Repentance

‘Tis Love

shelliwilliams Breathing Out Series , , ,

(part of the “Breathing Out” Lenten Series)

Scripture Passage:  Genesis 32: 24-31

24Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. 25When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 26Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” 27So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 28Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.” 29Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. 30So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.” 31The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.

Our faith journey is not meant to be a collection of information or a complete understanding of the entire Biblical story.  There is not some elusive list of doctrines or commandments or moral rules that we are required to memorize and follow.  The truth is, the answers are there but they are often shrouded in doubt and mystery and clouded over by our own pre-conceived notion of what faith is supposed to be and who God is in our lives.  Our faith journey is instead just that—an evolving journey on which we travel not to an end where our Maker finally welcomes us to a place called home but rather one on which we walk with this God we sometimes barely know and who we always fall short of understanding and realize along the way that we were home all along.  It is a journey on which we struggle and wrestle and often resist the Way that is laid before us.  But it is also one that gives us glimpses of the holy and the sacred that are so profound and so amazing that all we can do is fall down on our knees and worship the One who was with us all along.    

So, this story that we read has often eluded me.  What does this mean?  I was never satisfied with it being a story of Jacob’s great faith and persistence.  I mean, after all, who in the world would fight with one who is bigger than we can imagine and has no limits?  Wouldn’t it be smarter, and probably a whole lot easier, to just walk away?  And what does that say about God?  Surely God is not withholding something from us for which God expects us to fight. 

So, for a little background, note that Jacob and his entourage are about to reenter the Promised Land.  He has sent his entire caravan across the Jabbok, an eastern tributary of the Jordan about twenty miles north of the Dead Sea.  And it is here that, for some reason, Jacob stays behind.  And sometime during the night, he is wrestled to the ground.  Jacob may well have thought it was Esau at first, who had threatened to kill Jacob for taking his birthright (because Jacob did NOT come out the moral winner in that fight!).  He might have thought that he was finally getting his due for all those years as the trickster, that he had finally once and for all been “found out”. 

The struggle goes on through the night and as daybreak approaches, Jacob is struck on the hollow of this thigh by his opponent.  The blow has a crippling effect but Jacob retains such a hold that there is no escape.  He demands a blessing for the release.  You think about it—he had the birthright, he had everything in his life.  But his greatest desire was to be blessed. So, somehow Jacob either knew or had realized that this was God with whom he was wrestling, because only God has the power to grant such a blessing. 

Now remember that it was believed that God’s face would not be seen and if it was, the one who saw God would die.  This says something about Jacob.  He is willing to risk even death for the sake of the divine blessing.  And God is willing to allow Jacob to wrestle, even to demand, even to seemingly take more of God’s time and God’s power than he really deserved.  God gives the blessing and changes Jacob’s name to Israel, “God-wrestler”.

The story ends with a lot of ambiguity.  I mean, there’s no clear winner.  They just sort of walk away as the dawn breaks.  But Jacob will never be the same again.  He has looked not only God but himself square in the face and everything has changed. In a way, the old sages were right.  Once someone looks into the face of God, they do indeed die.  They have been made new, reborn.  Nothing will ever be the same again.  For Jacob, this act of wrestling has been one of transformation. And this trickster, this heel, this one who had spent his whole life trying to better his own existence, is renamed.  He becomes Israel and he names the place Peniel, which means “I have seen the face of God.”

You know, it’s interesting to note that the New Revised Standard Version uses “Peniel” in one place and “Penuel” in the other to name this place where Jacob wrestled.  They both essentially mean the same thing.  The difference is that “Peniel” (with an “I”) is singular or first person.  It means “I have seen the face of God.”  “Penuel” (with a “u”) is plural.  It means “We have seen the face of God.”  So Jacob names the place for his own encounter, acknowledging that he knew that he had seen the face of God.  By the time he leaves, though, the name is plural, opening up new possibilities to all of us having a similar encounter with the Holy and the Sacred.

The truth is, this wrestling match that Jacob had is not a story of persistence or winning; it is a story of redemption. Jacob was allowed to wrestle and wander and even doubt and, still, became the one he was called to be.  The message of our Christian faith is not that God is some impersonal force, or a terrifying presence to whom we cannot relate.  God does not expect empty praise and sacrifices and groveling from us.  God is willing to wrestle, to get down into our lives, to know who we are, and to allow us to search for who God is to us.  We are the people who wrestle with God. It is not presumptuous of us to make this claim. God was the one who gave that name to God’s people. That’s who God wants us to be.  Of course God could squish us like a bug in a nanosecond. But for our benefit, God is always available to wrestle with us, at whatever level we are capable of wrestling.  God sent Jesus into the world to wrestle with us, and Jesus allowed himself to get pinned to a cross. That’s what it took for us to experience the love that flows from God.

So, for us?  We breathe.  We breathe out all of those preconceived notions of God that we have.  We let go of the God who will punish us for not being “right” or abandon us for not being “godly” or shun us for not being the way that the world wants us to be.  And then we breathe in.  We breathe in a God who not only lets us wrestle but does it with us, a God that will love us more than we allow ourselves to love us, a God that is made of love.  We breathe in a God that doesn’t coerce but rather invites us into love.  That’s what Jesus showed us.  The God of us all is a God of love.

In the ways that truly shape life, we are left alone to wrestle with God.  That wrestling isn’t the assault of a thug, despite what people say about God’s hatred and wrath. That wrestling isn’t a contest for supremacy. It is about who we are. We have one sense of ourselves, and God has another. Or to use the image of Genesis, we know one name for ourselves, and God knows another.  In that wrestling with God, we decide whether to remain small, a creature of the world, governed by appetite and self-centered, or to become what God knows.  That is lonely duty. No one can do it for us.   (Tom Ehrich)

This hymn offering was written by Charles Wesley (because I’m TOTALLY a United Methodist dork!).  It was first published in 1742 and actually had 14 verses.  I love this hymn.  I want it sung at my funeral.  It is said that John Wesley tried to teach the hymn two weeks after his brother died and broke down.  And Isaac Watts supposedly said that “that single poem, “Wrestling Jacob”, was worth all the verses he himself had written.”  (Watts wrote “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”)  The whole thing is phenomenal.  Look it up at https://www.poetry-archive.com/w/wrestling_jacob/

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

It WAS About Grace

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(part of the “Breathing Out” Lenten Series)

Psalm 32 (Lent 1A)

1Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

2Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

3While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long.

4For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah

5Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah

6Therefore let all who are faithful offer prayer to you; at a time of distress, the rush of mighty waters shall not reach them.

7You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with glad cries of deliverance. Selah

8I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.

9Do not be like a horse or a mule, without understanding, whose temper must be curbed with bit and bridle, else it will not stay near you.

10Many are the torments of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds those who trust in the Lord.

11Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart.

Well, you can tell it’s Lent when we keep talking about confession and repentance and forgiveness.  Most people in our modern-day society sort of squirm with those subjects.  I mean, can’t we just put these on the top shelf next to the hellfire and brimstone theology and the decree claiming that women can’t read the Scripture in church?  I mean, how about we talk a little about grace?  Isn’t that what we do?  We’d rather hide the shortcomings away or shift the blame to someone else or change the environment so what we did is perhaps now acceptable.  I mean, admitting we’ve messed up is hard.  It’s uncomfortable.  And what if everyone knows about it?  And so, we walk around full of guilt, full of questions, full of something that could just as easily be cleared away.

Let’s get this straight.  God is not sitting there waiting for us to confess, waiting for us to repent before God loves us.  There are those who will couch it like that (probably the same ones pulling the hellfire and brimstone material out) but, and this is me talking, I think that’s not the way it is at all.  Maybe God doesn’t even really care whether or not we do it.  Oh, but I think God does.  You know why?  Because God loves us.  See, confession, admission, breathing out the wrongs we have done, the people we have hurt, the ways we have blamed others for the peril of our lives is not to please God.  It is, rather, to make room for us, to clear a way so that we can grow and prosper and find a new way.  And because God loves us more than we can even fathom, God’s desire is that that happens—not for God but for us.

The psalmist warns against our silence, warns against us hiding ourselves away and not talking about it, not facing the truth.  And the psalmist exhorts us to confess, to admit our wrongdoing, to claim responsibility for our sins.  We no longer need to hide.  Because it is God who will step in, who will hold us in our discomfort, who will comfort us in our peril, who will stand with us as the consequences of whatever harm we have wrought, whatever hurts we have brought, rain down on us.

See, we know God forgives.  The part we miss is that God will stay with us through everything that comes after.  Breathe out your confession.  Make room.  And breathe in forgiveness and newness and the very presence of God through it all.

I must confess that I was not excited about writing this one.  I mean, it sort of sounded like a downer.  Now I realize that it WAS about grace.  Breathe out confession and breathe in grace.

In the Name of Jesus Christ you are forgiven…

Forgiveness is the act of admitting we’re like other people.  (Christian Baldwin)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

When All Creation Repents

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yellowflowerfromthedust2528dt20875082529(Advent 3A) The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus 2it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God. 3Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. 4Say to those who are of a fearful heart, “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.” 5Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; 6then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; 7the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp, the grass shall become reeds and rushes. 8A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way; the unclean shall not travel on it, but it shall be for God’s people; no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray. 9No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it; they shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there.10And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.   (Isaiah 35: 1-10)

So, this is probably the Scripture that conjures up that somewhat unreachable and perhaps inaccessible utopian paradise.  But it’s not inaccessible.  The whole idea is that it WILL come to be.  And Advent reminds us to look for that day, to imagine it into being.  It is a tension in which we live every day of our lives.  We want it, we imagine it, and, on a good day, we believe it will happen.  And then we turn on the TV.  But it is a holy tension, a liminality, if you will, betwixt and between the turmoil and grit of our lives and the promise that we believe.

This is Creation’s repentance.  It is Creation turning around and going a different direction.  We’re familiar with that.  When we talk of our own, it is uncomfortable to launch off into another direction, to begin to travel where GPS is not available and to a place with a story that we are writing as we go.  But here we are told that the desert will bloom.  The desert—that mass of dry sand that blows in our eyes and clouds our views, the place where we cannot map where we go, the land where water is scarce and sustenance is hard to find—will bloom!  The desert will turn and become something new.  Blindness will become sight; deafness will become music; the lame will leap and the mute will sing.  The waters will flow with thirst-quenching sound and the lost way will become a clear path.  Creation will become something new.

So, if Creation can do that, why can’t we?  Why can’t we let go of our fears and our preconceptions?  Why can’t we become something new?  Why can’t we rejoice and bloom?  No more excuses.  No more delay.  This is not some far-removed vision of a pile of sand with a flower.  This is what we have been given. And Advent calls us to begin to see its potential.  Advent calls us to begin to see our own potential. Have you ever thought that perhaps our faith journey is not about finding God at all but rather finding ourselves?  God is here.  Whether we feel God or not, God is here.  But us?  How much faith do you have in yourself?  God has faith in you.  God created you to do this, to turn, to change, to repent, to bloom.  So for what are you waiting?  After all, the desert is beginning to bloom.

Here is the God I want to believe in: a Father who, from the beginning of Creation, has stretched out his arms in merciful blessing, never forcing himself on anyone, but always waiting; never letting his arms drop down in despair, but always hoping that his children will return so that he can speak words of love to them and let his tired arms rest on their shoulders. His only desire is to bless. (Henri J.M. Nouwen)

FOR TODAY:  How are you being called to bloom?

 

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

 

Becoming Wilderness

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"St. John the Baptist", El Greco, c. 1600.
“St. John the Baptist”, El Greco, c. 1600.

Scripture Text:  Matthew 3: 1-5

 In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, 2“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” 3This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’” 4Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. 5Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, 6and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

 

We never know quite what to do with this strange wilderness man.  You can imagine him covered with dirt and grime after all this time in the wilderness.  His hair is long and unkempt, matted in places and hanging down over one of his eyes.  He is decked out from neck to knee in some sort of strange covering made of camel’s hair that is secured by a roughshod faded leather belt hastily tied around his waist.  And all this time in the wilderness has caused him to lose any hint of a sophisticated palate finely tuned to the gentle blend of herbs and spices and culinary concoctions.  Instead, he is content to eat what he finds—locusts, wild honey, whatever else may cross his path.  Yeah, we never know quite what to do with this strange wilderness man.

John was definitely not a run-of-the-mill preacher.  He had zeal; he had passion; his primary focus was preparing the way of the Lord.   I’m not sure what John saw for those who did not know God.  But he was determined that all who came out to him somehow, some way turned their lives around.  Now this whole idea of “repentance” that John emphasized is not one that we good Methodists often focus on.  It sometimes sounds a little too “hellfire and brimstone” for us. But repentance means turning around, a new mind, a change of direction.  It means throwing off those things that bind us to the life we know for those things that point to a life with God.  It does not mean that God has finally won us over; it means, rather, that our own self, our own story, has finally come to be.  Just being there is not enough; just having Abraham for your ancestor is not enough; just doing the right thing is not enough.  You must change your life.  You must change your path.  You must change how you look at the world.  There are no favorites.  This includes everyone.

So, why did John make his home in the wilderness?  Why didn’t he come to town, plant himself in the middle of the town square, and preach his message there?  Maybe it was not that John himself had such an affinity for the wilderness life.  Maybe it was rather that he saw what we often avoid.  I mean, think about the wilderness—it calls us into things outside our normal routines, outside of the establishments that make up our lives.  The wilderness calls us to learn to see things anew.  Without routines, we have to rely on something that will point us in the right direction; without our comfortable landmarks and our timeworn assumptions, we have to rely on the wilderness and those who we meet on the path showing us the way.

No, we don’t know what to do with him.  We don’t know how to talk to or talk about this wild wilderness man.  After all, John is a threat to proper society and accepted norms.  John IS the wilderness.  Maybe that’s what we need to do—become wilderness.  Now I’m not ready to don camel’s hair and I’m thinking that I might pack some peanut butter and crackers and perhaps a high-protein granola bar to avoid EVER having to eat locusts.  But maybe I do need to become wilderness, to clear the timeworn path through my life, to become open to the wildness of God’s Spirit that blows in and out of places that I never knew, that somehow compels me to travel down roads unknown, sometimes with fear and trepidation, and be willing (no, actually WANT to) turn myself around and see what I have not seen.

OK, John, I guess we get it.  I’m still not keen on the outfit and the meal, but if our Lenten journey has taught us anything, it is to open ourselves to traveling through what we do not know so that it can all be revealed to us.  John saw something that I have been avoiding.  John was not waiting for God’s Kingdom to come to be; he saw it happening.  By becoming wilderness, by stepping out of what he knew, he saw that God was not just coming but was already here.

 

Not only is another world possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing. (Suzanna Arundhati Roy)

 

FOR TODAY: Become wilderness. Open your eyes and see God’s Kingdom coming to be. (And, if you need to, pack some peanut butter!)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli