October 21, 2007
(Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost; Proper 24; Rite of Healing)
It Doesn't Have to Be So Hard
by The Rev. Carol Sanford, Priest Associate
Genesis 32:22-31 • Psalm 121 • 2 Timothy
3:14-4:5 • Luke 18:1-8
(From
The Lectionary Page)
In the chapel of General Theological Seminary in New York City there is a beautiful stained glass window. It shows Jacob in our story from Genesis as he wrestles an unnamed adversary on the shores of the Jabbok river. As he struggles, Jacob’s face, indeed his entire body, expresses a passionate, joyful, agony.
I love this story. I even love the name Jabbok; it sounds like something out of science fiction. In fact, the whole episode sounds like a good back story for a new video game or comic book series. Who or what is this man on the river bank with Jacob, and isn’t it rather odd that he doesn’t he want to be around after daybreak
Scholars have suggested that this might be a river spirit, or that the ‘man’ is actually a celestial being attached to the land of Jacob’s twin brother, Esau; you remember, the brother Jacob had cheated out of his inheritance. Other commentators suppose that Jacob was dreaming again, as when he had his vision of the ladder at Bethel. The story itself suggests that, whatever the background of the imagery may be, it is God who shows up at the river crossing with a point to make. The story is often known as Jacob wrestling with the angel.
However we understand the wrestling scene, we are left with the figure of Jacob, limping off after a really rough night, blessed and burdened with his new identity as Israel.
On this Sunday after the feast of St. Luke, we are emphasizing the healing power of God. We tend to understand this in terms of physical well-being. Jacob, however, ends up hobbling and incapacitated after his encounter. His physical state is worse, and yet an amazing transformation has taken place. He now carries the name of God’s beloved children.
What qualifies Jacob to be Israel? Clearly neither his soundness of body nor his sterling character brings him this honor. And he doesn’t become Israel because of his faith. After all, rather than trusting God to care for him, Jacob has been charging about trying to force everything to go his way by any means possible. Jacob doesn’t become Israel by actually winning the wrestling match. His partner in struggle is clearly able to do serious damage and presumably could have won out at any time.
What really qualifies Jacob to be Israel is simply that he has been chosen by God. Many readers have observed that the great irony in Jacob’s story is that he lies and manipulates and fights to achieve by force what is, in fact, already his: God’s blessing. Jacob was blessed before his birth and that blessing was reaffirmed at Bethel and here he is again, struggling and demanding that which he already has.
I hear this story and I picture that stained glass window and I want to shout, Jacob! Relax! It doesn’t have to be so hard!
But for Jacob, and for most of us, it is hard much of the time. We simply don’t believe or accept or act as if we already blessed. We hear again and again that we are redeemed and saved and watched over and that the healing of our infirmities is much of what God is all about, but we really, really want to take care of things in our own way and on our schedule.
We have ‘itching ears’ like the people in 2nd Timothy. We listen to our own greed and fear, and we turn our attention to the voices in our media that are the modern-day cultural equivalents of the old-time religious hucksters. We keep trying short-cuts and by-passes to the relief and peace that are truly found only with God.
Okay, so we don’t get it right much of the time. Well, neither did Jacob, and he was loved and blessed by God, and so are we.
Jacob prevails through sheer persistence. Like the widow in our gospel account who receives justice simply by showing up before the unrighteous judge again and again, Jacob refuses to let go until he receives a blessing. We may be rolling our eyes at this point, knowing that he already has the blessing, and yet we have to admire his determination. He does not give up. He doesn’t lose heart. Even with a hip put out of joint, which has to be painful, he persists.
I love this strange and wonderful story. It is ancient and mysterious and funny and intriguing. Surely many of us have had times when we can identify with Jacob, struggling desperately, when believing God in the first place and acting accordingly would be so much easier.
And, too, when I picture Jacob, now Israel, limping off into the new morning light, I cannot help but see through Christian eyes. As I picture him exhausted and bruised and surely frightened and perplexed, but also blessed, I see the face of our Lord that night in the garden of Gethsemane and then, after the resurrection, standing visibly wounded but triumphant before Thomas and the others.
And I see all of our faces when we are in pain or shocked or scared or grief-stricken, with perhaps just the tiniest bit of heart left intact, but refusing to entirely give up hope. We persist in our hope that God really is trustworthy and that life is somehow everlasting and that healing can always happen in some way.
We are, of course, surrounded by miracles of healing, but we take them for granted. We consider it a miracle if crutches are thrown down at a religious shrine, but somehow forget that every day broken bones heal and cuts mend and diseases are overcome and even a bad cold runs its course. God’s creation is set up for healing and repair, as we clearly see when a forest renews itself after a fire or when our hearts mend, eventually, after being broken in the grade school hallway or at the prom or in divorce court.
Much of the time, the healing that happens in the world needs human participation. Physical wounds have a greater chance of mending when washed and treated; bones do better when properly set, and loving communities and families help hearts to heal.
Sickness comes in many forms, and so does God’s healing Grace and Power. One form God’s healing Grace and Power takes is us. We can and we do participate in God’s amazing enterprise of healing the wounds of his creation.
In my lifetime I’ve seen some of the early, often unpleasant steps taken toward cleaning out the ugliness of discrimination based on class, race, gender, ethnicity and sexuality. I see it happening now in the Church. Voices are being heard and strides have been made in previously taboo areas such as rape and incest, violence in the home, alcoholism and addiction. Medical research continues and once fatal diseases are being healed. I read the other day that the ozone layer shows signs of improvement.
Here at the Cathedral, we work and study and worship together, seeking in our many ways to serve Christ in the world. The Episcopal Church at large joins the global effort to realize the Millennial Development Goals, that all may share in abundant, healthy life. Wars do continue on earth, but God’s blessing calls out from our hearts and we put on uniforms in hopes of restoring peace and we hold vigils and we vote and we pray together that all war may cease and that the violence in our city may end.
It is important that we continue to pray and that we not lose heart. We must nurture our faith that we are a part of the body of Christ; that we are very members incorporate in the transformative power that creates and heals and makes Holy the world in which we live.
I don’t pretend to understand why sometimes a physical or social ailment is suddenly transformed and other times it heals only slowly and sometimes it is the associated fear or bitterness that is eased. What I do know, and I know this because I have seen it in myself and in you and in others, is that, when we ask, healing of some kind is given. Our struggle is to believe and to listen to what we are taught and to respond to the blessing we already possess. Remember, our help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. Relax and be still and know that God is God. It really doesn’t have to be so hard.
