A, Post-Pentecost 10 Proper 13 - Genesis 32:22-31 "Struggle"

Genesis 32:28,29c–31 (ESV)  Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.”  And there he blessed him.  So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.”  The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.

Today’s sermon is for everyone who’s ever had conflict with anyone else.  Who feel they have been unfairly treated.  Who’ve got the rough end of the deal.  Who believe they’re not the “be all and end all” of humanity, but believe they deserve better treatment than what they’ve received.  You might be this person who sighs in exasperation, “if it’s not one thing it’s another!”

One thing after another keeps occurring.  You might feel your limping along through life, thinking things could be better!  If you are I invite you to hear and ponder the story of Jacob as your story.

Over the last three Sundays, we’ve heard about Jacob in the readings.

First, we heard about his birth, holding onto his brother’s heel.  A sneaky individual who steals Esau’s birthright for a bowl of lentil stew. (See Genesis 25: 19-34)

Second, he has a dream, and in it sees a ladder coming down from heaven.  Angels were ascending and descending the ladder and from the top God spoke to Jacob and promised to give him land and offspring. (See Genesis 28:10-19a)

Third, in last week’s reading, Jacob arrives and works for his uncle, Laban, his mother Rebekah’s brother.  The deceiver is deceived by his kin.  Jacob thinks he is working for seven years to receive Rachel as his wife but is given Leah.  After a week he is given Rachel for another seven years’ work.

The reading today has Jacob journeying back to Canaan.  He is fleeing Laban but returning to Esau, whom he fled after stealing his birthright and blessing. 

Here is a man surrounded by trouble.  In front of him is uncertainty.  God has called him to return to his people.  The only problem is his brother might try to kill him for stealing his birthright.

Behind him is his father-in-law, Laban.  Disgruntled by Laban’s changing terms of employment, Jacob schemes Laban out of his best livestock.  In this deceit, amongst others, the relationship falls ill between Jacob and Laban.  Jacob and his cohort attempt to flee but Laban catches him.  A covenant of peace is made between Laban and Jacob, and they depart.

Jacob was being blessed as God had sworn to him at Bethel.  He came with nothing except for God’s promise and now he was leaving Laban having been given, wives, offspring, and livestock.  But to where would he go and settle?

As he journeyed towards home, he heard Esau was approaching with four hundred men.  Jacob knows what he has done to Esau, he expects the worst, to be attacked, have his family and livestock killed.  He divides his people and livestock. 

Acknowledging his fear, and the trouble he was in, Jacob prays, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O LORD who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your kindred, that I may do you good,’  I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps.  Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him, that he may come and attack me, the mothers with the children.  But you said, ‘I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.’ ”  (Genesis 32:9–12 ESV)

Jacob then decides to present five gifts to Esau in the hope of appeasing his brother.  These were separate gifts of two hundred and twenty goats, two hundred and twenty sheep, thirty camels and their calves, fifty head of cattle, and thirty donkeys.

Two things are made explicit to us with this large five-fold gift.  The first is Jacob was now a wealthy man having been blessed by God.  The second thing is he feared his brother having wronged him.  Jacob’s spirit was terribly unsettled by the predicament in which he had gotten himself.

After sending these gifts, he sends his wives, his two concubines who served them, and their children, over the river.

This is no act of chivalry.  Deceitful Jacob places a buffer between himself and his enemy.  He prepares to sacrifice his least favoured possessions and people first.  One by one, lot by lot, leaving himself last behind those he has sent out to be his expendable pawns.

It’s here, by himself, this extraordinary event occurs.  Jacob struggles with a man whom he realises is God.  The irony here in Jacob’s act to protect himself, by cowardly sending all out in front of him he leaves himself exposed.  The one who grabbed his brother’s heel in birth, and in life, who struggled with his kin, now struggles with God. 

The river he sent his family over is called the Jabbok, it means to pour out or empty.  At this river he empties himself of his family.  But in his struggle with God, it is Jacob who is emptied, only to have God’s blessing poured out upon him.

In this event, the people of God born to Jacob, get their name as Israelites, after God blesses him and renames him Israel.  The name is a combination of two Hebrew names, Sarah and El or Elohim.  This is a combination of his grandmother’s and the Almighty’s names.  In Hebrew, Sarah or Sar is a person who exercises dominion or prevails with power. 

So, Jacob gets the name of Israel because he prevails with the Almighty.  This is not lost on him as he calls the place Peniel, which translates as “the face of God”, for he says, “I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.” (Genesis 32:30b ESV)

It has all finally caught up with the heel grabber.  Despite grabbing God in this wrestle, God has grabbed him!  In fact, all with whom Jacob has wrestled has been a struggle with God.  His struggle with his uncle Laban, his father-in-law, has been a struggle with God.  But at the place of struggle God had blessed him.

Now having struggled with God, whom he first thought was a man, Jacob receives a blessing, it’s here the name Israel takes on a different tone.  Not only does Jacob struggle against God, from now on Jacob will also struggle, together with God, as a blessing.  He is fulfilling God’s initial promise to his grandfather Abraham.

There are indicators after this that demonstrate this combination of struggle and blessing. 

Practically, Jacob cannot now flee from the incoming threat of his brother Esau.  You can’t run with a dodgy hip.  At best one can hobble along.  Having sent his livestock and family before him as a buffer, now he leads with a limp and meets Esau.

We hear in Genesis thirty-three, “And Jacob lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, Esau was coming, and four hundred men with him. So he divided the children among Leah and Rachel and the two female servants.  And he put the servants with their children in front, then Leah with her children, and Rachel and Joseph last of all.  He himself went on before them, bowing himself to the ground seven times, until he came near to his brother.  But Esau ran to meet him and embraced him and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept.”  (Genesis 33:1–4 ESV)

Now, he put himself before his least favoured all the way back to Rachel and Joseph, his favourites.  Yes, he still has an order that discriminates!  But now, he makes himself the least, having struggle with God and also blessed by God.   Now, Israel struggles together with God, so through Israel, God can struggle with humanity to bless them too.

The second indicator or marker is how Jacob now regards Esau, his brother, whom he formerly saw as his enemy.  Jacob now struggles with Esau in a new way, to be a blessing to him with the five sizable gifts of livestock.

Jacob says to Esau, who seeks to refuse his gifts, “ ‘No, please, if I have found favour in your sight, then accept my present from my hand.  For I have seen your face, which is like seeing the face of God, and you have accepted me.  Please accept my blessing that is brought to you, because God has dealt graciously with me, and because I have enough.’ Thus he urged him, and he took it.’ ” (Genesis 33:10–11 ESV)

God touched his hip, not to keep a hold of the heel grabber, but to lift him up by the heel to bless all people.  He whom he saw as an enemy, in him he now saw the face of God.  What had changed?  Jacob no longer saw himself as God, but as one with whom God had mercy, and from whom  he had received blessing.

Like Jacob we have conflicts with other people.  Do you see the face of God in those you regard as enemies, or even those whom you treat with suspicion?  Jacob lived as though he had a constant chip on his shoulder.  He was a heel of a man who struggled with all through his self-righteousness, yet those with whom he struggled God gave blessing.

Jesus Christ is the Godsend of Jacob to all people.  Jesus is the blessing of Israel for humanity.  He took up the struggle of Jacob and saw the face of God in his enemies.  He saw the face of God in you when he took your struggles with God and with others on himself to the cross.  

Let the Holy Spirit wrestle your human spirit so you can see God in the face of those with whom you struggle.  Let the Holy Spirit lead you to forgive, as God has forgiven you.  Struggle, together with God, to bless as you have been blessed!  Amen.

A, Post-Pentecost 7 Proper 10 - Psalm 119:105–112 "God's Word Walking"

Psalm 119:105–112 (ESV) Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.  I have sworn an oath and confirmed it, to keep your righteous rules.  I am severely afflicted; give me life, O LORD, according to your word!  Accept my freewill offerings of praise, O LORD, and teach me your rules.  I hold my life in my hand continually, but I do not forget your law.  The wicked have laid a snare for me, but I do not stray from your precepts.  Your testimonies are my heritage forever, for they are the joy of my heart.  I incline my heart to perform your statutes forever, to the end.

God’s Word was a lamp to Isaac and Rebekah.  Through them God was to give what he promised to Abraham. 

Last week we heard Isaac was comforted by his marriage to Rebekah after the death of his mother, Sarah.  Rebekah is of the same family as Isaac.  Her grandfather is Nahor, making Abraham her great uncle.  Isaac and her father Bethuel were first cousins.

God had led the servant of Abraham to Rebekah, and the family knew God was at the centre of this event.  Laban, her brother, and Bethuel, her father, agree, saying, “The thing has come from the LORD; we cannot speak to you bad or good.  Behold, Rebekah is before you; take her and go, and let her be the wife of your master’s son, as the LORD has spoken.”  (Genesis 24:50–51 ESV)

Rebekah, against the will of her mother and brother, agrees to go immediately to her husband-to-be and not wait the ten days her family requested, since she also knew God was at the centre of the marital union.

However, the immediacy of the union, did not result in the immediacy of conception after the marriage.  So, Isaac petitions God on behalf of his wife and is granted his request.  One might query why God would allow this to occur because he was the orchestrator of the marriage, and since he also had promised Abraham, he was to be the father of many nations.

Nevertheless, just as his mother and father before him struggled with barrenness.   Just as they were granted Isaac through God’s Word of promise.  And as Isaac lived in remembrance of God testing his father, Abraham, with the near sacrifice of his life.  Isaac was embedded with similar faith, which was only made deeper by the patience, suffering, and the calling on of God in prayer. 

The barrenness was no accident, but rather was a test to continually rely upon God.  In Psalm one hundred and nineteen we hear, “I am severely afflicted; give me life, O LORD, according to your word!”  (Psalm 119:107 ESV)  Like the Psalmist, Isaac trusted God enough to cry out to him, to fulfil the promise made to his father Abraham. 

Here God gives us a clear example that we glorify him when we trust him and seek his blessing in our hardship.  When we’re tempted not to bother God with our daily needs, we hear in this Psalm the opposite, as God actually gives us his Word to cry out to him.  Isaac glorifies God when he prays to him and so too does Rebekah.

Rebekah besieged with pain, struggling to understand, prays,  “If it is thus, why is this happening to me?” (Genesis 25:22 ESV)  She feared for her life, thinking the war within her womb was going to kill her, she asks God if this is just and right that she is experiencing such turmoil within.

Have you ever lamented and prayed, “What on earth is going on?”  Especially when things are tough!

Such are times of testing when patience is put under pressure, and pleasure is replaced by pain and suffering.  Isn’t it extraordinary how time seems to stand still when one suffers?  What is it that God is seeking us to learn about ourselves, and him, at times like these?

“And the LORD said to her, ‘Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the older shall serve the younger.’” (Genesis 25:23 ESV)

She gets her answer from God.  Sometimes it seems to us God does not answer our prayers.  In an age of instant gratification, perhaps our expectation is too immediate, or we are looking in the wrong place for the answer.  Not every answer can be found on Google!  Nor is our time always the right time for us to understand God’s answer with appropriate learning.  God answers every query of him, in his time, which is always the right time!

The Psalmist says, “I hold my life in my hand continually, but I do not forget your law.”  (Psalm 119:109 ESV)  The Psalmist knows his life, but he also knows God’s Word.  Throughout Psalm one hundred and nineteen there is a repetition of words with which the Psalmist glorifies God.  Not just any words, but words that are synonymous with God’s Word!

Laws, precepts, commandments, rules, testimonies, steadfast love, salvation, statutes, and promise are all alternative expressions for God’s Word.  When we have ears to hear his Word, this is the place God answers prayer. 

The two boys are born with difficulty, both pushing to get into the limelight, so it seems.  One is a heel grabber, and he grows into a quiet sneaky heel of a man, and the other, the older, is boisterous and brash.  He has little respect for his heritage, treats it with contempt, and sells it for a bowl of stew.

What has become of God’s promise to Abraham.  It seems Abraham’s grandsons are far from the ideal through whom God would work his will.  The Psalmist says, “The wicked have laid a snare for me, but I do not stray from your precepts.  Your testimonies are my heritage forever, for they are the joy of my heart.”  (Psalm 119:110–111 ESV)

Yet these two seem as if they would not have much joy in God’s Word, or for the heritage they had in it.  Jacob would live his life as a deceiver and fraudster and Esau having been deceived would not receive Isaac’s blessing.  It seems Jacob was the wicked one and the one to lay a snare for his father and brother, and Esau would become a nation that strayed far from the precepts of God.

Yet these are the generations of Isaac through whom God worked.  It might surprise us that God would work his will through people who seemed to be less interested in God and his Word, and more interested in their own schemes and desires.

We’ve all seen people like this and thought, “I’m glad I’m not like them!”  Yet, a serious look at Psalm one hundred and nineteen and we soon realise, in God’s eyes, we’re not all that different to Jacob and Esau.  Even in our lucid moments when we seek the Lord as did Isaac and Rebekah, they are just that, “moments”! 

We seek to use many other lamps for our feet other than the Word of God.  If we swore an oath of promise to God, we would eventually break it!  After we are afflicted, rarely will we return to make a freewill offering, and once the pain is gone, we forget to praise God! 

We stray from God’s Word and set snares for others.  How many of us look to God’s Old and New Testimonies as their heritage and seek to pass this inheritance onto their families.  Our hearts seem far from hearing and abiding with God’s Word for a moment, let alone till the end!

Despite this reality, we have a greater reality.  The Word made flesh, Jesus Christ!  He is the promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, fulfilled!

Jesus is the “I” in the Psalms, fulfilling all God’s commandments, precepts, laws, rules, testimonies, and  statutes.  Jesus takes all these words of God and lives them with love for God the Father in his flesh, without spot or blemish.  Jesus is God’s Word, going out from his mouth and returning to him.  It does what he intends it to do, through his Son, Jesus Christ.

At the cross two paths meet.  These are the paths of failure and forgiveness.   In Jesus Christ, the victim and the perpetrator are crossed! r In Jesus Christ, the law breaker and the law keeper are crossed! r In Jesus Christ, the innocent and the guilty are crossed! r In Jesus Christ, the righteous and the self-righteous are crossed. r And in Jesus Christ, the right and the wrong are crossed! r

At the cross, knowledge of good and evil is exchanged for a knowledge of Jesus Christ, the only goodness good enough to be holy in every moment of time!

The Holy Spirit lit up the path for Jesus to walk the way of the cross; to walk in all holiness, but to walk carrying the full curse of humanity.

Jesus now walks with you; you do not walk alone as he walked!  You walk in the Holy Spirit who illuminates the filth of your feet; but shows you the feet of Jesus who carries you.  You hear the failures of your promises, but you hear the eternal faithfulness and forgiveness of his Word.  You feel the severity of your afflictions, but you see your condition washed in the flow of his blood from his side.  From the cross into the eternal font of baptismal faith.  You learn his rules, and he delights in your freewill offerings of sins confessed. 

Jesus holds your life in his hand, and he does not forget to give you life by the Holy Spirit.  He breaks the snares you set and frees you from those in which you are caught.  He carries you his eternal way, and he does not stray. 

Jesus’ heritage is forever!  It’s the only true way!  He has fulfilled the testimonies of the Law.  With joy in the Holy Spirit, you know the Ten Commandments are good and perfect in Jesus Christ.  You can allow the Holy Spirit to incline your heart to live in God’s presence!   You can perform the works, with which God’s forgiveness wills you to confess, to the end.    

Jesus is the steadfast love, salvation, and promise of God the Father to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and he is the promise of God the Father to you and me too!  Amen!

A, Easter 7 - Acts 1:6–8 & John 17:11 "Jacob and the New Israel"

Acts 1:6–8 (ESV) “So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”  He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.  But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

John 17:11 (ESV) Jesus prayed to our Father, “I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you.  Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.”

Just prior to Jesus’ ascension, the apostles ask Jesus, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6 ESV)

Will Israel be restored?  It all depends on what one means by “Israel”! 

The father of Israel is Jacob, the son of Isaac, the grandson of Abraham.  Jacob received the new name of Israel, when he struggled with God at the Jabbok. 

Jacob is one of the great scoundrels of the bible.  The Hebrew definition of his name is “heel grabber”.  In short, Jacob was a heel of a man!  He was born a sly trickster, holding onto Esau’s heel.  After he grew up, he and his mother Rebekah worked a plan to deceive Isaac.   To trick him into passing Esau’s birthright onto him. 

Jacob gets the birthright but has to flee to his in-laws to escape Esau’s wrath.  He marries Laban’s two daughters, Leah, and Rachel.  He works for Laban for fourteen years but deviously devises a way to get the strongest of Laban’s sheep.  So, Jacob has to flee from Laban too.

Jacob is literally between a rock and a hard face.  Fleeing from Laban back to his father’s home from where he fled for stealing Esau’s birthright.  As Esau approaches, Jacob puts a buffer between himself and Esau.  He sends drove after drove of animal gifts to appease Esau.  Then he sent his wives and children, ahead of him, across the Jabbok.  No courageous leadership here, as Jacob stays alone to see what happens to his flocks, wives and children.

It's here Jacob wrestles with God till dawn.  It appears Jacob’s shrewdness has finally caught up with him.  One would expect this heel of a man to get what he deserves, having deceived others, now coming face to face with God.  But no!  As they wrestle, Jacob realises it is not just a man with whom he struggles.

“When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his 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 has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”  And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.”  Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, 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 name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.”  The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.”  (Genesis 32:25–31 ESV)

Jacob the scoundrel, the heel of a man who fought with his family and struggled with God, is spared from death, and given the name Israel.  His children became the twelve tribes of Israel, and God continued to struggle with Israel, the children of Jacob.

From Jacob and his sons, the kingdom of Israel came to be.  The high point of the kingdom was in the reign of David and his son Solomon.  At this time the kingdom hit its peak in power, annexing land from the Red Sea to the Euphrates River.  The Kingdom not only was at its pinnacle politically but also religiously with the building of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem.

Most likely, it was the hope of political power behind the question of Israel’s restoration.  The apostles, like many of their era, yearned for “the good old days” of Israel’s supremacy under David and Solomon.

However, the supremacy of Israel was made complete in Jesus’ ascension to the right hand of the Father.  This was the completion of Jesus’ holy coronation.   God’s Kingdom of Heaven came to humanity in the incarnation of Jesus Christ.  Born into his kingdom in the unlikely place of Bethlehem and laid in a manger. 

Jesus’ coronation began in his march to the cross, being lifted up as the King of the Jews outside Jerusalem.  After his resurrection from death, Jesus’ coronation was made complete at his ascension as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, being not only King of the Jews, but the King of Creation.

We now live in this victory.  Jesus has supreme authority in heaven.  The only place this has not been fully realised is in the created realm.  The devil has been eternally beaten, but he still has limited power in creation.  He knows he is beaten but he also knows he has limited time before Jesus returns, so he is determined to deceive and lead astray as many as possible.

Jesus said to his apostles, and he says to us, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.”    We don’t know when the fullness of time will arrive for Jesus’ return.  But what we do know is he is the King and Fullness of Israel.

The man who fought with Jacob at the Jabbok, should have taken Jacob’s life.  But Jacob the heel of a man, a devil of a deceiver, was spared.   The man that fought with Jacob, was God, and we know that only God the Son could allow sinful man to struggle with him and not die as a result.  Jesus struggled with Jacob and bore all of Jacob’s sin on the cross.  It was Jesus who died, and Jacob walked away with a limp.

Jacob received the name of Israel, after struggling with God.  At the cross the struggle was completed, and Jesus Christ became the new Israel.  He overcame God’s struggle with Israel by becoming what Israel or Jacob could not be.

Before he finished this work on the cross, he prayed, “I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you.  Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.” (John 17:11 ESV)

Here Jesus prayed for the apostles.  The apostles, and all believers, have been grafted into the kingdom of Israel through the Sonship of Jesus Christ.  We now live, waiting for Jesus’ return, knowing he is the King of Creation, and the prince of this world’s time is coming to an end.  The devil roams and roars because he knows he is beaten!

To keep us in the oneness of the Father and the Son, the congregation of Jesus’ believers are given the Holy Spirit, to which the apostles were called to wait.  Once the Spirit was given at Pentecost, the book of Acts reports the apostles’ Holy Spirited witness in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

The Apostolic witness continues today as the Holy Spirit continues to call, gather, enlighten, and sanctify those who have been brought into the oneness of Jesus Christ and the Father.  Jesus is now the oneness of Israel’s and humanity’s access to our Father.  In fact, his High Priestly prayer continues before the Father in heaven as the Holy Spirit works to protect us from the devil, the prince of this world, with the blood of Jesus, until he, the King of Kings, returns to bring us into the eternal Kingdom of Heaven.  Amen.