Never Let Go

Pentecost 19, Proper 24

Fr. Tim Nunez

May my spoken word be true to God’s written word and bring us all closer to the living word, Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen

Meg and I went through a brief phase where we were enamored of Ikea. If you’ve never been, it’s an enormous store filled with all manner of housewares and furniture. When you enter, you’re supposed to go up the escalator and wind your way through the upstairs and then the downstairs, finding what you came to buy along the way; resisting or not resisting a thousand impulse buys along the way. Then at the end are Swedish meatballs. Well, a little café that sells them because it is a Swedish company.

It's a dazzling piece of capitalism.

Their furniture is inexpensive in part because they’ve outsourced the assembly part to you. We once crammed a sofa and loveseat into the back of our minivan, and still had room to bring the kids home, too.

The assembly part tended to go like this: I would spread everything out, including the nuts and bolts and start putting it together. I’d get to a point and realize I needed to undo part of it and fit in a missing piece. Most often, I needed to stop, undo everything, and find the instructions.

Paul wrote to Timothy, “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness…”

We could very easily look at that like we would the instructions from Ikea, or whatever. If we can just follow the instructions, and do it just right, then we will have a good life now and a good afterlife. There are several problems with that approach.

First, our lives are not so orderly. We face an infinite array of variables all day every day. It’s important to plan, but there are always contingencies we cannot anticipate and decisions that are not at all clear. Second, scripture is not so orderly. It doesn’t go step 1, 2, 3… There are a lot of instructions in the Bible. There are a lot of laws and rules and guidelines. There are a lot of examples and parables and stories, lots of metaphors and symbols. We have to put all those pieces together and no Bible comes with an Allen wrench.

And we don’t have a very clear vision of the end product. I know what a cabinet or a couch should look like at the end. If you want to think of it more as a journey, I know what Swedish meatballs should taste like at the end. Me? I know I want to be with Jesus. I trust that it will be wonderful and glorious. But the picture is not exactly clear. I certainly cannot put it together.

And it’s not just about the end, either. Paul finishes that sentence with, “…so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.” We are to help others even as we are working on things ourselves. How are we to manage this? Let’s look at today’s Old Testament reading about Jacob.

We refer to God as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Abraham had two sons, Ishmael by his servant Hagar, and Isaac by his barren wife Sarah. Ishmael gets a blessing and will become the patriarch of the Arab peoples. Isaac is the first step in God’s promise to Abraham. Isaac had twin sons, the firstborn being Esau and Jacob coming second while grasping his heel. Jacob means, literally, “usurper.” Later, Jacob tricks Esau into giving up his blessing - his birthright – for a bowl of stew. The usurper got the blessing. Esau will become the patriarch of the Edomites who lie across the Jordan from Israel, and Jacob will carry the covenant through to his children and grandchildren who become the Twelve Tribes of Israel.

Now, Jacob is returning to the region having been away for some years. He has his two wives and two maidservants, through whom he already has 11 sons and one daughter. He hears Esau is coming to meet him with 400 men. Esau was furious the last time Jacob saw him, so Jacob is very afraid.

Jacob splits his group into two to improve the odds that at least half will survive Esau’s wrath, then he waits, alone, to face his brother. “A man” is there, but it’s not a man because later Jacob says he has seen God face to face. Jacob wrestles with God all night. Jacob couldn’t win, but he would not let go, even after God put his hip out of joint. God blesses him and renames him Israel, which means literally “strives with God” or, better, “wrestles with God.” His identity is changed such that it will define his descendants to this day, 3,500 or maybe 4,000 years later.

His limp shows us this was not merely a spiritual or mental exercise. It was all that and physical, too.

As it turned out, Esau was coming to welcome Jacob and to celebrate his return. He and his sons will have some adventures resettling in the Land of Canaan. Eventually they will wind up in Egypt to escape a famine, eventually wind up slaves, and then Moses, and then Jesus, and then, well, you.

And that is how we should approach scripture. That is how we should approach Jesus. Jesus taught his disciples to “pray always and to not lose heart.” Wrestle with God. Wrestle with his Word. Wrestling is the most exhausting sport there is. It is not simple. Your life is not simple. But we have to get after it.

We have all these pieces. We aren’t sure how they will all fit together. Life may feel like a hopeless mess. But if we hold onto Him, and hold onto his Word, he will bless us. He will change our identity. We cannot see how that will shape us nor can we see the effects it will have downstream. We trust it all to Him. He’ll put it all together, and use us to help others know him.

AMEN!