25 Years Later

Photo from abc7.com

25 years ago, almost 3,000 lives were lost when planes crashed into the World Trade Centre, the Pentagon, and a farmer’s field killing thousands of people. Nothing has been the same since. It was a moment that changed the world.

I remember visiting my grandparents in Boissevain, MB and we would drive down to Lake Metigoshe in North Dakota for dinner. It was a real treat! Crossing the boarder was easy, with no more than a conversation. No IDs were checked. No mini-interrogation about why you're crossing the boarder. Nail clippers never used to be considered a dangerous weapon on an airplane, either.

Everything changed on September 11, 2001 and, 25 years later, it's all still the same.

10 years ago, as I was starting out in my theology degree, I wrote a paper about the September 11 attacks. It was probably one of my best papers and every once and a while I read through it, wondering if I could or should something more with it.

As we approached the 25th anniversary of these horrible events, I broke the paper out again. Reading through it, I shake my head because the world hasn't changed much over the last 2 decades. Everybody's at war with somebody. Fear is at an all-time high. And nail clippers are still consider a dangerous weapon on airplanes. Here is an excerpt from the paper:

"The attack on the World Trade Centre was a culmination of years of terrorism and war, disgustingly poor human rights policies, and some extremely faulty foreign policy within the US government with regards to counterinsurgency training and inconsistencies on who qualifies for US aid. On the surface it would appear that the attack was unprovoked and came out of nowhere. But as you begin to unravel the past, you can see a pattern in how the US deals with foreign nations and that it is quite likely that a group of people finally had enough and took justice into their own hands. Through mass and social media we have been essentially forced to accept the US as innocent bystanders who were seemingly attacked for no reason. But if you start delving into some history you will find that the US government was a far cry from an innocent or a bystander. From ignoring blatant human rights issues to taking both sides of a civil war it appears that the US has brought it on to themselves the fact that they are the target of multiple terrorist groups."

What I tried to do in my paper is attempt to show that it was the US government’s own inconsistent foreign policy that resulted in the destruction of the World Trade Centre and the death of 3,000 people. More than 3,000 as we are now aware of the deaths that were caused by health issues from the dust and chemicals that were in the air that day, and the days following.

Discussing such things as the Cold War, the Truman Doctrine, the Kennedy Doctrine, the Nixon doctrine, the Somalia Syndrome, the Rwanda Genocide, the Persian Gulf War, and Bin Ladin and al Qaeda, I feel like I was able to explain how the US became a targeted superpower. It was a fascinating bit of research and certainly made me realize how the events of September 11 were not isolated, nor did they come out of nowhere.

On September 11, the world was changed forever. With the aftermath leading to a two-decade-long war is Afghanistan, and Islamophobia rates skyrocketing to numbers that really haven't come down much since then, we are still feeling the effects of those horrible events, even 25 years later.

Will I break out this paper again in 5 years? 10 years? Only time will tell. But I sure hope things start turning around soon. How long can one country remain at war with the rest of the world?

We Are Not the Judge: A Sermon for the 16th Sunday After Pentecost

Give us ears to hear and hearts to listen. Amen.

 

Of all the letters believed to be truly written by Paul, the letter to the community in Rome is the only one not written to a church he had founded and knew well. Paul wrote to the Romans as an introduction and to prepare them for his arrival in their city. A bit like an agenda with reports and material sent around before a parish council meeting. Paul is most concerned about telling the Romans about the issues of justification and salvation and that one of the consequences of our justification and salvation in and through Christ is that we will be transformed. Not only physically on the day of resurrection, but in our hearts, minds, and spirits as well.

 

Up to this point, some of the things Paul has talked about are what it means to believe in God, what it means to have faith, the practicalities of living in community, and the redemption through Jesus Christ that can be accessed through faith and action. And today it’s all about pitting meat eaters against vegetarians! No, wait. That doesn’t sound right. That’s what it reads like though, doesn’t it? “The weak eat only vegetables”. That’s what it says. After all of Paul’s talk about family, community, being welcoming to the stranger, loving the neighbour, forgiving the enemy…he’s got something against those who choose not to eat meat? Not really. Paul is talking about the culture of eating meat, or more accurately, eating food that is unclean, not kosher.

 

Jewish religious laws around food were pretty sticky and as Paul tries to bring more people towards conversion to Christianity, one of his points is that having faith in Jesus is more than just following a bunch of rules. It means caring about people more than caring about the food you put in your mouth. That said, I don’t think the people who created the lectionary wanted us to start a debate between being a carnivore and being a vegetarian. There has to be more meat in this reading!

 

This passage is more than just about eating meat or vegetables. It’s about division and differences. This is about a Roman community that was both Jewish and Christian and they were struggling to figure out who was right, who was more faithful. For example, should they honour the last day, Saturday, as the sabbath, or the Lord’s Day, Sunday? What Paul was trying to say here is that these divisions that were both frustrating and meaningful shouldn't divide us fully. The community is what matters, and we should hold together in love. It’s love that binds us together.

 

We can dispute and we can argue but that's not the point. Paul said to not just tolerate those who are weak in faith, but to show hospitality, to go the extra mile and make the weak feel welcomed. And he isn’t trying to say that some people have better faith or more faith than others. But he is saying that we should be welcoming to all people, even those with whom you disagree. Jesus didn't come to die and live so that we could argue over how to baptize or whether to eat meat or on what day we should celebrate. Jesus came so that we might have life, so that he might be the Lord of the living and the dead. And yet we judge one another, and we divide one another, sometimes even saying these divisions are done in God’s name. It is tough to praise God if you are busy passing judgment on other people. And yet, that’s often what we do.

 

While we might not be arguing about all the same things as Paul’s audience anymore, there are still plenty of divisions within our churches. Will we sing praise music, or traditional hymns? Should we read from the NRSV, or the NIV (or the KJV or the CEB)? Will we have an open communion table, or will we deny certain people receiving the feast? We also remain divided over things like the inclusion, acceptance, ordination, and blessing of women, people of colour, and 2SLGBTQIA+ persons. For every place that is truly affirming, there is a place that is not.

 

And just when you think progress is being made, society slides backwards in the conversation. Love the sinner, hate the sin. Right? That statement assumes that being a woman, a person of colour, a member of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community is a choice, and a sinful choice at that. None of these unique characteristics are a choice, but they are the way in which we are beautifully and wonderfully made by God. None of them are a sin. White supremacy, hate speech, hate actions, racism - these are choices and sins. These are actions that need to be called out and exposed for the destructive lies they are, and those who continue to espouse them must be held accountable.

 

I understand Paul's call that we are to love, that love is ultimate, that love is everything. Easy enough for some, but what about those being rejected by society, by family, by community? That’s the hard part. It’s not about “anything goes”. Loving everyone doesn’t mean “everything goes”. This could too easily be interpreted as a sit back and, for the sake of the community, love everybody and don't rock the boat. I doubt Paul would be telling us not to rock the boat. Jesus was a great boat rocker and Paul was repeatedly thrown into prison. Rocking the boat is exactly what we need to do in order to bring justice to those on the margins. When a group of people want to cause harm to another group of people, we need to stand up and rock the boat.

 

Very few challenges in the Christian life can compare with the challenge of really loving one another despite how different we all are. However, at our core we are all children of God, created in God's image. God is the God of all people and God calls us to love and pray for our enemies and those who hate and persecute us. To us, the enemies, the persecutors, and the haters are the people who are weak of faith. And we are called to welcome them to our table, just as Christ welcomed all sinners to his table.

 

Paul acknowledges that devout people can have radically different convictions and still be good and faithful people. It is too easy to judge each other, especially when society constantly barrages us with the idea that people are “less than” simply because of race, gender, sexual orientation, or religious background. But we need to resist demonizing each other and remember that we mere mortals have no right to judge. Verse 12 in todays reading, “so then, each of us will be accountable to God.” There is only one judge, and it isn’t me, and it isn’t us. If, in the end, I am wrong about who God intended for me to include, then I will answer to the Almighty on my final day. Until then, all are truly welcome to my table because I believe that God calls us to live as a community that embraces all and sees all as equal, so that together our knees will bow before God.

 

We are all people called by grace and by God not to judge but to worship and to serve.

 

Amen.

Let Love Be Genuine: A Sermon for the 14th Sunday After Pentecost

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew in me a right spirit, that genuine love might flow in and through me and your church for the healing and wholeness of our world. Amen.

Last week, we heard Paul reminding his readers that they are more than individuals. They are individuals who are members of one another, with differing gifts that contribute to the whole. Paul declared that we are one body in Christ with many members, and that each of us brings unique gifts into the community. In the Catechism found in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, we acknowledge Paul’s statement, declaring that “according to the gifts we have been given” we are to carry on Christ’s work of reconciliation in the world, here and now, where we are and while we are here. And Paul acknowledged that we will not all do this the same way. We do not have to all march in step together, but rather we are to exercise the unique gifts we have each been given in our own unique ways. Not everyone has the same gifts. Not everyone has to follow Jesus in just the same way as the next person. The best news of all being, of course, that no one is expected to do anything that God has not already equipped us to do. I labelled it as “Team Church” – all working together, using our unique gifts, to be a community called church, a community called to be a living sacrifice in the name of Jesus.

 

The reading from Romans today could be considered a group covenant for Christians, a list of core values on which the activities and ministries of church are built, a reminder about how we are meant to live in the days between worship services. Paul’s words are a description and an invitation to Christian community.

 

So, what it is that he calls us to do? Let’s see if I can set it up in “Ten Commandments style”:

1.         Love genuinely

2.         Overcome evil with good

3.         Love one another

4.         Show honour to one another

5.         Be fervent in spirit

6.         Rejoice in hope

7.         Be patient in suffering

8.         Be constant in prayer

9.         Show hospitality

10.       Bless those who persecute you

11.       Be sympathetic

12.       Live in harmony with one another

13.       Do not repay evil with evil

14.       Live peaceably

15.       Do not avenge yourselves

 

Ok so that was way more than ten. Paul has a lot to say about what it means to serve Christ! But there is one common theme: Love. Love is the overarching paradigm for the whole of Romans chapter 12, the first half about loving God and the second half about loving each other. Paul echoes Jesus in calling attention to love as the key moral norm for God’s people. Jesus had said that all the law and the prophets hang on two commands: love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Love finds its full expression in community, where people share life together with its joys, its pains and wrongs, its sorrows.

 

At the beginning of our reading today, Paul assumes that his audience knows that they are to love, and he presses them to make their love for each other genuine. Genuine love is more than just being nice to people. Genuine love has a moral orientation toward the good. When we show love toward someone, we are moving them toward God’s goodness. To love someone is not simply to cater to specific likes and dislikes of that person. It is rather to act toward them in ways that help them experience more of God’s goodness.

 

And while we don’t always like to talk about good and evil as if they are polar opposite absolutes from each other, there are evils in the world that we do need to fight against. There is so much hate, oppression, injustice, deception, manipulation, and violence in the world. We really can’t just sit back and ignore what is going on if we truly believe in justice and peace and freedom.

 

Jesus calls us to follow a pattern of responding to evil not by retaliating, but by embracing those who do evil with mercy, kindness, and forgiveness. Responding to the world’s evil with genuine love is how we will begin to see real change in the world. Paul reinforces Jesus’ call, telling us that we are not to repay evil with evil. When we oppose those who do evil in our world with anger, we are more likely to perpetuate the evil they do. So how then do we respond to evil?

 

In the same way Jesus did. Jesus knew that only the willingness to respond to hostility with peace, to respond to hatred with forgiveness, can redeem evil. We need to respond with love, genuine love. Love which does not reject evil is not genuine. Genuine love must reject the systemic evils in our culture and society. This does not mean rejecting the individual, rather rejecting hateful ideology, language, and actions that deny the humanity and prevents others from living fully and freely as God intended.

 

This is what Jesus meant when he said that those who want to follow him will have to take up the cross. He was calling us all to follow his pattern of responding to evil by not retaliating, but by embracing those who do evil with mercy and kindness and forgiveness. Only when we can embrace those who do evil in our world with genuine love can we hope to respond to what they do in a way that will bring real change – responding to violence with forgiveness, responding to hatred with compassion, responding to hostility with peace. When we do, we have the chance to change not only what they do but more importantly who they are. As we embrace those who do evil, we have the chance to make a change that can create peace and justice and freedom.

 

The Gospel of Christ has always been counter-cultural, but for centuries “Christendom” masked this reality, in an assumption that we lived in a “Christian society”.  As a result, we have become stagnant, making assumptions that the world was made for Christians, erasing the memory that Christians are meant to go against the grain, to toss the tables, and to defend the oppressed. As Christians, we need to make a conscious choice, not just once but over and over again, about whom we are going to follow. To discern how to be in the world but not of the world. Making the decision to take up Jesus’ cross and respond to the world’s evil with genuine love so that we can create real change in the world.

 

As Christians, we are called to live by a different standard in all parts of life. It is easy to attend worship each week and leave it all at the door on your way out. To live according to Paul’s core values that I listed before is a daily commitment. So why don’t we make that commitment to ourselves and to each other right now? Repeat after me:

 

I promise to show hospitality toward others.

I promise to live in peace and harmony with others.

I promise to be sympathetic and compassionate to those around me.

I promise to do good and let God be the judge.

I promise to bless those who persecute me, and to do what is honorable in the sight of all.

I promise to overcome evil with good.

I promise to rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, and be constant in prayer.

I promise to have real and genuine love for others.

By making these promises to each other, we have committed ourselves to our calling of being a living sacrifice in the name of Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Resources:

workingpreacher.org

pulpitfiction.com

thewakingdreamer.blogspot.com

"Feasting on the Word" edited by David Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor

One Person, One Body, One Team: A Sermon for the 13th Sunday After Pentecost

Photo Credit: Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen.

 

I’m a pretty big Winnipeg Jets and Blue Bombers fan. I used to watch as many hockey games as possible on TV and we’re Bomber season ticket holders. When I was a kid, we would go to my uncle’s house every Saturday to watch Hockey Night in Canada. Football is still on every week, but while I don’t watch much hockey anymore, when it comes to playoff season, I’ll try to find a way to fit a few into my schedule.

 

One of my favorite parts was watching the interviews, especially after big wins like the Stanley Cup or the Grey Cup. Everyone was so excited and happy. And almost every person interviewed would praise their teammates. Even when the reporter would ask about a goal or catch or touchdown that the player got, it was always “I couldn’t have done it without my teammates”, or “we won this game as a team”, or “it was a team effort.” In my opinion, the best teams are the ones who are there for each other. The teams where when one player is struggling, another one picks up their play. The teams where each person has their unique gift, is supported by their teammates, and are missed when they aren’t there. The other thing that makes a team great is when they are involved in their community. We often hear stories of athletes being involved in their community. Whether it’s visiting children’s hospitals, donating money to military veterans, or having a pickup game with neighbour kids.

 

Paul says that this is what the church is supposed to be like. The book of Romans can be divided into two parts: a theological explanation of the gospel for the first 11 chapters and a series of ethical exhortations for the rest of the letter. At the end of chapter 11, Paul reflects on God’s mysterious, fixed purpose and great mercies for all people. In response, he broke into doxology, expressing his praise to God. “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.” (11:36) But the letter doesn’t end there. Paul introduces new content as he brings the story of Christ’s redemption to bear on the life of the believer in tangible and practical ways.

 

As we head into chapter 12, Paul calls his audience to respond to God’s great mercies not simply in doxology, but with a living sacrifice. Pulling on the language that giving a sacrifice to God was a typical piece of worship during Paul’s time, he is telling us that we are now to be that sacrifice. Not by offering ourselves in death at the altar, but by giving ourselves fully and wholly to God. More than just spiritual worship, Paul is calling us to bodily worship. Paul exhorts his audience to present their bodies and reminds them that they are one body in Christ with many members.

 

In the last part of today’s reading, Paul emphasizes that while we are one body with many members, not all members have the same function. We are all individuals with unique attributes and gifts that, when put together, become the amazing body of Christ. We might be teachers or prophets or caregivers or leaders or followers. No matter our gift, we are all an important piece of the puzzle, important cogs in the machine that we call “church”.

 

We are a team. We are “Team Church”. Like in the CFL, we meet once a week to do the thing we do. We gather in one spot. We read some lessons. We hear a sermon. We sing some music. We receive a blessing. And then we go home. And there is nothing wrong with that! I have always called Sunday worship a resetting for the week. It is powerful and meaningful. All of the things we do each week is meant to be a communal reminder, a re-orientation, and a loving accountability which brings us back to the way of Jesus. But then what? Is this full-bodied worship? Is that being the body of Christ?

 

We call the body of Christ “church” but that doesn’t mean the individual buildings. Talking about church as the body of Christ is talking about the people, the believers, who collectively form the church. Being the body of Christ means to be united under his name, unified members working together to keep being what Jesus called us to be from the very beginning – God’s beloved people.

 

For Paul, this full-bodied worship is not an activity but a way of being, a way of living in full relationship to God and each other through the way of Jesus Christ. This full-bodied worship happens in the community as we live out our faith by serving one another to build up the body of Christ. The quality of our worship is not measured by what happens on Sunday mornings, but by what happens when we are out in our community from Monday through Saturday. Paul’s worship of Christ wasn’t confined to a building, so why should ours be?

 

The western church has long enjoyed a privileged place as an institution. However, the church was never meant to be just an institution. It was meant to be a community of forgiveness and love and generosity. Almost across the board, church buildings are starting to empty. Where people used to walk to church in droves, they are now driving in small groups. The meaning of being in the building is fading away. But that doesn’t mean the team is breaking up! It just means things look differently than they did before. The church is being reborn into what was always meant to be – a group of people doing things that puts us outside the norms of behaviour for our society.

 

We are being called to change, to discern what this new body of Christ will look like. We need to wrap our minds around what we do day to day in our lives that expresses God’s will. Now, more than ever, we will need to lean on each other, help each other discern our gifts, and find new ways to serve God as a living sacrifice.

 

So, what did Paul mean when he spoke about full-bodied worship? It means worship as acts of service for others done in the name of Christ. It means moving beyond the sanctuary into the streets. It means acts of kindness extended to others. It means helping those in need rise above the barriers of the education system or health system. It means giving resources to help improve the quality of life for someone.

 

None of us are perfect but we all are part of one body and one team. We are team church! The church that is a group of people and communities gathered by the grace and mercy of God who loves us freely and ferociously. The church that is meant to be a body giving Christ a face and voice and hands and feet to the world. The church that truly offers ourselves for service to others in the name of Christ.

 

Amen.

The Path to New Beginnings: A Sermon for the 12th Sunday After Pentecost

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen.

 

A colleague of mine once likened the Book of Genesis to a TV drama and I think she hit the nail on the head! The drama! The relationships! The action! All of these lead to some exciting reading, even if we don’t necessarily understand it all. So as they say, here are some scenes from last week’s episode.

 

Joseph, shunned and hated by his brothers, is beaten and thrown into a dry well. The brothers stand guard while deciding what to do with him. Will they murder him? Will they leave him to die at nature’s hands? Along comes a caravan and they have their answer! They will sell him to the Egyptians!

 

What would you do if these were your brothers and you were the one first left to die and then sold off like a piece of old unwanted furniture? Revenge seems sweet, doesn’t it?

 

Previous to today’s readings, Joseph did start to take revenge by doing some rotten things like holding his brother Simeon hostage as well as their share of grain in exchange for having the youngest, Benjamin, brought to him. And then framing Benjamin for theft so that all the brothers travelling with Benjamin would be forced to come back to him.

 

Finally, Joseph couldn’t handle it any longer and he ordered all the Egyptians out of the room, so he was alone with his brothers. He then revealed his true identity to them, and what was his first question of them? “How is my father?” Joseph was overwhelmed with emotion and wanted to know how his family had been doing.

 

Now, Joseph is the most important person in all of Egypt, save for Pharaoh himself. He could crush his brothers. He could torture them. He could really teach them a lesson. Instead, he tells them not to worry, it wasn’t them who did all that to him, it was God sending him to Egypt.

 

What faith it takes to utter such words. I’m not sure I could muster it. What would you do if you were in Joseph’s shoes, powerful enough to commit the most heinous acts of revenge? Instead of crushing them like bugs, Joseph tells his brothers that God has sent him ahead to ensure that his family, as well as others, are saved from famine.

 

Joseph is able to look upon the hardest days of his life and see the hand of God working for Joseph and all of God’s people. He’s able to look upon the awful experience of being forsaken by family, sold as a slave, and subsequently exploited and plunged into jail as God moving mightily to save God’s people and all the people of that corner of the world from famine.

 

Those years which Joseph spent in slavery and prison could have been the occasion for a slow burn that might have ignited into an explosion of anger at the sight of his brothers. How angry Joseph could have been with God for getting him into such a situation! But Joseph recognized that God was with him in his sufferings and that these were from the loving hand of a sovereign God.

 

Joseph could have been angry with his brothers, who had callously sold him into slavery. Joseph had the right and the power to punish his ten half-brothers for doing what they did to him. He could have gotten his pound of flesh from them, his revenge on them, but in his mercy, Joseph forgave his brothers and wept over them when they finally reconciled.

 

Joseph forgives his brothers! Can you believe it?! Instead of committing vengeful acts, Joseph commits saving acts. Not only does he forgive his brothers, but he saves them from famine and poverty. He reunites his family and vows to take care of them.

 

The brothers, laden with treasures and food and wagonloads of gifts, were sent back to land of Canaan to get their father Jacob and all their families. All of them, all seventy of them, came to settle in the land of Goshen in Egypt where Joseph took care of them. There was a new beginning for Joseph and his family, and it was God that led them to the point where they could be reunited in love and unity.

 

As today’s psalm states “How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!”

And how very good it is when God is the leader and the light down the path to new beginnings. The lesson today, for Joseph and for all of us, is that God will indeed lead us to new beginnings if we’re just willing to follow.

 

I’ll admit, sometimes God’s instructions, signs, or whatever you’d like to call them can sometimes be so subtle that you might not see them unless looked upon retrospectively. Reflecting back over the almost-20 years since joining the Anglican Church, I’ve come to recognize how God worked to get me to where I am today. And it all started with new a beginning.

 

Many years ago, I became friends with a woman named Lola who just happened to work with someone I knew at a youth and family social services organization. Lola decided to start a project and got all her friends involved, including me. As the token accountant, I was of course asked to be the treasurer!

 

One of the people joining the project was this motorcycle-riding co-worker of Lola’s named Helen. Turned out she was an Anglican priest! By coincidence, I was finding my way back to church after a devastating loss and a tumble into darkness. I didn’t know how to go about picking a church, so I figured “why not check out Helen’s church?” The motorcycle and the fact that she is a woman had me intrigued.

 

I attended services, I spoke with Helen, I decided to have my child baptized there, and the rest, as they say, is history. And it all started with a new beginning.

 

God led me to the people I needed at a time of darkness.

 

God led me to the decision to baptize El when I hadn’t been a part of a church in more than 20 years.

 

God gave me my new beginning.

 

As God has done, and will continue to do so, for us all.

 

Amen.

The Blessing: A Sermon for the 10th Sunday After Pentecost

Photo Credit: Oboakpeyrenyehavwo on Unsplash

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen.

 

Continuing with Jacob’s story, a lot has happened since last week’s fiasco. Jacob is homeward bound after 20 years in Paddan-aram. During his two-decade sojourn in Haran, he has become exceedingly rich and the father of 12 sons who will become the namesakes for the 12 tribes of Israel. Despite the trickery and manipulation that we have experience from Jacob, God seems to have been with him at every turn, working continually for his good and ensuring Jacob’s success in every endeavor.

 

But now, Jacob faces danger all around. Going back over the events that have transpired during the chapters of Genesis since last week, Jacob has made promises never to go north again (Genesis 31:43-53). Forced south, he learns that his brother Esau – whom Jacob treated horribly in the past, as you remember (25:29-34; 27:1-45) – approaches with 400 men. Jacob divides his camp into two, accepting the reality that Esau may easily strike down one of them (32:7-8). He prays a desperate prayer to God, begging to be delivered from the hand of his brother (32:9-12). He lines up gifts to alleviate Esau’s anger (32:13-21). Then, at the outset of today’s passage, under the cover of darkness, he sends his family and belongings across the Jabbok River (32:22-23). We’re not given a reason why Jacob is off standing alone, why he didn’t go with his family, but while he is alone, out of nowhere, someone wrestles with him. The text doesn’t tell us who the assailant is, making us wonder if Esau is finally getting his long-sought revenge.

 

It is a curious incident. An unidentified man wrestles with Jacob until dawn. There’s no information about who this man is, or where he came from, or why he attacked Jacob. When this strange man realizes he isn’t going to win the fight, he hits Jacob in the hip, injuring him. The man begs Jacob to let him go, which he does, on one condition. Jacob asks for a blessing. What an interesting thing to request of a man who wrestles you in the dead of night for no obvious reason. Why would Jacob request a blessing from his assailant?

 

When we think of a blessing, we think of receiving the blessing of God. It’s something good and wholesome. Something to be cherished. It brings us comfort. However, to bless each other is to lay aside all hostilities and affirm the goodness in the other person. Good things often accompany blessings, like generous gifts. When God blesses someone, it means that their needs are met. They’re made whole and surrounded by peace. When Jacob requests a blessing, he is asking for the wrestling to stop and that there be peace between the two men.

 

Ultimately, this odd stranger gives Jacob a blessing, and renames him “Israel”, while refusing to provide Jacob with his own name. Then he disappears as mysteriously as he came. But who was this man? The name Jacob gives to the place, Peniel, let us know that his assailant was God. In Hebrew, Peniel (or Penuel) means “the face of God”.

 

We often shy away from this story because Jacob’s wrestling with God is not always seen in a good light. It’s more likely be to read as Jacob’s lack of faith in God. And a lack of faith, in many circles, is deemed a crisis. However, if we don’t wrestle or struggle with God, our faith remains at a basic level, untested and unexamined. We sometimes feel like we need to be at peace with God before entering a church or other sacred spaces. But the Bible welcomes those struggling with the divine – seeing this struggle as central to Israel’s identity. In fact, even the name Israel proves this statement. In Hebrew, there are several translations for “Israel”, including “God is righteous”, “God is exalted”, “God shines”, and “God rules”. Israel can also be translated as “wrestles with God”.

 

God doesn’t expect us, or our faith, to be perfect. Jacob’s blessing from God doesn’t come when he’s achieved superstar status as a saint. It comes when he’s made a mess of his life, feels trapped, is all alone, and has nowhere to go. He’s in the middle of a wrestling match. But there, amid darkness and confusion, God gives him goodness. We too, amid our struggles, can be assured that God still has good things in store for us.

 

This is the story of Jacob, and of God’s people Israel, who will grow from his 12 sons. Jacob’s refusal to let go of God is what raw, honest faith looks like. Faith is not just passively submitting to God; it is grappling, contending, tenacious, and persistent. Faith is a wrestling match. It’s grabbing hold of God and refusing to let go, despite the struggle, the time, the risks, the injury. Because, in the end, the blessing is worth it. This is the story of Jacob, and of Israel. And it is our story too.

 

So, what is your “Peniel” moment? When have you wrestled with God? When have you seen God’s face? What are the battle scars that have been imprinted on your life and faith? The blessing on offer to us from Genesis 32 is that even in the midst of real struggle, in the darkest of nights, if we refuse to let go, yes, we may come away injured, marked, limping – as did Jacob. But if we just hold on, we might also come away with a blessing and having caught a glimpse of the very face of God. We will wrestle with our faith at times in our lives, and sometimes faith itself feels like wrestling. And we won’t come out of the match unscathed, but we will emerge blessed and changed.

 

As Glinda and Elphaba say, “Who can say if I've been changed for the better? But because I knew you, I have been changed for good.”

 

Amen.

Resources:

workingpreacher.org

"New Collegeville Bible Commentary: Old Testament" edited by Daniel Durken

Stay the Week: A Sermon for the 9th Sunday After Pentecost

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen.

 

Over the last few weeks, we have been hearing the story of Jacob. So far, we have known Jacob as a trickster, a manipulator, and a self-serving, lying for his own gain type of person who is more concerned with personal security and preservation than giving a hoot about family traditions and cultural values.

 

He used Esau to be pulled out his mother’s womb. He then bamboozled his brother out of his firstborn birthright by trading it for a bowl of "red stuff," as Esau names the soup. Finally, with the careful connivance of his mother Rebekah, Jacob tricks his dying blind father, Isaac, out of the patriarchal blessing, first given to Abram so long before. So, with birthright and blessing in hand, Jacob runs for his life from the justifiable rage of his brother.

 

In today’s reading, he is out to find himself a wife from the family of his crafty Uncle Laban, his mother’s brother. But before we talk about that, I want to give you a brief overview of what happened in the first half of Genesis 29, which we didn’t have the luxury of hearing but is an important piece to today’s story.

 

Spurred on by his "ladder dream," Jacob makes his way through the desert. Exhausted, hot, thirsty, and surely near the end of his rope, he comes upon a well. There are three flocks of sheep lying around the well; and on the top of it, there was a large stone. The custom of the people of the area was that when all the flocks from the area got to the well, the shepherds would roll away the stone from the top of the well, they would water their sheep, and then they would put the stone back on the top of the well. This would all be done as a team. After speaking with the shepherds, Jacob discovers that he has arrived in Haran and he is excited! Haran is the land of his mother’s family!

 

Jacob begins to ask the shepherds about his uncle and family, but in the middle of the conversation, Laban's daughter, Rachel appears in on the horizon and with her is a huge flock of sheep. A huge flock of sheep means Uncle Laban is rich! And since Jacob’s modus operandi is security, he quickly hatches a plan to be alone with Rachel.  He figures charm the daughter and get an easy "in" with Uncle Laban.

 

As Rachel gets closer, however, Jacob's sole motivation to connect with Uncle Laban fades. Rachel is so beautiful that Jacob is knocked over. Rachel isn't just a rich girl, she's a pretty rich girl, and that’s about all Jacob needed to know.  It’s love at first sight!

 

Jacob shows off to Rachel by lifting the stone from the well – you know that one that usually takes all the shepherds to move – and waters Rachel’s sheep. And then, like a gallant knight in shining armor, he takes Rachel’s hand and gently kisses it.

 

Laban is soon told of the appearance of his nephew, and he runs out to meet Jacob. Over the next while, Jacob tells his Uncle Laban the whole story, even how he swindled his brother out of his birthright for soup, and how he tricked his old Dad Isaac with the goatskin to get a blessing! Laban, the king of manipulators himself, slaps his nephew on the back shouts a telling phrase: "You are surely my bone and my flesh!" He means more than they are just related; they are in fact two peas in a tricky pod, one trying to best the other the very minute they meet!

 

Laban invites Jacob to stay for a month in his house. At the end of that month, he asks Jacob, “Tell me what you’re doing here, what do you really want?” And so, Jacob tells him that he wants Rachel as his wife. And now we get back to today’s reading where the trickery awaits.

 

Laban tells Jacob that just because he’s family doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be paid for his work with the flocks and herds. Jacob offers 7 years of employment in exchange for Rachel’s hand in marriage. Laban agrees to exchange Rachel for 7 years of labour. When the 7 years are up, Jacob goes to collect his pay. A great marriage feast is arranged at the end of which a veiled woman is thrust into Jacob’s tent.

 

Maybe he was drunk, maybe she was heavily veiled, maybe it was really dark, but somehow Jacob didn’t realize until the next morning that he had in fact married the wrong woman. He went storming off to Laban to demand an answer. It was then that Laban revealed the custom of the eldest marrying first which is why Jacob found Leah in his bed. How ironic that birthright is the reason for the switch. By the way, the custom of taking the older daughter before the younger was the same for Jacob's people, but we know that honoring tradition was not at the top of Jacob’s priority list.

 

Crafty Uncle Laban doesn’t stop there. He provides yet another deal to the younger, less sophisticated manipulator. “Stay with Leah through the week and then you get Rachel at the end. And I can do this for the low, low price of another seven years of labour.” Because his love for Rachel was so strong, Jacob felt he had no choice but to agree or he would have had to give her up forever.

 

It’s hard to find a moral to this story. Laban’s trickery won out, unloading both daughters onto Jacob and getting 14 years of free labour out of it. A tough topic considering women’s rights and equality, and Jacob as the victim of “what goes around comes around” karma.

 

But if we look deeper into Jacob’s part in this story, there is a glimmer of a silver lining. Jacob gets swept away when he sees something he wants and he works hard for it. But after working so hard, he didn’t get quite what he was expecting. Isn’t that the way sometimes? We get our hopes up for something and in the end, the grass only appeared greener on the other side?

 

But maybe we need to follow Laban’s advice – “wait a week, and you’ll get Rachel too”. In other words, stick around for a while longer, trust that it was God who has led you here, trust that God knows what God is doing, be faithful to where God has led you, to what you have been called to do. Sometimes in the process of facing the morning after, you realize that “Rachel', or the ideal, comes as a result of working things through and not leaving the table when you get disappointed, or when things aren't turning out as you expected. It takes patience and trust that the struggles, the disappointments, and all the ugly are part of God’s plan for your life and that sticking with it will eventually put you exactly where you are meant to be.

 

The parables found in Matthew today have a similar lesson of living through the tricky and the ugly before finding the beauty of God’s Kingdom. These parables do not describe the kingdom in any specific way, but show us a series of snapshots taken from different perspectives. No single picture is definitive, but each provides a glimpse that adds to our understanding.

 

In the first of the parables, the kingdom of heaven is compared to a mustard seed that, when sown, grows into a tree in whose branches birds come to nest. The image of the mustard seed highlights initially its smallness and its invisibility when it is sown. Then the image expands to include its inevitable growth and flourishing, its resultant large size that contrasts with its small beginning, and its hospitable environment that sustains nesting birds.

 

In the second parable, Jesus is telling the story of a woman who was busy making bread. Bread made simply from water and flour is dry and very hard. That is why we mix it with leaven. When you put the dough in a warm place, at the right temperature, the leaven changes the quality of the bread and through the process of fermentation, the whole dough is filled with air, and it becomes very soft. Three measures of flour are enough to bake bread for 100-150 people. The point is that even a tiny quantity of leaven has power to affect a large quantity of flour.

 

The usual interpretation of these parables is that big things have small beginnings, which makes sense as each parable talks about something small blossoming into something quite grander. Until you realize, however, that neither mustard seed nor yeast was viewed positively in Jesus’ world. Mustard was a weed, dreaded by farmers the way today’s gardeners dread English Ivy or Scotch Broom. It starts out small, but before long has taken over your field. Similarly, yeast was a contaminant and almost always represents the wicked nature of sin when mentioned in the Bible.

 

Why, then, compare the kingdom of God to a weed and a pollutant? Because both mustard seed and yeast have this way of spreading beyond anything you’d imagined, infiltrating a system and taking over a host. The Gospel of God’s coming kingdom is threatening before it is comforting, ugly before it is beautiful. It invades our whole world and taints the reality we’ve grown to accept, challenges the views we’ve lived by, and calls into question assumptions that have guided much of our lives in the world.

 

God’s new reality is closer than you think, already seeping into your life even though you can’t always feel it. No matter what it may look like, God’s kingdom will prevail. And so, in the face of war, we claim God’s peace. When confronted with illness, we look to God’s eternal healing. When faced with hate, we proclaim love. Why? Because the kingdom is coming and, before you know it, will transform everything.

 

But first we must have patience and trust. God’s disruptive, life changing, and ultimately life-giving kingdom is coming. It will take some patience, trust, and perseverance to await it, and when it comes it will likely not be what we expect and perhaps not what we even wanted. But to those who recognize there is something more out there than the world has offered, to those who are willing to acknowledge the deep ache in their hearts for a sense of true if also illusive joy, then it will come as more than we could have imagined and will invade, take over, and transform our lives.

 

Jacob’s story teaches us that while we may not always get what is expected, we should trust that this place that we are in right now could be exactly where God wants us or has been leading us all along; trust that God is working right here, to bring about things we don’t even know about that are yet to come!

 

The parables give us a chance to make the kingdom life and reality Jesus preaches a tad more concrete by pointing us to those whose actions are perhaps inexplicable according to the logic of the world but in tune with the promises of the kingdom.

 

Church is the place where we remind each other of God’s promises and point to places in our lives and the world where we catch glimpses of its presence.

 

Perseverance, patience, and trust. Get through the morning after. Stay the week. Put in the work. You’ll get there in the end.

 

Amen.