Genesis 32:22-31
One of my older brothers and I used to wrestle. Being five years older, it didn’t take him long to pin me down. If I couldn’t wiggle free, I would Jacob him by calling for my mother, who was just around the corner. “Mom! He won’t let me go,” I’d whine. Her head would pop into the living room, chastise my older brother, tell him to let me go, and disappear again. My brother was backed into a corner, and so he would relent, rolling his eyes or sticking out his tongue at me, while I flashed him a winner’s smile, sly and slim. Jacob would be proud of me, don’t you think?
But in Jacob’s wrestling match, all of his tricks run out. He fights for his life all night long; no ankle grabbing will get him out of this challenge. The figure who grabs Jacob and spins him around and around in a cloud of dust won’t be conned like Jacob’s father or mother or brother, and if Jacob wants a blessing, he won’t get it by making a bowl of soup or making a fake I.D. All of that is stripped away. This is Jacob, bare and raw, and nothing more. All Jacob can do is hold on and not let go.
This story is not only about Jacob, it is about the birth of a people called Israel, not out of a womb but out of a wounded hip. It is an etiological story that addresses the question, “Why is it that we (Israel) always seem to be walking with a limp?” Answer: because that’s what happens when you wrestle with God in the dust and darkness, you leave with a new name and a new posture, one that you wouldn’t choose in a million years.
Remember who Jacob has been: the cheater, the back biter, the card counter, the pickpocket. Do we have any indication that he wants a new name? Nope, he wants a blessing. Do we have any reason to believe he wants a limp? Certainly not. Nevertheless, in the dark and quiet and dust, where Jacob can’t rely on his old bag of tricks, where he is no longer bound to be his old self, he does something new. He plays fair, refusing to cheat his way out. The wonderfully ironic thing about this story is that by not letting go Jacob forces the figure (i.e., God) to cheat. Robert Alter challenges any translation of v.26 as “he struck his hip socket.” He reports that the conjugation of the verb in the text means “to barely touch,” and thus the narrator may want the reader to understand the touch as supernatural.[1] God resorts to a trick when the trickster won’t let him go. Hold on tight enough and long enough to God and eventually God will do something that only God can do.
When dawn comes, when the wrestling is over, Jacob has a new name and a limp, neither of which he set out to receive and yet both given by God.
What does it mean that we are adopted into a family that wrestles with God? What does it mean that we have been grafted into this community, and that now, beyond all comprehension or self-motivation, we somehow have this wrestler’s DNA in our bones?
Tt gives me hope to know that we can claim Jacob as our ancestor, because lately church feels a great deal like wrestling in a dark cloud of dust all night long, without any certainty that dawn is actually coming. In June of 2021, David Sharp reported in The Associated Press on the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on churches in the United States. He tells story after story of churches (from a variety of denominations) that are on the brink of closing, hanging on for dear life.[1] “Jacob was left alone” (v.24), out there in the middle of the night, apart from his family and possessions. That snapshot is closer and closer to the place where the church finds herself in my context. So many things have been stripped away. The question for my community will be this: Are we holding on tighter to our buildings and properties than we are to God?
What does it mean that we are adopted into a family that has a limp? What does it mean that we have been taught to walk by people who hobble around? What does it mean that we are engaged with a God who is willing to bend the rules of the game in order to get through to us? In Christian theology we call this “incarnation.” God doesn’t mind cheating if it gets God closer to us, and if that leaves us limping, so be it. Yes, we are a limping people. That’s what it means to be transformed (sanctified), that we are walking wonky in the world, according to YHWH’s ways and not our own. We are, admittedly, off-kilter, uneven, and conspicuous. To be made holy is to look a little funny to our neighbors and coworkers. Transformation means we don’t walk the way we used to, and sometimes the new way (God’s way) is slower than our old way. Our limp comes from the ornery finagling of a God who likes hanging out with those on crutches.
In some Church traditions, you receive a new name when you are baptized. While this isn’t the practice of my denomination, the truth remains for all who get splashed by God that your identity has shifted, your purpose recycled, and your center relocated. In baptism, Jacobs become Israels and suddenly have to relate to their Esaus differently. Jesus is to blame for this, as he is for many other inconveniences in the life of those who bear his name. But he doesn’t leave us to do it on our own.
At the table of bread and cup, we take hold of God, even as we are taken hold of by God. When we pray the prayer of consecration over the elements, we ask the Spirit of God to touch them, making them for us the body and blood of Christ. And, of course, God does just that. Only the lightest of touch from God and wham! just like that, grace is planted broken bread and spilled cup. Are we surprised by this? This is simply what God does in Christ. Jacob wrestles with God for a blessing, and Jesus let’s go of equality with God to become a blessing. This is one we hold on to, only to find that he is holding all things in him, that in him “all things are held together,” including us. Be warned: you may walk away from God’s table with a limp and a new name, even if that isn’t your plan.
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[1] Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary: The Five Books of Moses (New York: W. W. Norton & Company), 121.
[2] David Sharpe, “Millions skipped church during pandemic. Will they return?” (The Associated Press, June 29, 2021: https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-pandemics-lifestyle-health-religion-cd5fbac2318cb58e1d5ec4a5d1c00ecc)