Face to Face with Grace 10-19-25
Face to Face with Grace
2 Tim 3:14-4:5; Gen 22:22-31
2 Tim 3:14-4:5
But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.
In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I solemnly urge you: proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching. For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths. As for you, always be sober, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully.
Gen 22:22-31
The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.” The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.
Prayer – God of grace, I suppose it isn’t a surprise that we wrestle after dark. When our families are in bed, the stillness of the evening allows our mind to find all of the things that scare us, mimic us, remind us that we are far from perfect. Help us to meet you in those dark times, trusting that even in the wrestling we will encounter you and your boundless grace.
Jacob was a man on the run. Deep-seated family hostilities characterized Jacob's entire life. Because Isaac and Rebekkah played favorites, he and his fraternal twin Esau grew up hating each other. Jacob also swindled Esau of his family birthright, which entitled him to a double share of the family inheritance. Later, he and his mother lied and connived to swindle the family blessing from his blind and dying father. When Esau threatened to murder him, Jacob fled to his uncle Laban in Haran, the very place his grandfather Abraham had departed. Jacob married his cousins Rachel and Leah, and eventually fathered thirteen children with them and their two slaves, Zilpah and Bilhah.
Sick of his father-in-law's manipulations, Jacob fled Laban, only to encounter his long lost and embittered brother Esau. The consummate deal-maker, Jacob concocted a bribe and sent a caravan of gifts along with his women and children across the river Jabbok. Perhaps that would pacify his brother's murderous threats? Physically exhausted and deeply anxious about Esau, alone in the desert wilderness, shorn of all his considerable worldly possessions, powerless to control his fate, Jacob collapsed into a deep sleep on the banks of the Jabbok River. With Laban behind him and Esau before him, he was too spent to struggle any longer.
The scene is very well painted for us. The long and noisy trek from Haran, a journey of some days, characterized by the loud hooves of fine livestock, in effect stolen from Uncle Laban, the clamoring protestations of two sister-wives and two very intimate maids, and the fuss and bother of eleven howling children, ends suddenly at the ford of the Jabbok, a small stream emptying into the Jordan River from the east. After sending this motley company across the stream, Jacob finally finds himself alone. It must have been a blessed moment, as he listened to the jarring sounds of his huge family fade into the distance.
Only then did his real struggle begin. Fleeing his family history had been bad enough; wrestling with God Himself was a different matter altogether. But out of nowhere, Jacob is jumped by "a man" who "wrestled with him until the breaking of the day". There is apparently no time at all between the disappearance of Jacob's retinue and the attack of the man. The Hebrew clearly says "man," not angel, not God. And the man "wrestles" (ye'hbek), a word suspiciously close consonantally to Jacob's own name (y'acob). We should perhaps stop here in the story and inquire after the possible identity of this man.
With whom might we expect the rascal Jacob, the "grabber" of birthright and blessing from brother and father, the clever one who took family and goods from Laban with a series of ruses, to wrestle? Three possible suspects have just been named: Esau, Isaac, Laban. Has not Jacob wrestled with each of these and won? Yet, we ought not overlook another possibility: Jacob himself. Finally, is it not Jacob who needs to battle his own grasping life in order to discover his place in the ongoing story of Israel and God's choice of them? Any of these four might prove adversary to battling Jacob.
That long, lonesome night an angelic stranger visited Jacob. "When he (the man) saw that he was not able to beat him (Jacob), he struck him on the hip socket, pulling Jacob's hip out of joint as they wrestled". Whoever the man is, he soon realizes that he cannot easily or fairly best Jacob, who is a formidable wrestler, so he resorts to what must be seen as a dirty move. He grabs the ball of his hip and rips it out of joint. But the hip socket trick is not effective, and Jacob still holds on. The man then tries another tactic. "Let me go, for the day is breaking," he screams, but Jacob retorts, "I will not let you go unless you bless me". One wonders if this unknown man is rather like Dracula or the Wolfman, whose exposure to the sun will bring their demise? But whoever he is, Jacob shows his true colors with his demand for a blessing; that is the grabber we know, one who has scratched and clawed his whole life to get what he wants.
"Then he (the man) said to him (Jacob), 'What is your name?' And he (Jacob) replied, 'Jacob.' Then Jacob asked the divine stranger his name which was likely a pretty big surprise. Avoiding the question, he (the man) said, 'You will no longer be called Jacob, rather Israel, because you have struggled with God and with human beings, and have won'". It is hard to gauge the astonishment of that sentence. Jacob has won the match with the man, and the man has announced the victory by saying he has in fact won against God and humans, and as a result will henceforth be known as Israel, which might mean "struggler with God" or "God struggles." Whichever it means, Jacob has come out victorious.
By then Jacob knew what had happened: "I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared". In the process, Jacob the Deceiver, for such is the meaning of "Jacob," received a new name, Israel, which likely means "He struggles with God." Most important and unlikely of all, at the conclusion of that riverbank struggle, we read that God "blessed him there", he received God’s grace.
In our culture at large and in our churches too, the myths of Superwoman and Superman live large. Columnist David Brooks of the New York Times describes this as the "Achievatron" in his book On Paradise Drive. We celebrate wealth, power, strength, bravado, confidence, prestige and victory, beginning with Little League baseball for our kids and continuing right on through to their SAT scores, college admissions, first job, and first address. We abhor and fear weakness, failure, struggle, and doubt. Even though we know that a measure of vulnerability, fear, discouragement and depression accompany most normal lives, we construe these as signs of failure or even a lack of faith. In real life, naive optimism and the rosy rhetoric about the Achievatron are a recipe for disappointment and discouragement. Sooner or later reality catches up with most of us.
The Jacob story jerks us back to reality. Frederick Buechner characterizes Jacob's divine encounter at Jabbok as the "magnificent defeat of the human soul at the hands of God." Similarly, in her book Scarred By Struggle, Transformed By Hope, the Benedictine nun and writer Joan Chittister uses the Jacob story as a paradigm for a "spirituality of struggle." In Jacob's story she identifies eight elements of our human struggle — change, isolation, darkness, fear, powerlessness, vulnerability, exhaustion, and scarring. Did not Paul himself describe being "harassed at every turn — conflicts without, fears within"? But God does not leave us there, says Chittister, and in each human struggle there is a corresponding divine gift available to us — conversion, independence, faith, courage, surrender, limitations, endurance, and transformation. "Jacob does what all of us must do," writes Chittister, "if, in the end, we too are to become true. He confronts in himself the things that are wounding him, admits his limitations, accepts his situation, rejoins the world, and moves on."
The end result of the nocturnal struggle for this cheater and liar was God's blessing: "God blessed Jacob there". When Jacob met God face to face, it was partly because of Jacob’s life-long struggles, and God offered him grace. When you read further in Jacob's story these twin themes of dark struggles accompanied by divine blessing continue to be intertwined. His daughter Dinah was raped. Two of his sons, Reuben and Judah, committed incest. As if to mimic his own parents who favored him over his twin brother Esau, Jacob played favorites with his own son Joseph, sewing seeds of fraternal enmity for all. And yet, God renewed the covenant with him. "God appeared to him again and blessed him". Late in life he reminisced, "God almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan, and there He blessed me".
Many commentators have tried desperately to make Jacob out to be the loser here, since he limps away from Jabbok, having suffered the dirty trick of the hip socket from his opponent. And they have wanted to make Jacob the loser because they have identified the "man" as God. They do this, because Jacob names the place of the struggle "Peniel" ("face of God" in Hebrew), claiming "I have seen God face to face, yet my life is secure". It must be noted, however, that only Jacob names the man as God. Why should we trust Jacob to decide for us who his opponent was in fact? Jacob is a consummate liar as we have seen again and again. And the fact that the man announces that Jacob has won all his matches, is undefeated against all opponents, makes me very suspicious about calling this match a divine-human encounter. I rather think that Jacob's real antagonist was himself. Who else would crow that he has never lost a bout; who else would demand and receive a blessing even while locked in combat; who else would shout that he has seen God face to face (an event only afforded to Moses in the later traditions of Israel) and yet has survived the confrontation?
Jacob finally sees God face to face, all right, but not until he recognizes that God in the face of his doltish brother, Esau, whom he expects to kill him after all he has stolen from him, but instead who welcomes him with a massive hug and a slobbery kiss. One may not see that Jacob encountered God at Jabbok, but to his incredulous surprise, saw God in the last place he expected to find God, namely the gracious acceptance of Esau. Only when he sees Esau will he see God, and it will not be because of a great struggle against God, but rather an amazing reception of unexpected grace and love on the part of old Esau. Contrary to cultural propaganda about the Achievatron, the human struggle is never easy, and certainly not the struggle with God Himself.
And so may it often be with us. Do we not often find God in very unexpected places, mirrored in very unexpected people? Perhaps once we open ourselves to such wild possibilities, we may in fact encounter the living God, rather than a god made somehow in our own image. Jacob's struggle at Jabbok reminds us of this truth, that God is so very good, but God is not safe. We may well struggle with God through the night, but by daybreak God only intends to bless us with God’s amazing grace – thanks be to God – amen.