Until You Bless Me: Genesis 32:22-31 - Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

²²The same night [Jacob] got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. ²³He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. ²⁴Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. ²⁵When 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. ²⁶Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” ²⁷So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” ²⁸Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.” ²⁹Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. ³⁰So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.” ³¹The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. (NRSV)

day 171 knead by tracy ducasse on Flickr. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

When we lived in Gettysburg, the sign in front of Dairy Queen read: “scream until daddy stops.”

That is good advertising!

I don’t know, but I would bet that this is effective advertising.

But does this work with God?

So what are we supposed to think about this widow who appears to take a page out of the four-year-old’s playbook by incessantly begging a judge for justice?

To be honest, I admire her tenacity and courage. She knows that the judge “neither feared God nor had respect for people” One wonders if the judge could have had her imprisoned or killed—or, at minimum, imposed a restraining order against her. Nevertheless, she persisted—and she got justice.

It’s almost as if Jesus is emboldening God’s children everywhere to scream until they get what they want! It works for Dairy Queen!

The TV preachers say, “name it and claim it;” pray, believe, and it will be yours.

But can you wrestle what you want from God, as long as you ask enough? Believe enough? Become good enough?

My issue with prosperity Gospel is the notion that you as a human being can prevail upon God to get what you want, if only you can master the art of doing it right.

But consider Jacob: an assailant attacks and fights with him until daybreak. When the assailant fails to defeat Jacob, he strikes Jacob on the hip socket and knocks it out of joint. But still, Jacob is not defeated. He will not let his assailant go without giving him a blessing. He gets the blessing, along with a new name—Israel—which means “he wrestles with God.”

What we see here, then, is not persuasion or forceful manipulation—especially as far as Jacob is concerned. He didn’t pick a fight God; if anything, God picked a fight with him! This makes me realize just how much of the Christian life is a wrestling match with God. After all, God is God, and you’re not. Your will and God’s will are not one and the same. Your sin, selfishness, and ignorance separate you from God. Sometimes, God must fight them out of you.

Prayer, at times, can be an intensive wrestling match with God. Sometimes, it feels like you’re talking to the wall, and you want to give up! If God’s mind is made up, why bother? But that illness won’t go away. That pain keeps getting harder. The way forward grows increasingly unclear. The world keeps spinning out of control. There’s no justice or peace to be found.

But Jacob and the widow persist—and they prevail. I would argue that God prevails, too—and not as a parent who buys their screaming child ice cream for a few moments of silence. God prevails because Jacob and the widow are radically transformed through their struggles. Jacob is better prepared to be the namesake of God’s people. The widow and all who know her see God’s justice.

God prevails because God loves blessing people. God loves it even more when those children see God’s love in the blessings.

Sometimes, you must fight your way into God’s blessings—because it’s difficult to know something as a blessing if you didn’t have to struggle for it.

And it’s strange to think about God that way—because we don’t typically associate love with tackling someone on the side of the road and pulling their hip out of the socket! But faith begins with God’s initiative—and how else is God going to draw you out of sin and selfishness into new life? How else is God going to get off the path you’re on and onto the path God wants you to walk? How else can you and God become of one mind and one heart? Your relationship with God, like your relationships with people, grow through struggle. And that’s not a bad thing.

God actually wants to be wrestled with! That’s what you do when you’re praying through times of adversity; reading the Scriptures and trying to understand; trying to discern God’s will while facing an uncertain future. What do we do in funerals and at GriefShare? We wrestle with God. What do we do at bible study and in Sunday school? We wrestle with God. What do we do in council meetings? We wrestle with God. Because we need God’s blessing. We need God to lead and guide us. We need God to provide for us. And we need God to wrestle us out of our fears, failures, and selfish pursuits.

We wrestle with God. And God wrestles back. And we won’t give up until God blesses.

More important than praying the right words or having a strong faith is your refusal to surrender the struggle, because when you do, it’s the devil who wins. You may give up, but God never does.

What will you be wrestling with God about today? And not just for yourself, but for the neighbor, for the world, for the sake of Christ’s mission in the world?

Remember how Jesus wrestled with God at Gethsemane: “take this cup from me, I pray… But not my will, but yours be done.” Out of that struggle came the salvation of the world.

God loves to bless you. God loves to bless the world. Salvation is born in the struggle—and when God prevails, you prevail. Be in the struggle—and don’t give up until God blesses.