I don’t know what your opinion of
Jacob is but I don’t like him. He
lies. He cheats. He steals.
And he swindles. While he gets
caught from time to time he usually gets the better end of the deal and comes
out on top. At the beginning of today’s
reading I consider Jacob to be a coward.
He’s heading home and at some point he’s going to have to face his
brother. You’ll remember well that the
last time these two were together Esau avowed to kill Jacob. After all, Jacob had swindled him in a pretty
big way. Now Jacob learns that Esau is
coming out to meet him with 400 men.
Jacob could only imagine this to be an army.
Should Jacob run away? Where would he go? He was already on the move away from his
uncle Laban. Jacob decides to send
presents to his brother. Perhaps these
will placate Esau’s anger, and also Jacob can learn how Esau reacts. If Esau destroys them violently Jacob knows
he’s in trouble. Do you see how Jacob is
using other people and other things as a buffer around himself?
Jacob prays to God asking for
help. It’s hard to know how sincere this
prayer is. It is definitely the prayer
of a desperate man. And then he does
what I think is the most cowardly thing of all.
He separates himself from his wives and children and goes off by himself. No one knows exactly what he meant to do with
this. It looks to me like a man who is
running away. Let Esau kill the wives
and children and have all the stuff. If
he comes looking for Jacob among them, the most likely place to look, Jacob
will be gone; total cowardice.
Jacob may be able to flee from
Esau. Jacob could not flee from
God. You simply can’t get away from God,
as Jacob discovered.
The wrestling match between Jacob and
this mysterious man, who we later learn is God, is about the most bizarre
stories in the Bible. It raises hosts of
questions, most especially, how can it be that God can’t beat Jacob? But I suggest you set a literal
interpretation of this text aside if you can.
In the same way Adam and Eve aren’t intended to be seen as historical
people neither do I think the equality in this wrestling match is to be taken
literally.
There are two issues in play here, and
that is where we are to focus. First,
God makes Jacob a down and desperate man.
To use terms of struggling with an addiction, Jacob hits rock
bottom. He’s in deep trouble. All is lost.
There’s nowhere to turn. There’s
no one to help him, and there’s no one to blame but himself.
We all have struggles in life. Sometimes we have to learn things the hard
way. I wouldn’t wish anyone to have to
bottom out before they can begin to recover but sometimes it is that way. And God takes Jacob there. God completely takes away Jacob’s ability to
fend for himself. He will emerge from
this wrestling match limping and injured.
Actually the text is probably using euphemisms here when it says the man
struck Jacob on the hip socket. A
serious permanent injury, yes. But
you’ll remember from last week that Jacob was having lots of kids. He’ll have one more, but that one’s already
been conceived. There will be no
more. This injury has probably caused
sterilization for him.
Do you see how incredibly rock bottom
Jacob has become? God has even had to take away a big part of his manhood. Harsh; but when we the readers take a step
back and consider all the deceptive schemes this man has been up to his whole
life and the number of people he’s swindled, we realize he probably deserves
it.
Before we move forward there is the
second issue in play here. Look
carefully at the order of events in this wrestling match. Jacob’s been wrestling with this man all
night until daybreak. He’s exhausted,
and now he’s been crippled with a serious injury. Does Jacob let go? He has no hope of winning after all. No. He
doesn’t. He clings on.
Put yourself in the place of a Jew
living in exile in Babylon in the sixth century B.C. Your nation’s defeated. Your capital city lies in ruins. The temple, the house of God, the house where
God has promised to dwell forever, has been destroyed. You feel as beaten down and helpless as Jacob
did. Are you going to let go? Are you going to give up on faith? Are you going to say, “Well, I guess God’s
promises weren’t real after all. And
perhaps there is no God at all.” Indeed
some Jews did feel that way. But many
did not. Instead they clung on, and just
like Jacob refusing to let go without a blessing so too did the Jews cling on
to God and remind God of his promises:
You promised us a land. You
promised to dwell in the temple. You
promised an ancestor of David would be king.
Why couldn’t God truly beat Jacob in
the story? It is for the exact same
reason that God remains bound by his promises.
God could have annihilated Jacob that night. God could have had the Babylonians completely
destroy the Jews for their sins. But God
had made promises. And they were going
to hang on and boldly hold God to those promises.
We often think of faith as a personal
experience where we seek tranquility and peace.
It can be that way, and indeed it often is. But it isn’t necessarily so. Our Jewish faith ancestors knew that faith
could resemble a wrestling match with God.
Each hurts the other, but neither ever lets go.
God wouldn’t let go of Jacob no matter
how cowardly and disgusting his life was, and Jacob wouldn’t let go of God
either. That is true faith.
The next day Jacob faces his own
problems for the first time in his life.
Alone, limping, emasculated… Jacob goes out in front of his wives and
children and servants and many possessions to meet his brother. He has no possibility whatsoever of defending
himself. What will come will come, and
he’s going to have to take it like a doormat.
The story takes a startling turn. Esau is not at all mad but rejoices to be
reunited with his brother! And there’s
more. Esau asks why Jacob had sent all
the gifts. Jacob says they were to find
favor with him. But Esau says, “I have
enough my brother; keep what you have for yourself.”
Esau is not asking for anything, not
even his birthright which Jacob swindled from him, and not even the blessing of
their father which Jacob outright stole from him. Esau doesn’t even ask for an apology. Esau is kind, merciful and forgiving. He embodies every virtue the Bible holds up.
That is one of the most bizarre story
twists I’ve ever encountered. You’ll
remember that the Jews traced their ancestry to Jacob. The nearby nation of the Edomites traced
their ancestry to Esau. The Jews hated
the Edomites and the Edomites hated the Jews.
Yet here in Jewish scripture we find that Jacob, their ancestor, acts
scandalously most of the time. Esau, the
ancestor of one of their enemies, embodies all virtue.
Jacob has had a long hard road. He’s been a tough character. But God never let go of him. And Jacob wouldn’t let go of God either. Though the story isn’t nice Jacob finally
comes round to where God wants him to be.
It would be wrong to say, “And they all lived happily ever after,”
because they didn’t. We’re going to skip
over most of the remaining chapters about Jacob’s life, but from here on out we
find Jacob a more honest man. It took a
long time and a lot of pain for him to get there.
May we learn from Jacob’s mistakes and
have the integrity and courage he shows without having to have a wrestling
match with God. But know that if necessary
God will do what God needs to do to have you.
May we always cling to God with the same ferocity that God clings to us.
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