Called like the Midwives (Ex 1:8-21)

Fear 

I was ordained on September 11, 2011. Less than a month later, I was in an airport on my way to England to begin my PhD. I remember that near the gate to my plane, there were several men with long beards who were prostrating themselves repeatedly in prayer. At the time, the news media were showing similar images whenever they talked about the prospect of terrorism. So, as I watched these men pray, I felt a vague fear creep into my heart. I am a little embarrassed to admit it. But I understand now that I was being shaped by forces beyond my comprehension. As Paul says, we wrestle not with flesh and blood, but with unseen powers and principalities (Eph 6:12).

One of those chief powers and principalities is fear. And the fear that I felt was not entirely of my own making. It came from the images that were shown in the media repeatedly, the warnings that were proclaimed repeatedly, the slander that was so commonly and casually lobbed in the direction of Islam and its practitioners.

Fear has a canny knack for resisting the truth. To begin, fear keeps its distance. I never thought to approach those men and ask them about their faith. I imagine now we could have had a fascinating conversation. But I kept my distance. Sort of like Pharaoh, in today’s scripture, “who did not know Joseph” (Ex 1:8). Fear does not take the time to get to know the other person. It keeps its distance.

And because it keeps its distance, it is easier to distort the other person. We talk about our “worst fears,” but the truth is that every fear is a “worst” fear. Every fear catastrophizes and envisions the worst. Yes, those men prostrating themselves in the airport could have been terrorists. But it was infinitely more likely that they were faithful seekers of God. Likewise, Pharaoh absurdly claims that the Hebrew people are more numerous than the Egyptians and may one day pose a military threat. The irony of Pharaoh’s distorted fear is that these Hebrew people are the opposite of a threat. Not long before, it was a Hebrew man who saved the land. Joseph foresaw a great famine and ensured there would be a sufficient food supply for all the people. But Pharaoh could not see this, because fear imagines the absolute worst.

And because fear imagines the absolute worst, it demands absolute control. We all know how airports have changed in the last couple of decades. Pharaoh took things a few steps further and enslaved the people whom he feared. The Egyptians, we’re told, were “ruthless in all the tasks they imposed on them” and “made their lives bitter” (Ex 1:13-14).

Fear distances, distorts, and demands absolute control.

As it happens, in England I would share a flat with a business PhD student named Reza, a practicing Muslim from Iran, and I would meet many more Muslims who were scraping out a new life in England despite daily being misunderstood and mistreated. If fear distances, distorts, and demands control, then I have found that relationship does the opposite. As I became closer to Reza, as I got to know him firsthand, the distortions and demands of fear slowly evaporated. I learned how we share the same hopes and fears. I learned how our faith in God has much more in common than I may have guessed, how it nourishes us and invites us to live in the way of love. Now the sight of a person prostrating themselves is more of an inspiration than a threat. I see a person submitting to God rather than a terrorist preparing for war.

The “Fear of the Lord”

If unchecked, fear grows. It cannot be satisfied. Thus the king of Egypt is not content to keep the Hebrews enslaved. Instead he pursues a policy of infanticide, demanding the all Hebrew baby boys be killed. So he calls the midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, who may be Hebrew or Egyptian—the text itself is ambiguous, accommodating not only the translation “Hebrew midwives” but also “midwives to the Hebrews.” The ambiguity of the midwives’ ethnicity is significant because it suggests that their faithfulness to God transcends nationality or religion. Faithfulness to God is not an exclusive property of a flag or a confession, of Christians, Jews, or Muslims. It is a matter of the heart, where one truly prostrates oneself and submits to God.

What’s fascinating in our story today is that the midwives’ faithfulness to God is described by the same word that characterizes Pharaoh and the Egyptians: fear. “The midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live” (Ex 1:17). Clearly the midwives’ fear is different than Pharaoh’s. They do not keep a distance from the baby boys but rather find themselves inextricably attached to them, bound to protect their lives. There is no distortion of reality or demand for control, but rather an open-handed acceptance and honor for the life that is emerging among the Hebrew people.

The expression “fear of the Lord” is common in the Old Testament. Fear in this case refers less to danger and more to awe, less to struggle and more to obedience. There is still, to be sure, an overwhelming sense of one’s own smallness and lack of control. The only difference in this fear—and it makes all the difference in the world—is that it does not resist life but reveres life. To get a sense for what “fear of the Lord” means, we might consider the lofty passages of life, like marriage or a new birth, like leaving home or a loved one’s death, moments that overwhelm us with a sense that life is so much more meaningful and mysterious than the little plans and programs we’ve designed to contain it, moments that mark a loss of what we know and a sense of wonder about the possibilities for new life. The “fear of the Lord” can be frightening, but it also fixes us in an unassailable faith.

To give a trivial example from my recent past…I remember driving home from Portsmouth with two silent, frightened kittens in the cat carrier beside me. I drove more cautiously than usual, feeling that I was carrying the most precious cargo. When I got home and set the kittens up in the safe confines of a bathroom, I watched them with tender eyes as they explored their new surroundings. When I left the house, I would lock the door and wish that I could lock it still more. Completely irrational, of course, but the “fear of the Lord” is a matter of the heart, not the mind. It is sensing the fragile preciousness of life and feeling bound to serve. I would imagine this experience I’m describing is but a drop in the ocean of what mothers and fathers feel toward a newborn or what committed partners feel in times of great suffering or joy.

We all know the “fear of the Lord.” The challenge is to acknowledge this experience, to allow this feeling, to let it break our hearts open, to live faithfully from its wisdom. It is a challenge because it requires us to relinquish control. The “fear of the Lord” means the risk of life rather than the security of the same. The midwives risked everything for those Hebrew children. A loving parent may risk everything for their child. Jesus risked everything. And this, we’re told, is the fullness of life.

Of Empires and Midwives

I mentioned earlier my fear in the airport twelve years ago. At the time, there was much suspicion about Islam. I wonder what fears dominate our world today. I say this as an observation, not as a judgment: I believe we live in the world’s greatest empire. Just as Egypt was the world’s greatest empire at the time. And empires fear what threatens their control. I am particularly mindful today of the unhoused population and immigrants and individuals involved in drug and gang activity. It is so easy to let these groups become political objects of debate, which is to say, situations that I stand apart from and try to control. It is easy to live in fear and to distance myself from the people involved, to imagine the worst, and to demand measures of security.

Now, I don’t know that I am called like the midwives to become the savior of these populations. That strikes me as a legendary, larger-than-life feature of today’s story. But I do believe that I am called like the midwives to live in the “the fear of the Lord,” which means not to be inhibited by culturally manufactured fears, not to let my heart be hardened these little fears, but rather to see the individuals in these groups as the infinitely precious children of God that they are, to let my heart be broken open by them. Here, I find guidance in the example of the Jesuit priest Greg Boyle, whose work in gang-intervention and rehabilitation has led him to serve these three populations. He never tires of pointing out that the problem is not what it seems on the surface, whether that’s houses for the unhoused or the violence of gangs. The problem is a lack of kinship. The problem is that these individuals are living with the trauma of unspeakable wounds from unthinkably early ages—whether it’s abandonment or abuse or addiction. Tragically, the world’s fear keeps them isolated and wounded, and the fear becomes its own sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, as they live into the only, desperate roles that have been given to them.

My experience in England with my housemate Reza and the story of the midwives in Egypt both point me to the abundant life that is found beyond the small cultural fears that distance, distort, and demand control. The good news of the “fear of the Lord” is that there is so much more to life than the security of the same. If I can relinquish control and open myself up to the preciousness of God in all things, life will be an adventure well worth the risk.

Prayer

God of life,
Who is smitten with us
And smitten with strangers—
Thank you for those moments
When we have felt your awe and reverence
For the preciousness of life.
Help us in those other moments,
Moments of fear,
When we are tempted instead
To distance, distort, and demand control
…
May we, like the midwives,
Know the courage and joy of the risk
Of sharing life with others.
In Christ, who came to us while we were far off: Amen.

Just a Name? (Genesis 45:1-15)

Divine Disappearing Act

Have you ever wondered, “Why doesn’t God show up in my life the way that God seems to show up in the Bible?” Some religious traditions have developed explanations for God’s apparent absence in the modern world, suggesting, for example, that we live in an age when God has hidden himself but all will be resolved when Jesus comes back in unmistakable power and glory.

But I think the Bible is wise to our experience. I think, like us, the writers of the Bible wrestled with the question, “Where is God?” In fact, the book of Genesis itself can be read as an eloquent response to this question. Some commentators have pointed out that if you read Genesis carefully from start to finish, paying attention to the character of God, what you get is a gradual disappearing act.

Think about it for a moment. The story begins with only one character, God. God does everything, creating land and sky, vegetation and creatures, and of course, Adam and Eve. At first, God is a constant presence in this new creation, strolling through the garden where Adam and Eve live, disciplining Adam and Eve and then their son Cain, intervening with a flood when humanity has degenerated into violence, scattering humanity at Babel and giving them different languages. God is the main player in the first act.

But in the next act, featuring Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel, things change. When God calls Abraham to leave his home and bless all the world, God is effectively deputizing him, entrusting him with God’s own work. From here on out, humans will become more prominent characters, their personalities more developed, their responsibility for outcomes more pronounced. Conversely, God will diminish as a character. We can trace God’s diminishing involvement through each generation. With Abraham, God is an occasional conversation partner. They talk to each other from time to time, even argue with each other. With Isaac, God makes a couple appearances, but there is no sustained back-and-forth dialogue. With Jacob, God visits only in dreams and in the night. In fact, the iconic scene in which Jacob wrestles with God at night symbolizes a turning point; its evocative imagery of God’s hands on Jacob suggest that this wrestling match is in fact a laying on of hands, a bequeathal of responsibility. God is handing over the reins.

For in the final act of Genesis, the story of Joseph, God is no longer a player on the scene who does things,[1] but only an object of human characters’ speech. To put this another way, we don’t see God as an actor on the stage anymore. We only hear God-talk from the human characters. God has migrated from being an actor to being only a name on the lips of human characters. In today’s scripture, God is just a name on Joseph’s lips. He declares to his brothers, “You sold me here…[But] it was not you who sent me here, but God” (Gen 45:5, 8). Earlier in the story, when the brothers have left Egypt for the first time and find the money that Joseph has secretly placed in their sacks, God is just a name on their lips. Fearing that their sin has caught up with them and that they will be punished for stealing, they exclaim, “What is this God has done to us?” (Gen 42:28). Later, when Judah stands before Joseph and owns up to the brothers’ wrongdoing, God is just a name on his lips. He says, “God has found the guilt of your servants” (Gen 44:16).

In this final act of Genesis, we arrive in a world that resembles our own, a world where God is not walking about in plain sight but is only talked about. In a way, Joseph’s story validates my experience and helps me to be honest. Joseph’s story invites me to ask in all seriousness, Is God here? If so, how?

Words

As children we may have learned, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” But of course our experience has taught us the exact opposite. Words have incredible power. A child who is bullied regularly by his peers, or a child who is constantly shamed by her parents, knows that words can reach deeper than any stick or stone and can cripple the soul. Conversely, words have the power to build up. A child who is bathed in words of encouragement and admiration, or a child who frequently hears the language of gratitude and hope, knows deep down that they do not face the world alone but in the company and help of loved ones.

In fact, it is our faith that words are the most powerful thing in the world. After all, they are how God creates the world, according to Genesis. God is the word, according to the gospel  of John. It really is a paradox. Words cannot touch us, yet they move us. Words cannot be seen, yet they reveal the most important things. A mystic might say both that words can’t change a darned thing, and also that they’re the only thing that can really change the world. In one sense, they’re powerless. And yet they reach into the heart, which is the most powerful place of all, which is where all true change happens.

From Cause to Call

Readers have commonly interpreted the Joseph story as an illustration of God’s masterful design. Although God is not present as a character on the stage, they discern God’s fingerprints all over the story. They read the story as an illustration of providence. God knew that there would be a famine in all the land, and he had to get Joseph into position as the Pharaoh’s second-in-command, where he could plan for the famine. So God began pulling all the strings. Joseph’s brothers’ selling him into slavery? That was God. Potiphar’s wife’s accusing him and getting him thrown into prison? That was God. And so on. But I must be honest. This kind of interpretation makes me uncomfortable because it risks absolving the characters of any responsibility. I don’t believe it is ever God’s will for brothers to hate one another. I don’t believe it is ever God’s will that people plot evil against one another.

Personally, I don’t see God as a divine puppeteer in the Joseph story. All I see is God as a name on the lips of the characters. Just a word. And yet this is precisely where I see God’s incredible power. God’s name is not “just” a name. (If we remembered the power of words, we would never say something is “just” a word.) God’s name is a word filled with stories, memories, dreams, a word that contains within it an uncontainable power, which is love. It is precisely through God’s name that I see hearts changed. When Joseph’s brothers exclaim, “What is this God has done to us?” (Gen 42:28), and when Judah declares, “God has found the guilt of your servants” (Gen 44:16), they are effectively expressing confession and repentance. God’s name infiltrates their hearts and haunts them and nudges them to take responsibility for the wrongdoing of their past. Likewise, when Joseph announces, “You sold me here…[But] it was not you who sent me here, but God” (Gen 45:5, 8), he is effectively proclaiming his forgiveness and making possible the redemption of a tragic story. God’s name inhabits Joseph and stirs him to let go of resentment and to reconcile. God’s name is the most powerful and decisive element in the story. Think about it for a moment. Even if God had been acting all along as a puppeteer, subtly moving characters to and fro, ultimately bringing Joseph and his brothers to this very moment, it would mean nothing if Joseph was not moved to forgiveness. Joseph could have held on to his resentment and not revealed his identity. He could have sent his brothers packing without provisions for the famine. The most critical moment in the story is a spiritual moment, a moment that can’t be captured on a camera because it happens in the heart. God’s name moves Joseph to see the possibility of forgiveness and reconciliation and redemption.

As a discrete character in the Joseph story, God does nothing. Yet everything good that happens, happens in God’s name. In God’s name are all the decisive moments of the story: the brothers’ confession and repentance, Joseph’s forgiveness and reconciliation, and the redemption of a tragic history. I don’t know about you, but I grew up thinking about God as the cause of things. Today’s story invites me to think instead of God as the call in things. The name of God is a call in our hearts. It is up to us, the faithful, to give flesh to God’s call.

Prayer 

Impending God,
Whose love will not leave us alone,
But is ever seeking to become a reality—
We see in Joseph’s story your invisible power,
Which moves people to be honest, to forgive, to reconcile,
To bring good from evil.
Therefore we entrust to you the difficulties of our lives
…
May your name be sweet to us,
Your call be what moves us,
And your story be our salvation.
In Christ, the Word made flesh: Amen.

---

[1] There are handful of references to the presence and blessing of the Lord in Genesis 39 (vv. 2, 5, 21, 23), but in contrast to previous divine interventions God does not speak to the human characters or engage them in a distinct, tangible manner.

"Great Power to Redeem" (Gen 37:1-4, 12-28)

Jacob’s Favoritism

Today’s scripture tells one of the most celebrated stories of the Old Testament. It has featured in many diverse settings, from Sunday School to Broadway. Most people refer to it as the story of Joseph and his coat of many colors. I remember as a child in Sunday School grabbing a handful of crayons and carefully coloring in the numerous stripes on Joseph’s special coat. Joseph is indeed the hero of the story, the special one whose dreams ultimately help to redeem a tragic situation.

But today I want to step back from focusing on Joseph and focus instead on Jacob and his family. Because that is how the storyteller himself introduces the story: “This is the story of the family of Jacob” (37:2). Now, readers have commonly interpreted the conflict in today’s story to revolve around Jacob’s favoritism, and I wouldn’t exactly challenge that. We learn early on that Jacob loves Joseph more than his other children, because Joseph is the child of his old age (37:3)—and, we might suppose, because Joseph is the son of his beloved late wife, Rachel. We learn that Joseph may be a bit of a spoiled brat, or at the very least an ignorant child with his head in the clouds. He tattles on his brothers (37:2). He not only has grandiose dreams of his family bowing down to him, but he also shares these dreams with his brothers. No wonder they resent him and cannot “speak peaceably to him” (37:4). Yet Joseph seems unconcerned. I imagine it is because his father’s love makes him feel special. Precious. Untouchable. A parent’s love is powerful indeed. If his father is for him, who can be against him?

The Love That Is Present Is a Good Thing

Should we fault Jacob for loving Joseph? Is that really the problem in the story? Here, I think a bit of nuance is helpful. The problem with favoritism is not the love that is present, but the love that is missing. To be clear, then, with the first part of that proposition: the love that is present is a good thing. The way that Jacob treats Joseph, making him to feel special and cherished, reminds me a little bit of God’s address to Jesus and to all of us: “You are my beloved child; with you I am well pleased” (cf. Mark 1:11). Jesus hears this right before he endures the wilderness for forty days, and it grounds him and sustains him for that experience. Likewise, I believe that Jacob’s love for Joseph is what strengthens him for the ordeal he will face. He will be thrown in a pit and sold as a slave. He will be falsely accused and imprisoned. He will live for twenty years in a foreign land separated from his family, some of whom are responsible for his tragic fate.

The traditional interpretation, of course, applauds Joseph for his faith in God, his reliance on God in the interpretation of dreams, and I wouldn’t want to dismiss his faith for one minute. But what I would want to suggest is that Joseph’s faith doesn’t come from nowhere. Faith is difficult when God’s love is only an idea for us, only an abstract concept, and not an enfleshed reality that we can feel or touch. Have you ever been in a difficult or lonely spot, and a well-intentioned friend reassures you that God loves you, but it rings a little hollow? You may think to yourself, “Well, that’s great, but what difference does it make? I’m still in this spot.” If you’ve had this experience—good! Your honesty gives expression to a central tenet of our faith, which is that God’s love means so much more when it takes on flesh and touches us. That’s why the incarnation is such a big deal. For us followers of Christ, God’s love is not just an idea. God’s love is meant to take on flesh in our world and walk alongside us, suffer alongside us, speak comfort to us, laugh with us, touch us with healing and hope.

What I mean to say is, I think Joseph’s faith in God is not a coincidence. It doesn’t come out of nowhere, as though he’s just a biblical hero who is specially gifted with more faith than most of us. I think Joseph’s faith in God, rather, is deeply rooted and nourished in the special love that he has known from his father, Jacob. He has heard what Jesus heard on the banks of the Jordan, “You are my beloved son; with you I am well pleased.” When he is in the pit, when he is in prison, when he is living as a stranger in a strange land, he is not defined by these conditions but rather by the love that he has known, that tells him he is special and of infinite worth.

I am reminded of one of the psalms of ascent, which begins, “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord” (Ps 130:1). Joseph spends a great deal of his time in the depths and undoubtedly calls on God from there. The same psalm concludes, “With the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is great power to redeem” (Ps 130:7). And indeed, in the life of Joseph, God’s steadfast love expressed through Jacob will demonstrate great power to redeem, as Joseph does not give up but trusts, year after year, that good can come from evil.

The Love That Is Lacking

Jacob’s love for Joseph is not the problem in the story. The problem in the story is that Jacob’s love is lacking for his other sons. And here’s why that’s a problem. It is more difficult for them to know God, because it is more difficult for them to feel God’s love, because God’s love for them is just an idea, not the flesh-and-blood reality that their brother Joseph knows. Genesis is filled with juicy tidbits about how each of them acts out in unhealthy ways—and I think the reason for their waywardness is found in today’s scripture. They do not know that they are loved and precious. You’ve probably heard the wisdom, “Hurt people hurt people.” That saying helps to explain the behavior we see among Jacob’s other, less loved sons. The eldest son, Reuben, becomes intimate with one of his father’s wives (35:22). The next two sons, Levi and Simeon, are filled with such anger that they essentially massacre an entire town (Gen 34). Judah simply departs from home to live with a woman of the land (Gen 38). Lust, anger, disenchantment. Jacob’s less loved sons live in a very different world than their brother Joseph.

The Sun and the Clouds

Their experience reminds me of a story I heard once. A woman in recovery from addiction shared how she’d grown up in a home wrecked by trauma. Her single mother, who provided for her, was always angry and bitter, sometimes even violent. When the woman left home, she became estranged from her mother. Much later in life, she learned that her mother’s health was declining and that she had also been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. She knew her mom had no one else in her life, and so she decided to come back into her life. Trembling with fear, the woman walked into a nursing home to see her mom for the first time in decades. Her experience was surreal. On the one hand, her mom clearly recognized her. Her eyes lit up. She spoke with energy. On the other hand, she made very little sense. But what surprised the woman more than anything, was the tone of her mother’s voice. Her nonsense was in the conversational lilt of someone who was happy. The woman broke into tears as she described what she felt for the first time in her life. Her mom’s love for her. She concluded that it had been there all along—as the sun is always there, even when it is obscured by clouds. It’s just that her mother had had a lot of clouds in her life. I wonder if the same could be said for Jacob. His love for his other sons was always there. It’s just that there were a lot of clouds in the way, a lot of hurts and hangups that obstructed Jacob’s love for them.

Jacob’s favoritism is a real paradox. It contains both the conflict of the story and its resolution. The conflict is that the less loved sons, the hurt sons, act out in a very hurtful way. The resolution is that the loved son, Joseph, trusts in God’s love and helps to bring good from evil. The good news of Jacob’s family is the same good news of the woman in recovery. God’s love may be blocked, but it never stops. The sun is always there, even when it is obscured by clouds. What does that mean for me today or you? I’m not certain. If anything, Jacob’s story reveals the complexity of our experiences, how we may be dealing with different weather, sunny, cloudy, rainy. Joseph felt the sun on his face. His brothers saw a sky full of clouds. I suppose the invitation remains the same in any case—namely to trust that whatever the weather, God’s love is steadfast (like the sun) and has the power to redeem. Whatever our various problems, the resolution is the same. It is God’s love given flesh that brings good out of evil.

Prayer

God who is unseen
And yet in all things,
Sometimes we feel the radiance of your love,
And so faith is simple.
Sometimes there are clouds,
And it is not easy.
…
We cry out from the depths of our heart,
Be with us, as you were with Joseph,
That your tangible love would redeem,
And would bring good from what is not good.
In Christ, who leads the way: Amen.

Blessed, Broken, Given

What Is God’s Blessing?

Three weeks ago, we began our journey with the character of Jacob. Jacob was wrestling then. Even before he was born.

Today he is wrestling still. Not much has changed.

But today, everything is changed. Today Jacob receives God’s blessing.

What is God’s blessing? 

Up until this point, Jacob has striven for human blessing, which is to say, anything he’s been able to get his hands on. For him, blessing means taking what’s there for the taking. Blessing means success: power, prestige, possessions. So far, Jacob has had a lot of success. He has been able to get his hands on his brother’s birthright, his father’s blessing, his father-in-law’s daughters, and much of his father-in-law’s fortune. Jacob has done alright for himself.

The Dark Side to Jacob’s Success

Or so we might think. But in Jacob’s success, there is a dark side.

The dark side to getting what you want is struggle. Not only the struggle to get ahead, but also the struggle to stay ahead. The struggle not to lose what you’ve won.

In the verses that immediately precede today’s story, we are told that Jacob is “greatly afraid and distressed” (32:7). Why?  His brother Esau is coming to meet him. With four hundred men by his side. To Jacob, this is dark news. All that he has won could soon become lost. The struggle never ends.

At the beginning of today’s scripture, night has fallen. Jacob sends his family and all that he has across the river ahead of him. It seems a rather odd move. Why doesn’t he join them?  Perhaps he is a coward and simply wants a shield between him and his brother. But more likely, I think, he’s in a reflective mood and wants to be alone.

It has been said that before you die, your entire life flashes before you. Perhaps sensing the end, Jacob wants to stand back for a moment, separate, alone, to try to drink it all in: to look across the river upon the sum total of his life, all that he has won. Perhaps he is trying to claim the success for which he has been struggling his whole life. Perhaps he is trying to feel it. Because perhaps right now all his success feels strangely hollow. And so he stands back and gazes upon all that is his, and he tries to savor it.

Defeated

And it’s in the pitch black of that moment, when Jacob’s happiness feels hauntingly hollow, that a shadow seizes him and throws him into the dust of the earth. Dislodged from his lonely thoughts, Jacob does what he has always done. He wrestles. He and the stranger tumble about the ground, seizing at each other’s heels, holding fast to whatever can be grabbed, never letting go.

Jacob exerts every last ounce of energy and appears to be gaining the upper hand. But then as the night nears its end, Jacob suddenly feels his hip put out of joint. How did that happen?  The stranger merely touched it. It is almost as though the stranger had been waiting to touch his hip just so, as though he had been waiting until Jacob had given everything, so that when he was suddenly overcome, he would know that he was truly and completely overcome. He had given the fight his all but had been defeated. For once, he would have to acknowledge he was not in control.

With his hip thrown out, the tide has turned. Jacob still hangs on—only now he grabs the stranger “not [out] of violence but [out] of need, like…a drowning man.”[1] As the dark of night gives way to the new light of morning, the stranger speaks for the first time. “Let me go, for morning is upon us.” But Jacob holds on for dear life. “Not until you bless me,” he gasps. So the stranger asks his name, and Jacob tells him. Then while the two remain in an embrace that looks less and less like fighting and more and more like friendship, the stranger proclaims: “No longer will you be called Jacob, but Israel” (32:28).

From Wrestling with Humans to Wrestling with God

In the Old Testament, names contain entire stories. Do you remember Ishmael and Hagar?  Ishmael’s name means, “God hears,” and Hagar’s means, “the outsider.” Put them together, and you get the truth of Ishmael’s and Hagar’s story. “God hears the outsider.” The name Jacob means something like wrestler. The name Israel means something like wrestler, too. In other words, Jacob’s new name is not a great departure from his old name. But there is one tiny difference, and it makes all the difference. It’s the “El” in “Israel.” “El” means God. In the past, Jacob wrestled with the world: his brother, his father, his father-in-law, all in an effort to get ahead, to get what they had. But now the terms of conflict have been reversed. No longer does Jacob wrestle with the world. Now he wrestles with God.

From “Jacob” to “Israel.” The names tell the story. The stranger seems to be saying, “In the past, you, Jacob, held onto the heels of others. Now you will hold onto God. You will not let go, and neither will God. Now…let go of the heels you have been grasping at so that you can hold onto God.”

And sure enough, when Jacob meets Esau the next day, he lets go of his older brother’s heel: he gives him many possessions and also a blessing. He essentially returns what he has stolen. Power, prestige, wealth—whatever happiness can be found in these things—this is no longer what Jacob is grabbing after. Now he is wrestling with something else.

Wrestling with God, Hoping to Lose

A Greek writer, Nikos Kazantzakis, recalls from his early years a visit to an old monastery, where he spoke with an old monk, Father Makarios.

He asked the monk, “Do you still wrestle with the devil?”

“Not any longer, my child,” Father Makarios replied. “I have grown old now, and he has grown old with me. He doesn’t have the strength…. [Now] I wrestle with God.”

“With God!” Nikos exclaimed in astonishment. “And you hope to win?”

“I hope to lose, my child,” the monk said. “[But] my bones…continue to resist.”[2]

“I Am Poor and Needy”

The good news of God’s blessing can also be difficult news. Because it means accepting our brokenness. And I don’t know about you, but accepting my brokenness is something I resist.

By brokenness, I do not mean defectiveness or sinfulness. I mean simply the reality that we are finite, limited creatures, subject to powers greater than ourselves, whether that’s the weather or another person or our cultural heritage or an addiction or a disease or our biology which demands things like sleep and nourishment, whether we want them or not. By brokenness, I mean simply that we are not in control and cannot do it on our own.

The surprise of Jacob’s story is that the real blessing is not in control or getting what we want, which actually leaves us empty and exhausted. The real blessing is in our brokenness. Only after Jacob could not escape his brokenness, only after his hip was thrown out of joint, could he receive God’s blessing and grow into the fuller, richer life of clinging to God, wrestling with God instead of for worldly gain. I’m reminded of how the psalmist repeatedly declares, “I am poor and needy.” A true Israelite, a true son of Israel, the psalmist is declaring his brokenness and his need for help.

I’m reminded also of Jesus. At the table, he blessed the bread, broke it, and gave it to others, just as his own body was blessed, broken, and given for the life of the world. He understood his brokenness to be not an obstacle but an opportunity. In his death—and death is the supreme brokenness—he would trust in the love of God. And the love of God transformed that most woeful brokenness into a gift for all the world, a story of God’s steadfast faithfulness and mercy for all creation. The cross, which was a symbol of death, has become for us a symbol of life. It is the good news that God is with us to the end, and that the end is actually a new beginning.

Prayer

Intimate God,
Who comes supremely close to us
In our moments of weakness,
Our moments of vulnerability,
And invites us into an embrace
That is both a struggle and a blessing:
Soften our hearts
That we might accept and be honest about
Our own brokenness
…
We dedicate our limitations to you,
Asking that your love
Transform them into a gift of life,
For ourselves and others:
In Christ, blessed, broken, and given for the life of the world: Amen.

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[1] Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat (New York: The Seabury Press, 1979), 11.

[2] Conversation from Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco (trans. Peter Bien; New York: Simon and Schuster, 1965), 222-223.