This sermon was first delivered in 2001 a few short weeks after I started seminary. I revisited it this week with 20 years of perspective.
When we wrestle with God, we don’t remain the same. We are forever transformed by the experience. When God gets involved things always change, and things certainly changed for Jacob.
The story of Jacob is not a happy go lucky story of a likable hero. We know that Jacob has been a bit of a trouble maker. We’ve talked recently about Jacob’s beginnings- about his trouble with Esau even in the womb and about how he had to strujggle with Laban for the right to marry the woman he wanted. His story is complicated. And when we find him here, it has gotten even more complicated. After the events we discussed a couple of weeks ago, Jacob got clever and tricked Laban out of a bunch of livestock, and he and his wives and entourage had to leave.
On his journey Jacob had to pass through land that belonged to his brother. Now Esau had once threatened to kill Jacob and therefore Jacob was probably more than a little scared to be travelling through Esau‘s territory. Jacob sends gifts and messengers. And while he waits all alone for a response from his family, he has this bizarre encounter! Jacob spent the night wrestling with God. And Jacob would never be the same. We too wrestle with God, and we too will never be the same.
Wrestling with God might not be the WWE smackdown we are thinking about. It might not be the Greco-roman wrestling from the Olympics. No, wrestling with God may not be wrasslin as we know it, but it is wrasslin just the same.
What does it mean to wrestle with God? For most of us, it’s less of a physicall fight. We tend to do most of our God-wrasslin’ in prayer. How many times have you cried out “Oh God, why me” or “God, what am I supposed to do?” Sometimes, these wrestling matches are over small things. More often than not, these wrestling matches are over big things. Should I move? What do I do with my life now? You want me to do what?
You see, God doesn’t pick fights with us when we already know the answers. God picks fights with us when God knows we need to undergo a dramatic change. God calls us into the wrestling ring and makes us answer the questions: Who are you? Who have you been? And who will you become? In the Summer of 2001, God picked a fight with me, and I too wrassled with my creator. Like Jacob, I didn’t give in right way, and like Jacob I did not come out the same.
God had called me to ministry and I was not answering. In fact, I was running away as fast as I could. God had different plans. God started bugging me with little things— the campfire that always sent smoke and sparks at me, the small group that showed me amazing amounts of love, a gentle rain. I refused to engage in a discussion about ministry, so God forced the issue. God picked a fight with me!
God knows that I am terrified of storms and the only thing that scares me more than a good thunderstorm is a tornado. As the camp settled in for the afternoon nap time, the dining hall cleared out and I hurried to finish typing in some song lyrics. As I sat alone in the dining hall, the weather radio came to life with a tornado warning for Casey County Kentucky. Camp WaKonDa’Ho is in Casey County. The only safe places on the site are the bathrooms and the dining hall and everyone was asleep in the cabins precariously perched in on the Ky Hillside. I had no choice. God had picked a fight and I had to engage.
I ran cabin to cabin—dodging lightning bolts and flying tree limbs—knocking on each door and yelling TORNADO WARNING GET TO THE DINING HALL NOW! Honsetly, I was freaked out. God chose my deepest fear and forced me to face it. I yelled into the storm. WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO ME GOD? Why a tornado? Why me? Why today? Each question was answered with another clap of thunder or flash of lightning. Finally, all of the campers were “safe” in the dining hall and I trudged off to the bathroom to peel myself out of soaking wet clothes. I pulled branches and leaves out of my hair and began to count the cuts, scrapes and bruises from my Smackdown in the woods. I did not come out of that encounter unscathed. I did not come out of that encounter unchanged. The next day I accepted God’s call and finally began working toward ordination. I sincerely believe that God picked a fight with me, and, to be clear, God won.
Jacob’s wrestling match with God is both literal and figurative. See, Jacob had to come to grips with who he was and who he had been. He had not been a nice guy and God knew that Jacob needed to change, so God forced Jacob to come to grips with who he was and the person he had been. As you’ve seen this morning, Jacob had done some bad things and made some really poor decisions. God called him out—into the ring so to say—to answer for his actions. And part of that reckoning included wrestling with an Angel.
And when he was finished. He was changed. God gave Jacob a new identity. God gave him a limp and a new name. Jacob would become Israel—the one who strives with God. His name change was an external indication of the internal change he had undergone. When I finished my wrestling with God, I would attend Seminary and eventually become ordained. The Reverend before my name is an external indication of the interal change I underwent through my journey into ministry. Wrestling with God forces us to claim a new identity. To be wholly reconciled we must claim a new identity. We must claim a new identity as a changed person, as a reconciled person, as a WHOLE person.
But, that growth and change is not stagnant. Jacob’s interactions with God did not end that day at Peniel. He would struggle again- through the apparent death of his son, through famine, through loss. And then through reunion and rejoicing when Joseph was found again. Jacob encountered God again and again, and while he did not get a limp and a name change with every encounter, he was changed.
My experience of accepting my call to ministry was not the last time I wrestled with God. When I lost my job in 2009, God and I were not ok. I was angry and I was hurt. I was devastated that people who I thought were God’s beloved could treat me with such disregard and disdain for the simple crime of being who I am. I did a LOT of wrestling with God in those days- screaming, crying, begging, pleading, and praying for God to step into the ring and fight it out with me. It took me months to separate God from people who claimed to follow God. And when we were finally done fighting it out, I asked God what to do next. An ad came on the radio for the Library and information Science program at Dominican University. I knew this was God saying…time to change again.
When we wrestle with God, we don’t remain the same. We are forever transformed by the experience. God calls us into the wrestling ring. God confronts us and confounds us and makes us face the questions: Who are you? Who have you been? And who will you become? When we wrestle with those answers, we come out changed,
Lately, I’ve been feeling that nudge again. That persistent poking from God. I hear God asking me: Who are you? Who have you been? And who will you become? Is it a midlife crisis? Possibly. Is it six years in one place and wondering if I’m stagnating? Probably. Is God nudging me to other things? I don’t know. I’m wrestling with it.
But, I think, that’s the entire point. We were not created for stagnation. We were created for growth and learning and flourishing. If we aren’t learning and growing, God is gonna nudge us on to something else. If we ignore that nudge, God might get a little more creative. We might find ourselves running across the Kentucky hills screaming at a tornado. We might find ourselves yelling in traffic and getting a radio ad in return, or we might find ourselves wrestling with an angel.
But whatever form our wrestling matches take, the fact remains: When we wrestle with God, we don’t remain the same. So, just in case God isn’t asking you directly, maybe let me ask on our creator’s behalf: Who are you? Who have you been? And who will you become?
Amen.