Wrestling with God 

 

*Genesis 32:22-31

Luke 18:1-8

 

            I am one of the least qualified people in this room to discuss the details of a wrestling match. Before I crossed the border into Iowa for my college years, my experience with wrestling involved images of overweight men wearing masks, hitting each other over the head with folding chairs, and cheating so shamelessly that everyone but the clueless referees could see it. I discovered that wrestling in Iowa meant something altogether different.

            That truth was reinforced when we moved to Creston. Our kids went to a high school of approximately 1700 students. There was not enough participation in wrestling to fill out all the weight classes, and you could have wandered the city all day without finding someone who could tell you where or when the state tournament was held. Things are a little different down here.

            So most of you have a far better understanding than I of the technical part of this wrestling match in Genesis 32. Although with the cheating going on, it more closely resembles a pro wrestling event than a legitimate match

            The really baffling part, though, is what this story is supposed to be telling us. In one of my Old Testament classes at seminary, we were all assigned to write a paper on this story. The professor received 40 explanations, no two of which were alike.

            It’s not that people haven’t tried to figure it out. It speaks about the foundation of the nation of Israel through whom God began a mysterious interaction with the affairs of humankind, and so it is of great importance. Because of this, and the many bewildering details, it has been discussed and written about as much as any passage in the Old Testament.

 

            To recap the story: Abraham’s grandson Jacob cheated his twin brother, Esau, out of his rightful inheritance. This made Esau so furious that Jacob feared for his life and fled the country. After spending more than a decade in exile, Jacob couldn’t take it any more. As today’s reading begins, he is returning home, hoping to make things right with the brother. He is willing to grovel and he has sent servants ahead with huge gifts in hopes that Esau will agree to patch up old differences.

            On the night before he is to meet Esau after this long estrangement, Jacob is so nervous, he can’t sit still. He goes off by himself. He wonders if this is a huge mistake, if this will turn out to be his last night alive.

            While he is alone, he gets into a wrestling match with an opponent who is never identified. Details are sketchy. We are not told if this guy suddenly appeared and challenged Jacob to a match, or if he jumped him from behind. We don’t know if Jacob saw this as a weird kind of competition, or whether he thought he was battling for his life.

 

 

            Either way, the fight goes on all night long. The two get locked up and neither can gain the advantage. Finally, as dawn is breaking, the assailant takes a swing and dislocates Jacob’s hip. Now if this is a wrestling competition, it’s cheating. If it’s an attack, hey, there are no rules.

            The injury ends Jacob’s ability to wrestle; which, as I understand wrestling rules, means that Jacob wins by injury default. If it’s simply an attack, Jacob at least has survived. Now he hangs on, perhaps hoping for help to arrive.

            Which the attacker does not like. He tells Jacob to let him go. Jacob says, “No deal, not unless you bless me.”

            The stranger asks Jacob what his name is. Jacob tells him.

            The stranger then says, “Not any more. Your name is now Israel, for you have fought with God and humans and won.”

            “Tell me your name,” Jacob says.

            The guy declines but he does give Jacob a blessing. He then disappears. Jacob walks away from this bizarre encounter with a permanent limp.

           

            What was all that about? First of all, who was the stranger? The stranger gives Jacob the name “Israel” meaning, “the one who strives with God.” That’s a strong hint that the stranger was God. Jacob confirms this by remarking after the incident, “I have seen God face to face and yet my life is preserved.”

 

            Rather than clearing things up, this revelation makes the story even more confusing. God is supposed to be powerful. If this was God, how come he couldn’t pin Jacob with his little finger? Is God that weak or is Jacob superhuman? And isn’t God is supposed to be perfect? This God shows weak character. He can’t beat Jacob fairly in their match, so he cheats. He strikes a low blow and injures him.

 

            God cannot get Jacob to let go of him. Jacob forces God to give him a blessing in order to get free.

 

            As with many of the stories in Genesis, there is no way you can read this as history. The notion that someone can literally put God in a headlock until he gives up and agrees to give a blessing is absurd.

 

            So what is this story about? As I said, there are many ways you can go with it. Here’s my take:

 

            After seeing the mess people were making of the world and of their gift of free and independent choice, God took on the responsibility to set things right. God would take on all the costs and obligations necessary to bring about the life as it is supposed to be, in spite of the frailties of the human race. God would be right there, accessible at all times, yet hidden so as not to overwhelm the integrity of the human spirit.

            All people needed to do to set things right in their lives and in their world was to open their eyes to this access to God and make use of it.

 

            The stories of Abraham tell of God revealing the plan to people who had no clue who or what God was. This is where God started, where God broke into the world with this plan of unlimited grace. Abraham got some of it, but really not very much. The stories of Abraham reveal a people excitedly encountering a God who was mysterious in so many ways.

            These people did exhibit a quality that God needed to get the ball rolling: faith. They believed that this mysterious God had a direction, a purpose for them and for the world. But blind faith will only get you so far. They had a very limited idea of what that direction was. They followed their orders as best they understood them, but were so awed and intimidated by God that they didn’t dare look into things too closely. They did not challenge or ask a lot of questions.

            Abraham and his people understood only vaguely what God was about. They knew little more about God than others who were worshippers of various gods knew about theirs. God had discreetly broken into the world to give us access to God, but people were too overwhelmed to use it.

 

            God knew that there would never be true relationship with humanity until they could overcome the distance between them. The Bible is the story of God coming closer. Closer and closer until the people felt comfortable to start asking questions. Not asking questions about God, but asking questions of God.

 

            Have you ever been with people so preoccupied with self that you wonder if you even exist to them? Someone you’ve worked or gone to school with who has never expressed an interest in anything about you? Someone who constantly tells you about himself but has never once asked a single question about you?

 

            For any relationship to work, there has to be an exchange of questions. For people to have a relationship with God, they had to start asking questions of God. In order to do that, the distance between God and humans had to be narrowed some more. Since we can’t get to where God is; God needed to get where we are. That meant that God had to side aside the power and privilege that awes us.

 

            Here is where the story of Jacob and the wrestling match comes in. God comes to Jacob to wrestle. God invites Jacob to grapple, to probe, to test wills, and see what God is made of. For that to happen, God had to appear not as God is or can be, but as Jacob needed him to be.

 

 

 

            Think of it in terms of the handicap system of bowling or golf. There is little point or purpose to competitive matches between people of vastly different ability. In order to create an interaction that works, we use a handicap system put us on same level.

 

            Compare it to about playing baseball out in the yard with youngsters. When pitching to a 5-yr old, you’re not going fire fastballs. You’re not going to throw one at his chin to back him off the plate. You’re going to lob something he can hit. You set aside most of your power and ability in order to create interaction that has some purpose.

 

            So God strips away most of his power and ability and says to Jacob, “You won’t find out who I am simply by obeying formulas and rules. Here I am. Hit me with your best shot.”

             

            Jacob could have declined. He could have pulled out a knife and said, “Go away, I don’t want any part of you.” He could have decided this was too crazy, too much work and effort and just given up. He could have gone back to worshipping God from afar. But then he would not have known anything more than Abraham about who God is.

 

            Look what happened because he accepted the challenge and wrestled with God. He was changed in ways he never expected. He asked for a blessing and what did he get? A new name. He is no longer Jacob, the schemer and scam artist. He is Israel, the one who wrestles with God. It’s the next crucial step in the unfolding of God’s plan.

            We go from Abraham, the people who obeyed a distant and mysterious and frightening God, to Israel, the people who wrestle with God. The people who, by wrestling with God, have learned to know God.

 

            Jesus reinforced the importance of this match with his story of the persistent woman in Luke. She gets into a legal wrestling match with an unjust judge. She keeps at it, doesn’t quit, and like Jacob, comes out on top. She gets justice. And Jesus says, “Will not God, who, unlike the judge in the story, is good, not grant justice to the ones who wrestle with him day and night?”

             

            So many people are comfortable in the Abraham mode, worshipping a mysterious God from afar. They don’t question anything. They may be scared to ask questions because it seems disobedient, insubordinate. I hear people say, “I don’t know why I believe this or that, I just do. Because that’s what we’re supposed to believe.” They are afraid that questioning leads to disbelief. “If I wrestle with God, I might win. I might find God is weak or not even there at all.”

            So they settle behind: God said it, I believe it, that settles it. I think of the case not long ago in Minnesota where all 5 children in a family were killed in a car accident. In an interview, the mother seemed unnervingly upbeat. “I just know this was God’s will and I trust that God is good and in control.”

            Now, I can’t fault the woman. You do what you need to do to get through a situation like that, to keep on living. But I believe God was standing on the mat, waiting for her best shot.

 

            I believe what Genesis 32 says about God, who is not just sitting far away in the sky flipping switches, but who is here for us to wrestle with so that we can know him better. Look for God and you will find God.

 

            Not all wrestling matches with God need to be the same. For some, it involves curiosity and wondering. For others, it means asking questions, sometimes hard questions. Confirmation students know that questions are not only encouraged, they are required. I insist that they wrestle with God if they are going to be confirmed in this church.

            For some people, wrestling with God takes the form of doubt. They may be at it a long time, through many a cold dark night, maybe even through years of seeking and rejecting. A wrestling match can be an ordeal. Long and painful, sometimes bitter.

 

            In wrestling with God you will learn a lot about God. Not everything. Notice in the story, God does not reveal too much, doesn’t want to be around in open daylight, doesn’t even tell his name. Some distance, some mystery remains or God isn’t God. But if we keep at it, God’s promise is that we will come out of it with a blessing.

 

            Wrestling with God always comes with a cost. It always changes the one who encounters God, sometimes in frightening ways. Jacob comes out of this match with a new name. He comes out walking with a limp.

            Wrestle with God and you will never the same. Views and attitudes get changed, forever. Some of it will be uncomfortable, some will be tremendous. But if you step into the ring with God and give it your best shot and stay at it tenaciously, you will be rewarded, in ways you never expected.

 

            If the idea of God losing a wrestling match to humans bothers you, consider this letter from an Iowa wrestling coach, printed in the premiere issue of OUR IOWA magazine:

 

            The Ogden team wrestled Iowa Falls and Humboldt as Humboldt yesterday. Humboldt has a senior who is a Down syndrome child. He has been out for football and wrestling, and their coaches wanted to know if we had anyone who would wrestle with him. Their coaches said he has few skills and likely could be easily pinned in seconds.

            I am very proud to say that Lane Brueland of our team said he would be willing to do this. They wrestled for the full 6 minutes. Lane not only allowed the boy to score points, but allowed the boy to technically beat him.

            I have to tell you that when the official raised this young man’s hand, it was one of the most moving moments I have ever witnessed. He looked at the referee incredulously and said, “I WON??”

            But the fact is, there were two winners—this young man and Lane Brueland. We often wonder about the character of today’s young people and what our kids can demonstrate to others. It couldn’t have been demonstrated better than it was on this day in this gym. Both these kids got a standing ovation. Honestly, there weren’t many dry eyes in the place.

 

             In his never-ending desire to close the gap between God and humans, God sent Jesus to earth to wrestle with humanity. Jesus showed up without the terrifying powers available to him. And Jesus lost the match. He lost it badly, ended up dying on a cross.

            God isn’t in the wrestling match to win, but to change you, and to change the entire nature and future of humanity. 

 

            Israel is the name given to the chosen people of God, because the people of God are the people who wrestle with God.

 

            The parents of that wrestler wrote a letter to Lane Brueland that closed with this:

 

            Thank you again, Lane, for the unforgettable wrestling match you so unselfishly made possible for our son.

 

            That sums up this story.

 

            Thank you God for the unforgettable wrestling match you so selflessly made possible for your children. Amen.