Wrestling with God…and Ourselves

For the last four weeks, the Old Testament lesson has been about Jacob, son of Isaac and Rebecca, grandson of Abraham and Sarah.  It’s been a running soap opera, interspersed with mystical encounters with God.

The first thing we learn about Jacob is that he and his twin brother Esau fought with each other in their mother’s womb, to the point where she wondered aloud why she should keep living.  Then, when the two boys were born, Jacob came out holding onto his brother’s heel.  His name actually means “heel holder,” but it also means “deceiver.”

All of that sets the stage for what is to come because the next several stories are about Jacob’s machinations to usurp Esau’s privileged place as the eldest son.

Here is where the family dysfunction comes in—Scripture tells us that Isaac and Rebecca played favorites.  Isaac loved Esau best because he was a hunter, while Rebecca loved Jacob best because he liked to hang around at home. 

One day, Esau comes in from hunting and is famished.  Jacob has been cooking lentil stew.  Esau asks him for some, and Jacob says, you can have some if you sell me your birthright.  So Esau agrees, saying, what is the use of a birthright if you are dying of hunger.  Jacob shows his manipulative, scheming side—although Esau doesn’t come off looking too good either—he gets criticized for despising his birthright.

In the next scene, which isn’t in our lectionary, Isaac is old and blind and about to die.  He asks Esau to go hunt some game and make him a stew, and he will give Esau a final blessing.  Esau goes off and Rebecca tells Jacob to go into Isaac and pretend to be Esau and give him some stew that she has made. Jacob objects saying, he’ll know that I’m not Esau, because Esau is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man.  Rebecca says no problem, we’ll tie a goatskin to your arm, and he’ll feel it and think you are Esau.  So Jacob does it, and Isaac suspects that he is Jacob, but he feels his hairy arm and gives him the blessing meant for Esau as the oldest son.   

When Esau comes back and hears that Jacob has stolen his blessing, he weeps.  But then he gets furious and threatens to murder Jacob.  So, Rebecca helps Jacob escape to her brother’s house.  Jacob has all sorts of adventures that we don’t have time to go into, but it makes great reading—he has a mystical encounter with God, his uncle tricks him and he tricks his uncle in return, and finally, after  20 years, he decides he has to go home.  By this time, he has 2 wives, 2 concubines, lots of children, servants and herds of animals. 

So, he takes the whole lot of them and sets off homeward.  Of course, he is nervous about seeing his brother again—who wouldn’t be?  Jacob clearly has a guilty conscience over his treatment of Esau.  He sends his servants ahead of him with flocks of animals as gifts to try to appease Esau, but the first one comes back and tells him that Esau is coming out to meet him with 400 men.  Now he’s really nervous because that is enough men to constitute a fighting force.  So, he splits his family and all the animals into two camps—if one group is killed, the other can flee.   Then, he sends them all across the river Jabbok to spend the night, but he stays behind on the other bank. 

That’s a lot of background, but you need all that to understand the significance of this strange story of Jacob wrestling all night with a stranger.  The man appears out of nowhere, and we don’t know who he is. Jacob struggles with him all night, but at daybreak, the stranger is ready to call it quits.  Jacob won’t let him go, however, even after he injures Jacob.  He won’t release him until the stranger blesses him.  So, the stranger blesses him and also gives him a new name, Israel, which means Godfighter, One who strives with God.  At this point, it is clear that the stranger is none other than God. 

What does this mysterious encounter with God mean?  At one level, this encounter fits the pattern of many folk tales and myths.  The hero sets out on a quest, encounters an obstacle or an opponent, wrestles with it and is injured, but comes away strengthened, ready to take up the quest again.  Jacob’s quest is to return home and reconcile with his brother.   But he must wrestle with his past before he can face his brother.  He has to grapple with his overweening ambition, and his willingness to manipulate and deceive to get what he wants.  In other words, he has to come to terms with his sinful human nature, otherwise known as his ego. 

This encounter with God is at the same time an encounter with himself.  It is a painful encounter because he is facing the truth about himself and his destructive behavior—hence the wounding that leaves him with a limp.  But in the end, he demands and receives a blessing from the stranger.  He also receives a new name—a new identity.  Somehow the painful process of facing his limitations and flaws as a human being transforms him. 

Don’t get me wrong.  He is not perfect after this night time wrestling match.  He perpetuates the family dysfunction by favoring Joseph over all his other sons, which creates all sorts of havoc.  But the self-knowledge and integration that he gains in this episode is simultaneously humbling and empowering—hence the limp on the one hand, and the blessing on the other.

The power of this strange story is that it is everyone’s story.  To be in relationship with God is to be challenged to examine yourself—especially your shadow side.  Sooner or later, on some dark night when we are all alone, we will come face to face with our limitations and failings.  We will confront our ego and its raw desire for security, approval and control.  And we will wrestle with the often destructive ways that we use to try to satisfy our ego’s desires. 

Such self-examination and wrestling with our worst tendencies is painful.  But it is ultimately a great blessing.  It is through confronting the truth about ourselves that we let the light of God’s love into every part of our being.   If we keep the door closed on our shadow side and are afraid to face it, it will have more power over us.  God calls us to open that door and allow ourselves to be forgiven, healed and made whole. Like Jacob, we will not become perfect overnight.  But we will be blessed by the realization that God knows every part of us and loves us anyway.  We will revel in our new identity as God’s imperfect but beloved people. We will be fortified to continue our journey, which like Jacob’s, leads to home and reconciliation.