“Stories of the Faith: Wrestling with Angels” Gen 32: 22-30

To date, the Bible is the most often republished and best selling book in the world. I think its because we have the greatest story to tell - the story of redemption and grace, yet many Christians have a hard time defining what they believe. They have a hard time telling how the story of God, as present in the Bible, intersects with their faith story. So for the next several months we are going to study some of the stories of the faith that meet our own personal faith journeys. In fact, despite what you may have been told the best tool you have for evangelism isn’t a picture, or knowing the four steps to salvation, but your own story. Because stories matter. 

Today we have gathered together to explore the story of Jacob - the patriarch of Israel. But before we can speak about his experience of wrestling with God, we need to know some of his back story. Just like our stories, which can be told as single moments in time, they become so much richer when woven into the tapestry of our history, both personal and communal. 

Jacob was one of the twins who were born to Rebekah and Isaac. We aren’t told much about Isaac after he was taken to be sacrificed by his father Abraham. All we know is that Isaac returned with his half brother Ishmael to Abraham’s grave upon his death. We also know that Isaac committed some of the same faux-pauxs as his father, trying to give his wife Rebekah away at one point when in a foreign land just to save his own skin. Beyond that Isaac is not spoken of much until the birth of his sons, Esau, or hairy one, and Jacob. 

Esau was well loved by his father. A strong hunter, he would often bring game back to be cooked and served to his father who could no longer hunt on his own. In contract, his twin, Jacob, like to cook and stay behind in camp with the women. While Esau was certainly Isaacs favorite, Jacob had a special place in Rebekah’s heart. And while Esau excelled at hunting in his early days, Jacob seemed to specialize in trickery. He tricked his twin out of both his birthright and his blessing, leading for Jacob to be chased out of his homeland to his Uncle Laban’s. 

If anyone was a match for Jacob in terms of trickery it was his uncle. Laban intentionally gave him the wrong daughter in marriage. In return, Jacob ran a scheme with his Uncle’s sheep.  Then his Uncle chased after him when he was leaving town with his 11 sons at this point, 4 wives, and daughter, in order to relocate his home, thinking that Jacob stole his family idol. 

Enter the story xfwhere we find ourselves this morning. Jacob is moving his tribe. He was troubled because he was returning to his home land but it isn’t really home anymore. His mother, the one who loved him best, is long deceased. His relationship with his brother is strained at best, murderous at worse. So he send the women and children ahead of him, and he stayed behind as they forged across the river. During the night a man, whom we often identify as an angel, comes and wrestles with Jacob until daybreak. Back and forth they went, but Jacob would not let go, even as dawn was breaking, until the man blessed him. 

Years ago, Bill Moyers did a series of interviews with religious scholars and leaders based on the book of Genesis. I love how Moyers panel describes the book of Genesis, “The stories of Genesis are about a life in the making”. This was certainly true of Jacob. The story of Genesis is the story of his life in the making, as he sheds his ways of trickery, and claimed life for an entire nation. 

Yet, having a life in the making is hard work. At this point in the story Jacob has received word that Esau wants to make peace, wants to set aside all of the ill feelings between them in order to start anew, and Jacob just can’t believe him. So he sends his clan on to face the brother he feared while he stayed behind in the darkness of night.

Remember that night time was a time of vulnerability in this culture. You wanted to have your people and animals around to protect you from other animals and robbers. You wanted the safety of numbers, yet it is exactly during this vulnerable moment that Jacob wrestled with an angel. 

What about you? Have you ever wrestled with God? I doubt that you have physically have wrestled with God, but you probably have emotionally and spiritually wrestled with the Creator.

A good friend once described this passage of scripture to me by asking if I would wrestle with a Sumo – Wrestler. He took my laughter to be the obvious response. Here I am a petite girl, there is no possible way that I am going to beat a skilled Sumo-wrestler, much larger then me. So why would Jacob wrestle God, knowing that it would be worse than a Sumo-Wrestler taking on little Michelle. And an even better question is why did God let Jacob win? This is not a fairly matched fight, folks, God had the power to crush Jacob, but chose not to.  Instead, this episode of wrestling went on until daybreak. Until that season and sense of vulnerability lifted, and Jacob demanded a blessing before he would let go. Before he would give up. And the blessing he received? A change in name. 

Now we don’t exactly know what Jacob was expecting or asking for when it came to a blessing. But I doubt that he was looking for a whole new identity. For a name signifies not only who we are, but our past. Our baggage. And it points us towards the future. Jacob may have been looking for a blessing that bought into the myth that blessing means everything is perfect, but instead he was given the gift of a new start. Not a perfect new start. But a new beginning. A new future, if he so wishes. 

Could Jacob have received a better blessing? For as Christian author once wrote, “In the ancient Near East your name was more than just words. Name was identity. Your name was reflective of your character, your substance, the very fiber that made you, you. Your name told who you are.”. And he isn’t the only one who God blesses by changing their name. Abram became Abraham and Sari became Sarah and Saul became Paul, just to name a few. God took the identity of who they were, how the world defined them, and banished it. It is like God whipped the slate clean by saying “No, you think this is who you are, but really THIS is who I created you to be.” Do you see the beauty in that? God wants us to see ourselves through his eyes, the only eyes that really matter for anything in the end. 

Our name and our purpose are unique. We are not called to do what Israel, Abraham, or Paul did. We are called to do what we were made to do. Somewhere along the way the church has confused this message and we get the idea that God wants us all to be the same. To look the same, act the same, but at that point we might as well be the same person with the same name. And that is NOT how we are identified by God. I think this idea probably came from a misreading of what Paul meant when he tells us to lose our identity in Christ. We have tried to make that into a strict set of dos and don’ts in order to become Christ like. For example: read your Bible x number of hours a day. And it’s not that reading the Bible is a bad thing, but through our relationship with Christ, God defines who we were created to be. God wants to work with the personality God gave us to save the world. He wants you to fully live out who you were created to be in order to serve God. 

So may you be reminded who you are, by your creator, God almighty. May you come to wrestle with God and be blessed through him bestowing your new identity on you. And may you live out that identity fully, letting your unique story be written as a reflection of your name. Amen.