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
