We had a small communications error with the bulletin. I wanted to title this morning’s sermon “Superstar Wrestling.” It’s not a big deal, and in fact I chose that title mostly as a bit of nostalgia. The first sermon I ever preached at Bethany, on my “candidating weekend,” April 18, 1999 was from this exact same text, and it was entitled “Superstar Wrestling.”

I probably had wrestling on the brain at that point, because we were getting ready to move here from Minnesota, and Minnesota had just rather shockingly elected a man named Jesse Ventura as governor. Remember him? Jesse’s most well-known qualification for being elected governor was his career as a Superstar Wrestler nicknamed “The Body.”

I’ll never forget waking up the morning after the election and driving to an early meeting, and pulling over to look at a newsstand to find out who won, and thinking “Wow, we just voted in a governor named “The Body!”

This morning, though, there is still a connection, because our sermon text is indeed about a wrestling match, between someone we know pretty well by now, and someone we’re trying to figure out.

If you are someone who likes to write things down, let me give you four words to listen for this morning: Messy. Name. Face. Limp.

Jacob. We’ve been reading about him for weeks, now. Son of Isaac, grandson of Abraham. Jacob. The Deceiver (hustler, conniver, schemer, etc). He’s done some pretty crummy stuff. Honestly, he’s easy not to like. He duped his father, totally swindled his brother Esau not once but twice, matched wits and came out ahead of his uncle Laban. Somehow, Jacob has always landed on his feet.

But. Now he has burned his bridges. He started in the South, with his family, but after embarrassing his brother Esau for the second time, Esau chased him out of the country with a death threat.

So Jacob fled to the north and spent 20 years there. But now he can’t reside in the north anymore, because he has also burned the bridges with Laban, his uncle and father-in-law who finally drew a line in the sand and said “Don’t cross back over this line.” So he’s forced back to the south, back towards Esau whom he hasn’t seen for 20 years. He’s trapped in the middle.

It’s a funny spot. On the one hand, Jacob is heading back as the peak, the model of success. He’s the American dream. He’s plotted and planned and been opportunistic and whereas he set out 20 years earlier with basically the shirt on his back, he comes back now with 2 wives, eleven children, servants, huge flocks and herds of goats and sheep and camels and cows and donkeys.

He is a wealthy and successful man, yet he is as frightened as a fugitive on the run with nowhere to call home, few people to trust and in fear of his very life when he meets brother Esau. You have to wonder, Jacob had to wonder: “Is this it? Is this all there is? And by the way, where is God? Shouldn’t he be showing up? After all, I, Jacob, am in trouble!!” Jacob was nothing if not self-focused.

I read an article this week about Andy Warhol, the famous American pop artist who died 1987. One acquaintance had this terrible thing to say about him: Andy Warhol “… was impossible…When you were with him, you’d feel as if he didn’t have the slightest interest in knowing you. All he wanted to know was what you though of him – or THAT you thought of him.” Ouch.

That’s sort of how I’ve thought of Jacob. It’s all about him. And now he’s in trouble. Jacob, knowing that the time for meeting Esau is drawing near, does exactly what most of us do: he tries to cover his…bases.

He strategizes: sends messengers ahead of his entourage to tell Esau he’s coming.

But the messengers return and tell Jacob that Esau is coming to meet him with 400 men!

Next, Jacob splits his company into two parts, thinking that if Esau destroys one part, the other might have a chance to escape.

Next, he sends a series of extravagant gifts towards Esau, livestock of all kinds, in 5 different batches, thinking that by the time Esau received the fifth one, he might be persuaded to be merciful. They were delivered with the words “A gift from your servant Jacob.”

Then…oh, that’s right. Somewhere in here, Jacob prays. He’s covered the strategical bases, why not the spiritual one too? Couldn’t hurt! He reminds God that he is part of the family of Abraham and Isaac. In essence, he reminds God that if Esau wipes them all out, they won’t become a great nation as God had promised them.

If this sounds familiar, I suspect it’s because many of us do the exact same thing when we run into a difficult situation. We run around and do every logistical, practical thing we can to take care of the problem and somewhere along the line we throw up a “can’t hurt anything” prayer that reminds God he is obligated to help us.

It’s as though we want to practice the American religion that says “God helps those who help themselves” AND ALSO a biblical faith which says “trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” We often just hold both those things independently without spending much time wondering if they somehow hold together or if they are actually mutually exclusive.

I think Jacob is at the low point of his life. As often happens, he has more stuff than he’s ever had, but is probably unhappier than he has ever been. Night falls at the Jabbok River. He sends his immediate family on across, and he stays on the other side. By himself. In quiet, near the river.

Anne and I were in Santa Fe, New Mexico last weekend. One day we went for a hike that kind of wound down through some forest and came out down by the Rio Grande River. There was a storm gathering, so absolutely no one was around. It was silent. It felt almost holy. There’s something about a river, the way it moves, gurgles, swirls. It’s soothing, yet it’s dangerous, never still.

Jacob is at the river. He is a man of preparation. And he’s as prepared as he can be for Esau. But he isn’t prepared in the slightest for God. And so the wrestling match. In my mind, and in most scholar’s minds, and in the words of the prophet Hosea, there’s no question that this strange “man” that wrestles all night with Jacob is none other than God himself (or maybe an angel representing the presence of God).

Jacob may not have known this at the beginning, but certainly by the end he did, even naming the place “Peniel,” (the face of God) because here “I have seen God face to face.”

Jacob is down, way down. His life just may be about to ebb away. And suddenly he is tackled by God, not gently but roughly, not for a moment but for a whole night. And they wrestle, back and forth, in and out of the bulrushes and the mud, over, under, grabbing, scratching, clawing. It’s a strange and scary picture, Jacob wrestling with God. It’s one of my favorite pictures. Because while I think life with God most often resembles a wrestling match, we more often pretend it’s a tea party.

The truth is, many of us, deep down inside, think that life with God is supposed to be a neat, clean thing. It has lines of behavior and responsibility neatly drawn.

We think that the most spiritual person is the one who wakes every morning for their one hour quiet time, reading and praying.

We think the strongest Christian is the one whose life is organized, who has a responsible job, whose children are well-behaved (What did Garrison Keillor always say about Lake Wobegone? The place “ where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.”).

We believe it! The real Christian is the one whose health is good, whose retirement is set, who never has doubts. It’s sort of like being in school, if we act the way we’re supposed to, we’ll get rewarded with grades, promotions and honors. We do our part, God does his part. We act like good people, God keeps trouble away. Civilized, neat, predictable, like a tea party.

But for anyone who has lived life, it’s not true. Is it? It’s just not true. I could walk around this room, and point to person after person after person. A miscarriage. An alcoholic. A workaholic. Someone caring for aging parents. Someone who has just been fired. Someone struggling with sexual identity. Pornography addiction. Cancer. Good people, people who love God, but who have found out that being in a relationship with God is no guarantee whatsoever of prosperity as we think of it.

Look at Job, in the Bible, for goodness sake. Good person, lost everything, everything! Railed against God’s absence. And when he found God, it wasn’t any answer God gave him, all sorts of questions were left hanging…but he knew God’s presence.

Life with God is messy. If we don’t sometimes rail at God, blame Him, wonder why he doesn’t show up, we’re not being real people. And if we don’t learn that God actually meets us more often in the mess than the tea party, we’ll never grow up. We’ll always say, “God, how could you let this illness come, this hardship, this broken relationship?”

Following God had better run way deeper, our faith had better be based on a relationship rather than merely circumstances or it is worth nothing. When we’re with someone who comes to Christ for the first time, Lord help us if we tell them how much better the circumstances of their life will be. No, we’d better tell them to hang onto their hats. Life with God is a wrestling match, a match in which God is very, very engaged with us.

This is what Jacob actually wants, it’s what Job was asking for and I fully believe it’s what we long for: to know that God is engaged, is in our life. If God only upholds his part of a contract, then he’s essentially in our control. But we’ve tried being in control, and found out it doesn’t work so well.

Jacob wrestles with God, thinking he might actually win until the light of dawn begins to come up, and with one easy move Jacob’s opponent puts his hip out of socket.

Finally Jacob realizes how outmatched he really is, and like a boxer desperate not to get knocked out, clings to his opponent with every ounce of his strength, clings to him and says he won’t let go without being blessed. But God the Wrestler ignores that, and instead says “What is your name?”

I think it is exactly what Jacob had dreaded. His name, as I said at the very beginning, means “deceiver, swindler, hustler.” And Jacob has lived up to his name very well. If Jacob spoke his name, he would be admitting that it fit.

“I’m the one, God. I stole, I lied, I tricked, I looked out for #1, I came to you as a last resort, I shunned people and accumulated all the stuff I could and now it’s all over there across the river and I’m standing here at the river’s edge, I’m all alone, naked and dirty.”

I wonder if it got real quiet.

Frederick Buechner, author of the novel Son of Laughter tells this story like this: God says to Jacob “Who are you?” And Jacob says “There was mud in my eyes, my ears and nostrils, my hair. My name tasted of mud when I spoke it. “Jacob,” I said. “My name is Jacob.”

And that’s when God did the thing only God can do. He changed Jacob. Symbolically, changed his name. But changed him. “You are Israel (yees rah ail)…the one who wrestles with God.”

God blessed Jacob. Not with more children or herds or riches or land, he blessed him…with a new name. Changed who he was. And Jacob called that place Peniel, which means “face of God,” for here, Jacob said, I have seen God face to face and been preserved.

I want to tell you a story. I told it to some of you 8 ½ years ago, but I think it’s worth hearing again. Way back in the 1980’s when I was in business and Anne and I attended this church, we went with some Bethany folks to a downtown “mission” here in the city.

It was a run-down building in a tough part of town, and we went to serve food and wait tables. As we worked, I noticed a fascinating guy standing at the front door. Apparently he was one of the regulars, a self-imposed doorman to keep things in order.

I went to introduce myself. I’d say he was in his 50’s, a long grey pony tail down his back, long beard, black leather motorcycle gear with little silver spikes all over, more tattoes than skin on his arms and a little hat. I went up and said “My name’s Dan…it’s my first time here. What’s your name?”

He looked at me and said “around here, most guys call me by my nickname… “Loser.”” I wasn’t sure if he was kidding, or testing me, and I certainly didn’t know what to say.

Luckily, just then Jack, the director of the mission came by and said “Oh, I see you’ve met Darrell!” And I said “Oh, is that his name? He told me something else.” And Jack looked right at Darrell standing there next to me and said “Oh yes, his name is Darrell. There’s another name that some people call here call him, but I refuse to use it because it's not true."

You see what Jack was doing? Reminding Darrell that his name had been changed. He wasn’t a loser. He was Darrell, a name which, incidentally, means “darling.” He wasn’t “loser,” he was child of God. He wasn’t loser he was God’s beloved. He wasn’t a nobody, he was a somebody. He was God’s darling.

Now, here’s the great part of this story. The name of that old mission? “Peniel.” Same thing Jacob calls this place, same thing going on. God showing his face and changing people.

“Here I saw God face to face.” It’s what Jacob longed for. I think it is what we have always desperately needed. And so at just the right time, in the person of Jesus, God shows his face to all of humanity, for all time. And so the Apostle Paul says “the glory of God (is) in the face of Christ (2 cor 4:6). Or again Paul can say “(Jesus) is the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1). Or the writer to the Hebrews, “He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imporint of God’s very being.” When we need to know the face of God, we can look at Jesus Christ.

And so the night ends. The sun comes up. And Jacob passes by Peniel, limping because of his hip. The wrestling match has postponed his reunion with his brother Esau. But in a lifechanging way, it has prepared him to meet Esau (we’ll read about that next week). Jacob has never been greater. And he has never been more helpless. He is limping. And he will for the rest of his life, but with every limp he will in the strongest sense be walking with God. It’s not what Jacob expected. But it’s what he longed for.

Remember the four words I told you to listen for? Messy. Name. Face. Limp.

Messy. If we live our lives with God with passion, it’s going to be messy. Wrestling does not mean there is no faith, in fact it probably means there is more.

Name. God is the one, the only one, who can and does change us. All the self-help programs in the world can’t add up to one word from God that sounds like: “Your name isn’t loser. It’s darling.”

Face. We long to know that God is with us, and we can look to see God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Limp. Remember that when you limp, when you may be at your weakest it might mean you are actually at your strongest, in a place God can use you.

Let us pray.