Wrestling Our Way Forward

First Presbyterian, Fort Scott, KS

Genesis 32:22-32

I Corinthians 12:1-10

I should introduce my family for those of you who haven’t met them. 

This will seem a little bizarre to you, but I want to ask you for a favor.  I want to ask you for about one minute of silence.  Yes, this will feel incredibly awkward - it’s supposed to.  This is my first Sunday here as your pastor, and it would be meaningful to me to just be still and quiet together before I say anything else.

SILENCE

Thank you.  That was a real gift.  Maybe at some other point I can explain to you why that was so important to me.

When I was here in May I shared about our  move to Connecticut when the axle from our U-haul snapped off and hit an oncoming car.  Well, I’m very pleased to report that we flew back to KC on Tuesday with no major catastrophes. 

Although I did leave my suit coat hanging in the hotel where we stayed the night before we flew out.  But we called and they had it.  The woman said she would FedEx it to us.  And when the FedEx guy showed up Friday, all he had was a standard little FedEx box.  And I thought, well this can’t be my jacket.  But lo and behold, if you wad up someone’s suit coat tight enough, you CAN cram it into a little FedEx box!

Our moving truck should arrive some time this week.  At least I hope they do.  I think somewhere in the Bible it says something about our lives not consisting of our possessions.  And that might be true.  But I don’t really want to be a living demonstration of it.

This week and next week I want to take a little time to talk about how we can move forward as a community in ways that are healthy and life-giving for all of us.

I don’t have any doubt that we are going to turn a corner and begin building something that we’re proud of.  We’ll do it together, and with God’s help, of course.  But I wouldn’t have accepted the call to serve here if I didn’t believe that.

Now some of you are with me on this, you’re confident that it’s time to move into a new phase of life as a community.  Others of you WANT to believe it, but you’re not so sure.  And then there are always a few card carrying pessimists who believe that when hard times come, they’re always here to stay, and that nothing is ever going to change.

It’s true that these last few years have been hard here at First Presbyterian.  But we’re moving forward.  And I say this to myself as much as I say it to all of you: RELAX.  Relax.  This is going to take time. 

It’s going to take time, and it’s going to be a process.  But we might as well get started now, right?  These summer months are a transition period.  They’re a transition for me and my family as we move in and get settled.  But they’re also a transition time for this community as you acclimate to a new pastor - and I hope, a new tone, a new attitude settling in on all of us.

So this window of time as we get to know one another better is important.  What we talk about together, and what we do together, in these first couple of months will begin to shape our personality as a community.

I want to draw your attention to a quotation printed in your bulletin.  The words are those of Michel Himes, a theologian at Boston College.  And I think they get us started in the right direction.

“One vocation [calling] embraces all our other vocations: to be a human being.  We are called to be as intelligent, as responsible, as free, as courageous, as imaginative, and as loving as we can possibly be.  All of my other vocations, all of the many ways in which I live my life, must contribute to that one all-embracing demand, that one constant vocation to be fully, totally, absolutely as human as I can possibly be.”

- Michael Himes, Boston College Intersections Project

I don’t know what you expected me to say today.  I could have talked about statistics: attendance numbers and how we want them to grow; offering and budget numbers and how we want them to increase.  I could have talked about three fancy new programs we’re going to start that are going to change everything.  I could have laid out how we’re going to market ourselves to our neighbors.

But that’s not what I want to talk about today, on my first Sunday with you.  I want to talk about how much delight God takes in all of us as human beings.  I want to talk about how God’s love for us always pulls us further and deeper into our own humanity.  And I want to talk about how HARD it is to be - as Himes puts it - “fully, totally, absolutely as human as we can be.”

Look, I can’t see into everyone’s mind and heart.  I don’t know why every single one of you are here.  I don’t know exactly what you’re looking for and hope to find.  But it’s my job to take a guess.

I think most of us are here because we acknowledge, on some level, that life is tough.  Life is full of mystery and beauty, but also full of hardship and struggle.  And there’s something in us that feels this pull or tug to close our hearts down.  But we’re here because we know that our only hope is to keep ourselves open to God, and open to others around us.  We desperately need God, and companions, if we’re going to survive this journey.  And if we have any hope of not just surviving it, but finding joy in it -- well, that will take a miracle.

So this week and next week, I want to make two proposals for HOW we can move forward into the newness God has for us, both personally, and as a community.

Here’s my proposal for this week: LET’S WRESTLE OUR WAY FORWARD.  LET’S DEAL AS HONESTLY AS WE CAN WITH THE FACT THAT LIFE IS HARD.  I think what draws people together into the life of faith is the deep desire to find a place where we can be honest with ourselves, with others, and with God.

So come with me for a few minutes to this story of Jacob’s wrestling match.

In the story we witness Jacob wrestling all night long with a stranger beside the Jabbok River.  To be literal about it, what we read in the story is this: “So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.”

You’ll notice that in the image on the front of your bulletin, the artist has made an interpretive decision.  Here we see Jacob wrestling with . . . an angel.  But the story is more ambiguous than that.  Jacob doesn’t know who or what he’s wrestling.

But let’s pause the story for just a minute.  Because you can’t find yourself in Jacob’s wrestling match without a little of the wider context.  And here’s the context: Jacob’s got problems.  He’s had a strange life, a hard life.  And he’s been in exile, away from his land and people for twenty years.  And he’s on his way back home.  He’s on a return journey, like many of us.  He’s trying to come back to the center of who he is.

He was born grabbing the heel of his twin brother Esau, trying to get ahead. 

And as if being a twin isn’t hard enough, his parents chose favorites.  Jacob, the younger twin, was a mama’s boy.  He was Rebekah’s favorite.  But his father Isaac loved Esau more.

When I get tired of one of my kids asking, “Why does HE get to have a sleep over?”  Or, “Why does he get a bigger brownie?”  Sometimes I just say, “Because we love him more!”  It used to confuse and distract them, but now they’ve figured out I’m just messing with them.

He wound up alienated and hated by his own family.  Forced to flee to a land far to the northeast.  And there he married two sisters.  That’s right.  He married two sisters.  He wanted the younger, prettier one (Rachel).  But his father in law tricked him into marrying the older, uglier one first (Leah).  These two sisters hated one another and competed for Jacob’s attention every single day.

He had to work on his father in law’s farm for 20 years, with his father in law constantly cheating him out of his fair wages.

His life had spiralled down into a complete mess.  And so he decided that the only thing left to do was to take his two wives, their two servants, and his eleven children, and head back toward the land of his father Isaac.

There’s just one problem.  I haven’t yet mentioned the biggest challenge of Jacob’s life: his brother Esau wanted to kill him.  That’s not a metaphor.  His brother had vowed to murder him if he ever saw him again.  That’s why Jacob had to leave home in the first place.

So in our story, Jacob is headed back toward home, and he sends servants with gifts to Esau to appease him and ask for his forgiveness.  And the servants report back: “Esau is on his way, and he’s got 400 men with him.”

God has promised to bless Jacob.  But Esau was coming to kill him.  And he wanted to believe the former, but the latter was looking more likely.  So he sends his wives, children, and possessions across the Jabbok River.  And Jacob stayed on the other side by himself.

And the story reads, “So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.”

I did not wrestle in High School, partly because I’m not tough enough.  But mainly because I do not look good in a singlet.  But I have watched my friends wrestle.  And it looks like a sweaty, exhausting ordeal.  Wrestling matches last a few minutes.  Can you imagine wrestling a stranger in the dark for hours on end?

I think this stranger was toying with Jacob, wearing him out.  Because near daybreak, the man touched Jacob’s hip and wrenched it out of socket.  Then he said to Jacob, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”

And here’s why we’re still reading this story after all these years.  Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

And Jacob’s name was changed to “Israel” - meaning “to struggle” - that very night.  The very name “Israel” was chosen for God’s people to signal that the only way to experience God’s blessing is through adversity and hardship.  Blessings only come to those who wrestle.

From this night on, Jacob walked with a limp.  And his uneven gait was his permanent reminder that he was wrestling God for a blessing.  And this limp was the cost of being alive, alive to himself, to pain and hope, to others, and to God.

OK, so why did I want to retell that particular story today? 

Because I want us to become a community that’s wrestling with God and one another.  Fighting for a blessing.  Struggling all night until the daybreak.

Well, what does that mean? you might be thinking.  It means that the way forward will be hard.  And we’re not going to pretend otherwise.

There are, of course, temptations ahead.  There are several ways for us to avoid wrestling with God.

1.  We will be tempted to move forward by just burying the past, leaving it unacknowledged and unfelt.

2.  We will be tempted to blame others -- friends who’ve betrayed us, spouses who disappointed us, pastors who failed to inspire us.

3.  We will be tempted to place unhealthy expectations on our church family -- as if we could hide our own staleness and passivity in the success of the larger group.

4. We will be tempted to place unrealistic expectations on me as a pastor.  But I’m not magic.  And I can’t rescue you.  I can’t wrestle God for you.

5. We will be tempted to to tell ourselves that all we need are slight adjustments here or there.  A tweak, a slight recalibration.  But our ancient texts speak to us of repentance, transformation, and conversion.

Now those are real challenges.  But if we band together and ask for God’s help, we can become a vibrant community, welcoming all kinds of people who want to find a place to deepen and nourish their spiritual lives. 

People generally aren’t looking for successful churches. What’s inviting to most people is liveliness, energy, vulnerability, and honesty.  That’s something completely different.  But it all begins with us.  And so I’m asking you to make this a very personal journey for yourself.  I’m asking you to see your own life as a wrestling match.

Marilynn Robinson’s 2004 novel Gilead is a wonderful read.  I recommend it highly - not just because it won the Pulitzer Prize.  Nor because she herself is a Presbyterian.  But because she’s a wonderful writer. 

At one point the narrator is describing how terrified he was of his grandfather’s stare.  Even as an adult his grandfather’s angry stare stuck with him.  It seemed unfair to him even as a child. It made him feel judged and dismissed.  And that memory prompts him to say this:

“I was a child at the time, and it seems to me he might have made some allowance.  These people who can see right through you never quite do you justice, because they never give you credit for the effort you’re making to be better than you actually are, which is difficult and well meant and deserving of some little notice” (98).

I want us to honor the effort that each of us is making to be better.  All of us are working to be better than we are.  And one of the worst things that can happen to us is to feel like other people are looking through us.  Dismissing us. 

But what if we could become a congregation focused on becoming fully, totally, absolutely human?  What if we became a community that speaks with honesty about how difficult it is to live a deeply human life before God and others?  That’s the kind of congregation I want to be a part of.

Jesus lived a hard life among the poor, and was rejected, betrayed, and crucified.  The Apostle Paul was given a thorn in his flesh to remind him that all his strength comes from God.  And Jacob had to wrestle God for the blessing of a second chance in life.

There is no joy without hardship.  There is no strength without weakness.  There will be no blessing unless we wrestle for it.