Genesis 32:21–31 Sermon
So the present passed on ahead of him; and he himself spent that night in the camp. 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.
***
There are nights where all one can do is wait for the morning. There are nights where all one can do is wait for the morning. Where the desire for sleep wrestles with the desires of the day to come. Where sunset and sunrise are merely bookends to shottey dreams that attempt to narrate the day to come, nightmares parsing out the future, hoping to foreshadow some life changing event. When was the last night all you could do was wait for the morning? Was it seeing that former family member, past lover, future in-laws, old best friend, someone for whom your relationship has changed and may change again? Was it something which altered your life course, a interview, a hard conversation, a diagnosis, a text from a significant other, a test, a first day of school or work, a plane to land, a distance to travel, a place to visit, and for some reason, the meeting can’t happen until the morning. Yet, despite the hours you’ve been given it becomes a night where all you can do is wait for the morning. What was the last morning for which you waited and for what were you waiting?
For my single friends and I, a common conversation is about waiting for phone calls or lack there ofs. There have been evenings where we have waited for tentative plans with crushes to materialize into set times and places, and we have either waited and watched the clock pass bedtime, and then midnight, knowing we were not going to receive the agreed upon call, or the phone would ring belatedly and make us feel like an after thought either way. Other times, when the clock has past the respectful calling hour, we have ourselves made the call only to wonder if it would have come otherwise at all. And so sleep becomes illusive with the wonder of silence, and what we should or should not have done or said, or what we did do or say, or what in the world is going on with the other person that we have no clue about. Its a wrestling match with the unnamed.
Jacob is in this sleepless wrestling match. As a child he came out striving, grabbing at his twin brother Esau’s heal. He later stole Esau’s inheritance and then their father’s blessing from Esau. Now years later Jacob must meet Esau again and win Esau’s favor. This older twin brother who has always been stronger then he, and is now more powerful than he, and certainly has every right to be angry with Jacob, is just across the river, waiting until the morning when the two of them will meet. In the days prior Jacob has sent extravagant gifts of wealth across the river and just before sunset, he has sent his wives, his maids, and his children to cross the ford of the Jakkob, in hopes of appeasing his brother, in hopes that amends are made before the morning. Jacob has essentially sent a blubbering voicemail and trying to pretend things are normal text, and hasn’t hasn't heard anything back. Maybe, Jacob has written his will and said his goodbyes before he goes into break of dawn surgery. He has studied his books and his notes for his test. He has been to a counselor or called a friend to figure out what he should say, but now it is the point where there is nothing he can do but wait and wait alone with the unnamed.
Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. I wonder if Jacob wondered about tricking his brother out of his inheritance and this took the man to the ground. I wonder if he thought about stealing his brother’s blessing and climbed on top of the man. I wonder if he regretted the wrongs of his youth that had lasted into adulthood, and pinned the man to the ground. This tossing and turning, stomach down, head on pillow, covers on and off, memory and old memory, new scenario and alternate scenario, over and over, is the wrestling of life. No matter if we win, we are struck on the hip socket and it is put out of joint simply because life is a wrestling. There is pain, there is guilt, there is hurt, there is surgery, and tests, and interviews, and hard conversations, and silence, and relationships that were and are no longer, and meetings that have to happen after long periods of time, or meetings that will never happen again, or make or break it phone calls to come, and wrestling matches with the unnamed. We don’t go through life without a scratch. If we are honest, there are times when we are put out of joint and that remains with us. Yet, hopefully we still find the blessing in winning against the unnamed, the blessing that we can be named.
You can come through surgery and never know why you became ill, and you may not make it through the same as you went in, but what is the point of merely being a man with a limp when you can be called Israel. You can go on a date or be stood up and not ever really be able to pinpoint why exactly it worked or didn’t, but what is the point of limping around when alone you won a wrestling match with that which was wronger than yourself. You can pass a test, or an interview, after failing others, and still not know why you were chosen for this career path, but know that you wrestled until the morning came. In the light of morning Jacob saw that there was more to life then the wrestling match, more to life then the wrestling match with the man, and more to life than the wrestling match with his brother. There were still blessing to come.
Jacob, true to form, did not let go without a blessing. Jacob held onto the man, even as day breaking. The man says, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.”
But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.”
So the man 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 the man said, “Why is it that you ask my name?”
And there he blessed him.
This morning, after a much delayed flight, and good, but utterly exhausting vacation, I left my friend Marci’s house just as the day was breaking. All night I had thought of many things, of a sermon too tired to be written though I certainly tried, of my friends and I waiting for crushes to call, of the friends I needed to call, and the scenarios and memories in my own life which needed attention and revision. My list of should’ofs and shouldnt’ofs, and need tos. I listened again to my sermon podcasts as the flats of Boise stretched behind me into the pink sunrise, and soon my podcasts were over and I pressed play on my CD wondering what was in the disk drive. Then the music of blessing poured out from the unnamed and one of my favorite summer albums began to play and I rolled open the sunroof. The shadows of my imagination which had once held the nightmares of all that today would bring, were illuminated amber on the slowly rising and twisting hills. And I knew that no matter what today brought, that I had been blessed, blessed with the clarity that came from a life of wrestling, and the gift that comes from a unnamed God of blessing.
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.
