[Propertalk] Proper 13 a

Sat Aug 2 16:19:35 EDT 2014

Now to edit, after lunch!

Blessings,

Bob

THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY 
THE EIGHTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
GENESIS 32:22-31							               PROPER 13 (A)
ROMANS 9:1-5					                                                   3rd 
AUGUST, 2014	
MATTHEW 14:13-21			                                                              		 
PSALM 17:1-7, 16

	I’m sure many of you remember the line, “Just when you thought it was 
safe to go back in the water...,” It’s become one of the most famous in 
film history and has been parodied and homaged several times. 1

	Jaws 2 tells the story of a second great white shark which terrorized 
the fictitious Amity Island and caused the death of multiple people.

	I thought of that movie, especially of that line, the other day when I 
was thinking about the first reading from Scripture. “Just when you 
thought it was safe to come back to church…”, here’s Jacob once again, 
blundering around, conniving some more, risking other people’s lives, 
yet, somehow, managing to survive yet one more time. Unlike the shark, 
he doesn’t bite a high-voltage power cable and kill himself. Instead, he 
lives with the potential to create more havoc on another day. But a lot 
happened before he woke up on that the new day.

	We spotted Jacob last, dreaming about a ladder on which angels went 
back and forth. This was prior to meeting Rachel, being tricked into 
marrying Leah first, and spending twenty years working for his 
father-in-law.

	Jacob wasn’t totally idle during these years, though. Somehow he found 
time to father eleven children, amass huge flocks of sheep and rams, 
plenty of cattle and camels, donkeys, and, of course, his wives and 
their servants.

	You’d think that he was set for life.

	“After Bethel (and the ladder dream about God’s Presence) Jacob had 
felt strengthened and invigorated, and he had arrived at Harran 
cock-sure and full of confidence. But after Mahanaim, (where he had a 
vision of God’s army of hosts,) he was … in abject terror, thinking only 
of how he could appease an Esau who, he was convinced, must still be 
seeking his life.” 2

	As he crossed the river, Jacob must have felt that he’d been abandoned 
by God.	 Everything had been going his way. He must have thought that 
the success he’d attained was a sign that he need worry about nothing. 
Possibly he became overly confident. Maybe his old self simply couldn’t 
be repressed and he thought that, having managed to get away with it 
thus far, he’d just keep on going.

	That’s when he was brought up short. For perhaps the first time in his 
life, he began to wonder whether or not God was with him, or rather, 
that God’s help would always be forthcoming. He came to the realisation 
that God wasn’t in his back pocket.

	I wonder if you’ve had times like these. I know I have. The scale of 
the situation may have been different, of course, but things seemed to 
be going along pretty well – we were happy; folk around us seemed not to 
bother us too much or, if they did, we could get around them reasonably 
easily; and so on. But then we find some challenge that finally brings 
us up short. We discover that, possibly, not everyone supports or enjoys 
what we’re doing.

	That DOES happen. Thus conniving Jacob separated off a generous part of 
his possessions and sent them off to Esau, trying to buy his peace. Then 
he and Leah and Rachel and their servants and the balance of their herds 
crossed the river and set up camp for the night.

	I doubt if Jacob slept much. His mind would be working out different 
responses to whatever situations Esau and his advancing army might 
present. I identify with the Delacroix illustration reprinted in the 
service leaflet. There are people off to the side and a little below. 
They’re sleeping peacefully, After all, they don’t need to worry. It’s 
Jacob’s problem. He began the whole messy situation; he was responsible.

	One of my seminary professors put it this way.

  	“Jacob’s fears and foreboding, so graphically drawn in the early part 
of the chapter, had so overwhelmed him, that as he crossed the ford, he 
felt that God must have rejected him. In a flash it came to him that God 
not Esau, was his principal antagonist, and here he was standing in his 
way, refusing to let him enter the land he had so often promised to his 
fathers and more than once to Jacob himself. His first thought was to 
collapse, prostrate and shattered, to the ground. Had he not just a few 
hours since been brought to confess his unworthiness, to see himself at 
last in his true colours, and to hate himself for it? This, then, was 
the punishment being pronounced. But no! He was not going to let God get 
away with it. So desperately and long and hard – Gerhard von Rad speaks 
of his ‘suicidal courage’ – he fought him for his blessing, for a 
renewal of that blessing which his father had once spoken in God’s name 
and which he himself – how he regretted it now! – had so disgracefully 
won, and which too all these years in Mesopotamia he had so disdainfully 
taken for granted. And miraculously God gave in! The blessing was given, 
the prize which he could now see was the only thing that in his life was 
his again. Limping, battered and bruised by the struggle, but 
nevertheless triumphant, a new Jacob was in that moment born.” 3

	“Jacob,” as the poet wrote, “is wrestling with God / as if he expected 
to win. …” Or, to put it another way, Jacob felt that he had nothing to 
lose. He was confronted by what sort of a life he’d led; he’d discovered 
that his entry into the life he felt was due him was not a sure thing. 
So he fought for his life.

	I’m pretty sure this is the sort of thing we encounter in our own 
lives. Certainly we see it on the front pages of our newspapers or the 
TV news. Someone in a terrible situation fights desperately for her or 
his life, not really knowing what the outcome is. In fact, struggles can 
seem so much a part of our lives that we may not even know where one 
stops and the other starts. And sometimes it becomes really confusing 
when we don’t know with whom we’re dealing. We simply know that we HAVE 
to meet a conflict head-on, no matter what the cost. In the darkest 
situation, whether it’s night-time or the darkness of uncertainty, we 
simply know that we have to engage. Sometimes we have no doubts about 
what is right. At other times we wonder about what we’re doing. And, 
when we’ve messed up in the past – made a wrong decision, said something 
inappropriate, hurt someone –when we’ve messed up in the past, we wonder 
whether we can ever recover, or if we can do something, even at such a 
late date.

	Twelve days ago, a report described just such a crisis. It wasn’t 
necessarily a last-ditch attempt for redemption and forgiveness, but it 
was, to use von Rad’s telling phrase, suicidal courage.

	“Mahmoud refused to keep silent about the violence against Mosul’s 
Christians who are forced to choose between converting to the Muslim 
faith, paying the jizyah (the Islamic tax for non-Muslims) or fleeing. 
Professor Mahmoud Al ‘Asali, a law professor who lectures on pedagogy at 
the University of Mosul, had the courage to make a stand against this 
brutal duress which he believes go against the Muslim commandments. But 
he paid for this gesture with his life: he was killed by ISIS militants 
in Mosul (on the twentieth of July).” 4

	Mahmoud HAD to wrestle, whether with God or the Devil. At the core of 
his being he knew that he couldn’t allow others to endure abuse, and 
suffering, and death and he stand by idly. Even if it meant his own 
death, he had to wrestle as long as he had the energy. It didn’t matter 
that Mahmoud was Muslim. He HAD to wrestle.

	There is a contrast, of course, between Jacob and Mahmoud. We know 
little about Mahmoud, other than his vocation and his moral courage. 
Jacob, on the other hand, could be, and was, underhanded, and wrestled 
more out of fear than honour. He seemed to have no choice, even if the 
problems were all of his own making.

	However, the great news about this – as with all of Jacob’s dealings 
with God – is that God didn’t blast Jacob to smithereens, despite his 
incredible, self-centred, willful, twistedness. God allowed – almost 
invited – Jacob to the challenge. While everyone else slept; while his 
brother marched towards him; while Jacob himself tossed and turned and 
felt so miserably along; while all of that was going on, God came to 
Jacob, knowing that the struggle would be painful and require every 
ounce of energy, but that it just might be an opportunity for Jacob to 
see beyond himself.

	The wonder of the Biblical message, as Jesus demonstrated, is that God 
doesn’t turn away because our rebelliousness, our refusals to listen. 
God stays; God talks; God confronts, not repulsed by all our 
imperfections.

	Yesterday, a priest wrote a series of short meditations for a friend 
who’s going to enter seminary in a few months. He’d asked her for 
advice. Listen to this – it works for me; it will work for anyone 
wrestling with a vocation to lay or ordained ministry.

  	“None of us,” she wrote, “were called to ordained ministry because we 
are awesome. Somehow in God's economy, our wounds and scars are what God 
sees as valuable. So begin the hard, hard process of tearing down all 
the false awesomeness and letting your wounds and scars be exposed.” 5

	Did God choose Jacob precisely because of his weaknesses, or because 
these very weaknesses were the ways in which the enormous love, and 
mercy, and forgiveness might become visible to Jacob himself and, 
through him, to us, to those who followed him in the marvelous caravan 
of Abraham’s descendants?

	My Scottish professor concluded his comments on our first reading’s 
verses with a warning. In the great struggle, “miraculously God gave in! 
The blessing was given, the prize which (Jacob) could now see was the 
only thing that in his life was his again. Limping, battered and bruised 
by the struggle, but nevertheless triumphant, a new Jacob was in that 
moment born.

	“Again, however, let us beware lest we miss the real point of it. It 
was not a good Jacob that was born. The prophet Hosea (12:2-6) … was 
well aware of this. And as we ourselves shall soon see, not even after 
this scarifying experience do we have a Jacob whom we can genuinely 
like. The epic of Jacob is not an account of a bad man becoming good. It 
is on an altogether deeper level than that. But at least we now know 
what, when the cards were down, this man put first. It was God, and 
having got hold of him, he was not going to let him go. Therein, in 
spite of all the sinister traits in his character, traits which sadly 
persist for many more years to come, lay his greatness. It was perhaps 
the only mark of real heroism about him, but because of it God could do 
no other than bless him.” 6

	No matter who Jacob was, God received him, drew him close, and sent him 
off with some little confidence to meet the brother whom he’d wronged so 
terribly all those years previously, just as God receives us, offers us 
peace and invites us to feast at the altar of plenty.

	The “Jaws” reference notwithstanding, we should never be afraid to come 
to Church – or anywhere else, because God meets us everywhere. We should 
never be afraid to wrestle. It’s how we find God. It’s how we find 
ourselves.

	As the poet Joseph Stanton wrote:

		“Jacob is wrestling with God
		as if he expected to win. ….
		The calmly poised Angel
		receives in his opened arms
		all the man has to give, …”  7

NOTES:

1 	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaws_2

2	“Genesis, Volume 2: The Daily Study Bible Series” by John C.L. Gibson. 
The Westminster Press , Philadelphia © 1982. Page 194.

3	John C.L. Gibson, op. cit.

4	07/21/2014 “The Muslim who gave up his life for Mosul’s Christians”

http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/world-news/detail/articolo/iraq-irak-irak-35380/

5	“So You're Going to Seminary!”  Friday, August 1, 2014 The Rev. Laurie 
Brock 
http://www.dirtysexyministry.com/2014/08/so-youre-going-to-seminary.html

6	John C.L. Gibson, op. cit.

7	from: Imaginary Museum: Poems on Art, by Joseph Stanton. Time Being 
Books, 1999,  see Jacob Wrestling with the Angel - Vanderbilt University 
http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=48070

Robert P Morrison
Interim Vicar
The Episcopal Church of St Alban
PO Box 1556
Albany OR  97321   541-921-1076 (cell)
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