 | The New England Church PulpitNew England Congregational Church UCC |
A Magnificent Defeat | Genesis 32.22-31 | August 4, 2002 |
So, strange as it may seem, forget that you are hearing a story from the bible. Don’t force it to fit into your notion of moralism, of some good word about God, or expectation that it will make you feel good. Just listen to the story of Jacob wrestling with the Stranger and see what you make of it.
This is a strange story without a lot of detail. Who is this man? A ghost, a demon? Jacob wrestles with him and demands a blessing. What kind of blessing and for what purpose? Jacob’s strength prevails, and the two wrestle until daybreak at which time day isn’t the only thing breaking, and Jacob’s hip is thrown out of joint by the assailant who then figures that if it’s daybreak he should be going. Jacob isn’t giving up that easily, and demands to know who it is he’s been doing battle with. No answer is given, only a question: what is your name? And then, like Saul of Tarsus whose name was changed to Paul, the apostle, Jacob’s name is changed to Israel, which means “he struggled with God.” He is given the new name because he came face to face with God and lived to talk about it.
The name Jacob means ‘go getter’ or ‘deceiver.’ It is the way he lived his life. He lusted after life, and went after what he wanted. There’s a part of Jacob we admire, but there’s a part of Jacob we would scorn if he were among our circle of friends today. He took advantage of people, he deceived his father, his brother, his father-in-law. But if we listen carefully, we learn that Jacob was blessed by his father, even after he knew he was deceived, and all along God blesses Jacob and makes him prosper. It’s an image of God we often miss when reading the bible.
Today we tend to RELISH an encounter with God–some vision, some epiphany, some spiritual experience. Perhaps we have it wrong. Perhaps we have created a God in our own image, projecting on to the Deity what WE want. Perhaps our God is too touchy-feely, too accessible, too neat and prim, too controllable. The God of the Israelites was a God to be feared, a God that required awe and distance, a God that was anything but personal and approachable. People feared encounters with gods back then, and Jacob is no exception. Here he fights back; he’s indignant that he should be prevailed upon to just lay down and take it. And the story implies that God rather likes that gutsy attitude. What we do know is that God takes his breath away by putting a knee into his groin and Jacob comes away limping in the end, which I suppose is better than coming away dead. There’s something inspiring about Jacob challenging God, and demanding a blessing, and getting it! Ultimately, Jacob doesn’t win, but then, neither does God. Both have been challenged, both have begged to be let go, and they come away, arm in arm, one of them limping, to lead Israel into the future.
The defeat is magnificent. Things are usually upside down in God’s world. To win, you have to lose. To go forward you must sometimes retreat. To do business with God you have to be willing to go the distance on the wrestling mat, and have a purpose and be willing to defend it and give your life for it. This defeat is not unlike another defeat we remember on Good Friday, and the wrestling match that Jesus did with God. In God’s world to lose is to win, to die is to live, and defeats are magnificent when our opponent is God.
It’s a confusing story, to say the least, partly because we expect God to be more moral than this, to punish the deception, withhold blessings for this deceiver. Here again we must listen to the story without the preconceived notion of a morally upright God, by our standards. It’s confusing that deception is honored and blessed here, but perhaps God sees life as a game of poker. One can’t be a very good poker player without some deception; it’s part of the game. Jacob seemed confident in his destiny to be a leader, and was not about to let the traditions of his culture put his brother in charge. Perhaps Jacob’s dream was for him a calling, where angels going up and down a ladder were confirmation of that calling. Perhaps the struggle with God is God’s way of strengthening Jacob in his resolve, of making sure he’s the man for the job, of honing his skills to combat the forces.
If you examine this story in the context of the whole of biblical characters, you realize it is not a Who’s Who of olympian gods. Jacob, the one now named Israel because of his prevailing wrestling with God, the one who will become the great patriarch of the nation for generations until this very day, is not a saint. He’s a cripple. The good news in all of this is that God can use even the screw ups, the arrogant, the deceptive, the recalcitrant, the ordinary person who lives by the skin of his teeth. Jacob, with all his deception, gets God’s ultimate blessing, and wrestles with a God who hits below the belt.
God writes a lot of history with crooked lines. God is willing to take the rogues and fashion a story of hope; God is able to weave a tapestry of beauty with a pile of string too short to keep and faded yarn. Abraham lied about Sarah being his wife; David killed Uriah so he could have Uriah’s beautiful wife Bathsheeba; Rahab was a harlot, and an enemy of the nation. Yet Abraham, Jacob, David and Rachel are the mural of Israel’s history and ultimately were the lineage of Jesus. And you thought Jesus came from such a pure and upright background!
At the very least, here is a story about not giving up on ourselves, and not giving up on others too quickly. We never know when something that appears out of line to our eyes and our logic may be the very thing God will use for holy purpose. You only see through a glass darkly. We cannot evaluate holy purposes with human minds. Nor can we determine which activities or value systems are best for God’s purposes. We must each determine our own faith journey with God, knowing that it will evolve as time goes on, that our story will be constantly written and rewritten, and we will wrestle continually with all that challenges us.
“Someone I am is waiting for my courage” Perhaps the story is about Jacob wrestling with himself, with his conscience, with his inward struggles, with his courage. We have all had the same wrestling match at one time or another. Maybe it’s an insecurity; maybe it’s an arrogance. Maybe it’s a struggle with someone you’ve hurt, or the times you’ve compromised your integrity. These are struggles with the Holy. You may win the argument, and you may prevail against God. You may lose and you may come away limping. But if we observe life as we should the bible, without preconceived notions of how it should turn out, or what it should mean, we will realize ourselves to be part of a never-ending saga the beauty of which is beyond our wildest dreams.
–Gary L. McCann
(Based upon and quoting from The Magnificent Defeat by Frederick Buechner)
Tao Te Ching
(translated by Stephen Mitchell)
68
The best athlete
wants his opponent at his best.
The best general
enters the mind of his enemy.
The best businessman
serves the communal good.
The best leader
follows the will of the people.
All of them embody
the virtue of non-competition.
Not that they don’t love to compete,
but they do it in the spirit of play.
In this they are like children
and in harmony with the Tao [The Way].
69
The generals have a saying:
“Rather than make the first move
it is better to wait and see.
Rather than advance an inch
it is better to retreat a yard.”
This is called
going forward without advancing,
pushing back without using weapons.
There is no greater misfortune
than underestimating your enemy.
Underestimating your enemy
means thinking that he is evil.
Thus you destroy your three treasures
and become an enemy yourself.
When two great forces oppose each other,
the victory will go
to the one who knows how to yield.
| Copyright © 2002 by Gary L. McCann. All rights reserved. |