Most of what I’m posting here at this point has some relation to school, largely because it consumes so much of my thought and time. So what follows is another exercise in my speaking class. We were asked to give a 5 minute sermon from one of 5 passages of scripture. I chose Genesis 32 and 33, and focused squarely on Jacob’s wrestling with the angel/God, and was struck by something new, which is always nice.
In the telling of the story in Genesis Jacob leaves Haran and his Father-In-Law Laban to return to the land of his now deceased father Isaac, and his estranged brother Esau who he had cheated out of their father’s blessing some 15 to 20 years earlier. As he approaches from the east he seems to realize he has no place in this new/old land, and that he and his caravan of livestock, servants, and family, including at least 12 children with four different women were vulnerable, exposed and at his brother’s mercy. He is unsure of how he will be received by his brother, and when he learns that his brother is coming to meet him with a large, and by inference, well armed group of men he fears the worst. He fears the slaughter of his servants, and his family, and above all seems to fear his own death. In a move to dim what he perceives is his brother’s anger he sends a group of servants ahead with a portion of his flock as a gift to Esau from “your servant Jacob”. He then sends his family ahead, the two servants with whom he has children, Bilhah and Zilphah, then Leah, and her children, finally his beloved Rachael, and her son Joseph. He watches them ford the River Jabbok, and fade into the distance, and he is left there alone, dreading the dawn of the next day. The only thing separating Jacob now from his trouble is the River Jabbok.
That evening as he was alone with his thoughts, perhaps crying out to God for the safety of his family, he is blindsided by the force of something knocking him to the ground. This wasn’t an animal, and it was clear from the arms wrapped around him that this wasn’t Esau. This was a stranger attacking him; someone Jacob neither recognized nor knew. They fought, and wrestled for hours, in and out of the river, sweaty, muddy, and panting. Sometimes they found themselves just holding each other, waiting for the other to make the next move. That’s when it happens. This stranger comes down on Jacob’s hip with a force that made Jacob believe he could have done it at any time. Jacob has a new problem now; he is fighting for his life, clinging to this stranger. As morning approaches the stranger demands that Jacob let him go, but Jacob, who is in no position to make demands, demands that this man bless him. Perhaps Jacob was afraid that this man would finish him off if he let him go, or perhaps this is the same Jacob that seemed to want everyone’s blessing. In this exchange however, Jacob is given a new name, Israel, and the man’s blessing before he disappears into the morning. And Jacob is left again alone, now broken, and still in trouble.
I believe this can be classified as very strange encounter, one for which I imagine most of us have no template. It is however an encounter through which Jacob gained a strange knowledge of God. It was a knowledge that isn’t available through study or books. It isn’t available through story, or family. It is only available through struggle. Jacob wrestled, grappled, and struggled with this man, who we are left to assume from the text, is the Divine taking on human form, and is simultaneously blessed and injured. If Jacob had not encountered this man it is plausible to suggest he would not have been injured in this way, but neither would he have been blessed. It seems that neither would have been experienced apart from the other, or apart from this struggle and violence.
O’Connor in her collection of essays and speeches Mystery and Manners speaking of the characters in her stories suggests, “I have found that violence is strangely capable of returning my characters to reality and preparing them to accept their moment of grace. Their heads are so hard that almost nothing else will do the work. This idea, that reality is something to which we must be returned at considerable cost… is one that is implicit in the Christian view of the world.” This reality to which a character, or person must be returned can be seen as the strange knowledge that Jacob came to through his struggle. He came to a clear view of the reality of the fierce, free God of mercy. This knowledge was gained through struggle, breaking and blessing. In the moment of his breaking, Jacob is stripped of any notion of self sufficiency or pride, and is left to cling to this man, dependant on the grace of his blessing to keep his life, realizing he was unable to secure that life himself. The blessing he finally received was received at a great cost to Jacob. In light of O’Connor’s notion that violence, suffering, and struggle sometimes prepares us for our moment of grace, it seems the price of that blessing may have been determined by the amount of pride and self sufficiency that had to be overcome in Jacob before he allowed himself to experience the safe arms of grace and mercy.
In Frederick Buechner’s book Son of Laughter, from which this sermon/blog liberally borrowed as I laid out the storyline above, he describes Jacob’s experience of the blessing.
“I do not remember the words of his blessing or even if there were words. I remember the blessing of his arms holding me and the blessing of his arms letting me go. I remember as blessing the black shape of him against the rose colored sky. I remember as blessing the one glimpse I had of his face. I was more terrible than the face of dark, or of pain, or of terror. It was the face of light. No words can tell of it. Silence cannot tell of it. Sometimes I cannot believe that I saw it and lived but that I only dreamed I saw it. Sometimes I believed I saw it and that I only dream I live.”
In the end Jacob’s experience of grace, and by extension perhaps at times our experience of grace, came across to him as violence. This was a violence not bound up in some Divine malevolence, or a Divine desire to either discipline or correct Jacob, rather it seems that Jacob experienced God’s attempt to overcome his independent, self sufficient, self important pride as violence because that is what pride inherently is, violent. It is a supplanting of God in favor of the self. It flips reality on its head attempting to place the created ontologically above the creator. Any attempt to correct this then will have to travel through that barrier of violent pride in order to find itself again on the side of dependant obedience and faith. Our trip to pride is experienced as violence by God, and God’s effort to correct that and flip reality right side up if you will may be experienced as violence by the one who is being returned to reality. This is why even in this violence suffered by Jacob, one can view God as gentle and merciful, applying only the pressure or force necessary to attempt to turn Jacob’s world right side up.
I have often heard people describe their experience of God as God tearing their world apart, or turning it upside down. From our perspective that’s exactly what’s happening, because from our perspective as those who are upside down in our world of pride and self sufficiency, the experience of having our world rearranged by or around God feels like being turned upside down, when in fact we’re being turned right side up. A few years ago I went to see Peter Gabriel in concert, it was wonderful, and as is his tendency, very theatrical. When he performed his song Downside Up he and his daughter who was singing backup literally were latched into the superstructure of the stage and performed a good portion of the song literally upside down. Of course if they stayed there long enough that upside down perspective would come to look normal and right side up. In reality as creatures of pride and hubris that is our perspective that God attempts to right through grace.
It is important to note in this construct of the violence of God’s grace, this isn’t God forcing humanity to accept grace, but is God attempting through grace to create circumstances in which a person can come to grace on grace’s terms, empty handed and full of need. When one believes one has sufficient reserves, and an inherent ability to navigate their troubles themselves, they don’t perceive their need of God, they don’t have a proper view of their upside down horizon. Sometimes in order for us to fall on the mercy and grace of God our horizon needs to be turned upside down so we see the world as it really is. Unfortunately we have the freedom, and the inclination to return to our upside down perspective, which God allows. Thus the struggle begins all over again, with God turning our world upside down again, and again out of love and in mercy, and by grace so that like Jacob we can participate in the blessings of God, even as simultaneously beautiful and terrible as they may appear.
The image above is taken from:
http://www.papabear.com/pgsum04favgraphics/milandowns.jpg
In the telling of the story in Genesis Jacob leaves Haran and his Father-In-Law Laban to return to the land of his now deceased father Isaac, and his estranged brother Esau who he had cheated out of their father’s blessing some 15 to 20 years earlier. As he approaches from the east he seems to realize he has no place in this new/old land, and that he and his caravan of livestock, servants, and family, including at least 12 children with four different women were vulnerable, exposed and at his brother’s mercy. He is unsure of how he will be received by his brother, and when he learns that his brother is coming to meet him with a large, and by inference, well armed group of men he fears the worst. He fears the slaughter of his servants, and his family, and above all seems to fear his own death. In a move to dim what he perceives is his brother’s anger he sends a group of servants ahead with a portion of his flock as a gift to Esau from “your servant Jacob”. He then sends his family ahead, the two servants with whom he has children, Bilhah and Zilphah, then Leah, and her children, finally his beloved Rachael, and her son Joseph. He watches them ford the River Jabbok, and fade into the distance, and he is left there alone, dreading the dawn of the next day. The only thing separating Jacob now from his trouble is the River Jabbok.
That evening as he was alone with his thoughts, perhaps crying out to God for the safety of his family, he is blindsided by the force of something knocking him to the ground. This wasn’t an animal, and it was clear from the arms wrapped around him that this wasn’t Esau. This was a stranger attacking him; someone Jacob neither recognized nor knew. They fought, and wrestled for hours, in and out of the river, sweaty, muddy, and panting. Sometimes they found themselves just holding each other, waiting for the other to make the next move. That’s when it happens. This stranger comes down on Jacob’s hip with a force that made Jacob believe he could have done it at any time. Jacob has a new problem now; he is fighting for his life, clinging to this stranger. As morning approaches the stranger demands that Jacob let him go, but Jacob, who is in no position to make demands, demands that this man bless him. Perhaps Jacob was afraid that this man would finish him off if he let him go, or perhaps this is the same Jacob that seemed to want everyone’s blessing. In this exchange however, Jacob is given a new name, Israel, and the man’s blessing before he disappears into the morning. And Jacob is left again alone, now broken, and still in trouble.
I believe this can be classified as very strange encounter, one for which I imagine most of us have no template. It is however an encounter through which Jacob gained a strange knowledge of God. It was a knowledge that isn’t available through study or books. It isn’t available through story, or family. It is only available through struggle. Jacob wrestled, grappled, and struggled with this man, who we are left to assume from the text, is the Divine taking on human form, and is simultaneously blessed and injured. If Jacob had not encountered this man it is plausible to suggest he would not have been injured in this way, but neither would he have been blessed. It seems that neither would have been experienced apart from the other, or apart from this struggle and violence.
O’Connor in her collection of essays and speeches Mystery and Manners speaking of the characters in her stories suggests, “I have found that violence is strangely capable of returning my characters to reality and preparing them to accept their moment of grace. Their heads are so hard that almost nothing else will do the work. This idea, that reality is something to which we must be returned at considerable cost… is one that is implicit in the Christian view of the world.” This reality to which a character, or person must be returned can be seen as the strange knowledge that Jacob came to through his struggle. He came to a clear view of the reality of the fierce, free God of mercy. This knowledge was gained through struggle, breaking and blessing. In the moment of his breaking, Jacob is stripped of any notion of self sufficiency or pride, and is left to cling to this man, dependant on the grace of his blessing to keep his life, realizing he was unable to secure that life himself. The blessing he finally received was received at a great cost to Jacob. In light of O’Connor’s notion that violence, suffering, and struggle sometimes prepares us for our moment of grace, it seems the price of that blessing may have been determined by the amount of pride and self sufficiency that had to be overcome in Jacob before he allowed himself to experience the safe arms of grace and mercy.
In Frederick Buechner’s book Son of Laughter, from which this sermon/blog liberally borrowed as I laid out the storyline above, he describes Jacob’s experience of the blessing.
“I do not remember the words of his blessing or even if there were words. I remember the blessing of his arms holding me and the blessing of his arms letting me go. I remember as blessing the black shape of him against the rose colored sky. I remember as blessing the one glimpse I had of his face. I was more terrible than the face of dark, or of pain, or of terror. It was the face of light. No words can tell of it. Silence cannot tell of it. Sometimes I cannot believe that I saw it and lived but that I only dreamed I saw it. Sometimes I believed I saw it and that I only dream I live.”
In the end Jacob’s experience of grace, and by extension perhaps at times our experience of grace, came across to him as violence. This was a violence not bound up in some Divine malevolence, or a Divine desire to either discipline or correct Jacob, rather it seems that Jacob experienced God’s attempt to overcome his independent, self sufficient, self important pride as violence because that is what pride inherently is, violent. It is a supplanting of God in favor of the self. It flips reality on its head attempting to place the created ontologically above the creator. Any attempt to correct this then will have to travel through that barrier of violent pride in order to find itself again on the side of dependant obedience and faith. Our trip to pride is experienced as violence by God, and God’s effort to correct that and flip reality right side up if you will may be experienced as violence by the one who is being returned to reality. This is why even in this violence suffered by Jacob, one can view God as gentle and merciful, applying only the pressure or force necessary to attempt to turn Jacob’s world right side up.
I have often heard people describe their experience of God as God tearing their world apart, or turning it upside down. From our perspective that’s exactly what’s happening, because from our perspective as those who are upside down in our world of pride and self sufficiency, the experience of having our world rearranged by or around God feels like being turned upside down, when in fact we’re being turned right side up. A few years ago I went to see Peter Gabriel in concert, it was wonderful, and as is his tendency, very theatrical. When he performed his song Downside Up he and his daughter who was singing backup literally were latched into the superstructure of the stage and performed a good portion of the song literally upside down. Of course if they stayed there long enough that upside down perspective would come to look normal and right side up. In reality as creatures of pride and hubris that is our perspective that God attempts to right through grace.
It is important to note in this construct of the violence of God’s grace, this isn’t God forcing humanity to accept grace, but is God attempting through grace to create circumstances in which a person can come to grace on grace’s terms, empty handed and full of need. When one believes one has sufficient reserves, and an inherent ability to navigate their troubles themselves, they don’t perceive their need of God, they don’t have a proper view of their upside down horizon. Sometimes in order for us to fall on the mercy and grace of God our horizon needs to be turned upside down so we see the world as it really is. Unfortunately we have the freedom, and the inclination to return to our upside down perspective, which God allows. Thus the struggle begins all over again, with God turning our world upside down again, and again out of love and in mercy, and by grace so that like Jacob we can participate in the blessings of God, even as simultaneously beautiful and terrible as they may appear.
The image above is taken from:
http://www.papabear.com/pgsum04favgraphics/milandowns.jpg
