And Don't Let Go

Scripture: Genesis 32:22-31

My grandfather was a man of faith in matters large and small.

With respect to larger issues: He believed in Jesus Christ. He believed in the Methodist church. He believed in hard and honest work. He believed in helping the poor. And he believed that my grandmother was the most beautiful woman in the world and that God had brought them together.

With respect to smaller issues: He believed in the nutritional value of hard-boiled eggs and cottage cheese. He believed in the St. Louis Cardinals. He believed that my grandmother could not smell the cigars that he smoked when she wasn’t looking. And he believed that professional “big time wrestling” was real.

I remember, at the tender age of five, watching wrestling with him on television. He had a very old television set, perhaps the first in the entire universe, and it was about the size of an aircraft carrier. On top of it sat a giant set of rabbit ear antennas that were wrapped in aluminum foil to achieve “better reception.”

My grandfather cheered for the good guys and cursed the bad guys and I was puzzled by his habit of reaching over to cover my ears after he had sworn. But, other than that, everything was clear and simple. The good guys were very good; the bad guys were very bad; and the moral clarity of the struggle was heightened by the fact that the wrestling occurred in black and white.

The story of Jacob’s wrestling match, which we find in the thirty-second chapter of Genesis, is perhaps not so clear and simple. Hebrew Bible scholar Terence Fretheim has observed that the meaning of this text “is so elusive that a variety of interpretations is credible.”

Indeed, the text invites many questions and possible answers: Who was Jacob, anyway? Who was he wrestling with? Why does Jacob get injured? Why does the man give Jacob his blessing? And, of course: What are we supposed to learn from this story?

Well, let’s start with Jacob himself. We know Jacob was a patriarch of the Hebrew people, a man much favored of God, and the one who the Lord blessed and called Israel. We tend to remember him as a strong, great, and giant figure.

But Jacob had his weaknesses and his small and petty moments. He came into this world by hanging onto the heel of his brother Esau during the birthing process—a predictive if inauspicious beginning. While Esau became a great hunter, Jacob stayed at home and lazed around. He manipulated his brother into giving up his birthright. And he lied to his father.

It could be argued that Jacob’s foibles distinguish him from a lot of the other major players we meet in the Bible. Many biblical figures show us both greatness and weakness—David, Solomon, Peter, and Paul, for example. But some of their struggles may not feel much like our struggles.

Most of us do not use forced labor to build temples to foreign gods—like Solomon did. Most of us do not have a soldier under our command sent to the front of a battle so our sworn enemies can kill him and clear the way for us to marry his wife—like David did. Most of us do not execute the evil policies of an ruthless empire—like Paul did. There is something grand and spectacular and Shakespearean about flaws of this magnitude.

Jacob, in contrast, screws up in ways that are more petty and less glamorous. He thinks only of himself and what he wants. He resorts to manipulation, trickery, and deceit when it suits his purposes. He hurts people he loves and who love him.

But then God comes to him at a time when Jacob has gotten himself into such a desperate place that he is literally sleeping on the ground and using a stone for a pillow. The Lord speaks to him and brings him a vision and Jacob understands that he must change his life. So he sets out to make peace with the brother he betrayed. And, along the way, a “man” appears in the middle of the night and wrestles him to the ground.

Now, who is this man? Well, several very different answers present themselves. One answer is that Jacob was wrestling with God. A lot of textual evidence supports this interpretation. Jacob identifies the man as God. The name the man gives Jacob—Israel—means “he struggles with God.” And the man’s puzzling insistence that the encounter end before morning becomes less mysterious if we remember the biblical precept that Jacob could not have survived seeing God face to face in the full light of day.

But this interpretation raises a fairly nettlesome question: how could Jacob, a mere human being (and not a particularly powerful or impressive one at that), wrestle God to a standstill? We might argue that God was simply toying with Jacob—just as parents pretend to grapple with their children on the living room floor—but the scripture does not accommodate that view. Remember, the Bible says that the man “saw that he could not overpower Jacob.”

This may explain a second interpretation—or, perhaps more accurately, a tradition—that shows up in sermons and art and literature and that depicts this encounter as one between Jacob and an “angel.” Of course, this approach has problems of its own. One whopper is that it doesn’t square with the text. After all, the Bible knows how to tell us when it is talking about an angel (by saying "hey, this was an angel") but it doesn't do that here.

Furthermore, this explanation asks us to believe that a human being could wrestle an angel into submission. Does that seem likely to you? Well, give it a try, if you like, and let me know how it goes.

So some scholars have suggested a third possible answer to the question of who this man is. This man, they say, is indeed God, but God in truly human form. They emphasize that, in this story, God does not appear to Jacob “in all of God’s glory.” Instead, God comes to Jacob as a man and “stoop[s] to encounter Jacob at his own level.” Terence Fretheim writes: “God does not play games with Jacob; God actually struggles with him … God commits to a genuine encounter, entering deeply into the struggle with Jacob with a kind of power that doesn’t simply overpower him.”

Reasonable people can disagree, but I find this idea attractive for a number of reasons. It is consistent with the text. It resonates with all of the other passages in the Bible that portray the extremes to which God will go in pursuit of us. And, finally—and I think this is particularly interesting—this interpretation understands the story as one that, like many other texts in the Hebrew Bible, anticipates the figure of Jesus Christ. After all, the mysterious man is at once wholly human, because he can genuinely struggle with Jacob, and wholly divine, because he can ultimately prevail over and bless Jacob as well.

What of the struggle itself? What are we to make of that? Maybe the point here is simply that all of us will wrestle with God at one time or another. And, like Jacob, we may find ourselves in the midst of such a struggle before we know it and when we least expect it. Many different circumstances might bring us to the ground: illness; financial distress; depression; addiction; the loss of someone we love—just listening to the evening news can usher some people into a full-fledged religious crisis. Certainly, the story can be read as saying that all of our paths may lead us to a place where we find ourselves wrestling with God. But I believe that it says much more, as well.

In my view, this story also says something important about the physicality of faith. We tend to conceive of our struggles with God as mental and emotional processes. But what happened to Jacob didn’t happen in his head: he had the wrenched hip to prove it. No, this story is about throwing all that we are and all that we have—every atom of our being—into our engagement with God. Or, as Jesus reminded the lawyer, we are summoned to love the Lord with “all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our strength.”

This is not only essential theology. This is brilliant psychology. Because, sometimes, the only way we can prevail in our struggles with faith is to act as if we had it. And when we do, something incredible often happens. When we love, and forgive, and serve, and visit the sick, and feed the hungry, and tend our flocks it is as if we reach out and grab a hold of God. And, when we do that, God grabs back.

And that leads me to what I believe is the central meaning of this story: that we worship a God who loves to engage with us, who loves to struggle with us, who loves to have us wrapped up in his everlasting arms. In this sense, the most tragic mistake we can make is to disengage, to abandon the struggle, and to walk away.

Surely, one of the saddest stories in the Gospels is that of the rich young man who asked Jesus what he would have to do to be perfect. On hearing the unwelcome news that he would need to sell everything he possessed and give the money to the poor, the disenchanted youth turned his back on Jesus and walked away.

Wrestling with God can be hard. But there are things far worse—like stopping. For, when the struggle ends, the opportunity for God to work in our lives may end with it.

You see, this is why Jacob was blessed. He was blessed because he did not walk away. He was blessed because he did not give up. He was blessed because he hung on fiercely through all of the long, cold night. He was blessed because he would not let go.

And that, I think, is what this scripture hopes to teach us. Are you facing serious challenges? Hold on tight, and don’t let go. Are you struggling—perhaps now more than ever? Hold on tight, and don’t let go. Are you despairing over a world full of pain? Hold on tight, and don’t let go.

Do you seek after joy and rest and comfort and the peace that passes all understanding? Hold on tight, and don’t let go.

And don’t let go.

And don’t let go.

Amen.

One Hundred Pyramids

Scripture: Hebrews 12:1: “Let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.”

Dr. George Sheehan was a cardiologist from New Jersey, a devoted husband, and the father of twelve. Like many people, in his mid-forties he became restless and began to reexamine his life and its meaning. But, unlike many people, he didn’t look for answers in self-indulgence; he didn’t try to shake his ennui by getting a flashy new suit or a flashy new car or a flashy new spouse. In fact, he did just the opposite. He embarked on a lifelong program of testing and challenging himself – a program of self-denial and self-discovery. And he did this by returning to an activity he’d pursued in college: running. Five years later, he set the then-world-record for the mile for a fifty-year-old.

Along the way, Dr. Sheehan wrote a book that I view as one of the masterpieces of contemporary spiritual literature: a book called Running and Being. It is a book about running in the same sense that Moby Dick is a book about fishing. Running and Being is actually an eighteen-part fugue on the human condition; this is reflected in the titles of his chapters: living, discovering, understanding, beginning, becoming, playing, learning, healing, winning, losing, suffering, meditating, growing, seeing.

The book has much to say about many things, some of which I’ll return to later. But one of the book’s central themes is that through activities like running we build and reveal our character. Sheehan quotes an observation John Berryman once made to his fellow poet James Dickey: “The trouble with this country is that a man can live his entire life without knowing whether or not he is a coward.” Sheehan embraces running because he sees it as a way to know, a way to find out who we are, a way to demonstrate our capacity to have courage and to persevere. Peter Maher, the Irish-Canadian marathon runner, put it more bluntly and less poetically when he said: “Running is a big question mark that’s there each and every day. It asks you, ‘Are you going to be a wimp or are you going to be strong?’”

Our text from Hebrews similarly associates the image of running with the idea of perseverance: “Let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.” And, indeed, the scriptures repeatedly urge us to be strong, to have courage, and to go the distance. The book of Matthew tells us that “He who endures to the end shall be saved.” (Matt. 10:22) In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul urges us to “be people of courage” and to “be strong.” (I Cor. 16:13) This message dominates Paul’s second letter to Timothy, which includes a passage particularly appropriate for today: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” (2 Tim. 4:7)

I think, however, there is something else going on in the passage from Hebrews – something extraordinarily subtle and easy to miss. And I think that this something else is reflected in the phrase “the race that is set before us.” But let me make my point a little differently: you’ll notice that that the text does not say “Let us run with perseverance the race that we have chosen.” In my view, the phrasing of the text from Hebrews embodies a profound insight into the nature of life: we often find ourselves running in a race for which we do not remember filling out an entry form. Sometimes we run the race we planned. But more commonly we run the race “that is set before us.”

In the end, many of our plans count for nothing. A proverb says “If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.” Indeed, we do not plan for many of the bad things that happen to us. We do not plan to lose a job, to go through a divorce, to suffer a stroke, or to endure the death of a child. Nor do we plan for many of the glorious things that happen to us. We do not plan to laugh – it must come spontaneously; we do not plan for the new friends we encounter or for the children who come into our lives in all the various ways that happens; we do not plan to hear God’s whispers to us; we do not plan to fall in love. These things, too, are part of the race that is set before us.

It turns out that in an exercise of infinite wisdom God made life unpredictable and thereby made life complicated and thereby made life beautiful. A scene from Somerset Maugham’s novel Of Human Bondage conveys this perfectly. Toward the beginning of the book, the protagonist, Philip, is given a piece of oriental cloth by an older man, who explains that the meaning of life lies within it. Philip does not understand what this means but for many years carries the cloth with him out of fondness for his mentor. Philip’s story goes on to include many struggles and false starts: he tries to become an artist but lacks the necessary talent; he enters medical school but has no sense of purpose; he becomes infatuated with a lovely woman but she has no feelings for him. Toward the end of the novel, however, Philip comes to appreciate what the older man was trying to say and what the oriental cloth signifies; he realizes that the cloth is beautiful precisely because its design includes countless unanticipated twists and turns; and he recognizes that it is this same unpredictability and complexity that gives life its richness and beauty.

The poet Miroslav Holub conveys the same idea in these lines:

A hundred miles from wall to wall.
An eternity and a half of vigils blanker than snow.
Tons of words old as the tracks of a platypus in the sand.
A hundred books we didn’t write.
A hundred pyramids we didn’t build.
Sweepings.
Dust.
Bitter as the beginning of the world.
Believe me when I say
it was beautiful.

We try to plan our lives; our plans do not materialize. We dream of the one hundred pyramids we’ll build along the way; we never lay so much as a cornerstone. We set out running one race; we find ourselves in an altogether different one. And this lack of control and abundance of unpredictability may leave us with a deep sense of loss, of futility, even of failure.

But, as the book of Hebrews tells us, this misses the point completely. Life is not about planning the race we want to run and then running our race diligently. Life is about running the race that is set before us with perseverance. And it is about persevering in our effort to run that race with the sort of faith and love and strength and commitment that fills the Lord’s heart with delight. Any race run, any life lived, in this way is a triumph. Any race run, any life lived, in this way is beautiful. The knowledge of this fills us with hope and reassurance. And the knowledge of this saves us from despair ... just as it saved the author of Ecclesiastes.

George Sheehan recognizes this when he writes as follows: "Everything is vanity and chasing the wind, said Ecclesiastes. Driving race cars, running governments, amassing wealth, building cities: all this is vanity and chasing the wind. But, said Ecclesiastes in an about-face, whatever you put your hand to, do it with all your might. He answers to life: It is not the inconsequential things that you do but how you do them that magnifies the Lord."

Or, to use the words of another great runner, the Olympian Billy Mills: “My life is a gift to me from my Creator. What I do with my life is my gift back to the Creator.” Hebrews tells us that this gift has much less to do with what we have done than how we have done it.

Toward the end of his book, George Sheehan says this: “When you race, you are under oath. When you race, you are testifying as to who you are.” This may well be true of running. But surely it is more broadly true of life itself. We live our lives under oath. Through our lives, we testify to who we are. In our every action, we testify to whose we are.

Several years ago, I ran – or, more accurately, struggled through – the Honolulu marathon. This marathon is somewhat unusual in that the officials do not turn off the clock and close the course until the last participant has crossed the finish line. This makes the marathon a favorite among slow runners and those who will need to walk some or all of the race.

The Honolulu course follows a large loop and on the return leg you run right past the road where you started out. As I approached that part of the loop I could see in the distance the shape of someone who was still in the process of beginning. When I got closer I could make out the figure of a young man wearing a race number, his movements severely restricted by acute cerebral palsy, his legs barely pushing him along the twenty-six-point-two mile course that lay in front of him. And when I got closer still I saw something even more amazing: he was smiling gleefully.

He was running with perseverance the race that was set before him. He was testifying to who he was. He was showing that the meaning of life lies not in where you finish but in how you run. He was magnifying the Lord. And I can tell you that it was more inspiring, more moving, and more beautiful than the glory and the grandeur of one hundred pyramids.

May we go forth and run likewise.

Amen.