JACOB
Genesis 32: 22-31
Methodist minister and author William Willimon
calls Anne Tyler’s novel SAINT MAYBE “one of our century’s greatest novels
about the church. It is the story of Ian, a wonderfully ordinary person who, by
the novel’s end, has done some absolutely extraordinary things….” He experiences
redemption, but at a price. He lets his
human emotions, feelings, and drives, cloud his judgment and something terrible
happens because of it. He is burdened by the event that he indirectly caused
and was crafty in trying to lie about the circumstances. His guilt goes with him in his early life
until he has his reckoning with God through a quirky storefront church he finds
in his wanderings. And he learns that guilt may sometimes be seen as God trying
to set a soul at peace so that learning takes place and good works begin. By
the end of the novel, Ian’s difficult adopted daughter looks at the changes
that Ian has made in his life, and the ways he has started to think about
others and declares that “Ian is a saint … maybe.”
In many ways we are talking about Jacob’s story too, and
about your story. Is there a time or are
there times, that either gnaw at you today, or that you have had to stuff under
the mattress of the bed made out of your own messes? If you haven’t yet crossed over the costly
bridge of forgiveness, a bridge made of rough timbers as were used by the
Romans in their crucifixions, a bridge the timbers of which are lashed together
with cords of remorse, lines of repentance, and nails of restitution, then you
may not yet have had your renewal and redemption. You may indeed have troubled
sleep, an ache in your heart, or physical ailments that are exacerbated by
unresolved guilt. Let’s look at Jacob’s story and consider it through the lens
of your life.
We have looked at Jacob over the last weeks and wondered why
God would honor him with all that he had done that was self-serving. He tries
to be the first to be born even though he is second, because being first
carried special rewards. He was rewarded with the name his parents gave him:
Jacob—supplanter, cheat, mean one, crafty. How nice.
Indeed Jacob decided he needed to fulfill the destiny of his name. Together
with his mother Rebekah, he cheated his brother out
of his birthright blessing by deluding his increasingly blind father, Isaac. He
may have won the battle, but until he wrestles with that “angel” in that dream,
he had lost the war. He has a time with his dream about the ladder that makes
him think that he has found God’s graces.
But like his name change later to Israel, and like the people who bear
his name, and perhaps even like you and me, without the cost paid for
repentance, his encounter with God did not totally change him; it temporarily changed him. He then began to
have some success in life, especially as he finds Laban,
one of his relatives, where he has traveled. But Jacob did not yet feel totally
blessed by God, he had received a blessing through his father by trickery and he
had gotten directions and assurance from God in the dream about the ladder. But
then he hoped to marry Laban’s daughter Rachel but
must ask for her hand from Laban. Laban
tricks the trickster, having him consummate his wedding not with Rachel, but
with his older daughter with the weak eyes, Leah. He would get his love Rachel,
he then learns, if he serves Laban another 7
years! And he’s told he’ll gets his freedom if he tends to Laban’s
flocks another 7 years beyond that! They end up at Mizpah
in a covenant of distrust, Jacob and Laban. Jacob clearly
has not cleared his guilt with God. He sees angels of God as he departs
according to 32:1, but he still was greatly afraid, even of his brother Esau.
He is dreading revenge from the one he had wronged. And as often happens when
we are troubled, we may wrestle with our demons in the darkness of night, but
Jacob wrestles with a man or an angel of God instead. He believed that he had
not yet truly been touched by God; he had heard the words, but his countenance
had not changed. That night the way he saw the world changed, as a figure of
God, sometimes called an angel, sometimes called a man, wrestled with him all
night long. He was tormented in his mind, wrought by fear of revenge by the one
he had wronged. You perhaps know that
feeling and that anguish too.
The figure of God did touch
him as requested, but his request crippled him for the rest of his life. And
the figure/angel of God renames him, taking him out from the burden of his name
–supplanter, mean one, cheat—and gives him a new
name—Israel—the one who wrestled with
God, in this case to receive God’s blessing, not because he was good, but
because he was tormented and sorry. The
blessing, however, did not take away his fear. And Jacob did not face his brother
that morning with any less fear. When God blesses you, peace in your heart does
not mean the world will not throw trouble at you; it still will. In Jacob’s
case, it wasn’t through shrewdness or anything he earned that Jacob felt the
touch of God’s blessing; it was purely through grace that poured forth from the
brother he had cheated years before. Jacob, now Israel, found peace. Esau,
ironically, displayed grace: it’s the one
wronged who can decide whether or not to forgive. Without that, Jacob might
have had nightmares for a lifetime.
Jacob still was not without his problems: in the next chapter
his daughter is molested and his sons, who emulated their father, to vengefully
use a crafty method to kill all the men involved. Sins often travel from one
generation to another because children learn from their parents.
In SAINT MAYBE, Ian was tormented by his early actions and
spent years later trying to atone for them. In Jacob’s story, he was tormented
by his early actions and had nightmares about them. He returned more than once
to austere surroundings, building altars to God hoping to appease God. But only sincere contrition, lessons truly
learned, and atonement that happens personally and from God, can square your
account with God and with your brother or sister.
Is there something that still troubles you from a recent
experience or from your teenage years? Is there something you did that caused
great harm to another? How can anyone
truly get the redeeming experience of Holy Communion when something in their
lives is still left undone? Communion with God will only lead to forgiveness
and blessing from God when honest confession and remorseful actions take place.
So today, Communion may draw you closer to the God who wants to bless you, or
push a wedge farther between you because you have left a confession, an
apology, or a changed life on the road of good intentions. Nothing ever counts when it is left at the side of the road of good
intentions. Make changes today; make changes this week; make communion make
a difference in your life, and the blood of Jesus save you instead of stain you. Two persons convicted of crimes, hung on
either side of Jesus on