Creekside Church Sermon of May 20, 2001 "When Life is a Struggle" Genesis 32:22-31	Rev. David Bibbee
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"You don't look so good." "I don't feel so good, either," I said. "I think it was something I heard on the radio." Driving to Trisha Hoke's graduation dinner, I was listening to NPR about two Seattle women who formed a business called "BioClean: Specialists in Incident Clean-up." The work they do takes a strong stomach. Equipped with ventilated suits, enzymes, and disinfectants, they clean up what remains of a homicide, suicide, or death which has gone undiscovered for some time. They began their business when they learned that cleaning up is often the responsibility of surviving family members. They see their work as saving families from being traumatized twice.

Listening to the details of their difficult, gruesome work, I felt like I was being traumatized. Stacy Haney and Theresa Borst understand forensic and biological processes of death. "Most people know very little about death," they said. "Our culture has a very narrow, distorted view of death, and part of our work is helping people face the realities of death, honestly." I ate my tortellini slower than usual that night, and on the way home I thought about not only our need for dealing honestly with death, but being able to deal honestly with a difficult aspect of our relationship with God as well.
We come to church, with the expectation of getting help to strengthen our faith and doubt our doubts. We come for booster shots of encouragement and certainty. We want to be assured that life really is orderly and that God is predictable, and that when we follow the rules, everything will work out okay. It is a crazy, chaotic world we live in. It is a world of reach and grab, push and shove; a world where forces are at work knocking life out of kilter, and it's God's work to restore the balance.

The certain sign of God's presence is when rough spots are smoothed over; when the stomach is no longer in knots; when the blood pressure returns to normal; when the tension ebbs away, the crisis is over, and order is restored…this is the sign that God is near. It is a desirable idea, but I'm afraid not a realistic one, and not a biblical one.

We have named chaos our enemy, but it is not necessarily God's enemy. Sometimes chaos is a thing of God's doing. When God ordered Jonah to go to the hated Ninevites; when Mary learned the scandalous "pregnant circumstance" in which God had placed her; when Paul was struck blind as a bat on the Damascus Road, these people did not say, "What an interesting situation!" It was more like, "What did I do to deserve being put in a spot like this?" No one said, "It must be a blessing in disguise. Someday, I'll be glad this happened!"

There are times we find ourselves locked in a struggle with life and with God. I have a list of things you will never hear a Southerner say. One is, "Professional wrastling's fake." There is nothing imaginary about the wrestling we do with God. We want order in our lives. We expect life to work out according to plan. Psalm 103 says "God heals your diseases. God pulls your life from the pit, crowns you with love and mercy. God satisfies you with good things all your life. God is merciful and gracious, abounding in steadfast love." Thank God for the times when this is how we experience his presence.

The problem comes when we tell God this is the only way he can be with us. "Come Lord, be present. Be real. Show us you are near, by showering us with health, happiness, prosperity, and peace. But God has more pressing matters to tend to than make sure your life and mine follow a script. What if God chooses to be with us in a different way? Suppose God manifests himself not in serenity, but struggle?

I had a difficult dream this week. I was with three beautiful women. This wasn't the difficult part. Oh yes… and one of them was my wife. I was their guide on a walking tour of a large city. I was anxious to show them the city's cultural and architectural beauties, but I couldn't recognize the section of the city we were in. We were surrounded by dilapidated industrial buildings. Ahead I saw different buildings, so I led my group in that direction. It was not what I thought. It was block upon block of seedy businesses, liquor stores, adult theaters, sex shops and squalid apartments. Drug pushers sold their wares on the street like ice cream vendors.

I then saw a policeman. I approached him and before I could speak he said, "This is no place you want to be." I thought he would offer us a ride to a safe neighborhood, but he only gave us directions. "Go straight six blocks and then right four blocks. You'll be okay then." We ended up in a neighborhood of gaudy, run down buildings. The streets were empty. Every five or six buildings there were businesses with iron bars on the doors and windows and signs saying, "Embalming Service." In the next neighborhood, wrecking crews were razing old buildings. Everywhere people gazed at us with hostile, suspicious looks. It was growing dark and my tour group grew more frightened. Finally I saw tall buildings on the horizon that I recognized, but when we reached them they were empty and falling apart.

The beautiful city I knew so well had been consumed by urban blight. The places that were so familiar were now unrecognizable and I had the feeling that I was being watched by someone in the shadows. I am not sure what it all means, if much at all. But I think it might have something to do with the fright I feel when the familiar becomes unfamiliar and the places I thought were so secure are dismantled and I was left all alone.

Picture Jacob by himself, sitting next to the last of a fire, stirring the glowing coals with a stick. He thinks about his twin brother Esau. Twenty years had passed since last they had seen each other.

Even while growing in Rebekah's womb, the twins were already wrestling with each other. It was a fight to be first born which Esau won, but when he slipped out, Jacob's tiny hand had him by the heel, hence the name, "Grabber." Years later Jacob weaseled Esau into giving away his birthright for a bowl of stew. Esau was no Rhodes Scholar, but Jacob was a sharp, shrewed, conniving cheat who stopped at nothing to get what he wanted. God didn't seem to be concerned about the character issue in working with Jacob. The next part of the story was taken from the pages of The Dysfunctional Family Digest. Rebekah helped her favorite son Jacob trick his blind, dying father Isaac into giving him the inheritance which belonged to Esau. When Esau learned what happened, he vowed to kill his brother.

20 years had come and gone and in the morning, Jacob would meet his brother. Unsure of the outcome, Jacob sent all his flocks, his wives and children ahead to meet Esau first. A very Jacob-like act. If he hears screaming in the distance, he will postpone his homecoming…indefinitely. Then, alone in the dark by the river and a dying fire, wondering if he would feel Easu's course, hairy hands squeezing his throat, Jacob is jumped by an unknown assailant.

It is dark. He can't see his face. The adversary is strong. They fight and fight all night, neither one letting go of the other for even a second. Who is it? Is it Esau? Jacob's conscience? An angel of God?

Hour after hour they struggle. The adversary thrust his knee into Jacob's thigh, putting it out of joint. Still, Jacob hung on. "Let me go!" the mysterious fighter said. True to form, Jacob said, "Let's make a deal. Bless me first!" "Deal!" he said. "Tell me your name?" The last one to ask Jacob that question was Isaac. He lied then, saying he was Esau. Not his time. "My name is Jacob," he said. "Not any more. From now on you will be Isreal. You have wrestled with God and men and have prevailed." Jacob then asked his name. If he couldn't see his face, a name would suffice. But he wasn't given the name.

In the Bible, to know someone's name is to have power over them. Jacob held his own in the all night fight, but he had no final power over his opponent. God knew Jacob's name and changed it. God changed Jacob's identity. But there was no controlling God. God's presence would not always be an "easy" presence.

If we want to get close to God, we can't set the terms. When we aare pressed hard by trials and troubles, what is our instinctive prayer? Deliver me! Spare me! Make this mess disappear." We don't want it to occur to us that being in the fight of our lives may be an indication of God's presence, not his absence.

The God of the Bible is not the god of sunbeams and meadow larks and well-wishers. He is not the god of polite Sunday school discussions and perpetual spiritual certainty and bliss. The God of the Bible is more than this. Don't let anyone tell you that if God is with you it won't be scary and it won't hurt. Jacob was in the fight of his life and did not leave the wrestling match unscathed. He limped the rest of his life…every hobble a reminder of what it had cost, but more a constant reminder that he ultimately was blessed.

If we spend our lives seeking someone to give us what we want, we are better off seeking a genie. The God of the Bible, the God of Jacob, and of Jesus is a God who gives us what we need. There are those among us who can attest to this, and they bear the scars and limps to show for it.

"Is the church sold yet? When are we going to buy some land? When will we move? How soon will we start building?" These are questions I have heard a lot lately. I've asked them mself. I don't like it when the answer is, "I'm sorry, I don't know." I'm with all of you who say, "Let's get on with it! Let's grab the bull by the horns and take control of the situation."

But then I look at this story of Jacob and wonder if there isn't something good to be said for "not" being in control…at least not totally. There is something to be said for wrestling with the tough issues before us. Though it is not easy, maybe God is bidding us to spend the night by ourselves at the river where God will struggle with us, wear us down, change out names, and set us off in a new direction as new people.

If we walk with a limp, it is the sign that we have been wrestling - with each other, with the challenges that confront us, and all the things that must be dealt with when we make a conscious decision to become better people, better followers, and a better church.

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