The Struggle for a Blessing

THE STRUGGLE FOR A BLESSING

Genesis 32:24-30; 2 Timothy 3:16-17; Luke 18:1-8

Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go,

unless you bless me.”

Twenty years have passed since Jacob ran for his life from his brother Esau. Jacob had stolen his brother’s birthright blessing. Jacob is filled with anxiety, but before he comes face to face with his brother, Jacob must come face to face with God.

This mysterious midnight wrestling match augurs what struggling with God is like—it is a struggle for a blessing; a struggle for one’s very life. Jacob’s struggle with God is not his alone. The entire faith community of Israelites is also in an intense wrestling match with God at this time.

We, too, fiercely struggle with God at different times in our lives, and at the end of the struggle, we are, as Jacob was, forever changed.

For Jacob, his name was no longer Jacob…and he walked with a limp thereafter. Like Jacob, following our wrestling with God, we go forward, blessed—wounded perhaps, but changed forever.

I could tell you about wrestling with God; I have had my own encounters. But this week being what it was, losing Vicki, I wanted to bring to you something very different this morning…something that would be so pleasing to and so like Vicki who knew how to hear the powerful word of God not simply read, but really cracked open, spilled out, and soaked up.

The following excerpt is based taken from American Christian author, Frederick Buechner, and it is based on our Genesis reading from the Hebrew Bible. During this dramatic reading, I challenge you to put yourself at the river Jabbok’s edge; struggle, with Jacob, for a blessing, God’s blessing. I hope that you will be inspired this morning as you experience Buechner's account of Jacob's wrestle, which is taken from his book, The Son of Laughter.[1]

Out of the dark someone leaped at me with such force that it knocked me onto my back. It was a man. I could not see his face. His naked shoulder was pressed so hard against my jaw I thought he would break it. His flesh was chill and wet[,] as the river.

He was the god of the river.

·      My bulls had raped him.

·      My flocks had fouled him and

·      My children [had] pissed on him.

He would not let me cross [the river] without a battle. I got my elbow into the pit of his throat and forced him off. I threw him over onto his back.

His breath was hot in my face as I straddled him. My breath came in gasps. Quick as a serpent he twisted loose, and I was caught between his thighs. The grip was so tight I could not move.

He had both hands pressed to my cheek. He was pushing my face into the mud, grunting with the effort. Then he got me on my belly with his knee in the small of my back. He was tugging my head up toward him. He was breaking my neck.

He was not the god of the river. He was Esau.

He had slain all my sons. He had forded the river to slay me. Just as my neck was about to snap, I butted my head upward with the last of my strength and caught him square. For an instant his grip loosened and I was free. Over and over we rolled together into the reeds at the water's edge.

We struggled in each other's arms. He was on top. Then I was on top. I knew that they were not Esau's arms. It was not Esau. I did not know who it was. I did not know who I was. I knew only my terror and that it was dark as death. I knew only that what the stranger wanted was my life.

For the rest of the night we battled in the reeds with the Jabbok roaring down through the gorge above us. Each time I thought I was lost, I escaped somehow.

There were moments when we lay exhausted in each other's arms the way a man and a woman  lie exhausted from passion. There were moments when I seemed to be prevailing. It was as if he was letting me prevail. Then he was at me with new fury. But he did not prevail.

For hours it went on that way. Our bodies were slippery with mud. We were panting like beasts. We could not see each other. We spoke no words. I did not know why we were fighting. It was like fighting in a dream.

He outweighed me, he out-wrestled me, but he did not overpower me. He did not overpower me until the moment came to overpower me. When the moment came, I knew that he could have made it come whenever he wanted. I knew that all through the night he had been waiting for that moment.

He had his knee under my hip. The rest of his weight was on top of my hip. Then the moment came, and he gave a fierce downward thrust. I felt a fierce pain.

It was less a pain I felt than a pain I saw. I saw it as light. I saw the pain as a dazzling bird-shape of light.

·      The pain's beak impaled me with light.

·      It blinded me with the light of its wings.

I knew I was crippled and done for. I could do nothing but cling now. I clung for dear life. I clung for dear death. My arms trussed him. My legs locked him. For the first time he spoke.

He said, "Let me go." The words were more breath than sound. They scalded my neck where his mouth was touching.

He said, "Let me go, for the day is breaking."

Only then did I see it, the first faint shudder of light behind the farthest hills. I said, "I will not let you go."

I would not let him go for fear that the day would take him as the dark had given him. It was my life I clung to. My enemy was my life. My life was my enemy. I said, "I will not let you go unless you bless me."

Even if his blessing meant death, I wanted it more than life.

"Bless me," I said. "I will not let you go unless you bless me."

He said, "Who are you?"

There was mud in my eyes, my ears and nostrils, my hair. My name tasted of mud when I spoke it. "Jacob," I said. "My name is Jacob."

"It is Jacob no longer," he said. "Now you are Israel. You have wrestled with God and with men. You have prevailed. That is the meaning of the name Israel."

I was no longer Jacob. I was no longer myself. Israel was who I was. The stranger had said it.

I tried to say it the way he had said it: Yees-rah-ail. I tried to say the new name I was to the new self I was.

I could not see him. He was too close to me to see. I could see only the curve of his shoulders above me. I saw the first glimmer of dawn on his shoulders like a wound.

I said, "What is your name?" I could only whisper it.

"Why do you ask me my name?"

We were both of us whispering. He did not wait for my answer. He blessed me as I had asked him.

I do not remember the words of his blessing or even if there were words. I remember the blessing of his arms holding me and the blessing of his arms letting me go. I remember as blessing the black shape of him against the rose-colored sky.

I remember as blessing the one glimpse I had of his face. It was more terrible than the face of dark, or of pain, or of terror. It was the face of light.

No words can tell of it. Silence cannot tell of it. Sometimes I cannot believe that I saw it and lived but that I only dreamed I saw it. Sometimes I believe I saw it and that I only dream I live.

Amen.

October 20, 2013
First Parish Federated Church of South Berwick, ME
The Reverend Donna Lee Muise, Pastor

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[1] Buechner, Frederick. The Son of Laughter. HarperOne. 1994.

Wrangling With Words

WRANGLING WITH WORDS

JEREMIAH 29:1, 4-7; 2 TIMOTHY 2:8-15; LUKE 17:11-19

“Remind them of this, and warn them before God that they are to avoid wrangling over words,

which does no good but only ruins those who are listening.”

The other day we condo owners received a 10-page treatise of the new rules and regulations for living at our condo complex. The document was accompanied by a semi-legal looking form that we have to sign and return by a particular date; our signature states that I have “received, read, understand, and will abide by the Rules and Regulations,” which in my estimation seek to take away my inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Haven’t signed it, yet. However, if I don’t sign the acknowledgment form and “return it within two weeks of receipt, it will be considered a rules violation and fines will be levied accordingly.”

Some of the highlights:

·        Barbecue grills need to be neatly covered when not in use.

·        Application for flower gardens must be in writing to the Board.

·        Curtains and drapes must be of neutral color as seen from the outside of the building.

·        12 regulations regarding pets, plus 10 sub-points, including

o   Pets must be confined to the pet owners’ unit and must not be allowed to roam free, [they must be] tethered.

o   Pets may not be left unattended on patios or balconies.

o   All pets outside the unit must be restrained by a leash no longer than 6 feet long or placed in an animal carrier. (I asked about this, and the association president said people were unhappy about pet paw prints on their cars.]

o   Photographs of pets must be submitted to the property manager.

o   No pet shall be allowed to become a nuisance or create any unreasonable disturbance—

§  Unruly behavior that causes personal injury or property damage;

§  Pets in common areas who are not under the complete physical control of a human companion;

§  Pets [that] are conspicuously unclean or parasite infested—does this go for human companions too?

§  First there is a written warning then the fines start at $100 and go up from there.

What I want to know is, Are the pet police going to be patrolling all the time? Will they take my cat to the slammer and make me post bail to get her out? Do I have to pay per paw print on a car hood—and are they going to paw print our cats so they can identify which one walked on someone’s car? And how about those unruly gas grill covers—are we going to take pictures of them, too, and submit them, so that when one escapes and roams free in common areas or becomes messy they can identify the serious criminal and fine its owner.And the drapes? Do we have to apply to the board if we want something other than beige or white? Somebody stop me! Please!

I think I have a problem.

PASTOR TIMOTHY HAD A PROBLEM—well, he had many problems! But just to mention a few—

Ø  Paul, Timothy’s father in the faith, his mentor, THE expert in all things gospel, was in prison in Rome as a serious criminal;

Ø  And Timothy was stuck in Ephesus with an out-of-control church on his hands;

Ø  The church in Ephesus was in major trouble:

o   there was heresy,

o   there were false teachers,

o   there were church members—especially women—being sucked in by a pseudo-doctrines.

WHAT A MESS! Get out the 76 Trombones because there’s trouble in River City. Heresy has found a home in Ephesus. The heresy wasn’t blatant, like teachings that cut to the heart of the nature of God and of Christ—like denying Christ’s divinity.

The Ephesian heresy was much more subtle, and perhaps that was why it was such a deep threat to the church. The false teachers were actually members of the church, which makes the infiltration that much more dangerous and sinister. In a large nutshell, the church in Ephesus was being destroyed by insiders who were teaching “a form of aberrant Judaism with Greek/Gnostic tendencies that overemphasized the law [of Moses] and under-emphasized Christ and faith,”[1] In other words, they were bastardizing the gospel. And not only that:

Ø  they talked a lot about Jewish myths and genealogies as having basis in truth; 

Ø  the rituals of mosaic law were important, but folks shouldn’t “ let them get in the way of your sinful nature outside of the temple”;

Ø  they downplayed the importance and sanctity of marriage;

Ø  Greed was good (Gordon Gecko was apparently a member of this church);

Ø  (this is a big one): they taught that the resurrection had already come, which basically means that no longer need they look forward to Christ’s second coming and the resurrection of the dead!

Ø  (perhaps the biggest problem of all): “the false teachers were so immersed in speculative controversies that they neglected the very core of the Christian faith”[2]—which is laid out in full view in v 8:

“Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David—that is my gospel—”

The false teachers were spending all their time “wrangling over words!”  Instead of preaching the gospel, they pursued their own convenient agendas by engaging in semantic speculation and vague theories, now that kind of thing doesn’t happen anymore right?

The Ephesian Heresy was extremely destructive because:

Ø  the house churches scattered around the city were vulnerable;

Ø  the teachers and teachings deceived many women into being abused sexually, physically, and emotionally;

Ø  it brought ruin to the faith of new believers,

Ø  it encouraged people to walk hungrily—and happily—into temptation.

Some rules are meant to be broken; some rules are meant to be obeyed; some rules are downright asinine, but no rule is a replacement for, or better than, the truth and the truth of a Christian’s life was, is, and always will be Jesus Christ raised from the dead.  This was Paul’s gospel; it was Timothy’s gospel, and let it be our gospel, too.

Without the gospel—the same one that Paul suffered for and Timothy struggled against heretics to uphold; without Christ’s love, rightly received, understood and abided by, faith can be just a bunch of rules and regulations, points and sub-points, a “wrangling over words, which does no good but “only ruins those who are listening.” This wrangling we sometimes get involved in does nothing to lead us to “obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory” (2 Tim 2:10).

Listen to Paul, identify with Timothy, and “do your best to present yourself to God as one approved by him, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly explaining the word of truth” (2 Tim 2:15). This week as we go about your inalienable rights, let’s ask ourselves, What is my gospel? I pray that our gospel will be centered on “remember[ing] Jesus Christ, raised from the dead.” Christ is the very truth of God made flesh to dwell among us. He is our Savior, and he came to teach us the way to live and love, the way to grow and give, the way to die and be raised from the dead…so that

§  If we have died with him, we will also live with him;

§  If we endure, we will also reign with him.

The living Word of Truth can never be ruled or regulated, neither can it be chained nor imprisoned. Thanks be to God for the untethered Gospel of Jesus Christ that is ours today. Amen.

October 13, 2013

First Parish Federated Church of South Berwick, ME

The Reverend Donna Lee Muise, Pastor

              

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[1] Wilson, Dr Ralph F. Introduction to 1 and 2 Timothy. JesusWalk Bible Study Series @ www.jesuswalk.com.

[2] Ibid.