Limping Ever After

Jacob is a man on the run. He plays fast and loose. A shady character. And yet one of the patriarchs of our faith. From his birth he is a trickster, an operator . . . grabbing, scrambling. He swindles his twin Esau out of the family birthright. Later he and his mom connive to steal the family blessing from his blind dad. When his brother Esau tries to murder him, Jacob flees to his uncle Laban who turns out to be a manipulative mess in himself. The narrative has so much dysfunction, so much hostility. Yet as our mysterious story begins today, Jacob’s life is pretty good. He’s well off and comfortable.

I dare say we’ve been on the run. At least before March 2020. Hurrying and scurrying. Playing fast and loose. Swindling more than our share from our siblings. Repressing our nation’s tragic history of racism. Tricking our minds into believing that we could abuse and pollute the earth with no consequences. Living with plenty privilege, and more than enough dysfunction and hostility.

Deceitful Jacob—true to his name as a heel-grabber—concocts a bribe to deal with his brother’s murderous threats. He sends a caravan across the river Jabbok: women, children, and all his assets. And then he collapses by the river and falls into a deep sleep.

We know what it is like to be worn out and exhausted and to have a restless, sleepless night. Oh, how the mind can play tricks on us, and all the demons come out to play. When I was in the Colorado mountains last month, I had a night in which I couldn’t sleep at all. It was elusive. I’ve been at high altitudes all my life, but when combined with dehydration, wine, and strenuous exercise, I felt helpless. I couldn’t quite breathe naturally. Thankfully, in mile-high Denver sweet sleep returned.

Jacob spends the night, wrestling in the mud with an elusive, mysterious figure? A man? An angel? A divine being? His demons? The spirit of his brother Esau? Was it a dream, a nightmare, an apparition?

My only experience with wrestling was in eighth grade PE. And my memories, well, aren’t so pleasant. I do know you don’t want to get pinned down! But our own Pastor Ben wrestled from middle school through college, and later became a wrestling coach. Even with all the infections, sprains, surgeries, and broken limbs, he has no regrets, at least that’s what he said in a 2016 sermon I still remember! More than anything in life, Ben says that wrestling has taught him the beauty of struggling for a goal.

We’re in the struggle of our lives these days. And we are pinned down: as a country, as individuals. Unable to move about, unable to breathe without worry. It’s a once-in-a-century reckoning. Our nerve is tested. Our faith is tested. We aren’t sure of anything right now. And the struggle is downright freaky.

Is the figure that wrestles Jacob his adversary or his advocate? Is this pandemic— this moment of racial reckoning, this reset—the worst thing that ever happened to us, or in some ways, the best thing that could happen? Who knows.

Life most of life’s struggles, we didn’t choose this one—the shock, and the interruption, wrestling away from us everything we knew or thought we knew.

This week I returned to one of my favorite books that uses the story of the wrestler Jacob as a guiding image. Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope by Benedictine sister, Joan Chittister. It seems more relevant than ever. And I would recommend it highly!

There is no growth without resistance, Joan writes. Sometimes we, like Jacob, struggle through the night, without any hope of winning. It’s persistence that brings resilience. We get pinned down, we get up, we go on. Wrestling isn’t passive. It demands engagement.

Maybe all our struggles are really wrestling with God in some way. We could say the elusive God of this story isn’t safe and sanitized—rather, gets down and dirty to lift us out of the muck. And leaves room for—welcomes—our resistance, our questions, our participation in the wrestling match of life. As one writer says, the opposite of loving God isn’t fighting God. The opposite of loving God is not giving enough of a damn to fight. (Debie Thomas)

This season is an opportunity for great social change, great spiritual renewal, a great reprioritization of values and commitments. Yet it will not come without resistance. As Saul Alinsky, the great social reformer said, “Change means movement. Movement means friction.”

And there will be wounds, there will be lifelong scars, as Ben reminds us. It’s what wrestling is. It’s what life is. The Divine Wrestler dislocates Jacob’s hip. From now on, Jacob’s body and soul will be marked by the struggle. He will be limping ever after. He will have a new name, Israel, insinuating he will have a lifetime of striving, yet prevailing.

As Chittister adds, “The burden of humanity is the knowledge that at any time any one of us, all of us, may be brought down to size, defeated, left to bear it. The message of the struggle is clear: No one, nothing, is totally invulnerable.”

As day breaks, the divine wrestler is done and wants Jacob to let go. But in a most profound, poignant moment, ever-tenacious Jacob says, “no, I will not let you go until you bless me!”

As we wrestle with a mysterious God, with life, with church, with faith, we may want to give up. Walk away. Yet God is in our corner. And there is a blessing in all of it. A blessing in the limp. God hidden in the vulnerability of the cross. In Jesus’ care for the last and the least. God hidden in the heartbreak and struggle. In our fears and hopes, too deep to name.

Hear these words from today’s psalm, that go so well with the story: “Visit me by night, melt me down. When I awake, I shall see your face, I shall be satisfied.”

In today’s gospel, the disciples want to send the hungry crowd away rather than to wrestle with the challenge of feeding a multitude. Yet Jesus blesses the few loaves and fish and there is enough.

There are a multitude of needs this day. As many of us receive communion for the first time since March, Christ comes among us. With great compassion for our world. He comes in the faces of one another—in our homes, on Zoom, in the street. He comes in broken bread, in the brokenness we see all around us. In wounds, in scars, in suffering faces, and in the limp itself.

Christ feeds us and all the world with boundless grace. Even as we become the bread of life for others.

A limp, for sure. Yet no longer on the run. A deep peace comes over us. What we need is here, this day. There is enough.