Striving with God—Lectionary Reflection for Pentecost 10A/Proper 13A (Genesis 32)
Genesis 32:22-31 New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
22 The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. 24 Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. 25 When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 26 Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” 27 So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 28 Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans and have prevailed.” 29 Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. 30 So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, yet my life is preserved.” 31 The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.
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There
are passages of scripture that capture one’s attention more than others. They
tend to be passages where biblical characters have a life-changing encounter
with God. It might be the call of Abraham or Moses’ encounter with the Burning
Bush. Then there’s the story of Jacob’s wrestling match with God. We’ve already
spent time with Jacob who is, himself, one of the most fascinating characters
in Scripture. He’s always striving to get the upper hand, whether with his
brother Esau or his Uncle Laban. Sometimes it works to his advantage, but
sometimes it doesn’t, at least not at first. Remember that he spent seven years
working for his uncle hoping that he could marry Laban’s younger daughter,
Rachel. Laban, of course, pulled a fast one on the trickster and substituted
his older daughter Leah. Jacob would marry Rachel, but not before agreeing to
work for another seven years. Now, he’s heading home. He’s married and has
accumulated great wealth. However, he has to face his brother, Esau, who had
sworn to kill him after Jacob swindled the family birthright from him for a pot
of stew. In this passage, Jacob has a divine encounter during the night as he
contemplates his encounter with Esau.
To give
some background to this moment in the Jacob story, in the previous two chapters
of Genesis, Jacob has married Leah and Rachel, along with Zilpah and Bilhah. By
this point, Jacob has eleven sons, now that Rachel has finally had a baby
(Joseph). Jacob had to flee from his father-in-law/uncle due to a bit of
inter-family swindling. So, he heads back home, with Laban in pursuit. You
might say he was between a rock and a hard place. Jacob always seemed to be in
and out of trouble, and yet he is an honored ancestor. Laban does catch up, but
the two work out a deal so that Jacob could take his family and flocks (stolen
from Laban), to the land of his father. Before he crosses over into Canaan,
where his brother Esau lived, he prays to God, asking the God of Abraham and
Isaac to deliver him from the hands of Esau, “for I am afraid of him; he may
come and kill us all, the mothers with the children.” Then Jacob makes a claim
on the covenant God earlier made with him, reminding God that God had promised
to make his “offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted because
of their number” (Gen. 32:9-12). Not only did he pray for deliverance, but he
also sent Esau gifts as an appeasement.
When we
pick up the story chosen by the creators of the Revised Common Lectionary,
Jacob is alone. He sent his wives, maids, and eleven children across the
Jabbok, along with all his possessions, hoping that Esau wouldn’t do them any
harm (though he did hear that Esau was coming with four hundred men). While
Jacob would have to face Esau sooner rather than later, he needs a bit more
time to prepare for this reunion. That’s understandable. He and Esau hadn’t
parted on the best of terms. Now, he’s returning home, a rather wealthy man,
ready to lay claim to his birthright. The story of their reunion will have to
wait because something else important will take place before that reunion.
After
everyone has crossed the river, night has fallen, and Jacob is alone. It’s at
that moment that a man attacks him and they wrestle until daybreak. The
narrator doesn’t tell us much, at least at first, as to who this man is. It’s
as if Jacob gets mugged. Fortunately, Jacob is a good wrestler, so he fights
back. The wrestling match goes on for hours until the day is about to break,
with neither Jacob nor his attacker getting the advantage. So, who is who has
attacked Jacob, and why? Is it a mugger? A demon? That is one theory that has
been bandied about. Is it Esau? If so, it’s a precursor to what is to take
place the next day. Ultimately, the narrative is not clear. It is, as Walter
Brueggemann suggests, that the narrator doesn’t want to let us know much. So,
he writes: “To be too certain would reduce the dread intended in the telling.
It is most plausible that in the present form, the hidden one is Yahweh” [Genesis,
p. 267].
While
earlier versions of the story might have envisioned a mugger or a demon, biblical
writers are not averse to using anthropomorphic language to describe divine-human
encounters. We simply need to go back to Genesis 2, where God walks in the
Garden looking for the first couple. The narrator invites us to ponder the
possibilities of such encounters, but to hear that message we’ll need to let go
of our empiricist side and set our imaginations free. Think for a moment of
your own wrestling matches with God. They might not be as embodied as the
encounter described here, but we’ve all sought at points to pin God down.
In this
story, the trickster ends up getting tricked, such that Jacob gets a bit of his
own medicine. I don’t have a lot of experience as a wrestler—I had to wrestle
in high school P.E. and went to wrestling camp one year (so I could learn to
defend myself, not that it helped that much as I consistently got pinned). This
I do know, wrestling matches are not only physical matchups. They’re also a
match of wits. If you’re going to win you have to foresee your opponent’s
moves. Now it is interesting that once again the trickster gets tricked, or at
least Jacob gets a bit of his own medicine. One would not, I suppose, want to
view God as a trickster or cheater, but we get the point, don’t we?
So,
metaphorically, Jacob is having a wrestling match with God as to what to do
next. Will he cross the river knowing that Esau might kill him? Or will he decide
to stay where he is and not cross the river, though he has committed everything
to the move? Wrestling matches are a match
of wits. Jacob is facing a major decision. Does he cross the river or stay
behind? It’s safer, or so he thinks, on the near side of the river.
As dawn
begins to break, Jacob’s opponent, not able to get the upper hand, pulls a fast
one. Perhaps the opponent will lose power in the daylight or maybe the attacker
wants his identity to remain hidden, but whatever the case, the man seeks to
break free of Jacob’s grip by knocking his hip out of its socket. Although
Jacob is probably writhing in pain, Jacob doesn’t let go. He might be in pain,
but he’s determined to come out on top, as he always does! So, the question
before us is this: if this is God, then how does Jacob fight God to a draw? As
Brueggemann notes, “This is no ordinary man. And certainly no ordinary God!
Clearly, this is no ordinary story” [Genesis, p. 267].
When
the opponent demands that Jacob let him go, Jacob demands that the opponent
give him a blessing. The opponent responds by giving Jacob a new name and thus
a new identity. The stranger, whose identity still remains hidden from the
reader, asks Jacob his name. Then the stranger changes his name from Jacob (the
Grabber) to Israel. The stranger explains this new name by telling Jacob that
he had “striven with God and humans, and have prevailed” (Gen. 32:28).
So, Jacob
has a new name and identity. You might say, using Johannine terms, that Jacob
has been born again. But Jacob isn’t quite finished with his interlocutor. The stranger
had asked for his name, so Jacob/Israel returned the favor, asking for the
stranger’s name. To know the stranger’s name is to have an advantage over the
one who had renamed him. Remember Jacob didn’t lose the match. In his eyes,
they remain equals. The stranger ignores the question, refusing to further
unveil. However, Jacob has a sense of who it is he has encountered. So after
receiving his blessing, Jacob names the place where he had wrestled with the as-yet
unrevealed person, Peniel. Jacob calls the place Peniel because, as he says: “I
have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved” (Gen. 32:30). But, as
Brueggemann suggests, “Israel does see and live. But it is not suggested that
the seeing leaves one the same, unscathed. He lived, but he lived a new way,
with new power and with new weakness. And then he faced his brother” [Genesis,
p. 271].
Jacob received his blessing and his new name. It was as if he was, to use
Johannine terms, “born again.” But he still had to face his brother. However,
after wrestling with God, facing Esau wouldn’t be a problem. When he faces his brother,
it will not be as Jacob the Trickster, but as Israel, the one who strove with
God and prevailed; yes, the one who saw God face to face and survived to tell
the story. Though, as a monument to this
encounter, Jacob/Israel will go about with a limp and the people of Israel will
not eat the “thigh muscle that is on the hip socket, because he struck Jacob on
the hip socket at the thigh muscle” (Gen. 32:32).
Why do
I like this passage? Could it be that it reminds us that we all engage in wrestling
matches with God? We might not prevail, but in the course of these matches, we
are changed. Each of us, like Jacob, faces major decisions in our lives. It’s
often in the course of making these decisions that we have divine encounters,
such that at least spiritually, we see God face to face, and are changed
forever. Of course, even as Jacob engaged in this wrestling match, he had
placed his wives and children in danger. It seems that he was willing to
sacrifice them in the hope that he could achieve some form of détente with his
brother, who we’re told was heading his way along with four hundred armed men. That
wasn’t a good sign. The assigned reading doesn’t invite us to stay around to
see what happens next, but I think you can guess that Jacob will face his
brother and survive.
Grace
Ji-Sun offers us this helpful summation of the implications of this story for
us. She highlights some of the problematic aspects of Jacob’s approach to the
problem at hand. She writes:
This passage challenges us to reflect on what we must wrestle with, our lack of concern for the well-being of others, and even our willingness to make others pay for our wrongdoing and selfishness. Without a thought, we exploit others who are weaker than ourselves, purchasing clothes made by child laborers or others who do not receive a living wage, exploiting and devaluing others for the sake of our own desires. Can there be redemption for our disgrace as the rich and powerful dominate and oppress those who are weak, poor, and marginalized? This story provides good news; Jacob the oppressor is redeemed God keeps the promise made at Bethel. If God can use Jacob to build a nation, then we also have reason to hope that God will redeem and use us in spite of our greedy, exploitative, and self-centered behavior. This will not happen without struggle, but genuine change is possible. [Preaching God’s Transforming Justice, p. 340]
What we learn from this story is that Jacob, like his father
and grandfather, was a complex person. He was born into a dysfunctional family that
descended from dysfunctional families. Despite his tendency to use deceit and
trickery to get his way, God redeemed and used him. Might the same be true of
us? Even if we wrestle with God and our neighbors, might there still be the
possibility of receiving a blessing? Remember that Jacob not only received a
blessing and a name change, but he had that calling to be a blessing to the
nations. It won’t be a smooth ride by any means, but the promise will continue for
another generation and then another after that. As for us, we are heirs of that
promise as we join with Jesus.
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