Genesis 32:22-31
Assaulted by God
James Sledge July 31, 2011
When I was a child, my father would often read Bible stories to me prior to bedtime. I can still see the big Bible Story book that he used. Certainly there were many stories about Jesus, but I think that as a child, the Old Testament stories stood out more. There were a lot of “hero” type stories in the Old Testament’ David fighting the giant Goliath with only his sling, Samson, the Hebrew version of Hercules. And then there were all those stories about Abraham and Sarah, and their offspring; Isaac, Esau and Jacob, and then all of Jacob’s sons, including Joseph.
The characters in those Bible stories didn’t seem much like real people to me. Perhaps that was just how far removed from me they were historically and culturally. Or perhaps it was because the Bible stories themselves had a kind of comic book mentality to them. These were larger than life heroes, not people much like me or other members of my family.
Whatever the reasons, I was well into adulthood before it dawned on me what a messed up, dysfunctional family the Abraham and Sarah clan was. It starts with the half-brothers Ishmael and Isaac, and only gets worse from there.
Rebekah and Isaac have twin boys, Esau and Jacob. Esau is the first born by a few seconds, and the sibling rivalry is off and running. Jacob is born holding onto Esau’s heel, their struggle already begun.
Not that the parents do much to help matters. Daddy likes Esau, and Momma likes Jacob. Esau is an outdoorsy, hunting and fishing sort of fellow. He’s the first born, a man of action, a manly man, and Dad plans to pass on the family business to Esau. Jacob, by contrast, is a Momma’s boy who likes hanging out in the tent. He’s also sneaky and manipulative, a cheat and a scoundrel who takes advantage of Esau’s tendency to act first and think later. And his mother is happy to assist.
Jacob and Esau are born when Isaac is quite old. By the time his boys are full grown, he is getting feeble and has become blind. Sensing that his time is short, Isaac calls in Esau and asks him to go out hunting and bring back some savory game they can enjoy together. And after the meal, Isaac will formally sign over the family business. In the language of the Bible, he will bless Esau.
But Momma overhears. She goes to Jacob and they, literally, cook up a scheme to deceive the old, blind father. She prepares a meal and helps Jacob disguise himself as Esau. He puts on some of Esau’s clothing, and Momma uses some goat skins to make arm hair wigs so the smooth-skinned Jacob has the hairy arms of his brother.
I know it’s a crazy story, but that’s what is says in the Bible. Jacob goes to his father, pretending to be Esau. Isaac recognizes Jacob’s voice, but the smell of Esau’s clothes, those arm hair wigs, (and maybe a little dementia?) are enough to fool the old man.
And so Isaac blesses Jacob moments before Esau returns to discover that he has been robbed of his blessing. I don’t know why there is no undoing this contract signed under false pretenses, but it seems that the blessing cannot be taken back. It is Jacob’s now, and Esau, its rightful owner, is left out, cheated out of his inheritance by his own brother.
No wonder Esau begins thinking about killing his brother. Jacob flees for his life, going back to Momma’s homeland to live with her family. By the time he gets the nerve to come back, he has a couple of wives, eleven sons, a twelfth on the way, and one daughter. He is still a con-man and a trickster, and he will repeat the mistakes of his own parents by favoring one of his children over the others. That child, Joseph, will become a spoiled brat whose own brothers plot to kill him, but that is another story. In our story today, Jacob heads back to his birthplace, not knowing if Esau still wants to kill him?
Now I have known my share of dysfunctional families, but I’m not sure I’ve ever met any so thoroughly messed up as this one. And perhaps that would not matter much except that for some inexplicable reason, God has hitched the hopes of blessing and restoration for all humanity to this dysfunctional family. What was God thinking?
I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed, but church congregations can be dysfunctional families themselves. There are manipulative folk who to get their way by complaining or threatening to leave and people who rarely lift a finger to help out yet perpetually think they deserve more from the church. There are parking lot meetings that circumvent the official meeting. There is gossiping and anonymous criticism where “lots of people” without names are upset or angry. Yet for some inexplicable reason, God has hitched the hopes of humanity’s blessing and restoration to this dysfunctional family. What was God thinking?
For much of Jacob’s dysfunctional story, God has seemed uninvolved But as Jacob returns to his birthplace, God makes an unexpected, uninvited entrance. A man wrestled with (Jacob) until daybreak. I wonder if Jacob first thought it was Esau. It’s a strange story with no reason is given for the attack. It is a story with religious sensibilities quite different from our own, depicting the encounter with God in earthy, dramatic fashion. This is not about belief. This is about struggle and blessing. Jacob seeks to deal with God as he does with everything else, to grab what he wants. But the attempt does not work out quite like he plans. God does not best him, and he gets a blessing. But in the process he is renamed, and he goes away limping. God’s blessing is still hitched to Jacob, now Israel, and his dysfunctional family, but Jacob, and those who follow him, will be changed and marked by this blessing, and bound in an ongoing struggle with God.
I’ve spoken with you before about the mammoth, three-year-ong National Study of Youth and Religion that examined the beliefs and faith practices of teenage Americans. They looked at a huge spectrum of religious tradition, and it turns out that most young people don’t dislike religion or church. They have a mostly positive view of them, however, their religious notions are so benign and inconsequential that they have almost no bearing on how these young people live their lives. The study named their faith, “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism,” and its hallmarks are: believing God created the world, God wants people to be good and nice, the central goal of life is to be happy and feel good about oneself, God is not really involved in life except in moments of crisis, and good folks go to heaven.
There’s nothing terribly offensive about any of this, but neither is there anything terribly substantive either. Professor and Christian Educator Kenda Dean uses terms like “Christian-ish” and “cult of nice” to describe it. It bears little resemblance to the faith the Church has proclaimed for centuries, but this is not, according to the study, because young people misunderstood the faith or perverted it. Rather it is the faith that was transmitted to them by their parents and their congregations.[1]
Now Jacob lived a long way from 21st Century America and “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism,” yet I can see some points of connection, at least prior to Jacob’s wrestling match. Aside from a few moments of crisis, God seems uninvolved in Jacob’s life. Jacob is all about using his own wits and cunning, grasping for all that he can, so that he can be happy. But then God, for all practical purposes, assaults him. Strangely, the encounter is something of a draw. God’s blesses Jacob, but he is permanently changed and marked. He has a new identity, and a limp.
Now here we are, the dysfunctional descendants of Jacob, still seeking God’s blessing. One of our current dysfunctions is to imagine a safe, benign God who is not much involved in our lives, who wants only to give us a spiritual lift. We can scarcely imagine a God who assaults us, grapples with us in a strange encounter that does not defeat us yet transforms and marks us, sends us out with new identities, carrying God’s blessing with us limping as we go. Such a thing seems preposterous… until the wrestling starts.
[1] See Kenda Creasy Dean, Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers Is Telling the American Church (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010)
No comments:
Post a Comment