F. Harry Daniel
Second Presbyterian Church
Sermons: June 17, 2007

"Blessed, but Limping"

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"In God we live and move and have our being." So runs the ancient text. But in the living, there are fears, calculations, mistrust, not to mention our own concerns, choices, and goals. From time to time in life, God comes to us, as God did to Jacob at the Jabbok, and a time of wrestling with God begins. We have to do with God, there is no escape. We must face and deal with the terrifying, awesome, gracious power of God: terrifying because it will change us and that is always painful; awesome because it will work its will and way with us or in spite of us; and gracious, though that is often hard to see, because it seeks our good and reconciliation and reconstruction.

Scripture Readings:
Genesis 32:22-32
2 Corinthians 11:21b-27

Genesis 32:22-32
The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had.

Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him.

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

So he said to him, "What is your name?" And he said, "Jacob."

Then the man said, "You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed."

Then Jacob asked him, "Please tell me your name." But he said, "Why is it that you ask my name?" And there he blessed him.

So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, "For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved."

The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the thigh muscle that is on the hip socket, because he struck Jacob on the hip socket at the thigh muscle.

2 Corinthians 11:21b-27
But whatever anyone dares to boast of -- I am speaking as a fool -- I also dare to boast of that.

Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I. Are they ministers of Christ? I am talking like a madman -- I am a better one: with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless floggings, and often near death.

Five times I have received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I received a stoning. Three times I was shipwrecked; for a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from bandits, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers and sisters; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, hungry and thirsty, often without food, cold and naked. (NRSV)

God is constantly at work in life. There are points in every human being’s experience where God is meeting him or her. There is also in us a longing for God, an ancient human thirst to find God and to bind God to us. God’s quest and our need means there is going to be struggle.

So Jacob discovered. The story is a strange, haunting, perplexing nocturnal struggle. "Good Lord, save us from things that go bump in the night." Jacob was a committed person in his fashion. And he was also no fool in the ways of the world: shrewd and crafty. The Jacob traditions are brutally candid. The spoiled son of a doting mother, he was both a liar and a cheat. Sent away from home for his own safety, he turned out to be adept in con games at the expense of his father-in-law Laban, himself no mean operator. Now he was returning home to face the brother he had shamelessly conned. In the anxious preparations for his meeting with Esau comes our story.

It was night on the banks of the river Jabbok and tomorrow Jacob would have to face Esau. Anxious and fearful, Jacob believed he was alone. But he wasn’t. God was amazingly near, near not to condone, but to change this rascal and manipulator. Locked in conflict, Jacob wrestled with God. It is a costly personal struggle from which he limps. He is faced, touched, blessed, and changed. And he receives a blessing, a new name. That name reflects the change: actual and potential in Jacob’s character. Wrestling with God always costs and causes change. Jacob has lost something, but he has also received something more valuable in exchange. We too have to wrestle with God. That means struggle. We have a desperate need to struggle for new understanding.

Jacob wants to stay in charge. So he asks the name of God. In this ancient story to know the name means access to the power which the deity possesses. Perhaps he might be able to use the name for his own purposes. The old Jacob is not changed completely. He had spent much of his life using other people, their strengths and weaknesses to serve his own ends. But God was not there to be used. Jacob is learning that the heart of God is steadfast and faithful, but on its own loving, just, committed, faithful terms. Jacob is where he is not by his wits. Jacob is empty-handed before God. He is an example for all who are children of grace and who live only by God’s gracious faithfulness. Jacob must wrestle with that awesome faithfulness. That is at once painful and blessed. Jacob comes to know what he needs and he cries out: "I will not let you go unless you bless me! That is the glory of the story: wrestling with God has blessing as a result, but on God’s terms. And that means some light, and much love and grace. God is available for comfort, enlightenment, guidance and strength, but at a painful cost: the changing of us.

God is not to be taken lightly or easily. There is no easy, safe or secure way to live and move and have our being in God because of us and our world and our inclinations and our perceptions. Jacob’s story, our story is supported only by divine grace. We live in a tension between human perversity and divine grace.

God remains God and we must wrestle with that until our days end. We cannot comprehend the mystery of God, but we can live out of that gracious, brooding presence. That leads to an authentic and deeper experience of God. God has chosen to reveal God’s self. Certain things may be said about the way God acts and from the way God acts certain conclusions may be drawn about God’s character. On the other hand, there always remains an element of hiddenness in God, something beyond human comprehension.

Such knowledge is costly. In the wrestling, questions will have to be faced, doubt and assurance will challenge each other. Now we see through a glass darkly. Bishop Berggrav of Oslo during the Norwegian Church struggle against the Nazis wrote that: half of his soul was in a hell of anxieties, fear, doubt, and the other half was in heaven carried on the wings of faith that God gives. He was caught between the struggle for faith which can’t eliminate darkness, and yet discerns in the darkness a flickering light which darkness is never able completely to extinguish. We pour ourselves out to God: despondency, doubts, disillusionments, curses, unanswered questions, hurt, cries for healing and vindication. Wrestling with God is to face the depths. Make no mistake it is a battle to give to God even our fear and anxiety.

Life is God’s gift to be enjoyed. It is to be lived to the full. Wrestling with God is the experience which helps us to a better understanding of human life, and of the meaning of our relationship to God. It is a struggle to maintain certainties in the midst of uncertainty. It is a painful groping for new light in the midst of darkness.

Life is harsh. We wrestle with questions to which we can find no easy answers and live with doubts which honesty and integrity force on us. "Why" is more frequently on the lips of the psalmist than "hallelujah." Doubt is not the opposite of faith but an element in continuing and maturing faith. To wrestle with God is an expression of faith which seeks to be more honestly grounded in experience. There is no way to escape: blind optimism won’t do, bland worship won’t do, absolutizing our own limited vision won’t do. There are no easy answers and so we wrestle. "My God, my God why have you forsaken me," are not the words of one for whom faith was simple and life all sunshine.

We are like Jacob, those who have striven with God, and who continue to strive with God. We testify to the world which discounts and ignores God, that God is to be reckoned with, that we do not live and order our lives on our own terms, but that all of us live and move and have our being in God. And so we limp and so we testify to divine superiority and compassion and grace. And so we are blessed. Only God could love us that much. It is not God’s intention that the human creature should live out its days in an absolutely pain-free state, but rather, in order that the potentiality of the creature for fullness of life might be realized. A human being in the divine intention is called to live under circumstances in which an element of personal struggle always occurs.

Jacob wrestles with God and is made new. God will not let him go. God’s love will have its way. Jacob had scars yes! We have scars yes!

It was a beautiful home. The woodwork was superb. There were two wonderful stained glass windows as well as some leaded beveled ones. Needless to say it was full of nicks and scratches from many years of wear, before they took up residence and contributed their scars. The scars in a home do not necessarily mean that the family is careless. Homes show signs of wear just like shoes -- from being worn, used. A family once showed a visitor the deep scratches put in the floor of their once new home years ago by their small children. They had tried desperately to erase them. "Now," they confided, "We love to look at those scratches because they remind us of the wonderful days when the children were sharing our home."

Listen to Paul describe his scars: "Five times I have been given the thirty-nine strokes; three times I have been beaten with rods, once I was stoned: three times I have been shipwrecked, and for twenty-four hours I was adrift on the open sea. I have been constantly on the road; I have met dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my fellow-countrymen, dangers from foreigners, dangers in towns, dangers in the country, dangers at sea, dangers from false friends. I have toiled and drudged. I have often gone without sleep; hungry and thirsty. I have often gone fasting; and I have suffered from cold and exposure."

That list always puts my scratches and scars into perspective!

No object and no person can be used in the service of others without bearing scars as a result. But scars are not to be despised or flaunted. They are simply to be accepted as one of the dividends of an invested life. Those who are unwilling to be hurt for the sake of others may not bear scars--but neither will they have tasted the thrill of living abundantly. Jesus will not fit within the contours of our lives. Now is the time for life being reshaped to fit the contours of the gospel.

And so we wrestle with God at our Jabboks. We too have our scars. And we rediscover the faithfulness of God. And so we are changed and learn time and again what it means to be faithful. We go forward, blessed, but limping.