The Blessed Injury

Text:  Genesis 32:22-31

Theme:  “The Blessed Injury”

8^th Sunday after Pentecost

August 3, 2014

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

+In the Name of Jesus+

22 That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. 24 So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. 25 When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. 26 Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”

But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

27 The man asked him, “What is your name?”

“Jacob,” he answered.

28 Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel,[a] because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”

29 Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”

But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.

30 So Jacob called the place Peniel,[b] saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”

31 The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel,[c] and he was limping because of his hip.

If you’re coming to church today to get away, for at least a while, from all the drama that is being played out in the world, no one could really blame you for that.  Drama is trending pretty strong.  We all can get overloaded with it.  Church can – and really, in fact, should – give us something of a respite, a rest, and, indeed, a “sabbath” from all of that constant droning and drama.  It should be a calming place, a peaceful place, a restful place, a non-anxious place.  Save the drama for the other six days of the week and the next twenty-three hours of this one.  A drama free hour with God and God’s people sounds good.

Well, I’m sorry to have to disappoint you.  We’re up to our ears with drama in today’s Old Testament Reading.  But we should be all ears on this text because it’s good old juicy family drama. 

To start, there were twin brothers:  Jacob and Esau.  Almost from the start, they hadn’t gotten along very well.  Esau was a rough and tumble sort; he liked to hunt.  Jacob was something of a “mama’s boy” with evidence here and there of being a spoiled brat.  Jacob had tricked his brother out of an inheritance, and there was not much love lost between the two since then.

But as months gave way to years, Jacob sought to reach out to his brother.  He didn’t go on his own.  He sent a messenger.  The messenger came back and said:  “We went to your brother Esau, and now he is coming to meet you – and four hundred men are with him.”  It sounds like somebody’s spoiling for a fight or a war, doesn’t it? 

So Jacob concocts a plan. He takes the diplomatic route.  He would send gifts to his brother to pacify him.  Genesis 32:21 says:  “So Jacob’s gifts went on ahead of him, but he himself spent the night in the camp.”

In the middle of the night, however, Jacob made a move.  Under the cover of darkness, he sends his family, their servants, and all their possessions across the river – presumably for safety.  They crossed the “ford of Jabbok.”  Today’s it’s called the “Wadi Zerqa” (the Zerqa River) that flows into the Jordan – like the Missouri flows into the Mississipi.  Maybe it’s just a coincidence that our own Beverly Hoch just returned from that area of the world.  Maybe it’s not a coincidence.

After everyone and everything was safely across the wadi/river, Jacob stayed behind.  He was all alone – or so he thought.  Perhaps he needed to get away from all the drama for awhile.

Then came more drama.  The poor guy can’t get a break.   Out of nowhere, without saying a word, a man appears and begins to wrestle with Jacob.  He took him down and they go after it – head to head and horn to horn.  Had Esau snuck up on him with a surprise attack?  No.

Whoever it was, he wrestled Jacob – we’re talking physical wrestling! -- until the sun came up.   They appear to have gone the full fifteen rounds, as they says.  Fear can energize people; they can demonstrate strength they never thought they possessed.  There are stories galore.   Jacob, the “mama’s boy”, actually gained the upper hand.  He overpowered the stranger!  But the stranger is able to pressure Jacob’s hip bone so that it goes out of joint.  Ouch.  The stranger is pinned.  Jacob’s hip is out of socket.  They are stuck there frozen in the moment.

Hold that image.  Hold that image, my friends!

The stranger breaks the silence.  “Let me go,” he says.  Jacob replies:  “I won’t let you go until you bless me.” 

“What the world needs now is love, sweet love.  It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of,” says an old song.  What the world needs to do is wrestle with God – who IS love – and say:  “I won’t let you go until you bless me.”  As the disciple St. Peter said to Jesus Christ so many years later:  “Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life!”  That’s how faith talks, my friends.

Such drama indeed!  Such a blessed injury Jacob sustained.  The man asked Jacob a question:  “What’s your name?”  “Jacob,” came the answer.  The man replied:  “You will no longer be Jacob, but Israel – because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.”  Israel means “struggle with God.”

So just who was that stranger that Jacob pinned down but who also put Jacob’s hip out of whack? 

You make the call!  Don’t ask me.  Ask the Lord.  I only work here!

Jacob says to the stranger:  “Tell me your name!”  The man replies:  “Why do you ask?”  And Jacob was blessed right then and there.  He who robbed his own twin brother of a blessing was blessed – not by his father but his father’s God.

Jacob (now named Israel) called that earthly wrestling mat, that piece of real estate,  “Peniel” (which means “face of God”).  He said, “I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”

He went on his way limping.  Such a blessed injury it was – sustained in that dramatic wrestling match.

You and I wrestle with drama every day – big or small, a lot or a little.  It can weary us.  Like Jacob, we’re not perfect; we’ve made mistakes and may have even cheated people out of what was rightly their’s   But there’s that part that wants to make amends for that bad drama.  We want to live with a clear conscience.   But we’re afraid.  We love less and pacify more.   So we seek to protect that which is closest to us, the people and things we love.  We send them across the river, so to speak, for safety. But whom are we struggling with – really and truly struggling with?  Is it really just the drama of the moment?

What does this Old Testament Reading, this family drama tell us?  When you struggle with God, you prevail.  There may be a limp – physically or otherwise.  There may be evidence of the hardship.  But you win, and you are blessed.  No drama, “nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation can separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.”

Yes, His was the ultimate drama of the cross.  His is the ultimate victory in the resurrection!  And the ultimate blessing that Jacob received is signed, sealed, and delivered to you this day, right now, in the Gospel that you are hearing and are about to taste.

We can live with the blessed injury! 

Amen.