Wrestling with God

Text this week: Genesis 32:22-32

My favorite Religion professor at Augustana College had a door filled with stories, quotes and comics, and I spent a healthy chunk of my undergraduate time reading that wisdom again and again. One story in particular always grabbed my attention. It was the story of a 17^th century man and his family who were shipwrecked in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. They managed to swim to a small, desolate island where they struggled to get by. Nobody came to rescue them. Slowly over time the man’s family became diseased and died—first the youngest children, then the oldest and finally his wife, until the man alone was left. When it was only him remaining he turned to the sky and shouted, “God, I know you are trying to get me to not believe in you, but I refuse to give in. I will believe in you in spite of everything.”

            I can’t help but think of that shipwrecked man when I think of Jacob. In today’s reading Jacob was left alone at the banks of the Jabbok River. This is the first time, since Adam was without Eve in the Garden of Eden, that anybody in the Bible is described as being alone. And, just like the shipwrecked man, when he found himself alone Jacob wrestled. The man shipwrecked on the island wrestled with God’s will in the face of sorrow and loss; Jacob wrestles with something just as personal—a mysterious man, a kind of God-figure, who came in the night. The stakes are high for both. In the face of loss and terror, an uncertain future and a broken past, both Jacob and the shipwrecked man wrestle for the things that matter most: their faith and their lives.

            Jacob teaches us at the Jabbok River is that it is OK to grapple with God. In fact, God needs people strong enough to question everything dear to them in this hostile world. God needs people who can stand up in the face of tragedy and proclaim in spite of it all that “We know you are trying to get us to not believe in you, God, but we refuse to do it.” When Jacob stole the birthright of Esau he chose the harder path, and this is his reward. There’s a difference between wrestling and “wrassling,” a teacher of mine once said. When you wrestle you have to follow the rules, but in “wrassling” there are no rules. This man-God-figure Jacob encounters is most definitely a wrassler, and he shows it when Jacob refuses to let go. It’s painful, quite literally, when God gives you a whack, but incredibly even that blow is not enough to make Jacob let go. This is for him a matter of faith, as much as it is a matter of physical strength. Our world is in need of those willing to accept the challenge to their faith, to wrestle with God’s will for us and ask the most difficult questions. We need more Jacobs.

            Most of us don’t think about the hard side of faith very often, because the path of deference and obedience seems the more faithful road to travel. Yet, if we look close God was the one who initiated the struggle with Jacob. It’s not that God tested Jacob with misfortune—Jacob brought that upon himself—but God does challenge his faith. And when God wrestles he blesses those strong enough to prevail against him. This is kind of a crazy thought. I mean, nobody can actually hold down and subdue God. I’m not talking about making God do our will or suggesting that we can have any power whatsoever over the divine. Instead, I am talking about standing up when those challenges and tragedies come into our lives and proclaiming, along with the shipwrecked man on the island, that our faith is not dependent on receiving good things or easy times; in fact, our faith is about proclaiming Christ crucified in the face of every power of this world that’s shouting otherwise. That is what Jacob is doing by refusing to let go. He is proclaiming that his faith is strong enough to take the blows.

            There’s a Lutheran historian and theologian by the name of Jim Nestingen who is famous in Lutheran circles for his teaching and his stories that are almost completely untrue but also so utterly engaging that you cannot help but want them to be. So, I heard this story from Jim and it may or may not be true, but I’m going to treat it like it is, just like he would.

Jim was attending the funeral of his professor’s wife. His professor, whose name I can’t recall, but it was something like “Papa Schmidt” so that’s the name I’m going to give him, was a gentle giant of a man and also, by the way, a Lutheran theologian to the core. In the receiving line at the prayer service preceding the funeral, Papa Schmidt grabbed a hold of Jim Nestingen (who is not a small man by anyone’s definition), put him in a big bear hug, picked him off the ground and said, “Oh, Jimmy, I’m so glad you have come to remind me of the promise that my wife had in Jesus Christ, our Lord. I’m so glad you came to tell me that her sins are washed away in the waters of her baptism and that Christ died for her sake. Thank you, Jimmy, for coming to remind me of the forgiveness of sins and the resurrection of the dead.”

            He was doing this with every single person in the receiving line.

            But you know what? That is that man on an island screaming at God that I know the reality of my situation looks dire, I know you have taken from me what I love most, but what of it? I believe nonetheless. That is Jacob wrestling with God all night long and refusing to let go even when it is painful. To wrestle with God is to stare down our mortality. So for Jacob, or the shipwrecked man, or Papa Schmidt, giving up the fight is not an option. To prevail is to keep at it; to look mortality in the face and demand something better, because we know the promises—we know the end of the story. Death is met by resurrection.

            When we prevail against God, God is going to give us a good whack, just as the man did with Jacob. God’s going to give us a limp. None of us can walk in wholeness before God. The Hebrew word for limp here is “tsala,” which is the same word for “rib.” It all brings us back to Adam and Eve. From the rib of Adam came Eve; one set in need of another. Just as Adam needed Eve for companionship, Jacob limps through the world in desperate need of finding his other side. For Jacob it has a double-meaning. He is half a twin to Esau, and he is a half a man without God. We have very similar limps. We need that other side—that completing rib. For us, just as for Jacob, we are in need of God. The very thing that we are wrestling with through this long life is the thing that we need to make ourselves whole.

            So, wrestle away. Obedience has its place, but Jacob reminds us it is no less faithful to look God straight in the eyes and refuse to let go. There is no fear or pain so horrid that it is beyond God’s grasp. What Jacob understood is that when God challenges us the key is to not let go. It will be painful; it will be awfully tempting to say, “So long, God. You have been an absolute brute. I have no time for you.” But the blessing only comes after the pain. Jacob refuses to let go, just as the shipwrecked man refuses to let go of his faith. May each of you have a faith so strong to wrestle with God in the face of adversity. May each of you refuse to let go.