Jacob Wrestles God…And Gets a Blessing

A danger when it comes to reading the Bible is when we unconsciously bring our own biography into each reading of scripture - and, there's no getting away from it. If we try to claim otherwise, we're fooling ourselves. We bring our own cultural limitations (and ignorance about the culture that is being written about), our own fears about God and ourselves, on and on and on it goes. This sometimes means that we miss the headline story because we've gotten all caught up in the footnotes.

When I come across the long and winding story of Jacob in the Old Testament, I am tempted to get lost. Jacob, whose name means something along the lines of "supplanter, one who seizes, circumvents, usurps" I bring a ton of baggage with me. And there is a lot of stuff in this story that provides us plenty of jumping off points to muddy the waters. My own family system is rife with some of the very issues that you'll notice emerging if you go to the book of Genesis and dig into Jacob's biography. Here's a brief and thoroughly incomplete recap of the story, in case you're in scroll mode and do not have 30 minutes to dig deep.

Abraham and Sarah, where I start when tracing the family tree of dysfunction, were early candidates for IVF, but since the technology didn't exist, Sarah took matters into her own hand and offered up her servant Hagar as an unwitting surrogate. When Ssrah's plan worked, Sarah was all kinds of mad and vindictive. Eventually, Sarah does conceive, as God had promised her and she has a son Isaac - who Abraham happened to not sacrifice on the altar in a way that pleased God (which is a totally strange story). Isaac marries Rebecca, and they have twins Esau and Jacob. And through this whole story, there are dynamics that trigger me. There is favoritism (Rebecca and Jacob, Isaac and Esau). There is trickery - calling a wife a sister again, Jacob steals Esau's birthright and his father's blessing with his mother as a willing instigator and aid. Jacob has to flee because Esau threatens to kill him. Jacob runs off and marries Rachel, but not before his faither-in-law tricks him into first marrying Leah, Rachel's sister - who has no trouble getting knocked up while Rachel remains barren. Then Jacob gets revenge on his father-in-law through more trickery and eventually heads back home where Esau appears to have forgotten the whole grudge thing. But Jacob puts his wives and children and servants at the front of the caravan to test the waters and save his own hide - as per usual. Along the way, there are some encounters with God.

Now, If I don't know better, I'm going to get all side-tracked by the family dysfunction. I'm going to bemoan the fact that all these generations later, families are still acting mean and ugly, playing favorites, withholding blessings, stealing from one another and making complicated marriages. Clearly, there are some things we could say about that and over the years I've said a lot more than really needed saying. But here's the thing: it's always the side-story, the human interest piece, never the frontline news.

And the frontline news is this...God is behaving distinctly NOT GOD-LIKE (at least as the people thought of gods who demanded sacrifices and lots of attention with a distinctly narcissistic air about them). In Genesis 28:13, Jacob has a dream and God says to him, "I am the Lord the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring and know that I am with you and will be keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you."

And Jacob responds by saying if this is all true, then he will return home and the Lord God will be his God and he will give one-tenth to God as a tithe. Notice that God did not ask for this, this is Jacob's response. Sort of like the things we tend to say after a spiritual high, after a baptism, or when God spares our life or something. But just notice this, this is all on Jacob, God's not asking for this stuff.

And, although Jacob does eventually return home, and maybe he did become a faithful tither, he also continued to to live up to his name - supplanter, seizer, circumventer, usurper tricky trickster with a penchant for putting his wives children and servants between him and perceived danger. And how does God respond?

In Genesis 32, Jacob wrestles with "a man" - frequently identified as God in disguise or one of God's angels. In the scriptures, he's "a man." It's quite a tussle and 'the man' is not getting the upper hand and Jacob won't let him go until 'the man' blesses him. Jacob, it seems, really wants those blessings! And don't we all?

Here is the blessing he received, "You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed." 'The man' will not give Jacob his name upon request, but Jacob himself believes that he saw God's face.

So here's the thing. What we see in this scripture is this: all the stories are about what God does, and how he continues to work with us even when we are sneaky little you know whats. Although close encounters with God and his angels can dramatically change us, fill us with awe, and inspire us to make all sorts of promises, it seems like the heroes in the Bible were able to do all of this and still keep their clay feet. They were still fully imperfectly human.

I don't know why God has the system set up like this, but I love him for it. It enables me to breathe. It allows me to dare to imagine that even though I inevitably mess up, there is this really sneaky little dude in the Bible who also was quite a mess, and still God came to him in his dreams, and found away to wrestle with him in the dark of night...and both times, God was far more interested in letting Jacob know who he was and what he was about than he was getting Jacob to get his act together and start behaving like a man who is in awe of almighty God.

So if you are that person, the one who made the big promises but your compulsions, desires, lusts, insecurities, cowardice, greed, addictions, etc., took you in a different direction? So what? You were never the point; you are the recipient of the grace and mercy of a God who keeps showing up in weird ways and through crazy stories with one point: I am God; you are not and that is ok. I am here to love on you. No BUT’s or PS’s with hidden messages of shame and blame and threats. Just this. I am God. I don't know what you might want to do with all this. But I hope it loosens your chest muscles up a bit so you can breathe more freely. He's got you; he's got us.