Wrestling
A sermon by Carol Howard Merritt
Pastor, Western Presbyterian Church
Washington, D.C.
July 20, 2008

Text: Genesis 28:10-19a

Ralph was a very successful businessman in Florida, a CFO of a large company, and when I met him, he was very involved in his congregation. His activity in the church went beyond the sort of obligations and duties that we know we need to maintain to keep the church running. He had something more than that—he had a devotion to his congregation.

Ralph never went to church until late in his life, so it wasn’t out of habit that he maintained his connection. I knew it had to be something else.

I asked him why one time, and he answered me with a story.

You see, Ralph’s son died. It was a nightmare. His son was graduating from high school, and the parents were bubbling with pride. He was extraordinary—athletic, intelligent, and promising. He had just gotten into a wonderful college.

On the very night of the graduation ceremony, his son was out late, celebrating. He drove home, and just blocks away from his house, he fell asleep, and ran into a tree. He died instantly.

Ralph grieved deeply. And someone from his church—well, actually, it was really his wife’s church, Ralph only went to church to placate his wife--someone named Cliff called Ralph up right after his son died and asked, “You want to jog with me tomorrow morning?”

Ralph was not a runner and he was not a morning person. He had played football in high school, but had never exercised much since then, and he had no interest in jogging at all. And even though it was the last thing on earth that Ralph wanted to do, for some reason, he surprised himself by accepting the invitation.

And so Ralph and Cliff, these two quiet men, began to run together every single morning. With each step that they took, Ralph questioned everything. As they passed through the neighborhoods, and made their way to the riverside, Ralph jogged through his anger and depression. As they watched the sun rise over the green water, Ralph bargained and doubted. He talked about his marriage and his daughter. He wondered about the meaning of life, and he wondered about the meaningless of life.

“You wouldn’t believe how much we talked. He got me through it,” Ralph explained. “He got me through an impossible situation.”

Now, to me the beautiful thing about this story, is that Cliff didn’t just run with Ralph for a week and it was done. Cliff was there, by Ralph’s side, every morning, for over ten years.

When I asked Cliff about it, he shrugged. Cliff said that he had to do it. He just had to do something, and that was the only thing he could think of. But that gift—allowing someone the time, the space, and the excuse to hash out an internal barrage of emotions—it was beautiful. For we often need this time and space, but all too often, when we grieve or deal with a huge trauma, we are pressured by everyone around us to just “get on with life.”

I have known widows who were told by well-meaning friends and family members mere weeks after their spouse died, “I know it’s hard, but don’t you think you should get on with life now?” As if grieving is not a part of life.

A man who has gone through a nasty divorce, a woman who has lost her job, a spouse who has been lied to and betrayed, a child who has been physically or verbally abused, a woman who has been a victim of sexual violence--we are often told that we can cry for a couple of hours. That’s understandable, but then it’s simply time to move on. 

The reason why I tell you this story is because we all go through times of intense emotions, intense wrestling, within ourselves and with loved ones. This is not only a part of life, but it is a deep and meaningful part of our spiritual lives. The point of the spiritual life is not to separate the bad from the good, and then concentrate on ignoring all of the negative things. But our lives of faith are often full of doubt, anger, grieving, questions, and struggle. 

Too often we have been told that to be a good Christian means that we ought to ignore the struggles, put away the questions, and live in this state of peace and euphoria. But this means that we have to pretend that some of our deepest emotions and struggles do not exist. And the emotions do not go away, we simply end up with bubbling, passive aggressive vindictive behavior, or a rage that come uncorked with violent fury, or an addiction that we slip into so that we don’t ever have to feel those emotions.

One of the gifts that we have from the stories of the Old Testament is their brutal honesty. And Jacob, we talked about him last week, he is one of those characters in the scriptures that we see raw and exposed. We learn his conniving when he tricks his brother into the birthright. We see his treachery, when he lies to his father when his dad is dying. You will find his vindictive nature. And among all of this, you will find God’s blessing.

This is a bit of a rabbit trail, but let me tell you quickly a bit about Jacob’s vindictive nature. It’s one of those stories that they skip over in Sunday school. One of Jacob’s daughter’s was raped by a prince in the region, then the perpetrator wanted to marry her. Jacob said that he would allow her to be married on one condition, that every male in the prince’s city had to be circumcised. They were circumcised, and then when they were in the midst of their pain, Jacob’s sons killed all the men, and plundered the city.

We also read about Jacob’s dreams. I am not sure why Jacob got up and wrote down his fleeting visions, but they were powerful dreams. This morning, we read about the one when Jacob sees the angels ascending and descending a ladder up to heaven. And then there is this strange story about Jacob, when he was alone one evening, a man came to him, and wrestled with him. I always imagined that it was a dream, but it doesn’t really say that in the story. What it does say is that all night they wrestled, until finally the stranger knew that Jacob would prevail, and so he hit Jacob’s hip, and it was pulled out of joint.

When the morning came, the strange man said that he needed to go, but Jacob said that he would not let him go until he received a blessing. The stranger changed his name to Israel and said that he striven with God and with humans. Somehow Jacob knew that he had wrestled with God.

These dreams and night visits are so interesting. And what I think we can learn from them, and from the larger sordid life of Jacob, is that somehow Jacob knew that he was blessed. In fact, he made sure that he was blessed. He demanded blessing from God. And with his visions that ascended to the heavens, and with his deepest struggles, he knew that God was with him.

So often our message in the congregation is, “Be a good person and God will bless you. Be a good Christian, and you will have a life that is full of peace, and free from all negative emotions.” But this does not seem to be the message that overarches Jacob’s life.

There are times when the church, this body of people, can be a tremendous comfort, when the words of scripture can be soul-inspiring. And there are other times when we find ourselves wrestling. And there are many, many times when we should be struggling with our faith and in the midst of it.

And I can’t help but notice that in the story of Jacob, God is an abiding presence, and God is someone who struggles with Jacob. We often think about God as a nurturing parent, a comforter, a guide, but we rarely think about God as someone who just might stop by in the middle of the night to wrestle with us. It is a good way to think about our lives. For there will be times when fighting, questioning, doubting, being angry—all of these things will be a part of our spiritual lives. Sometimes the wrestling will be brought on by huge life events, but other times, they will be small things that happen.

I remember one time when it happened to me. I was still a teenager, living in Chicago, going to a strict fundamentalist Bible school. I was getting my degree in International Ministries. I had grown up as an evangelical Christian, it was really the only thing I knew. But my four years in that school made me realize that I could not stay in that tradition. It was too hard. I felt like every step that I took, I was being watched and judged. And usually the judgments were unfair and untrue.

I went home, and I was in the car, in the backseat, napping, while my sister and mother were in the front, driving and chattering away. When I woke up, it hit me. In my afternoon grogginess, I said, “I can’t do it. I can’t do it anymore. I can’t be the person that they want me to be. I can longer be watched and spied upon. I cannot have my every motivation questioned. I can’t live up to this profession, nor do I want to.”

I was having, at my very core, a crisis of faith. It felt like a volcano had erupted inside of me, and everything I knew about God felt hot and dangerous. I realized that something was changing deep within me. I was wrestling. I tried to explain what was happening, and my mom rolled her eyes, as if I was being overly dramatic.

My sister shrugged and said, “So what? A lot of people get a degree and then decide to do something else.”

“But it’s not that. It’s something else,” I said with urgency, while they gave me sideways glances and shook their heads.

They resumed their conversation, went on chattering in the front seat, while I was in the backseat, struggling with God, fighting, trying to figure out what in the world I was going on.

So much of our lives, we will be ascending to heaven and descending back. And there will be times in our lives when we will wrestle, struggle, fight, question, and doubt God, even at our very core. And it’s okay, because we learn from Jacob’s unusual life that God is a wrestler too. But God will still be there in the morning after the struggle, and God will bless us. Just like Cliff, who ran beside Ralph every day, God will be there at the end of it. God will hold us.

So let us go out, with the strange knowledge that God is with us, and God is moving and working in our deepest struggles and doubts.

To the glory of God our Creator,
God our Liberator,
And God our Redeemer. Amen.