I
am reminded of a story that I want to tell you about my always wonderful wife Jamie. When she was about Mary Katherine’s age, she was
having a total meltdown one night before dinner. When her dad got home from work, he walked
into this epic meltdown and noticed that no one else in the family seemed to be
paying any attention to Jamie as she was laid out on the floor kicking and
screaming.
Gordon looked down at
Jamie and said, “Knock it off, Jamie.”
Jamie paused her episode, looked up at her dad and said, “Dad, I’m
having a temper tantrum!” And then Jamie
continued the tantrum. Jamie’s response
to her Dad was almost the exact same response that I got from Mary Katherine
one day when she was having an episode.
Mary Katherine turned to me and said, “I’m frustrated but I’ll be okay
soon.”
In addition to having two
girls in my life who are beautiful, intelligent, and funny, I am truly blessed
to have two women in my life who are able to express exactly how they feel. And like every husband and father should
remember, I need to remind myself constantly that I am not responsible for
fixing how my girls feel. I just need to
listen more.
Solving someone else’s
problems might be called for in some situations but most of the time our
relationships grow and flourish when we are able to connect on an emotional
level, when we go beyond this need to fix something and simply be with someone as
they process their feelings. This is
often scary for us men because this means we have to feel something too.
But the wisdom of the
cross, the wisdom of the way of Christ is found by growing through pain – not
around it, not over it, but through the pain.
This is especially difficult in a world where we are taught to do
everything we can to avoid pain and suffering – this is a primary reason for a
culture of addiction.
Even more, in shutting
off the ability to feel pain, we shut of the possibility of growth – think of
the image of an athlete training for a marathon – the same growth process also
applies for spiritual and emotional growth and health.
Our story from Genesis
today articulates Jacob’s struggle to grow through pain. Jacob did some pretty shady things in his
younger years. Most notably, Jacob
robbed his brother Esau from both his birth right and blessing. Jacob has two wives, two mistresses, and
eleven children. He has a farm to
tend.
Jacob has been on the run
for most of his life and finally, twenty-five years later, Jacob makes a
decision to confront his brother Esau in attempts to reconcile. Jacob is finally ready to confront the sins
of his past and accept the consequences of his actions.
But why now? Why twenty-five years later? Why would Jacob take
this risk? Scripture says that Jacob and
his family are being treated unfairly by Laban, Jacob’s father-in-law, even
Laban’s own daughters want to get out of dodge.
Jacob also has a dream where God instructs him to go back home to his
birthplace.
But one must also assume
that Jacob is tired of running from his past.
Surely a part of Jacob longs to be reconciled to his family of
origin. His parents haven’t even met his
grandchildren. Ultimately, Jacob is
willing to face the pain of his past all because there is a sliver of hope that
he will be welcomed home.
Jacob’s journey home
comes to its climax in today’s lesson at the Jabbok. Jacob sends his family ahead in hopes that
the sight of Jacob’s children will soften the heart of Esau. And then something peculiar happens. A man appears in the darkness and starts to
wrestle with Jacob.
As the wrestling match
ensues, it becomes clear that this man that Jacob is wrestling isn’t just any
man. The lesson makes it clear that the
man needs Jacob to let him go before daybreak, not because he is afraid of the
cops showing up but because this man is God.
In the Hebrew tradition, man cannot look at God face to face and live.
In
an attempt to shorten the fight, the man knocks Jacob’s hip out of joint but
Jacob was determined. Jacob says, “I
will not let you go until you bless me.”
I will not let you go until you bless me. The man goes on to give Jacob a new name –
Israel. Israel means – one who struggled
with God and man and prevailed. And
finally, Jacob receives his blessing and walks off into the morning sun with a
limp.
And then it hit me like a
sack of potatoes. Jacob’s entire life is
marked by a struggle to know that he is a blessing. Up until this point, Jacob has been looking
for blessings in all the wrong places.
As the second born son, Jacob believes he is behind the curve and tries to
make up for not being born first by acting out.
In many respects, Jacob
is like an overgrown three-year-old who manipulates, deceives, and throws
temper tantrums all in an effort to receive the attention he longs for. But if I am honest, I, too, often act like an
overgrown three-year-old who believes that pouting is the best way to get a
blessing. I wonder if you see this part
of you in Jacob as well.
Like
Jacob, our lives are marked by a struggle to know that we are blessed and
valued and loved. And when we don’t know
this blessing, we act out. It is said
that original sin is derived from a belief that we are not loved or valued. When we don’t believe we are loved, we are
prone to pull everyone down to our level, we are prone to tear others down in
order build ourselves up.
Ultimately,
the journey to come to believe that we are a blessing is not marked by
manipulation or deception. Rather, the
journey to come to accept our blessing is marked by our willingness to express
our feelings of inadequacy with God and each other.
Even more, the journey to
come to accept our blessing is marked by our willingness to hear God when he
says, “my feelings about you far outweigh your feelings of inadequacy.” However wretched you think you may be, God is
telling you otherwise. Like Jacob, God
is giving you a new identity to operate from.
And like Jacob, our journey to know that we are blessed is a struggle.
But the good news tells
us that God will hear our feelings of inadequacy and tell us that he sees us in
a different light. Therefore, we don’t
have to act out anymore. Like you hear
at the end of each service, God’s blessing follows us all the days of our
life.
When you find yourself in
that deep dark place of despair, remember that God’s blessing is upon you even
there, remember that you are loved even when you and the world has declared you
unlovable, you don’t have to pull everyone down to your level because God is
pulling us all up to his level.
The good news of Jesus
tells us that we can confront our sin, our pride, our shame with a sense of
hopefulness instead of despair. This is
good news because left up to the judgment of the world the confronting of our
sin, our pride, our shame will leave us in the outer darkness.
But the good news of
Jesus, as we see clearly in the story of Jacob, tells us that God will meet us
in the outer darkness and bring us to life again – even if it takes a struggle
to believe that life is even possible.
And as an indicator that a struggle through pain is the way to life –
Jacob walks away with a limp – an image that we see most clearly when Jesus,
wounds and all, lives beyond death.
Our faith never tells us
that we will get through this life untouched by the pains and ills of the
world. However, our faith tells us that
God will bring us out of death into life.
Our faith tells us that ours is a God who is willing to get down in the
ditch with us and literally drag us to life again. Ultimately, our faith depends not on how we
feel about ourselves but faith is about trusting in how God feels us – as a
people called to be a blessing to a world that is too often shamed and cursed.
May God meet you in your
struggle to find your blessing and may you have the grace to bless others in
the hope that God’s ultimate plan of reconciliation begins to take ahold when
the whole world knows itself to be a blessing.
Amen.
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