Pentecost 17A (NL 2)
September 27, 2023
Our Savior’s, Faribault, MN
Genesis 32.3-13, 22-30
Growing up, I would occasionally watch All Star Wrestling on TV, cheering or booing the likes of The Crusher, Verne Gagne, and Baron Von Raschke. I watched, knowing full well that it wasn’t real, or that’s what I learned from my older brother. Even so, All Star Wrestling made for great theater and entertainment. One still came away with the understanding that wrestling is the most intimate of sports, that even in the cleanest of contests wrestlers get “down and dirty” with one another.
A lot has happened since last week, where we learned that Abraham and Sarah received the promised son Isaac. Isaac narrowly escapes being made a sacrifice by Abraham, grows up, and marries Rebekah. Rebekkah gives birth to fraternal twins who couldn’t be more different: Esau, “hairy red” the hunter, a “man’s man.” And Jacob, whose name means “supplanter” or “trickster,” who is the farmer. The Lord informs Rebekah that the brothers will be contentious. Indeed.
Jacob will trick Esau into selling his birthright for a bowl of stew and conspire with his mother Rebekah to deceive Isaac into giving Jacob a blessing rightfully belonging to Esau. Jacob flees the rage of Esau, going to his uncle Laban where he falls in love with one of Laban’s daughters, Rachel. Jacob agrees to work for seven years to marry Rachel, but Laban is as big a cheat as Jacob, pulling a bait and switch with Rachel’s older sister Leah. So, Jacob works seven more years to gain Rachel’s hand.
Jacob earns Rachel, but unlike Leah she has trouble conceiving; shades of Sarah and Abraham. Rachel gives her maid to Jacob as a proxy, and so does Leah when Leah stops being able to have children. Finally, God “remembers” Rachel and she bears a son, the 11th between all four women. Meanwhile, God prospers Jacob at the expense of Laban, who is getting the tables turned on him for his treachery.
After 20 years of these shenanigans, Jacob wants to go home and so he gathers everything and leaves while Laban is away. Laban catches up with them, but they reconcile, make a covenant, and Jacob goes on his way. Jacob is finally heading back to the land of his ancestors, but there’s a catch: he learns that his brother Esau and 400 men are coming to meet him. Between this news and his nightly encounter, Jacob sends his flocks and family ahead, hoping to appease Esau.
Jacob’s wrestling match with the nameless, initially faceless man was extraordinary and is a metaphor for our own faith journeys. For Jacob is not only wrestling with God, but also with Esau and himself. Jacob knows he is a schmuck and knows he deserves retribution for what he did to Esau, but he also reminds God of the promises God has made to his family. In the end, though Jacob will never be perfect, he does extract a blessing and a new name from God. He now becomes Israel, one who strives with God, which will also become the name of the multitudinous people. A twelfth son will be born, and the eleventh, Joseph, who will end up in Egypt where the Israelites will become numerous, too much for the Egyptians to handle.
But what I found most extraordinary about today’s story is not so much that we wrestle with God, for I imagine that all of you have stories to tell of your intimate confrontations with God. In fact, it could be said that Our Savior’s is at our own Jabbok River right now. No, what I find is that God comes and wrestles with us and it’s not fake or staged. It’s for real. In Jesus Christ, God got down and dirty, becoming human in all its humiliation and embarrassment. As Paul in Philippians reminds us, that God voluntarily emptied himself to walk among us.
One of our sacraments that ties this together is baptism, where God again comes down through the Holy Spirit and gives us a new name, Child of God, just as he has done for Hudson this morning. Like Hudson, God promises to be with us always, especially in our darkest times, providing us with a wrestling partner who helps us see the face of God in the most unlikely of places. And as God does so, God pronounces a blessing on us that you are God’s beloved child. Thanks be to God. Amen.
My sermons don't always preach as they are written. For video of the sermon with the entire service, click here.
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