Don’t Let Go When Wrestling with God

Sermon preached at St. Mark’s Honey Brook, PA

by The Rev. Thomas C. Pumphrey, August 3, 2008

The Twelth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 13, year A): Genesis 32:22-31

Genesis 32:22-30 That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, "Let me go, for it is daybreak." But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless me." The man asked him, "What is your name?" "Jacob," he answered. Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome." Jacob said, "Please tell me your name." But he replied, "Why do you ask my name?" Then he blessed him there. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, "It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared." The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.

Have you ever had one of those really frustrating days? One of those days when your alarm clock didn’t wake you on time, and the shampoo bottle runs dry, and your toothbrush snaps in two? Then you pour a bowl of cereal only to find that you are out of milk. Then you find out far too late that the only coffee you have is decaf? And you wonder what sort of day awaits you… Are you ever inclined just to go back to bed on a day like that? Or perhaps just to call in sick to work? Some people go in to work and let their frustrations out on their co-workers or their students or their customers. Have you ever met one of those people? Have you ever been one of those people?

I would guess that this describes each of us at some time in our lives. Of course, some days are more serious than the comic scene I just described. Sometimes our frustration comes from Losing a job or losing friends or losing loved ones. Many of us here battle illness or struggle to support a sick friend or relative. What happens in our relationship with God when things are frustrating—when life or God hasn’t measured up to our expectations and we are left discouraged?

Some act as if there’s nothing they can do, and they give up. Others turn away from God in disgust and walk away. Others take a different path. Instead of giving up or walking out, they engage God— they ask God “what’s going on? Where are you in all of this? What do you want me to do?” They press God for clarity and direction and they call God to be true to his covenant with us. While some give up and others walk out, these people wrestle with God. Especially when we feel on our own and without connection or support, engaging God and engaging life in difficult times saps our energy and challenges our hope. And yet, when you wrestle with God, hanging on to God with both arms, God will give you his blessing.

This morning’s Old Testament reading is one of my favorite passages in scripture. This is the story of Jacob wrestling with God, and receiving God’s blessing in the process. Jacob is one of the first patriarchs of the Old Testament. Jacob is Abraham’s grandson and the father of the twelve tribes of Israel. Jacob started out, however, as something of a cheat and a scoundrel. Among his exploits, he cheated his brother Esau out of the inheritance of their father. So, later in life, when Jacob seeks mercy from his brother, he discovers that Esau will meet him the following day with four hundred men. In fear of his brother’s revenge, he divides his extended household, livestocks, possessions, and servants and waits for daybreak all alone by the river Jabbok. Jacob is alone and without support or defense, he is vulnerable before the approach of his cheated brother the following day

Then, unexpectedly, we read that Jacob wrestled with someone until daybreak. This verse seems to jump out without warning, especially since we just heard that Jacob was all alone. Jacob is wounded, but he won’t let go. Jacob said “I will not let you go unless you give me your blessing.” Then his mysterious opponent names Jacob “Israel,” a name that means “one who wrestles with God,” and he blesses Jacob.

I find this such a powerful passage! We often think that God is either too quaint to be taken seriously, or too fearful to be encountered. But rarely do we think of wrestling with God. And yet, when you wrestle with God, God will bless you.

This image of wrestling with God bears strong resemblance to the journeys of the Spiritual Life. I would like to speak how the Spiritual Life is described by the great Christian Mystics. Theresa of Avila, John of the Cross and Evelyn Underhill wrote about their experiences of God. Evelyn Underhill describes the Spiritual Life in five phases. First there is the Awakening—the realization that God is there, and that God seeks an active and deeper relationship with us. This leads later to Illumination—to learning to know about God and learning to know God himself more deeply, and ultimately to a unifying experience with God, a deep and powerful and intimate connection with God.

However, there are two other phases interspersed in this path. Before Illumination comes an important preparatory phase: Purification, or to use the more traditional term: Purgation. And before that deepest connection with God comes a sense of God’s distance, often called the “Dark Night of the Soul.”

Purgation prepares us for the illumination of our minds. This stage is like a massive house cleaning to clear out the detritus and clutter and trash that clouds our life. Purgation is not always easy or fun. Purgation is the experience of being stripped of all the false supports that prevent us from relying on God alone. This step looks like an alcoholic throwing away all the booze in the house, or like a teenager giving up a circle of friends that has become destructive and abusive. Purgation can challenge our financial security to remind us of how fragile and fickle and unreliable our wealth is compared to God. Purgation may be the pain of broken relationships that teach us to give up gossip or bitterness or hatred. In the “Dark Night of the Soul,” we learn to give up those feelings that were only counterfeits to God—even those inner feelings that we cling to—but that ultimately were not God himself. We may find ourselves like Jacob—without family or friends or riches—vulnerable and clear that only God is our true support. Purgation and the Dark Night of the Soul are a kind of wrestling with God.

Many people are shocked to hear that such trying times are part of the experience of devout and religious people. Mother Theresa wrote of her own dark night of the soul. Many saints and spiritual authors describe these experiences of wrestling with God. Biblical characters, such as Jacob and Moses and David and the prophets wrestled with God—struggling to understand what God was doing, free to express their anger or anguish to God—but always holding on with both hands until, like Jacob, they received God’s blessing. Even Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane wrestled with God. But the end of Jesus’ suffering was not the cross, but rather the resurrection and the victory over death itself.

Wrestling with God leads to God’s blessing. These purifying steps that the Christian Mystics write about renew our minds and free our spirits to see God more clearly in our lives. No longer distracted by our riches or our worries, we see how God is taking action to bless us. When we know only God and only truly God, then we find that peace and joy that nothing can take away.

Many of you have experienced God’s blessing even in those times of wrestling with God. My own call to the priesthood followed this pattern. There was so much good in my life, and yet, there was this strange sense of God’s absence. God eventually found a way to confront me with his call to the priesthood that I had been ignoring, and to confront me with what stood in my way of trusting God. I had to let my fears go. So I gave my fears to God, trusting that even if the road ahead was troublesome, that God would carry me through it. And at that moment, I felt God’s grace rushing into me. And I found blessing in the journey I had feared.

I know someone else who wrestled in his own career. He struggled in his job working for an alcoholic boss. When he was turned down for a post at another company, he realized that perhaps God was calling him to stay in that difficult position. And so he stayed for fourteen more years, and was a blessing to his boss and his company, and he received God’s blessing as well.

Are you going through a period of wrestling with God? How might God be calling you to take down the barriers that block you from a deeper relationship with him? What in your life has taken the place of God—what has become higher priority than God in your life? Or perhaps you feel faithful, but still sense God’s absence. How might you discover the light of God’s presence despite this sense of darkness? In what new place might you discover God at work in your life? What part of your life have you decided is off limits to God’s blessing—God may yet surprise you.

Listen to what God did for Jacob after Jacob wrestled with God. God named Jacob “Israel”—one who wrestles with God. Jacob carried his injury with him, but he received God’s blessing as he limped past Penuel.

Genesis 33:1-12 (NRSV) Now Jacob looked up and saw Esau coming, and four hundred men with him. So he divided the children among Leah and Rachel and the two maids. He put the maids with their children in front, then Leah with her children, and Rachel and Joseph last of all. He himself went on ahead of them, bowing himself to the ground seven times, until he came near his brother.

But Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept. When Esau looked up and saw the women and children, he said, "Who are these with you?" Jacob said, "The children whom God has graciously given your servant." Then the maids drew near, they and their children, and bowed down; Leah likewise and her children drew near and bowed down; and finally Joseph and Rachel drew near, and they bowed down. Esau said, "What do you mean by all this company that I met?" Jacob answered, "To find favor with my lord." But Esau said, "I have enough, my brother; keep what you have for yourself." Jacob said, "No, please; if I find favor with you, then accept my present from my hand; for truly to see your face is like seeing the face of God-- since you have received me with such favor. Please accept my gift that is brought to you, because God has dealt graciously with me, and because I have everything I want." So he urged him, and he took it. Then Esau said, "Let us journey on our way, and I will go alongside you."

When Jacob wrestled with God, he found blessing, and even healing in his relationship with the brother he had cheated. When you and I wrestle with God, we also find blessing and healing in our lives. So hold on with both hands and join with Jacob in telling God “I will not let you go unless you give me your blessing!”