God wants Jacob to be Israel, one who will be the parent of the twelve sons who will come to represent the twelve tribes of Israel. It’s a struggle between God and Jacob – will Jacob accept this role, who he is called to be? Will God be with him if he takes on this new identity?
We want to know if we can put our faith in God – so we struggle with God. And God wants to know if God can put faith in us – and we want to know too – we’re not sure that God can trust us either, or that we trust ourselves. Writes Pastor Edward F. Markquart, “God could have if [God] wanted to, with all [God’s] power . . . pin us down so very quickly. God could pin us within the blink of an eye, slam us to the floor and stomp on us. If God wanted to, God could pin us down and make us believe and obey. But that isn’t the way God wrestles. God wrestles in such a way that we slowly surrender our lives . . . We put our hands in [God’s] hands, and God begins to lead us on a path of righteousness, of right relationships. That is the way that God wrestles with us. God does not bash our hands down with . . . mighty power and pin us. Rather, God allows us to put our hands in [God’s] and we begin a walk together. That is the way God wrestles with us. We all go through that fundamental transition in life. The issue is this; whether or not I will continue to be a self centered, cheating, cunning, manipulative person or whether I will finally let God rule. Who will rule in my life? Jacob or God?” (1)
After the struggle, Jacob continues on and meets his brother Esau, and finally, there is forgiveness between the brothers. And Jacob will tell Esau that seeing him is like seeing God’s face, since Esau, like God, receives Jacob with favor and showers him with grace. After the struggle, Jacob is changed. His name has changed. His outlook has changed. His identity has changed from someone guided only by his own desires to someone who is shaped by God.
Wrestling with God is inevitable. If we don’t wrestle with God at some point or another in our lives, it may mean that we aren’t searching, questioning, learning, growing in our faith. We will wrestle with God if are wondering who we are and who we belong to and what we will be. Like Jacob, we may be aware of the scars or limps that follow us from our struggles in life. But I hope we are changed in deeper ways, too. I hope, like Jacob, we let God give us a new identity. I hope that we let God shower us with blessings, even after we’ve struggled with God all night long. Jacob’s life wasn’t perfect after this night. He still found himself at the center of stories so crazy that they could only come from the Bible. But he knew who he was from this point forward, and he knew that he could live a life directed by God.
As we sing together the hymn that Charles Wesley wrote, will you, too, invite this unknown traveler to struggle with you? “Come, O Thou Traveler Unknown Whom still I hold, but cannot see! My company before is gone, And I am left alone with Thee; With Thee all night I mean to stay, And wrestle till the break of day.”
(1) http://www.sermonsfromseattle.com/series_c_wrestling_with_god.htm
(2) http://www.spirit-net.ca/sermons/a-or18-keeping.php