It should be acknowledged that Jacob, son of Isaac, son of Abraham, is not the most upstanding hero we encounter in Holy Scripture. In one of the stories that lead up to the passage we hear today, Jacob is on the run. He has just finished deceiving his blind, ailing father in order to swindle his twin brother out of his inheritance and their father’s blessing and is understandably fleeing for his life. You might say he’s made a mess of things. He spends that first night out in the open air where he has his famous vision of angels ascending and descending from heaven on a ladder. God comes to Jacob and assures him of God’s unlikely favor: “Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised.” And so Jacob goes on his way. He comes to the house of his uncle, where he proceeds to do quite well for himself, gaining a large family and an impressive array of livestock and servants. A year turns into seven, turns into twenty, and having finally worn out his welcome, Jacob decides it is time to go home.
He is, of course, still quite aware that he didn’t leave on the best of terms. He sends word ahead to Esau that he and his household are on their way, and the ambiguous reply comes that Esau has set out to meet him, accompanied by 400 men. This does not seem to Jacob to be a good omen. Scripture tells us that Jacob spirals into “great fear and distress.” He divides his camp in the hope that if things go poorly, half of his family may yet survive, and then we spend whole paragraphs reading about how Jacob sends ahead gifts in hopes of appeasing his brother.
And so finally we find Jacob here on the bank of the river. The family home and the promised land and Esau are just on the other side. Tomorrow is a day of reckoning decades in the making. The sun is setting, and Jacob sends his family and the last of his earthly possessions ahead. “And Jacob was left alone.” It is dark, it is quiet, the air is thick with anxiety, and if Jacob remembers the promise that God made to him all those years before, it does not seem as though he is putting much hope in it.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a man appears and attacks Jacob, and there is no one left to save him. Could it be Esau, come to take care of things personally? As the struggle continues, Jacob and his assailant find that they are equally matched. Jacob, for all his success, is still the scrappy, wily character he has always been, and it appears that, at the very least, he is on his way to having the upper hand, even when the other man pulls the unsportsmanlike move of dislocating Jacob’s hip. Neither can completely subdue the other, and so they grapple and sweat and strain with one another, a tangle of limbs and wills as the night drags on.
Somewhere in the midst of this, Jacob notices something feels familiar about this man. He remembers a night not unlike this one all those years ago, the last time he was alone in the wilderness with God. He realizes that he is not wrestling the source of his anxiety and fears, but that God has, improbably, fallen into his hands. He realizes here on the edge of the promised land, that somehow God has come to make good on the promise to walk closely with him. We can imagine, as the dawn begins to creep over the horizon, Jacob with God in a headlock, uttering this unlikely demand, dripping with hubris: “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” I will not let you go until you do what you said you would do, because I know I serve a God who is faithful to promise. I will not let you go, even if it kills me. And it might.
In this encounter, God shows up, but not in a dream or in an overpowering expression of God’s glory. Strange as it may seem, God shows up in a way that is not obvious, in a way that invites Jacob’s response. This is not a God who is aloof or disinterested in human affairs, but a God who has chosen to be bound to us. God recognizes that they have as much invested in this relationship as Jacob does. As Jacob and God wrestle with one another, intimately entangled, their relationship takes on a new dimension. Jacob comes away with a better understanding of himself, named as one who struggles with powers both human and divine and is not overcome. But he also comes to a better understanding of God than if God had remained someone who is out there somewhere, a God of dreams and visions. He learns that the God he serves is one who is right here, right now, a God who cannot be ignored and a God who cannot be pinned down for long.
A few years ago I was grappling with a situation that left me anxious, angry, and wounded, and I sought out the counsel of a wise and discerning priest. As we talked, what she said shifted my prayer life forever: “Bring your whole self to the altar: anger, sadness, grief and all. God can handle it.” God shows up for us first. God wants to be close to us, at this altar and in every place. Whatever you are wrestling with today, whether it’s the grief of a broken relationship, or the burden of depression or anxiety, or worry about the survival of the nation or the planet, or sorrow about the racism that infects our lives, or the simple question of whether there is a place for you at God’s table at all - whatever it is, God can handle it. If we find that we are wrestling God when we thought we were only wrestling our fear, God can handle it. God desires that. Whatever situation in life has you in great fear and distress, God is asking you to show up in whatever way you can and remember that you have been blessed, time out of memory, sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as God’s own forever. In baptism, God promises us new life where our mistakes do not define us. God promises us that reconciliation with God and each other is coming and is here even now. God promises to give us the strength we need to resist the power of sin in our own lives, in this church, and in our society. God promises to draw us ever deeper into the mystery of God’s own self, resting in the knowledge that we are deeply known and deeply loved.
God shows up and offers us all these things time and again - claim them. Have the audacity to remind God and yourself about those graces which are already yours, and that the time to make good on the promise is now. This God who encounters us in our moments of greatest vulnerability is the same God who neither slumbers nor sleeps, the maker of heaven and earth who watches over you always. As we pray for the peace which passes our own understanding and for God to bring justice to the earth, we know that our persistence cannot be in vain, for it is rooted in the One who persists in pursuing peace and justice for us.
As the sunrise breaks over the horizon, we see Jacob limping toward the river as he prepares to cross and meet Esau, and he does so in the knowledge that his fears do not have the last word. His fear no longer stands in the way of Love’s healing power - and in the end, Esau is eager to see him. Estrangement turns to reconciliation. Fear turns to healing and wholeness. God is here. God is faithful. And as we struggle, we hear the invitation to remember whose we are and claim God’s promises with boldness.
Preached by Mr. Noah Stansbury
20 October 2019
Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia