Wrestling With God

'The same night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. 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. Then he said, "Let me go, for the day is breaking." But Jacob said, "I will not let you go, unless you bless me." So he said to him, "What is your name?" And he said, "Jacob." 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." 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. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, "For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved." The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.'

--Genesis 32: 22-31

'In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I solemnly urge you: proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching. For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths. As for you, always be sober, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully.'

--II Timothy 4: 1-5

'Jesus told his disciples a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. He said, "In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, `Grant me justice against my opponent.' For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, `Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.'" And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"'

--Luke 18: 1-8

I have a confession to make.  I am closet fan of professional wrestling. I got hooked when I was in high school, thanks to Kenny Mullins, the senior in my 8th grade algebra class who said to me one week, “Just watch it!” I did and it’s been all downhill ever since.  I gave up religiously watching several years ago, but I’m still fascinated by it. It may be predetermined, but at its core it represents something fundamental about the human condition: the struggle between the babyface good guy and the heel bad guy, and in the end there is always a resolution.

Cody Rhodes (babyface) v. Roman Reigns (heel) at Wrestlemania.

However you may now think of me, pro wrestling is what I first thought about when I read our Scriptures for this past week. In Genesis we find Jacob running for his life, and to be honest, he’s kind of the heel in this story. He has cheated his brother Essau of his birthright, stolen a blessing from their father Isaac that was reserved for Essau, and altogether cheated and lied to get what he wants. Classic heel. Essau is out to get Jacob, who we find in today’s reading on a mountain where he wrestles all night with a stranger. It is widely accepted that this stranger is some kind of earthly form for God. All night long they struggle, grappling with one another. God knocks out Jacob’s hip, but Jacob is relentless and won’t quit until he receives a blessing. When morning comes the blessing is granted, God gives to Jacob a new name, Israel – literally, one who wrestles with God. Jacob even names that Peniel – the face of God. Wrestlemania’s got nothing on this bout. 

Jacob wrestles with God.

Our epistle from II Timothy paints the picture of an early Christian community that is struggling, wrestling both with their leadership, and probably with one another, as some are jumping ship. This letter, written to the community’s leader, is less of a chastisement of struggle and more of encouragement to persist and persevere through those kinds of struggles;  to wrestle with one another in ways that lead to healing and shared mission within the community.

That same persistence is what Jesus is articulating in the parable from the Gospel of Luke.  Let’s be honest, this isn’t the easiest parable in Jesus’ bag. If the judge in the story – often called the Unjust Judge – is a stand-in for God, he’s no babyface. He refuses to grant the widow’s request time and time again; she finally wears him out, wrestles with him, until he gives in to her demands, weary that she will exhaust him, or as the literal translation of the Greek reads: ‘Give him a black eye!’ I don’t believe, nor do any biblical scholars I could find believe, that we are meant to view the judge as a stand-in for God. Our relationship to God is not one where we have to pester God to the point that our request is granted – that is a pretty immature kind of faith; God isn’t some sort of cosmic vending machine that will eventually give us what we want. Yet sometimes, it can definitely feel like we are wrestling with, or even pestering God. The moral of the parable, then, is that our faith should be persistent and relentless, not so that we get what we want, but so that we always remember that God is not like the Unjust Judge, and does, in fact, hear us and bring about a resolution, even if it is not always the kind that we’re seeking. 

The Parable of the Unjust Judge by Nicola Saric

The story of Jacob, the commentary on the community of II Timothy, and the parable of the Persistent Widow speak to something to which we all can relate, and that is the struggle we sometimes feel with God, and maybe even with one another.  There isn’t a person out there who has not wrestled with God, sometimes all night like Jacob.  There isn’t a person out there who has not felt like they have pestered God again and again with their request. I’ve been there. We’ve all been there, maybe in the last year, certainly in the last five years, and even in the Before-Covid Times, we found ourselves in those knock-down, drag-out struggles. When change came suddenly and without warning. When we lost a job, or a loved one died. When everything we thought we knew to be true about ourselves was challenged. We’ve all been there, and some are there now.

I’ve had a lot of conversations with people over the years who have been really going through it and are scared because they had been taught that you don’t wrestle with God or question God. You just accept everything that comes your way, without complaint. Yet this is contrary to what the Bible actually shows us. It’s not just in these Scriptures for this week. Maybe the best example, of course, is Job. We don’t read nearly enough from Job, but that story is one that often gets misinterpreted. We celebrate his patience or the fact that Job coined the phrase, ‘The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away,’ but we sometimes forget that even Job eventually cursed God and cursed the day he was born.  Job is old, one of the oldest stories we have, whose roots can be traced back to an era long before Judaism existed, and its lesson is older than our Scriptures themselves, the lesson that part of what it means to be human is to wrestle with the Divine.

Eastern Orthodox icon of Job on the dung heap.

 

I actually believe that that is Good News. Here’s why. It’s the lesson of the cross, the lesson of struggle, the kind of realization that comes from wrestling with God in such a way that, like Jesus in that moment, we exclaim, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” To accept a message that says we should not wrestle with God, or that struggle with God and one another should never happen, minimizes our experiences of pain, and we no longer ground ourselves in reality, the reality that the writer of II Timothy knew, which is that living in community is hard, whether that community is a family, a church, or even just our one-on-one relationship with God. The wrestling matches we get into may not be easy or shot – they are seldom either- but in the end, out of those struggles, comes clarity and. an understanding of who we really are, like Jacob getting a new name, and a new path forward, like the empty tomb in place of the cross.

We may often come to the Scriptures looking for the message that makes us feel good, only to be hit with stories like these. They remind us that when we wrestle with God we are not doing anything wrong. We are, in fact, growing deeper in our knowledge and love of God, becoming more mature in our faith. It is similar to a marriage. I’ve probably learned the most about my wife, myself, and our relationship in the times we’ve wrestled with each other. They’ve actually made our relationship even stronger, more mature and meaningful. Cynthia Bourgeault, who is an Episcopal priest and contributor with Richard Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation, says in her book The Meaning of Mary Magdalene, that the hallmark of a healthy relationship is not so much how well you get along but how well you fight, how you move through those wrestling matches, and come back to each other; the resilience that is at the heart of the relationship that tells you never to quit on each other. God doesn’t quit on us. Why should we quit on God or each other?

So if you find yourself today questioning God, wrestling with God, know that it’s ok. If you feel like you’re pestering God, that’s fine because God can take it. And in the end, you might come away changed, maybe with a limp or a new name, but one way or another, when the bell sounds, you’ll discover who you really are. 

Do Not Fret

1 Do not fret yourself because of evildoers; * do not be jealous of those who do wrong. 

2 For they shall soon wither like the grass, * and like the green grass fade away.

3 Put your trust in God and do good; * dwell in the land and feed on its riches.

4 Take delight in God, * who shall give you your heart’s desire.

5 Commit your way to God and put your trust in God, * who will bring it to pass.

6 God will make your righteousness as clear as the light * and your just dealing as the noonday.

7 Be still before God; * for God wait patiently.

8 Do not fret yourself over the one who prospers, * the one who succeeds in evil schemes.

9 Refrain from anger, leave rage alone; * do not fret yourself; it leads only to evil.

10 For evildoers shall be cut off, * but those who wait upon God shall possess the land.

--Psalm 37 (St. Helena Psalter Edition)

'The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" The Lord replied, "If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, `Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you. "Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, `Come here at once and take your place at the table'? Would you not rather say to him, `Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink'? Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, `We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!'"

--Luke 17: 5-10

I love the Psalms! Whether we read them together, or antiphonally; whether it’s in our corporate worship on Sundays, or during the Divine Offices like Morning Prayer or Compline, the Psalms carry so much meaning; they are incredibly rich because they speak to the human condition. They’ve got it all.  From joy to anger, from sadness to confusion, the whole spectrum of emotion is covered in the Psalms. They are usually my go-to book of the Bible when I’m in need of some guidance or when folks ask me for some.

This is true for Psalm 37, which was the appointed Psalm for this past Sunday (if you were using Track 2, that is!).  It’s a Psalm that deals with emotions that I suspect many of us have wrestled with in these latter days; emotions like fear and worry.  Children starving in Gaza. American troops deployed to American cities in the name of, allegedly, keeping the peace. Every day feeling more and more like we are moving closer to some horrific combination of The Handmaid’s Tale and Terminator.  What can we do with such fear, worry, and fret about the present, yes, but especially the future? Blessedly, we have the Psalms, many of which are attributed to King David, himself someone who faced real existential fears, and more often than not, the poetry he and others composed speak a good word, even to where we are now.

David composing the Psalms from the Paris Psalter, an illustrated Byzantine manuscript.

It's right there in Psalm 37, in the first half of the first verse.  “Do not fret yourself because of evil doers.”  Do not fret yourself.  Did you notice that those words occur 3 times in the 10 verses that we read.  This is the prophetic voice of the Psalmist; we can imagine God speaking, both to the Psalmist and to us. Do not fret yourself.  It reminds me of the very first words said by the angels whenever they come to earth in the stories of Scripture.  Remember what those words are:  “Be not afraid.”  To know God is to know the peace that is beyond understanding, to know perfect love; which, of course, casts out fear.  Do not be afraid of the things that evil folks are doing.  When you look at the world and cannot understand why it is the way it is, take heart because God will, in God’s time and God’s way, bring all things to perfection, including the judgement of the wicked. Do not fret yourself.

That might be easier said than done. How can we possibly let go of our fretting in a time when it seems perfectly understandable?  The Psalmist says to “put your trust in God and do good.”  Take care of the things that we can take care of, focus on the good that we can do and trust God’s power to work in us and through us, even when we’re fretting. I come from a long line of worriers, so I get why this is tough.  And I’m sure that the Psalmist was going through some stuff when they wrote this. If it was, in fact, David, maybe he was running for his life when Saul wanted him killed, or maybe he was feeling the weight of his own sinfulness. Whatever the case, the Psalm’s instruction is to put one’s trust in God, focus on doing good, and God will deal with the rest. 

But how, then, do we really put our trust in God?  One way—and this is my favorite part of the Psalm —is “be still before God; for God wait patiently.”  To be still and wait patiently means just that, to remember that God’s timing is not our own, that we, blessedly, don’t have to have everything figured out, and that cultivating God’s brand of patience is, as someone once said, a virtue. To be still often means to stop for a minute and just breathe.  Breathe in God’s mercy, breathe out God’s love.  In my parish on Sunday we stopped in the middle of the sermon time and just breathed. Some closed their eyes, some had a soft, downward gaze. We were still. We noticed our breath, which made the very sound of God's own name: YA-WEH. We breathed in that stillness, releasing cares and concerns. We breathed out that patience, resleasing fear. Exercises like these can be a helpful and holy tool for centering ourselves and focusing on God's very presence within us, and it might be something you could try in in those moments of fretting. 

We begin to let go of the fretting, and we begin to put our trust in God when we stop, when we’re still, and when we realize that God, as the old song says, has got the whole world in God’s mighty hands, including us. I think of the image Julian of Norwich saw when she heard the voice of Jesus tell her that all manner of things would be well. She saw God holding something as tiny as a hazelnut, which God said was all that has ever been or ever will be, all of it made for love. Those breaths we take remind us of that love, that God is already in us – some folks call this the Cosmic Christ, the Jesus that is present within all living things. We begin to put our trust in God when we relinquish our trust in our egos, in our own wants and desires, understanding that when we come before God, are enough. That, too,  is something that can utterly cripple us when we consider the “evil schemes” of others, as the Psalm says. The thought that we aren’t enough, aren’t doing enough to overcome such evil, don’t have enough faith in God. 

Julian of Norwich and the hands of God

Jesus knew something about this. I imagine him taking a moment to pause, maybe even taking a breath himself, before he responded to the apostles asking him to increase their faith. I wonder if they were surprised when Jesus said that they didn’t need more faith, that even the tiniest seed is enough. What matters is to put whatever faith we have into practice when we can, to do what is ours to do and leave the rest to God. Think about the beginning and ending statements in our Gospel this week: “Increase our faith….We have done what we ought to have done.”

Much happens between all our beginnings and endings. Life builds us up and then wears us down. Love happens. Loss happens. Illusions of happily-ever-after move out and conflicted feelings move in. Hope for the journey gives way to despair, and we stumble and rise up and stumble again. Not unlike Jesus himself. And we pray once more for an increase of faith, to be freed of fretting.

Jesus reminds us that we are not the masters of God’s purposes in the world, merely the servants. We have enough faith to do what is ours to do, to serve what matters. We have, on our very breath, the name of God. We seek more faith, yes; but we also remember that even in the most troubling of times, we have not only Jesus’ example before us, but we have him within us. We have his very self on which we feast, bread and drink for our journey through the changes and chances of this life. And we have each other, companions on that journey. 

When the world feels crazier than it usually is, when you feel like you don’t have enough, that you aren’t enough, maybe you will pause, breathe in God’s mercy, breathe out God’s love. Know that you are enough. Know that you have enough. Be still, and do not fret. God’s got you. God’s got us. And all manner of things will be well. 

Later in our liturgy, we prayed one of my favorite prayers from our Book of Common Prayer, A Prayer for Quiet Confidence, and I close this blog entry with those same words, as a prayer for all of us during these troublesome times:

O God of peace, who has taught us that in returning and rest we shall be saved, in quietness and confidence shall be our strength: By the might of your Spirit lift us, we pray you, to your presence, where we may be still and know that you are God; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.