When I accepted Bishop Doug Fisher's offer to join his staff in June 2013, I told friends and family it would mean, among other things, that I'd have more Sundays "off" than I had as a parish priest. As it turned out, however, my first year was booked pretty solid, with very few weeks off. No complaints - it's been quite fun and as readers of this blog who have followed me in my journeys know, I've gotten to see a lot of different congregations in Worcester County. But it meant that with just one exception (I'll be at All Saints in Worcester on August 17) I made a decision not to accept invitations to preach and do supply this July and August. I'll be back at it again in September, but the break has been a nice change of pace and given me a chance to "step back" from that normal preaching rhythm.
So I'm off this week, too. But I went back to see what I've done before with the texts for this weekend - this eighth Sunday after Pentecost. Sermons have a context - and this sermon was preached nine years ago at St. Francis Church, in Holden! I've left it mostly as I've found it, however, with only some slight edits - and I guess if I was preaching this weekend on this text I'd still say something like this today.
I should also add that I chose to extend the Old Testament reading that day to include Genesis 33:1-33 because I wanted to suggest that this very human encounter needs to be considered alongside Jacob's divine encounter at the Jabbok. The problem is that the lectionary will skip right over it and move on to chapter 37 next week, which is very unfortunate. So the "text" here is Genesis 32:22 - 33:11.
I should also add that I chose to extend the Old Testament reading that day to include Genesis 33:1-33 because I wanted to suggest that this very human encounter needs to be considered alongside Jacob's divine encounter at the Jabbok. The problem is that the lectionary will skip right over it and move on to chapter 37 next week, which is very unfortunate. So the "text" here is Genesis 32:22 - 33:11.
* * *
While I’ve been on
vacation, the Genesis narrative has continued to unfold. For those of you who,
like me, may not have been here for a couple of weeks, this in a nutshell is
what we have been told about Jacob:
- The narrator has told us that Jacob was ambitious from the day of his birth—that he was a “heel-grabber” who finally tricks his dying father into blessing him. That, of course, comes at the expense of his brother Esau;
- Immediately upon so doing, he runs for his life to his mother’s brother’s house, that is, to Uncle Laban's;
- There Jacob meets his match; the “trickster” is tricked into fourteen years of labor to marry Laban’s two daughters - the younger one whom he wanted to marry and the elder one, Leah, whom he didn’t really bargain for.
We picked up the narrative today as Jacob is heading back
home after these many years away. He is accompanied by his two wives, two
mistresses, and a ton of kids—eleven to be precise. And yet, as he crosses the Jabbok River
Think about that a moment. It suggests (to me at least) that no
matter how big a family we come from, when we face our past and when we try to
work out family-of-origin issues we can be supported by others but ultimately it
is “our” work. A therapist or pastor or twelve-step program or a spouse can
help us identify the issues—can support us in the struggle—but in the end they
cannot do that work for us. There is some aspect of all of us that belongs to
God alone.
While on vacation I read an extraordinary novel, The Kite Runner. It’s a sad and at times
disturbing read that may not be for everyone. But I really loved it. The
narrator, an Afghani living in San Francisco ,
reminds me in some ways of how I imagine Jacob. The crux of the story is a
return home to Taliban-occupied Afghanistan
where he must confront his past—a past that cannot be changed, but that can be
redeemed. That is all we can ever do with our past: we can’t change it. We can
only confront it, and with God’s help pray for it to be redeemed and healed until new life is possible. That requires courage and risk and trust. This is the work
of faith lived one day at a time.
Yet it may be that it is in precisely such moments, when we
feel that we are most alone, that God meets us where we are. Or more accurately, it is in
such moments that we become more deeply aware of God’s presence in our lives.
What happens on the banks of the Jabbok River
Notice first, that this
divine encounter is characterized by wrestling; that it leaves Jacob with a new
name and walking with a limp. Most of us I suspect prefer our divine
encounters to be tame and calming—to leave us with a sense of peace. I think of
that “still small voice” that comes to the prophet Elijah, for example. The
Spirit can and does work that way, to be sure and Episcopalians love it when that happens. But far more numerous in the Bible
are divine encounters that can leave us stunned, and even wounded.
- I think of Moses stuttering at the burning bush;
- I think of Isaiah of Jerusalem with a hot coal burning his unclean lips;
- I think of Jeremiah, accusing God of having “ravished” him;
- I think of
- I think of our
Lord’s agony in the
- I think of the Holy Spirit coming at Pentecost like a mighty wind, and like tongues of fire—disrupting old patterns and breaking down walls.
Encounters with God change
us, and then they call upon us to live differently. Tracy Chapman has a new song out I heard for the first time
this week - the words are printed on your bulletin today. It
begins and ends the same way:
If you knew that you would die today,
If
you saw the face of God and Love,
Would
you change? Would you change?
Now that said, let’s be honest - in the human encounter that follows this divine one, it is Esau who really initiates
the act of reconciliation here. And we know nothing about what his faith life
has been like over the past fourteen years or so. Jacob gets up the next day
and continues to journey home and it is Esau who runs toward him. It is the
wronged brother who makes the first move. Nevertheless, Jacob is open to that
possibility, knowing that with God all things are possible—including new life. Without
that openness, change is not possible.
I’ve talked in the past about an amazing book called Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation written by Miraslov Volf, a native
Croatian who teaches at Yale Divinity
School
1. The opening of arms
2.
Waiting.
3. The closing of arms.
4. Release.
It may appear to happen faster and more seamlessly than that, but anyone who has ever
tried to hug a person who doesn’t want to be hugged (or who is being hugged by
someone you would prefer not to hug back) understands this drama of embrace and the fact that these steps are always present and must be mirrored. Always an
authentic embrace is an invitation
that cannot be coerced, and at any point the “drama” can break down. When it works, and only then, does it function as a kind of
sacrament for healing and reconciliation—an “outward and visible sign” of
something that has happened within. It can only happen when both parties are
ready, because reconciliation and intimacy can’t be forced.
Anyway, that is what happens between these two brothers. It
brings to mind the New Testament story told by Jesus, of that father who is
soft on sin, running out to embrace his “prodigal” son even before the kid can
get through his well-rehearsed apology.
In general, my style of preaching is that I tend to tell the
story and leave it for people to make their own connections. I don’t usually
finish with “and this is what it means for our lives.” That is because I think
that our lives are so rich, and our lives so complicated. Where are each of us
this week in our journeys: are we Esau or Jacob or maybe Rachel or Leah? What you need to take away from the story
this week might be quite different from what someone else needs to hear. So I
trust the Spirit to guide us, as we come to the story, to draw our own
conclusions. I figure if the story is told in such a way that it can be heard
in new ways, then you will in a sense each write your own sermon. At least
that’s my goal…
But that said, it seems obvious to me that this story is our story in some larger sense, and that at
least is worth highlighting. It is, in some sense, paradigmatic. Jacob gets a new name out of this: Israel . That
is, he becomes a representative of the faith of Israel . As Christians we claim to
be part of an extension of that same covenant, and so the metaphor fits for us,
too. We have experienced God in and through the Cross—through the Passion of
Jesus. That leaves us, too, “limping through life.” Everyone who has struggled
at all with their faith knows what it is to wrestle with God. Anyone who has
experienced loss knows what it means to grieve broken relationships. And anyone
who, by the grace of God, has experienced the healing of an embrace that
represents new life knows what it means to celebrate the resurrection.
This is, I believe, a gospel story. There is good news here
for us. I hear in it a call for us to become more faithful disciples of Jesus
Christ: Henri Nouwen would say “as wounded healers;” the Old Testament might
say as people limping through life. Either way, our limps and our wounds may well
be signs of our divine encounters. As we keep limping on, the challenge is to
do so with open arms rather than as bitter people with clenched fists. It is to keep limping along with arms that keep the possibility of embrace always before us - whether
we are at the giving or receiving end of such embraces. Our highest calling as Christians is
to be ambassadors of reconciliation, and to allow for the possibility of
healing that shows the world why faith really does matter.
© The Rev. Rich Simpson, Holden , MA July 31, 2005
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