Genesis 32:22-31
During the night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants, and his eleven children and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He got them safely across the brook along with all his possessions.
But Jacob stayed behind by himself, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he couldn’t get the best of Jacob as they wrestled, he deliberately threw Jacob’s hip out of joint.
The man said, “Let me go; it’s daybreak.”
Jacob said, “I’m not letting you go ’til you bless me.”
The man said, “What’s your name?”
He answered, “Jacob.”
The man said, “But no longer. Your name is no longer Jacob. From now on it’s Israel (God-Wrestler); you’ve wrestled with God and you’ve come through.”
Jacob asked, “And what’s your name?”
The man said, “Why do you want to know my name?” And then, right then and there, he blessed him.
Jacob named the place Peniel (God’s Face) because, he said, “I saw God face-to-face and lived to tell the story!”
The sun came up as he left Peniel, limping because of his hip. (This is why Israelites to this day don’t eat the hip muscle; because Jacob’s hip was thrown out of joint.)
When I was younger, back in the days when I was still a loyal Catholic, my husband and I were close friends with the young Irish priest who served our local parish. This parish had a school attached to it and it was part of Fr. Dan’s day to make the rounds of the classrooms and chat with the kids.
One day when Dan arrived in a certain classroom he was greeted with this question: Is it true that when Mary died the room was filled with the scent of roses? Being fairly young and none too versed in parish politics Dan answered honestly: No – that’s just a nice story that shows the love and reverence we have for the Mother of Jesus.
Well later that day, Dan got reamed up one side and down the other by Sr. Mary-Whoever who was that classroom’s teacher – and the person who had told the children the story in the first place. Dan learned that day that it is never a good idea to casually discount another person’s mythology.
And that’s what this reading is today – a piece of the Hebrew peoples’ mythologizing of their relationship with God. This kind of mythologizing is a recounting of an event – most often with grandiose detail added to emphasize the importance of the event and the people involved.
Everyday human transactions are easy to forget in time. But the ones that truly have an effect on us tend to grow in our retellings – not because we intend to lie but because they just seem that important to us – we use verbal frills to make sure everyone understands their importance. In time, these “frills’ become part of the story. Sometimes – over long lengths of time and many repetitions – they become the most important part of the story, all that we remember.
The story for today – Jacob wrestling with an angel -- is a story that has puzzled readers for generations. It seems to tell an exciting story, but when you stop and think about it afterwards it really doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense.
Let’s set some background, first. Years ago, after Jacob had cheated his brother Esau out of his legitimate eldest-son’s blessing, he had run away to live with his uncle Laban. Over the years he had worked for Laban, married his two wives Rachel and Leah and had become a rich man himself. He was so successful that he was now crowding Uncle Laban and things were getting tense between them. At this point Jacob received a message from God telling him that it was time now to go home, take up his stolen blessing, and make peace with Esau.
And so he did, he and his wives and his servants and his flocks. They packed up and left, stealing as much as they thought they could get away with in the process. It’s important to remember that Jacob truly is a thief and a scoundrel. That’s a key piece of this story. And here is where our reading picks up today.
Jacob is understandably tense at the prospect of facing Esau again so he sends everybody else across the river into home territory but stays behind himself for one last night alone – maybe to wind up his courage. It is entirely typical of Jacob that he sends his wives and children off to an unknown reception in what he has every reason to assume is hostile territory, and remains behind himself.
Read at just a surface level, this is a nonsensical story. Some stranger comes out of nowhere and attacks Jacob and they wrestle all night long – and then we have this “important detail” that the stranger throws Jacob’s hip out of joint – this point appears to be important to the Hebrews, signifying something we really don’t get – and then Jacob decides the stranger was God.
We can – and do – explain the wrestling as metaphorical. We have all, I suspect, at some point in our lives, wrestled with God – not literally, not really – but still legitimate emotional wrestling. But if we allow that to be the point of the story then we risk missing what I believe is absolutely the most important part, which is that Jacob was given a new name. And with that new name, Jacob truly does appear to become a new person.
Jacob was a thief and a con-man. Israel is not. Israel makes peace with his brother – acknowledging his wrong and offering to make it as right as he can. Israel settles into fatherhood and becomes a good citizen. It appears that Israel, once free of carrying the burden that had been Jacob – a burden that told him he had to cheat and connive to get through life – Israel could now become the one whom God always intended him to be.
What names do we put on ourselves? What names do we put on others? Have you ever thought – when you are calling yourself loser, or stupid, or useless or ugly or whichever of the dozens of ugly things we have to choose among that we occasionally decide to call ourselves – do you ever remember that that is not the name by which God calls you? Do you ever -- when you’re yelling at someone on the TV or that driver who just almost hit you – or the friend who has betrayed and hurt you – do you really think that is the name by which God calls them?
Jacob bore the burden of his name for years before God set him free to be Israel. God said, in effect, You don’t have to be that Jacob anymore. You never have been that ‘Jacob’ to me. Now you will know yourself as the one I’ve always known you to be – you are ‘Israel,’ my beloved child.
What name do you carry in your own heart, your own mind? Is it the name God calls you when God speaks to tell you that you are loved? When we talk about others, are the names we use the names that God uses for them?
What burdens do we place on other’s shoulders with the names we give them? What unnecessary burdens do we carry ourselves when we live the name the world gives us rather than the name that God has given us?
When God calls us by name, that name is always Beloved Child.
One day when Dan arrived in a certain classroom he was greeted with this question: Is it true that when Mary died the room was filled with the scent of roses? Being fairly young and none too versed in parish politics Dan answered honestly: No – that’s just a nice story that shows the love and reverence we have for the Mother of Jesus.
Well later that day, Dan got reamed up one side and down the other by Sr. Mary-Whoever who was that classroom’s teacher – and the person who had told the children the story in the first place. Dan learned that day that it is never a good idea to casually discount another person’s mythology.
And that’s what this reading is today – a piece of the Hebrew peoples’ mythologizing of their relationship with God. This kind of mythologizing is a recounting of an event – most often with grandiose detail added to emphasize the importance of the event and the people involved.
Everyday human transactions are easy to forget in time. But the ones that truly have an effect on us tend to grow in our retellings – not because we intend to lie but because they just seem that important to us – we use verbal frills to make sure everyone understands their importance. In time, these “frills’ become part of the story. Sometimes – over long lengths of time and many repetitions – they become the most important part of the story, all that we remember.
The story for today – Jacob wrestling with an angel -- is a story that has puzzled readers for generations. It seems to tell an exciting story, but when you stop and think about it afterwards it really doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense.
Let’s set some background, first. Years ago, after Jacob had cheated his brother Esau out of his legitimate eldest-son’s blessing, he had run away to live with his uncle Laban. Over the years he had worked for Laban, married his two wives Rachel and Leah and had become a rich man himself. He was so successful that he was now crowding Uncle Laban and things were getting tense between them. At this point Jacob received a message from God telling him that it was time now to go home, take up his stolen blessing, and make peace with Esau.
And so he did, he and his wives and his servants and his flocks. They packed up and left, stealing as much as they thought they could get away with in the process. It’s important to remember that Jacob truly is a thief and a scoundrel. That’s a key piece of this story. And here is where our reading picks up today.
Jacob is understandably tense at the prospect of facing Esau again so he sends everybody else across the river into home territory but stays behind himself for one last night alone – maybe to wind up his courage. It is entirely typical of Jacob that he sends his wives and children off to an unknown reception in what he has every reason to assume is hostile territory, and remains behind himself.
Read at just a surface level, this is a nonsensical story. Some stranger comes out of nowhere and attacks Jacob and they wrestle all night long – and then we have this “important detail” that the stranger throws Jacob’s hip out of joint – this point appears to be important to the Hebrews, signifying something we really don’t get – and then Jacob decides the stranger was God.
We can – and do – explain the wrestling as metaphorical. We have all, I suspect, at some point in our lives, wrestled with God – not literally, not really – but still legitimate emotional wrestling. But if we allow that to be the point of the story then we risk missing what I believe is absolutely the most important part, which is that Jacob was given a new name. And with that new name, Jacob truly does appear to become a new person.
Jacob was a thief and a con-man. Israel is not. Israel makes peace with his brother – acknowledging his wrong and offering to make it as right as he can. Israel settles into fatherhood and becomes a good citizen. It appears that Israel, once free of carrying the burden that had been Jacob – a burden that told him he had to cheat and connive to get through life – Israel could now become the one whom God always intended him to be.
What names do we put on ourselves? What names do we put on others? Have you ever thought – when you are calling yourself loser, or stupid, or useless or ugly or whichever of the dozens of ugly things we have to choose among that we occasionally decide to call ourselves – do you ever remember that that is not the name by which God calls you? Do you ever -- when you’re yelling at someone on the TV or that driver who just almost hit you – or the friend who has betrayed and hurt you – do you really think that is the name by which God calls them?
Jacob bore the burden of his name for years before God set him free to be Israel. God said, in effect, You don’t have to be that Jacob anymore. You never have been that ‘Jacob’ to me. Now you will know yourself as the one I’ve always known you to be – you are ‘Israel,’ my beloved child.
What name do you carry in your own heart, your own mind? Is it the name God calls you when God speaks to tell you that you are loved? When we talk about others, are the names we use the names that God uses for them?
What burdens do we place on other’s shoulders with the names we give them? What unnecessary burdens do we carry ourselves when we live the name the world gives us rather than the name that God has given us?
When God calls us by name, that name is always Beloved Child.
RSS Feed