Sermon preached by The Reverend Dr. Harold T. Lewis

SERMON PREACHED BY
THE REVEREND DR. HAROLD T. LEWIS, RECTOR
CALVARY EPISCOPAL CHURCH,
PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA
ON THE TWENTIETH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
17 OCTOBER 2004



"A man wrestled with Jacob until daybreak." (Genesis 32:24)

I am a glutton for punishment. A few months ago, I confessed from this pulpit that from time to time, in an act of "homiletical chutzpah," I preach on topics about which I know little or nothing ---- like auto mechanics, zoology and physics. And on each occasion, a parishioner who is an expert in the subject at hand, has ever so gently pointed out the deficiencies of my arguments, springing, as they do, from my woeful ignorance. So today, I leave myself fully open to the jocks in the congregation, as I add another topic to my list: wrestling! No, I was not on the college wrestling team. When I was young, agile and spry, I did not have the right physique. (I was only 185 lbs. soaking wet at graduation!) Now that many wrestlers and I share the same weight, there is the question of how that weight is apportioned!

But in my research into the sport, I have come to the conclusion that wrestling is like life. Just look at the five ways you can score points in a match:
--- You get two points for a Takedown, by taking your opponent down to the mat and controlling him.
---You get one point for Escape --- managing to get away or getting into a neutral position when your
opponent has you on the mat.
---You score two points (I think it should be three!) for Reversal --- that is, coming from underneath
and gaining control of your opponent.
---In what is known as a Near Fall, two or three points are yours when you almost get your opponent
pinned.
---Finally, there are the penalty points you get for your opponents' mistakes, like when he gets you in
an illegal hold, is guilty of unnecessary roughness, leaves the mat without permission, or my favorite ---
stalling --- which is defined as "failing to make a reasonable effort to wrestle aggressively."

In life, we seek to control others, or conversely, try to get out of situations in which others control us. Sometimes we manage to overcome odds and come from behind and gain control. And sometimes we get over, not through any particular skill on our part, but because we are victimized by others. And in the course of life's wrestling match, we are all guilty of stalling at one time or another. But we call it inaction. hesitation, procrastination or fence-sitting. And interestingly enough, wrestling rules not only state that the offensive player is penalized for not trying to pin his opponent, but that the defensive player is penalized for not trying to escape --- for just lying there. But the difference between wrestling on a mat and wrestling in life is that in the former, there is a clear, identifiable opponent ---- the other guy in a singlet. In life, it's not always so obvious. We wrestle with our faith. We wrestle with decisions we have made. We wrestle with power, real or imagined. At this time of year, as we consider what constitutes good stewardship, we wrestle with our pocketbooks. We wrestle daily with God. But mostly, we wrestle with ourselves --- be it ego vs. superego, superego vs. id --- take your pick!

But I have often said that the Bible predates Freud. The reason it is the all-time best-seller is that we see ourselves in its pages. In today's story from the Book of Genesis, we see ourselves in Jacob, who engaged in what might be called the Quintessential Wrestling Match. But Jacob's struggle began long before the incident on the banks of the Jabbok. Let us refresh our memories. The very name Jacob means "Heel-catcher" and "trickster." Jacob earned that moniker even before he was born. He and his twin brother Esau were in Rebecca's womb, and when Esau, the firstborn, emerged from the womb, Jacob's hand was tightly holding on to his brother's heel. As they grew older, Esau became the ruddy outdoorsman, Jacob the nerdy guy who stayed home working on his computer. One day, Esau comes in from the fields, famished and exhausted. Jacob had whipped up some broth (or as the KJV described it, "a mess of pottage"). Jacob convinced his brother to sell his right as the first-born son for that meal. Esau was so hungry, he said, "I am at death's door anyhow, so what good would the birthright do me?" So he fell for Jacob's ruse and devoured the pottage.

But the intrigue of this dysfunctional family doesn't end there. Near the end of the life of their father Isaac, the blind patriarch sends his firstborn and favorite son off to bring him a dish of venison. Rebecca overhears the conversation, prepares the delicacy herself, and tells Jacob (her favorite) to go in to get his father's blessing. But Jacob told his mother that this would be problematic. He tells his mother, "My brother Esau is an hairy man, but I am a smooth man." [Gen. 27:11] He knows that Isaac, although blind, could nevertheless feel, and when he touched Jacob, he would know that something was up. So Jacob covers himself with animal skins, so that his father would believe him to be the more hirsute Esau. Thus the younger Jacob, thanks some maternal intervention, tricks his brother out of both his birthright and his father's blessing (a blessing which he had actually forfeited in the first place). Anyhow, Esau becomes "exceeding wroth," and vows to kill his brother Jacob. Rebecca, afraid for Jacob's life, calls her favorite son to him, and says, "Listen, I have called your uncle Laban. Go to his farm and stay there until Esau cools off." So Jacob is packed off to his uncle's place. And you thought the soap opera plots were complicated?

So today's episode opens as Jacob is returning home. He's been on the lam for twenty years, and is at long last returning to face the music. He has all the outward and visible signs of success. He has assembled a small fortune. He has wives and children and livestock. To butter up his brother, who, he learns, has come to meet him with four hundred men, he sends gifts --- male and female goats, ewes and rams, even camels. Finally, after shipping the menagerie, he sends his own family and his personal possessions. And it is there, at the river's edge, stripped of his possessions, bereft of his family, as Jacob breaks into a chorus of "Just as I am without one plea," that a mysterious visitor enters the picture.

The wrestling match begins, and Jacob's opponent could well have been penalized for stalling. Jacob is wrestling with God, who could have pinned Jacob down in an instant. But God does not apply more pressure than Jacob could bear. The sweaty all-night battle and the injury inflicted are parts of Jacob's penance. For Jacob, despite his apparent prosperity, is wallowing in guilt and self-pity. He had everything he could possibly want, except a clear conscience. And now on the eve of his reunion with his brother Esau, he knew that he was not the masterful person he had convinced himself that he was; now that he would have to face people who knew him "when," he had to come to grips with the fact that he was a liar and a coward. In this wrestling match, he didn't want to pin down his opponent; he didn't even want his opponent to be penalized. He just wanted a blessing, ironic, considering that he was guilty of depriving his brother of one. Jacob received his blessing. When he met his brother the next day, Esau had buried the hatchet, and gave Jacob a warm embrace. Jacob said to Esau: "For to see your face is like seeing the face of God, now that you have received me favorably" [Gen. 33:10]. Jacob received a new name. He became Israel, and was able to pass that blessing onto his twelve sons, who founded the twelve tribes of Israel.

But what about Jacob's limp? It was, in medical terms, caused by a neurological injury to his sciatic nerve, combined with some musculoskeletal damage to his hip. He probably sustained a neurapraxia of the sciatic nerve, which resulted in a limping gait. Jacob, it could be said, was almost literally knocked down a peg, and unfortunately, hip replacement surgery was not an option. Jacob would forever walk with a limp as a constant reminder that the days that he stood tall were days of self-deception. But Jacob as a lame man was actually an improved version of the physically whole Jacob. Despite evidence today that some people in high places find it impossible to admit having made mistakes, most great personages believe that a humbling experience improved their character. The zealous Saul was struck blind and thrown from his horse before he became Paul the apostle. The brash and impetuous Peter wept bitterly at his betrayal of Jesus before he could be a worthy disciple. It is the phenomenon addressed by the theologian Henri Nouwen in his famous book, The Wounded Healer. In a perfect world, the United States would have been knocked down a peg, become limp on 9/11, the day we learned of our vulnerability in no uncertain terms.

Walter Brueggemann, in commenting on this story, says that this same theology of weakness in power and power in weakness turns this text toward the New Testament and the gospel of the cross. In Jesus' encounter with two of his disciples, [Mark 10:35-37] you will remember, they express a desire to sit at Jesus' right hand and at his left (in another version of the story [Matt. 20:21-22] it is their pushy mother who intercedes on their behalf). But Jesus counters by telling them that they must pick up a cross. Like Jacob, they are invited to be persons of faith who prevail, but to do so with a limp."

Perhaps you will remember a scene from The Lion in Winter. Katharine Hepburn, as Eleanor of Aquitaine, stands overlooking a bluff. She awaits, if I remember correctly, the barge that will take her to the Tower for her execution. Her husband, Henry II (Peter O'Toole) is wracked with syphilis. One son has died in the war, another is totally debauched, and he and his two surviving brothers, are fighting to succeed their father, and will stop at nothing. Miss Hepburn's comment is: Every family has its ups and downs." We all do indeed have our ups and downs, but God uses us, limps, warts, shortcomings and all. He takes us, whom somehow he sees as "treasures in earthen vessels" (II Cor. 4:7) and uses us, works through us, to build up his Kingdom.

Let us pray:
O God of earth and altar, bow down and hear our cry, Our earthly rulers falter, our people drift and die; The walls of gold entomb us, the swords of scorn divide, Take not thy thunder from us, but take away our pride. Gilbert Chesterton, The Hymnal 1940, 591