Wrestling With God - sermon March 9th

Wrestling With God

Genesis 32:22-31, Matthew 14:13-21; Secrets of Heaven 4572:2

Rev. Alison Longstaff

Bath Church of the New Jerusalem, March 9, 2014

     

Raise your hand if you've ever wrestled with insomnia.  There’s nothing like insomnia, especially before a big event.    You toss and turn and can’t get comfortable.  Maybe you’re all sweaty and tangled in the sheets.  Maybe you just begin to doze off and then something jolts you awake—a strange noise, or your partner’s snores, or maybe you have that half-dream where you step off something and wake yourself up trying not to fall.

How are we to take our issues with insomnia to God?  After all, the Bible doesn't talk about something as mundane as insomnia, does it? 

Actually, it does.  Today’s story is about natural and spiritual insomnia. It is about a part of our nature that just can’t let go and rest.  Today’s story shows us a man so inwardly tortured he can’t sleep. 

Jacob is definitely facing one of the biggest days of his life.  He is about to be reunited with his brother Esau.  Esau, whom he hasn't seen for at least twenty years.  Esau, from whom he stole the inheritance and then fled from.  Esau who wanted to murder Jacob the last time they were together.  Esau, who is on his way, with 400 men.

Yes, Jacob is facing a big day.  He may not be alive when it is over.  His wives and children may not be alive when it is over.   Jacob has sent waves and waves of gifts to Esau ahead of his party on the road.  He has sent camels and flocks of sheep and flocks of goats, which in today’s economy would be a little like sending several Mercedes Benz, a packet of high value stocks, and the deeds to a few castles in Europe; just in case he can appease Esau.

But Jacob is still afraid.  His company has just forded a large stream, but he decides to send his wives and children and servants—in fact, everyone and everything—back across the river to safety. And he, alone, will spend the night on the dangerous side—the side from which Esau is approaching.  Jacob is scared for his life.  He does not sleep well.  The text says a “man” wrestled with him until daybreak.  Insomnia can feel like that sometimes.

One thing that makes the Swedenborgian church different is that we have a systematic approach to interpreting the inner meaning of the Word.   Swedenborg tells us that crossing this particular stream in this story represents our approach to our spiritual work, pretty much at the beginning, when we have mostly been ignoring it.  The river Jabbok is a tributary to the river Jordan.  It is not the Jordan, but it feeds into it. So when we cross the Jabbok, we are just starting to prepare for the walk to heaven.  And when we are starting the journey toward heaven, we tend to be ashamed and embarrassed and afraid that we won’t make it. 

Biblical scholars cannot agree on the identity of the “man” who wrestled with Jacob here.  I suspect it was an angel of the Lord---one who represented God.  For after it was over, Jacob names the place Peniel, which means “the face of God.”   Wrestling represents temptation, and night represents temptation, so wrestling all night is one TOUGH temptation.  And if Jacob was wrestling with God, this probably represents a temptation regarding our relationship with God.  Do we even believe in God?  Do true followers ever doubt the existence of God?  Absolutely.  Should we feel guilty that we sometimes doubt God’s love and even God’s existence?  No.  It is actually a very normal and healthy part of our spiritual journey.  It is how we develop strong spiritual muscles.  It is how we grow.

Jacob represents our most natural level.  Our right-here, sensing, feeling level.  Jacob is the part that insists the sun goes around the earth, because that is what it looks like.  Jacob does not like abstractions.  Jacob wants everything to be at this level.  This part of us wants everything to be measurable and provable. It loves written-down rules.  It wants worship to be measurable and provable: “I sat in the pew, I said the words, I listened to all the talking; now I can check off ‘worship’ for this week and feel good about myself.” 

We all have this part of us, the part that struggles to believe in the mystical side of life.  Anything that can’t be measured, that is not concrete, feels out of control.  It is this part of our nature that is most attached to this physical reality. 

Don’t misunderstand me. “Jacob” is a really important part of us.  It is not bad.  It helps us navigate this crazy external reality.  And, this most external part of us is the means through which we can have such pleasure in a hug, a kiss, a belly-laugh, a baby’s weight in our arms.  It produces goose-bumps in response to transcendent experiences and usually loves those encounters, even as it struggles endlessly to understand them.

So Jacob wrestled all night with God.  This lasted hours, and neither one prevailed.  You know how long a night can feel.  This is just how much the natural part of us struggles to comprehend and find peace with the spiritual reality of our existence.   The two wrestled until daybreak, and—picture them in some sort of painful clinch-hold: go ahead and make it silly, because life is often silly—their arms and legs are all tangled and one has got hold of the other’s nose while the other is pulling the first one’s hair and they are both going, “ow, ow, ow….”   They are at an impasse.  It is a stalemate.  And the dawn approaches.

So, what happens?   The “man” strikes Jacob in “the hollow of his loin.”   Now, think about that.  This is a knock-down, drag-out fight.  What is the one defensive move that invariably gets a dude to let go?  You hit him where it hurts.  It is amazing how we can read these stories and romanticize what they are really saying.  And yet so much of the spiritual sense is found in the emotional content of a story.  In this fight, no blow was too low, it seems, even for the angel of God. I don’t mean to be irreverent here.  This is written this way because of its inner meaning.  The soft part of the loin, whether of male or female, corresponds to the union of love and wisdom in our soul.  This union is the goal of all creation.  Each one of us is on a journey to having our love and wisdom united, which is to become whole and integrated—like the angels, in heart and mind—to become people of genuine integrity and wise loving-kindness. 

Yet there is something about this “Jacob” part of us that will forever resist the descent of this love and wisdom into our lives.  This most natural part of our mind really wants physical, measurable proof of God’s love and God’s existence.  It wants concrete evidence and concrete tasks, so that there is no room for doubt or mistakes—see it as terribly insecure and needing constant reassurance.  But God cannot give this part of us such unassailable proof.  God can’t, because that would destroy our freedom. And God will never, ever destroy our freedom.

So we have on the one side, this desperation for proof, and this desperation for a guarantee of salvation.  This is illustrated by Jacob refusing to let go, even when he has been kicked “in the hollow of the loin”.  Ouch, ouch ouch!  Now that’s tenacity. Jacob won’t let go, even though holding on is hurting him a LOT.

How will this end?  In the story, we read that day is breaking, which means, this temptation is coming to an end.  Jacob, injured and refusing to let go, tells the “man,” “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.”   This is the desperation for reassurance.  We want to know we are still loveable; we want to know we will be okay.  Instead of answering the “man” (angel) asks, “What is your name?” which, in the spiritual sense is asking, “what is your spiritual quality?”  And Jacob says, “Jacob,” which means, “really external.” 

In response, the angel doesn't shame him or blame him or curse him for being so natural and external, he gives him a new name: “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have struggled with God and with mortals, and have overcome.”  “You have struggled with God and with mortals, and have overcome.”  And this is what happens to us because of this temptation.  This natural part is given the ability to be more than it has been.  It begins to be able to transcend that very concrete nature.

In the spiritual sense the angel is saying: “You have showed great perseverance in this struggle between the mortal plane and the spiritual plane, and have transcended it.”  Swedenborg tells us, (in Heavenly Secrets 4570, if anyone wants to go look it up) that the changing of the name of Jacob to Israel represents a progression from a more external state to one more spiritual, and a lifting up of the natural towards heaven. “Israel” is when we have done our best with that wrestling and have overcome.  The struggle transforms us.  Still, forever after in the story, Jacob limps, and the name switches back and forth, sometimes Jacob and sometimes Israel.  Isn't that just like us?  Throughout much of our spiritual journey, we vacillate.  Sometimes we are in a more transcendent state, and sometimes we are back limping and struggling, doubting and fearing.       

Anyway, at this point in the story Jacob asks the “man” (note that it is Jacob, not Israel), “Please tell me your name.” In other words, “reveal your nature or essence.”  In many cultures even today, knowing someone’s name offers a certain power over them.  The natural is asking again, “Give me something I can write down and measure and argue about.”  It really wants that concrete stuff!   It wants a way to have power over the spiritual things.  But the “man” says simply, “Why do you ask for my name?”  And then, he blesses Jacob. 

It is as if God ruffles our hair and says with humor and mild exasperation, “Oh, you.”  And then gives us a big hug.

This life, this walk on this earth involves struggling to reconcile being both spiritual and natural at the same time.  We question the existence of God.  We question the benevolence of God.  We can’t help it.   We are stuck in time and space and are trying to comprehend the great I Am—Omniscient, Omnipotent, and utterly apart from time and space.   Jacob’s “thigh” is put forever “out of joint” by this struggle.  Jacob’s is.  He represents the part of us that just can’t quite get it.  Nevertheless we are blessed by this struggle: we become Israel, (which means God Triumphs or Transcends,) We develop the ability to transcend the merely natural. When it comes to living out a life of love and wisdom in conjunction in action, Jacob is resistant. But Israel can manage it.

Jacob’s approach to Canaan and approach to reconciliation with Esau corresponds to when we draw closer to God’s goodness on our journey.  God invites us to a new level of spirituality and a closer walk with God.  And Jacob—this most external part of us—becomes crippled by the contact.  Jacob limps forever after.  Israel goes on to establish a great nation. 

We can’t be legalistic when it comes to spirituality.   We can’t measure it or “prove” it.  It is not of this plane.  We are “spirits in a material world” indeed, and that is a baffling reality that trips up our concrete-mindedness on a regular basis.

But God doesn't condemn us for struggling this way.   He (or she) designed it this way.  It’s not our fault.  This story is in the Bible because this is what our spiritual journey looks like.  Jesus Himself eventually comes all the way down to this physical plane in a real way, and walks with us right here, right now.  And Jesus does not come to condemn us, but to save us and lift us up.

In our story. Morning has come.  Esau approaches.  Jacob, going on no sleep at all, faces the approach of his murderous brother, not just exhausted, but injured.  Crippled. 

And what happens when Esau finally comes upon Jacob?  Esau throws his arms around his brother, weeping for joy.  Esau has forgiven and forgotten long ago.  Esau, the red one, represents God’s love.  We often feel like sinners, sure that an encounter with God will kill us.  We hesitate to draw near, too aware of our own history, too ashamed.  We aren't at all sure that the camels and goats we have accrued along our journey (through trickery, I might add) will be enough to please God.

But God rushes past the gifts and embraces us.  God doesn't want our offerings.  Our gifts are not who we are.  It is you and me as we are that God is interested in embracing, not the show we put on, not the riches we hide behind.

We come broken and limping to God, and God sweeps aside all the distractions and swings us up into his arms laughing and weeping for joy.

Amazing.

So next time you are staring at the ceiling wondering when or if sleep will grace your eyelids, remember Jacob.  Know that no matter what you face the next day, it won’t kill you.  It can’t kill you, because God loves you.  It may be scary, it may be a struggle, it may leave you feeling small and inadequate, but you will live through it.  It is just the here and now, and it will pass.  It all will pass.

After all, you were born for God’s eternal love, not the job interview from hell, not that scary exam in your worst subject, not that threat of bankruptcy, or that cancer treatment, or whatever else you might be facing.  Those are the hills and mountains, the valleys and swamps along the way.  They build up our spiritual muscles.  They are making you and me spiritually buff!

The truth is, God loves each one of us more deeply than we can imagine. He is always pressing to draw us closer and to bless us more richly with His love.  In response, we wrestle with God and pull his nose and yank his hair.   And what does God do?  He blesses us! 

Amen.

Originally, When We Wrestle With God. Preached August 3^rd, 2008

The Readings

Genesis 32:22-31 ²² And he arose that night and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven sons, and crossed over the ford of Jabbok. ²³ He took them, sent them over the brook, and sent over what he had. ²⁴ Then Jacob was left alone; and a Man wrestled with him until the breaking of day. ²⁵ Now when He saw that He did not prevail against him, He touched the hollow of his loin; and the hollow of Jacob’s loin was injured as He wrestled with him. ²⁶ And He said, “Let Me go, for the day breaks.”

But he said, “I will not let You go unless You bless me!” ²⁷ So He said to him, “What is your name?” He said, “Jacob.”

²⁸ And He said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.”

²⁹ Then Jacob asked, saying, “Tell me Your name, I pray.”  And He said, “Why is it that you ask about My name?” And He blessed him there.  ³⁰ So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: “For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.” ³¹ Just as he crossed over Penuel the sun rose on him, and he limped on his hip.

Luke 7: 20-22  ²⁰ When the men had come to Him, they said, “John the Baptist has sent us to You, saying, ‘Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?’” ²¹ And that very hour He cured many of infirmities, afflictions, and evil spirits; and to many blind He gave sight.  ²² Jesus answered and said to them, “Go and tell John the things you have seen and heard: that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the gospel preached to them.

HS 4572:2  Every joining together of goodness and truth within a person happens through temptations. This is because unhealthy attachments and wrong ideas resist and rebel against healthy and useful attachments and ideas (aka goodness and truth).  These unhealthy habits and thought patterns try by every means possible to prevent the joining of good to truth (or good emotions to right-thinking) or of truth to good (right-thinking to healthy emotions). A battle actually takes place between the spirits present with the person: that is to say, between the dark spirits (those governed by evils and falsities) and the angelic spirits (those governed by goodness and truth). But the person feels like that conflict is inside and calls it temptation. When the angels (spirits governed by goodness and truth) finally conquer and drive away the harmful spirits (governed by sick attachments and lies) the angelic spirits are filled with joy. This joy is also felt by the mortal as deep inner comfort. Yet the joy and comfort do not come because a victory has been won, but because new goodness and truth become joined in marriage inside their soul. There is joy every time good and truth are married, for each little marriage is a step toward the heavenly marriage, in which the Divine is present.