Lessons for Facing the Future: From Some Jacob Stories

Dr. James Mayfield
Tarrytown United Methodist Church

March 19, 2006

Text: Genesis 32:22-28 (see Genesis 25:19-35:29)

How shall we face the future? This is the question that is always in front of us, whether we are aware of it or not. Today I going to continue remembering familiar Bible stories, trying to discern what they have to say to us regarding our facing the future.

Today, I want us to remember some of the stories about Jacob. Jacob was a rascal who lived up to his name. His name “Jacob” literally means grasping or grabbing. He was not the kind of boy and man the Boy Scouts would use for an example. He took advantage of the hunger of his twin brother, Esau, to obtain what legally belonged to Esau. With his mother's coaching, Jacob took advantage of his father's blindness to virtually steal what belonged to Esau. It is understandable that Esau swore he would kill Jacob, but their mother helped Jacob get away.

Jacob went to his mother's brother, his uncle, Laban. On the way, Jacob had a strange dream about a stairway to heaven with angels coming and going, and from the top of the stairs, God appeared and promised to be with Jacob. God promised him land (a place in life) and a future (many descendants).

When Jacob arrived at his Uncle Laban's ranch he fell in love with Laban's younger daughter, Rachel. For seven years Jacob worked as his way of paying for the right to marry her, but his shyster uncle, switched daughters in darkness of the wedding night, and Jacob woke the next morning to discover he was not married to Rachel but to her older sister, Leah. Then Uncle Laban told Jacob, he could marry Rachel also, if he would work for him another seven years.

Being as much a shyster as his uncle, Jacob worked out a deal with Labon. “Just let me have the cull's of the flock, all the sheep that have spots or stripes. and any more that are born that way. You keep all those without any blemish.” This sounded like a good deal to Laban. But Jacob used primitive genetic engineering and all the best sheep began producing lambs with blemishes. It was just a matter of time until Jacob's flock was larger and better than his Uncle Laban's.

When Uncle Laban realized he had been “out shystered” by his nephew, he was more than a little upset. So, God convenitnely told Jacob it was time for him to go home. Jacob was caught between a rock and hard place. He had worn out his welcome in the land of his shyster Uncle Laban but if he went home he would have to face his angry brother, Esau, who had sworn to kill him.

When Esau heard Jacob was on his way home, Esau set out to meet him with a army of 400 men. Understandably, Jacob was frightened and in his fear he prayed: “God, you said you would be with me. I do not deserve your steadfast love and all the blessings I have received. God, I am afraid Esau will kill me and my family. Deliver me from my brother and I will be the person you want me to be.” Then, Jacob decided it would be a good idea to send his brother some peace offerings; so he sent Esau group after group of livestock, hoping this would appease his brother's anger.

The night before they were to meet, Jacob went off by himself to camp by the river Jabbok. That night he found himself in a wrestling match. All night he wrestled with a stranger. Toward morning Jacob's hip was put out of joint. As daylight was coming the one with whom Jacob was wrestling said: “Let me go for day is breaking.” But Jacob said: “Not unless you bless me.” “Who are you?” the stranger asked. “I am Jacob, the grabbing one, grasping one.” And the stranger said: “From now on you shall be called Israel (or to translate the name, “one who wrestles with God”). When Jacob asked the stranger who he was, the stranger refused to answer. It was then Jacob said: “I have seen God face to face and lived.” When Jacob left that place, he walked with a limp -- that is, he did not walk as he had walked before. Jacob (the grasping one) was now Israel (the one who wrestles with God). He continued on his way to meet his brother Esau, and there was a reconciliation between the two.

What does this story have to say to us about facing the future? Whatever else it has to say, it is a clear reminder that God choosing to love us and bless us is not a sign that we are wonderful and deserving of God's blessings; That we are blessed by God is no reason for us to feel we are better or more worthy and deserving than others. It is the God who blessed the rascal Jacob who blesses us. Who would have thought that shyster, that grasping, grabbing fellow could ever become one known as Israel ? Whatever else this means, it clearly implies that we are to live life and face the future in humility.

When we are arrogant in facing the future, we not only distort our perception of ourselves but also our perception of others. When we lack humility we are blind to the positive potential that resides in the other Jacobs of this world, and in our arrogance of false superiority we are unable to recognize or admit that Jacobs we have known are now living like Israel . As we face the future, we dare not be close minded about the change God can make in the lives of others. After all, God can take a Jacob and turn him or her into Israel .

This story also reminds me, that just as God was able to transform Jacob into Israel , God can transform me from who I am into the person God sees I can be. Some of us can be so aware of our past failures, of the mess we have made either by what we did or failed to do that we have little hope for our future. This is true for us as individuals and it can also be true for us as a society. We can see ourselves caught up in such a terrible mess that we face the future with cynicism rather than hope. But the series of stories about Jacob, taken as a total whole, remind me none of us have the right to decide and declare ourselves or any one else to be beyond hope. Some may say, “I have not had an experience like Jacob; I have not wrestled with God.” Maybe that is correct for some. But I think most of us know what it is to find ourselves wrestling in the darkness. We know what it is to wrestle with the consequences of the wrong we have done and the consequences of the good we failed to do. We know what it is to wrestle with choices we must make and situations we must face. We toss and turn in the midnight hours, more often than not, unaware it is God with whom we are wrestling. We tend to say, “I am simply struggling with the problem of what I should do.” But how else does God engage us in a wrestling match other than in our struggles regarding what we should do with our lives, how we should invest our time, how we ought to respond to a crisis, how we ought to respond to an opportunity? Is this not the way God wrestles with us? In the passage we read, Jacob did not realize he had been wrestling with God until after the wrestling had ended. It was in hindsight that he said: “I have seen God face to face ... .” So it has been in my experience. More often than not, it has been in hindsight that I have realized that at the deepest level of my struggles, what I was wrestling with was God and God's claim on my life.

I think it is important to notice that Jacob hung on until he was blessed. In the midst of troubles most of us look for a quick fix and easy way out. Even after Jacob had his hip thrown out of joint, he did not give up. It was not merely stubbornness and trying to have his own way that made him tenacious. It was his deep desire for something positive to come out his ordeal. He wanted to receive a blessing from what he was going through. And the end result was, he became a changed man; God said, “No longer are you the grasping one; now you are the one who wrestles with God.”

It is also worth noting, that when he had received his blessing and was declared to be Israel , he walked away from the ordeal limping. After his encounter with the Holy, he could no longer walk the same. And so it has been in my life. When I have had a wrestling match with that which is truly holy and through the ordeal was somehow blessed, when I walked away, I did not walk the same. My perception of life and my responses in life could no longer be what they had been.

All of us are facing some changes. How shall we face the future? The stories about Jacob suggest we face the future in awe of what God can do, that we face the future in humility that places no limits on God's grace, that we face the future with hope because God is able to bless us even in the midst of the mess we have made, that we face the future aware that when we encounter God in the midst of our mess and do not run away our lives are changed .

God, as we face the future, help us learn what we need to learn from the stories about Jacob and his becoming Israel . Amen.

Pastoral prayer:
God, thank you for the gift of this day, for the marvel of the universe, for the magnificent gift of life. Thank you for all that is beautiful to see, delightful to hear, pleasant to touch, taste and smell. Thank you for those persons who love us and who have tried to help bring out the best in us. Thank you for the gift of forgiveness that is not merely giving us a second chance, but another chance and then another. Thank you for the gift of grace that enables us to change and grow. Thank you for opportunity after opportunity and for the gift of abilities to make the most of those opportunities. Forgive us when we arrogantly assume we deserve these good gifts and when we imply we are better than those who are less fortunate in both opportunities and abilities. Transform us by your grace so that we are so sensitive to all we have been given so that we will live in joyful gratitude. Fill us with your love so that we will see each person as you do and use our time, talent and possessions in ways that reflect our joyful gratitude to You and our compassion for our neighbors. All this we pray in the name of the one who taught us about living when he taught us to pray: “Our Father …”