Wrestling with God

 

Sunday 2^nd August 2020 Reflection Genesis 32: 22 – 32

 

Over these last few months, the Book of Genesis has featured in the suggested Sunday readings. And as you may recall I’ve reflected on the Genesis passages several times. A few people have said they’ve found it interesting to read more of Genesis and think about it. Therefore, today we’re going back to Genesis.

The story of Jacob wrestling with God is a strange one. As Terence Fretheim says in his commentary on Genesis “This text has long fascinated commentators. Its meaning is so elusive that a variety of interpretations are credible.” Mr Fretheim then spends five pages of a large book exploring the passage! I must be briefer.

What I’d like us to think about is the struggle between Jacob and God. The wrestle.

Firstly. Why does God wrestle with Jacob? Some commentators suggest that God is responding to Jacob’s history of deception and wrestles with him as kind of punishment. Almost wanting to teach Jacob that he cannot proceed into the future relying on his own devices. Therefore, the story could be seen as Jacob’s conversion to a life more attuned to the ways of God.

But is this the case? There is nothing in the story suggesting any judgment by God on Jacob’s past misdemeanours. There is no repentance on Jacob’s part and there is no fundamental change in Jacob’s subsequent life pattern. In fact, in God giving Jacob a new name – Israel (meaning “he struggles with God” or “the one who strives with God”) – God commends Jacob for struggling. The new name reflects how Jacob has been in the past and how he is now.

Who is changed by the struggle? God? Jacob? Both? Certainly, their relationship has changed. They hold fast to each other; neither will turn away. And Jacob is not so changed that he loses his identity. Yet there are changes. As I’ve said Jacob’s name is changed. And this new name is a recognition of the strength Jacob has exhibited in this encounter with God and through out his lifetime.

What is the significance of the injury Jacob sustains? The story presents a poignant portrayal of Jacob limping down the road to the promised land as the sun’s first rays peek over the horizon. Jacob can move on towards his goal. But at the same time Jacob has been sharply and perhaps permanently marked by this struggle with God. What is the significance of the mark? On the one hand it signifies Jacob’s success, not his failure or defeat; he has struggled and prevailed. Jacob has not become a victim of God, reduced to grovelling before the power of the Almighty. On the other hand, it attests to God’s graciousness; Jacob has wrestled with God, yet his life is preserved. So, the mark symbolizes both who Jacob is and who God is.

What does this strange story mean for us?

I think the story of Jacob wrestling with God says something of how from time to time we can wrestle with God. And in my Genesis commentary Terence Fretheim suggests “God may encounter people in conflictual times by taking the form of the anticipated difficulty”. It’s a point also made by the leading Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann “In the night, the divine antagonist tends to take on the features of others with whom we struggle in the day.”

This may seem a strange idea. But if God is in everything then God must be in those things we are wrestling with in our lives.

I think what Terence Fretheim and Walter Brueggemann each mean is that when we are wrestling with something in our life, God wrestles with us. Almost as if we are then better prepared to encounter the thing we are challenged with. And if we refuse to engage with God in that struggling moment, we deny ourselves a God given resource. To go through it with God before we go through it with others provides resources of strength and blessing for whatever lies ahead.

Therefore, when it comes to struggles in our daily lives, we can count on God’s wrestling with us, challenging us, convicting us, evaluating us, judging us. And He does this so that we are better prepared for what we encounter. God holds fast to us even if at times we let go of Him.

Every couple of months I go and have a conversation with a Spiritual Director. I don’t like the term Spiritual Director. But what it means is someone I can go and talk to in confidence about my own journey of faith. One of the things I know will happen from time to time is that when I take something I am wrestling with; my Spiritual Director will challenge me if he feels it is right to do so. I firmly believe this is God speaking through him, helping me make sense of the thing that is challenging me.

If you’re of a certain age you may remember the wrestling that used to be on ITV on a Saturday afternoon. Big Daddy, Giant Haystacks, Mick McManus. The fights were choreographed with the winner the nice guy. In our wrestling with God there will only be one winner – God. And that’s because he loves us and sent his son Jesus to save us. As I’ve said God holds fast to us even if at times we let go of Him. And, just like Jacob, God gives us his blessing so that we are bound together facing the future together.