[Scriptures for the day are quoted at the end of the post]
“I will not let you go.” These words jump out at us from our passage in Genesis today. How many times in our lives have we said that to someone? Or thought it about someone?
When a parent takes their child to the big city for the first time, walking down the street, it’s “I’ve got you… don’t let go!” Or when a child is learning how to swim: “Go ahead, try it… I won’t let you go.”
Lovers say it to each other, and love songs are full of the feeling. “Hold On” “I’ll Never Let You Go” “Stand By Me” “I Won’t Last a Day Without You”
Sometimes love songs go a little too far, for example Sting:
“Every breath you take
Every move you make
Every bond you break
Every step you take
I’ll be watching you.”
(…which Sting calls his “Stalker Song”. Sting says he gets a bit worried when fans play this song at their weddings!)
This passionate sentiment of ‘not letting go’ is expressed in our readings from both Genesis and Romans today. In Genesis 32 a man says it to God, and in Romans 8 God says it to us.
Jacob Wrestles the Angel – Arthur Sussman
“Kick at the Darkness Until It Bleeds Daylight”
Let’s look at Genesis first. In this passage we see the patriarch Jacob alone in the wilderness, wrestling with a stranger who turns out to be… sort of a human manifestation of God. How Jacob came to be in this particular place on this particular night is a long story. So to make a long story short:
Jacob has been struggling and wrestling with God all his life. Even before Jacob was born, God told his mother Rebekah that her younger son (Jacob) would be blessed by God and would rule over her older son Esau. As time went on, this started to become true, but for some reason Jacob and Rebekah felt a need to help God out a bit. So first Jacob cheats his brother out of his birthright, and then he cheats him out of his father’s blessing.
At this point Esau is so angry he starts plotting to murder his brother Jacob. So Rebekah sends Jacob about 500 miles away to stay with her brother Laban for safe-keeping. On the way to Laban’s place, Jacob has his famous vision of the ladder, on which he sees angels going up and down into heaven, and hears God say:
“The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth… and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” (Genesis 28:13-15, edited)
Jacob is so amazed and moved by this meeting, he sets up a stone and calls the place Bethel which means “house of God.” Jacob has now heard, with his own ears, the same promise his father Isaac and his grandfather Abraham heard God speak. And yet when he gets to Laban’s place, Jacob still takes matters into his own hands.
And now, twenty years later, he finds himself with two wives (only one of which he asked for), eleven sons and a daughter, and huge flocks of sheep and goats – most of which he has more-or-less cheated his father-in-law out of. So Jacob’s family is now quite rich, but Jacob himself is tired and discouraged, and has worn out his welcome with just about everybody, and is caught between an angry father-in-law and an estranged brother.
So now Jacob is on the way home. Afraid of what he might meet, Jacob sends his wives and kids and animals on ahead while he spends a night alone. But suddenly he finds himself wrestling with a mysterious man.
All.Night.Long.
As the night wears on, the wrestler puts Jacob’s hip out of joint, but still Jacob won’t let go. Finally the sun begins to rise, and the wrestler says “let me go, for the day is breaking”. But Jacob answers, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
…as if Jacob would be able to prevent God’s departure! You have to admire Jacob’s chutzpah. You also have to admire the rich grace of a God who is willing to spend a whole night wrestling with a mere mortal – just to teach him how to say “I will not let you go.”
So the wrestler, now revealed as God, blesses Jacob with the words:
“You shall no longer be called Jacob (which means ‘supplanter’ or ‘deceiver’) but [you shall be called] Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans and have prevailed.”
In the ancient world, names meant something, much more than they do in our culture. And the meaning of the name ‘Israel’ has been much debated. I’ve often seen it translated as ‘he struggles with God’ or ‘he wrestles with God’. But the Hebrew word, Isra-El, describes God, not Jacob. So a more accurate translation might be “God struggles” or “God wrestles”.
Of course it takes two to tango. God has been wrestling with Jacob… and Jacob has been wrestling with God… all his life. Now, finally, Jacob is at the point where he’s ready to put things in God’s hands.
For us, where we are today, if we find ourselves at the end of our ropes or at the end of our strength, if we’re hurting and ready to quit, if we feel like strangers in a strange land, will we look to God (as Jacob did) and say “I will not let you go unless you bless me”? Will we hold on to God with all the passion of a romantic lover?
It’s a choice. Holding on to God is not so much rooted in feeling, as it is a decision. It’s a persistence.
[As an aside – I think the ‘holding on’ and ‘not letting go’ that popular love songs sing about often has more in common with addiction than it does with faith. One of the things I discovered in my younger days is that it’s impossible to get ‘hooked on’ God. A person can get addicted to religion or to church (or to church music) or to one kind of theology or another. But somehow God in His mercy has made it impossible to get hooked on Him. For those of us with addictive streaks in our personalities, it would be easier to be a Christian if we could just get hooked on God because then we wouldn’t have to worry about letting go. We’d have to have God. There would be no choice in the matter. But God has made human beings in such a way that our faithfulness and our tenacity has to be a choice, moment by moment, day by day.]
The fly in the ointment of course is that none of us is perfect, so none of us can hold on to God perfectly. And none of us is infinitely strong, so none of us can hold on forever. And that’s where our reading from Romans comes in. Romans assures us that when we come to the end of our strength, the end our abilities, God will not let go. Jesus, who loved us even to death, is holding on to us and will not let go.
The apostle Paul says this is true in spite of any persecution or trouble we may face. It’s true no matter what. And then Paul lists a whole bunch of things that cannot separate us from God. They include:
- Death. Life. (That covers most of it, doesn’t it?)
- Angels (fallen or otherwise)
- At this point the Greek gets a little open to variation – most translations say ‘principalities’ (which is true enough – principalities can’t make God let go of us). But the word looks more like ‘the first things’ followed by ‘the present’ and then ‘the things that are to come’. In other words, past, present and future. Nothing in our past can make God let go of us. Nothing in our present can get in God’s way. And the future is nothing to fear when we’re in God’s hands.
- Heights or depths (this can be interpreted either literally or figuratively. The highest high you’ve ever known can’t surpass God, and the deepest depression you’ve ever felt can’t overwhelm God.)
- Nor anything else in all creation (Paul says) can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
God will never let us go. Is this not good news?
And so as we move into this week and into our daily lives, think about how Jacob wrestled with God, and refused to let go. Try approaching God in prayer with that kind of mindset and tenacity.
But also remember God is holding on to us, and God won’t let go, so we are secure no matter what happens, no matter what comes our way. We go out into the world in the confidence of God’s love that cannot be shaken.
God loves you – and will never let you go. AMEN.
~
Preached at Fair Oaks Retirement Home and Incarnation Church (Anglican) in the Strip District, 8/6/17
Artwork: “Jacob Wrestles the Angel” by Arthur Sussman
“Kick at the Darkness” article by Victoria Emily Jones. Pull-quote:
“In the painting God’s various sets of hands are breaking Jacob down and holding him up. Some of his faces speak gentleness, some fierceness. Whatever mixture of approaches God may use on us, his goal is this: to bring us through our brokenness to a place of blessing and glory.”
With thanks to Fr. Paul Johnston for bringing these works into our worship today.
~
Scriptures
Genesis 32:22-31
“The same night [Jacob] got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.” The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.”
Romans 8:35-39
“Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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