Not until You Bless Me (Proper 24C)

 

Not Until You Bless Me
Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 24 Year C RCL)
20 October 2013--8:00 a.m. Said, 10:00 a.m. Sung Mass
The Rev. Dr. Anthony Hutchinson

Parish Church of Trinity, Ashland (Oregon)

Readings: Genesis 32:22-31; Psalm 121; 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5; Luke 18:1-8

God, give us hearts to feel and love,

take away our hearts of stone

 and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

When Ronald Reagan was running against incumbent president Jimmie Carter in 1980, only one presidential debate took place.  Most people believe that Reagan won the debate by use of a single memorable line.  When Carter began to list what he saw as the deficiencies of Reagan’s record when it came to Medicare and Medicaid, Reagan interrupted, “There you go again!”  The audience burst into laughter.  Reagan had defused the criticism not through any refutation of fact or appeal to a higher principle, but just by strategically expressing well that most human of emotions, exasperation.

“There you go again,” a tired young woman said to her husband through gritted teeth in a counseling session I assisted in.

“There you go again,”  was a mutual reproach regularly on our children’s lips when they would bring disputes to Elena and me

“There you go again!” Whether it is relapse into addiction, lying, gambling, irresponsible spending, infidelity, abusive language or actions—these are words of exasperation at a person’s apparent inability to change, despite promises, resolutions, and commitments to amend one’s ways. 

By expressing it, Reagan won his audience’s heart, regardless of their politics.  We all want to say it at times, but usually do not, since it is not a particularly helpful thing to say. 

“There you go again!”  Thus we often silently reproach ourselves, disgusted and unhappy that, once again, we have not lived up to our stated values. 

Today’s reading from Genesis tells the story of a man who had a hard time changing.   He was a feisty, conniving, self-seeking man.  His parents noticed that even in the womb, he seemed to struggle with his twin brother.  His brother Esau was born first, but the feisty younger brother rejected his second-place by grasping firmly Esau’s heel at birth.  So his parents named him Jacob, “Heel.” And a heel he turned out to be. 

A maneuverer from the start, he plays on his brother Esau’s simplicity and hunger to get him to ignorantly trade away his birthright for a plate of lentil stew.  Later, he impersonates Esau in order to steal Esau’s blessing as well as his birthright.

“There you go again, you heel!”  Esau, tired at being tricked, simply begins plotting to murder Jacob as soon as their father is dead.  So Jacob, ever wily, leaves town to lie low for a while.   He goes to his uncle Laban’s home far away to lie low until things calm down.

As Jacob flees, he clearly is in distress.  All his tricks have just gotten him into trouble, and he has to flee for his life.  During his escape, he has a vision of a ladder into heaven, and for the first time connects with the God of his grandfather Abraham and his father Isaac.  He calls the place Bethel, the House of God.  But he remains Jacob, the heel. 

His uncle too is a trickster.   When the two settle on a bride price for Jacob to marry one of his cousins, the uncle tricks Jacob into paying double the bride price—a 14-year work contract—and taking on an additional daughter as well.  Jacob’s hard work and business savvy is profitable for both nephew and uncle. When the shared assets grow to a size worth arguing about, tensions develop.  Jacob knows it is time to return to Canaan when, as he says to his wives, “Your father is not treating me a nicely as he used to.”  

Now comes the problem of divvying up the wealth and getting away from Haran safe and sound. Jacob still has tricks up his sleeve.  ‘Mr. Heel’ turns the tables by tricking the trickster.  He rigs the process of selecting flocks in his favor, he ends up with the lion’s portion.  So he has to flee his uncle by night too, just as he had to flee his brother.  “There you go again!”  

As Jacob prepares to return to Canaan, he is afraid that Esau still will murder him.  So he sends messengers with kind words.  They return and say that Esau is coming to welcome him home—accompanied by 400 armed men!

Yikes.  The big man may be dull, but he clearly does not forget a grudge. 

Jacob is prudent.  He divides his large caravan into two camps:  if Esau takes the first by violence, at least Jacob might have half his family and goods left.  Then he sends all the huge baggage and livestock train in several small groups ahead, all with the instructions that if Esau challenges them, they are to say they are gifts from Jacob for his dear brother Esau.   Finally, he sends his own immediate family.   But he still is too afraid.  He alone goes back to spend the night on the riverbank outside of Canaan.

That is when the story we read today happens.  It is mysterious, and dark.  Jacob is accosted by a man who wrestles with him in the dark.  The struggle goes on until the break of dawn, when the stranger, desperate to end the match, touches Jacob so that his hip is dislocated.  Some believe the only pressure point for such an effect was Jacob’s heel.     Jacob, the heel, is now injured through his heel and no longer can wrestle.  He might as well give up.  But he continues to hold on for dear life.  The stranger says, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”  Jacob replies, “Not until you bless me.” 

Jacob, the trickster, has run out of tricks.  He is desperate, unsure that his maneuvers will turn away Esau’s wrath.  He might lose everything in the next few hours.  The struggle in the dark in some ways represents the struggle going on in his heart:  his fears and plots versus the hope for a new day.  Fresh out of tricks, all he can do is hold tightly.  “Bless me,” he begs, “Bless me.” 

The stranger asks, “What is your name?  Who are you?”  “Jacob,” is the answer, “a heel, a trickster.” 

This confession, this avowal of stark truth when all options and plans are gone, marks a real change in Jacob’s life.  The stranger blesses him in reply, “Jacob is not your name, but Yisrael—God struggles.”  “You are a heel no more.  You are now someone with whom God struggles.”

The day comes, and Jacob limps back to cross the river to his family.  His limp will stay with him the rest of his life.  He greets Esau later in the day, and the brothers are reconciled (with Esau in fine Asian style first refusing all the gifts, and then, after his brother’s urging,  accepting many of them.) 

I wonder if this story might be about each one of us.

How many of us are Jacob here?  Do we say to ourselves: “There you go again!” “You heel!”  “What can I do to get out of this fix I’ve gotten myself into?”  “How can I possibly not return to this bad place, since I have returned so many times?” 

When others have hurt us, how many of us are like Esau here?  Do we want to blurt out “There you go again,” and never again have anything to do with them, even though we have ties that bind us?   Do we secretly delight in their misfortune? 

I suggest that in all of this, God is there, loving us, supporting us, and holding us tightly, whether we know it or not.    It is possible for us to let our exasperation give us sight in the dark night.   And if we do, then we might just have to hold tightly onto God, and not let go, even though everything is going wrong and we hurt.  We might just say, “I won’t let go, not until you bless me.” 

The good news is this:  our failings and the failings of others are ways that God shows his love and grace.

St. Paul knew this when he spoke of the mysterious “thorn” God had placed in his flesh as a reminder of his constant need for grace.  He writes: “but [God] said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’  So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me… for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Cor 12: 9-10)

Jacob’s hip is maimed by a touch to his heel.  And as a result Jacob is healed by being wounded.  Seeing that he is “God struggles with me” instead of “Mr. Heel” is the blessing.    Israel instead of Jacob.    

Sometimes people complain that our liturgy is too penitential, too focused on confessing our failings.  And they are right to think that emphasizing sin too much can be downright pathological.  The Eucharist if nothing else should be a celebration. 

But it is important too to be honest about who and what we are, or at least what we seem to ourselves to be.  Like Jacob, we need to confess our name, recognize where we do not measure up.  Because it is in these very gaps that God seizes us and where we have to hang on and say, “I won’t let go until you bless me.”    It is not about trying to be perfect and bemoaning the fact that we are not.  It is about being honest and grateful, about faith. 

As Leonard Cohen says in his song “Anthem,”      

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

This week, find something in yourself that needs forgiving, needs remedying. And in your prayers, pray that God will help you with it, simply help.  And then be patient.   Say you won’t let go until he blesses you.  Be like that persistent woman in the Gospel reading.  And forgive yourself.    

Also find something in someone in your life that needs forgiving, needs correcting, something that makes you angry.  And just forgive them.  If that’s not possible, ask God to help you forgive.  And say you won’t let go until he blesses you in this. 

In the name of Christ, 

Amen.