Owning Our Junk

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S (Scripture): Genesis 32:22 Jacob got up during the night, took his two wives, his two women servants, and his eleven sons, and crossed the Jabbok River’s shallow water. 23 He took them and everything that belonged to him, and he helped them cross the river. 24 But Jacob stayed apart by himself, and a man wrestled with him until dawn broke. 25 When the man saw that he couldn’t defeat Jacob, he grabbed Jacob’s thigh and tore a muscle in Jacob’s thigh as he wrestled with him. 26 The man said, “Let me go because the dawn is breaking.”

But Jacob said, “I won’t let you go until you bless me.”

27 He said to Jacob, “What’s your name?” and he said, “Jacob.” 28 Then he said, “Your name won’t be Jacob any longer, but Israel, because you struggled with God and with men and won.”

29 Jacob also asked and said, “Tell me your name.”

But he said, “Why do you ask for my name?” and he blessed Jacob there.

O (Observation): Name changes in the Old Testament are very significant. Sometimes places are named or re-named. Sometimes people are given new names:

Abram->Abraham, Sarai->Sarah, Jacob->Israel, etc.

In every case, the name means something in the Hebrew language. Where Jacob wrestled with God, Jacob re-names that place Peniel (which translates to “face of God,” since Jacob “sort of saw God” there).

Jacob’s name has been the subject of much study and contemplation. A quick read through Genesis shows that Jacob sort of usurped the birthright and blessing from his older twin, Esau. Jacob’s name can be translated as “heel / trickster / overreacher / supplanter.” This indeed describes Jacob’s actions regarding Esau.

And as Jacob wrestled with God (or an angel of God?), God asks Jacob to let him go. Jacob will not, without a blessing. All of this wrestling is good and well, but finally, God asks Jacob to say his own name: JACOB.

In speaking his own name (usurper / supplanter) Jacob is almost confessing before God. Jacob is owning up to his name: usurper!

And instead of replying with a name, God simply blesses Jacob, and gives him a new name: ISRAEL. Traditionally, this is translated: “he struggles with God.” However, some suggest a better linguistic etymology results in the following: “God struggles” or “God rules.”

God rules. God struggles.

A (Application): Owning our own junk is the talk of the news stations: school shootings, affairs, politics. We all have junk we gotta own up to. As scary as this is, God wishes for us to wrestle with these things. Privately, publicly, depends on the situation. But a confession is sought after, especially when harm is done to another.

God continues to wrestle with us. To bring us back to loving one another. To bring us to a place in which compassion for our fellow human beings is paramount.

Instead, we draw up borders, pick up guns, and spend our time arguing how to keep people out. We think defense is the only priority. That if we don’t “defend ourselves” progress will halt. That we will revert back to colonial times or “have to start learning to speak Spanish or Arabic.”

In the meantime, shootings are happening almost daily…people are being beaten and killed because of their sexual orientation…parents are ripped away from their children, because we don’t have a good plan for immigration…DACA recipients who would contribute greatly with the resources here in America will be going “underground” and not be able to acquire or use a college degree…as others remain homeless, and the hungry remain hungry.

What are our priorities? God wrestles with us as we contemplate these things. And maybe before God blesses us…we will have to speak our name… that we might have to own up to our role as “usurper / supplanter.”

P (Prayer): God, help us to own our own junk. To confess to you, to receive forgiveness from you and to find a new identity in you. Amen.

Am I Blessed?

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S (Scripture): Genesis 31:3 Then the Lord said to Jacob, “Go back to the land of your ancestors and to your relatives, and I will be with you.”

4 So Jacob sent for Rachel and Leah and summoned them into the field where his flock was. 5 He said to them, “I am aware that your father no longer likes me as much as he used to. But my father’s God has been with me. 6 You know that I’ve worked for your father as hard as I could. 7 But your father cheated me and changed my payment ten times. Yet God didn’t let him harm me. 8 If he said, ‘The speckled ones will be your payment,’ the whole flock gave birth to speckled young. And if he said, ‘The striped ones will be your payment,’ the whole flock gave birth to striped young. 9 God took away your father’s livestock and gave them to me. 10 When the flocks were mating, I looked up and saw in a dream that the male goats that mounted the flock were striped, speckled, and spotted. 11 In the dream, God’s messenger said to me, ‘Jacob!’ and I said, ‘I’m here.’ 12 He said, ‘Look up and watch all the striped, speckled, and spotted male goats mounting the flock. I’ve seen everything that Laban is doing to you. 13 I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a sacred pillar and where you made a solemn promise to me. Now, get up and leave this country and go back to the land of your relatives.’”

O (Observation): Rachel and Leah are sisters and the wives of Jacob. Years ago, Jacob came to his relative, Laban (after he fled from his brother, Esau, after Jacob stole the birthright and blessing that belonged to Esau). Jacob was told to begin a family with one of Laban’s daughters. He fell in love with the younger daughter, Rachel, but was also asked to marry Leah, Laban’s oldest daughter.

So, Jacob worked for 7 years, married Leah, then Laban was asked to work for 7 more years, knowing he would be able to marry Rachel, too.

Each time Jacob wished to leave, Laban tricked him to staying longer, taking advantage of the arrangements. Eventually, Jacob’s abundance (clearly a gift from God) made Laban jealous and upset. This also upset Laban’s sons.

So, Jacob finally leaves Laban, bringing his wives – Rachel as Leah – and some livestock, knowing that whatever he and his family needs, God would provide.

A (Application): The squirrelly situations that our Old Testament ancestors found themselves in is most peculiar. Jacob was a thief in a way. He was second-born, and was not supposed to have the birthright or blessing of the oldest son, which was rightfully Esau’s.

Knowing he would be in trouble, he skips town. While in Laban’s service, God blesses Jacob with beautiful wives and servants and children, and even as Laban tricks Jacob, each trick seems to be met with God’s touch. Things keep on turning up “golden” for Jacob.

I wonder how many times we see these good things happening to people in squirrelly situations.

And worse, how many times do we see people taking these kinds of stories and twisting the theology to match personal circumstances? So many times we interpret Scripture in a way that fits nice and neat around our / my particular circumstances.

Should we point to Jacob’s and Rachel’s trickery as a way to be blessed? Absolutely not! Did God stick with Jacob despite his earthly failings? Yeah, sure, you betcha!

So what is God blessing? What does God hold dear?

If you look back to Rachel’s pregnancy, the Lord does prophecy that the older will bow to the younger. But does that mean Jacob was right?

In all of these questions, we simply – and humbly – remain unsure. We know that God makes good on God’s promises in God’s time. We know that God calls us to be wise as serpents, too.

God made a covenant with Abraham, which is passed on to Isaac, and to Jacob (not Esau). Weird how things work out in an unexpected manner.

Hmmm…I guess my takeaway today is that copying circumstances in which God blesses those we read in Scripture is not the key to the life of a God-follower.

Instead, perhaps we reflect on God’s call in our lives, take action as we think God would have us do…then, seek the sense of fulfillment that comes from living a life to God’s glory. I don’t know that we can name our actions “blessed.” After all, who is to say what we have done is blessed, other than God?

P (Prayer): Lord, I leave leave this devotion with a question…may you allow me to struggle with this question of blessedness today. Amen.

On Being Re-named

  S (Scripture): Genesis 32:22 During the night Jacob quickly took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.  23 He took them and sent them across the stream along with all his possessions.  24 So Jacob was left alone. Then a man wrestled with him until daybreak. 25 When the man saw that he could not defeat Jacob, he struck the socket of his hip so the socket of Jacob’s hip was dislocated while he wrestled with him.

26 Then the man said, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking.” “I will not let you go,” Jacob replied, “unless you bless me.” 27 The man asked him, “What is your name?” He answered, “Jacob.” 28 “No longer will your name be Jacob,” the man told him, “but Israel, because you have fought with God and with men and have prevailed.”

O (Observation): So a LOT of stuff is packed in here.   Names are of great importance in the ancient culture in which Jacob and Esau lived.    Jacob’s name is loosely translated to “heal” and by extension “usurper” (as in coming up from behind someone and taking what is someone else’s).  

As Jacob wrestled with “the man” in the Jabbok, the man turns out to be an angel of God.   As Jacob realizes this, he seeks a blessing.  The angel puts his hip out of socket and instead of just blessing Jacob, he asks Jacob to say his own name.  But why?

Perhaps the angel wanted Jacob to fess up to and own his name: Jacob, the Usurper.  (Remember how Jacob extorted Esau’s birthright over a bowl of soup, and how Jacob stole his father’s blessing by deceiving Isaac?). So Jacob confesses his name, Jacob, which, as you remember,  is like a window into his identity.   

But something grace-filled happens here.  Jacob is re-named Israel!!!   Israel means “God wrestles.”    Now Jacob moves forward with a new identity.  And this new name also meant that Jacob / Israel was given a new direction, a new way forward.  No longer trapped by his old identity, in this scene with water all around Jacob becomes someone new…someone through whom many nations would come…and even a Savior.  

A (Application): So what about you and me?  What is our name?  What is our identity?  

As baptized believers, we become children of God.   We become those in whom God is well-pleased, which is not so much a declaration of who we are, but who we are becoming all of the time.  

We would all do well to confess our names out loud, acknowledge our brokenness, and be reminded that God re-names us in our baptism.  We are re-purposed for the sharing of the Good News.  

We are given a new identity in baptism.   We are given a new future and brought into the body of Christ – broken and sinful as we are.  We will struggle with that brokenness our whole lives long, but now those places of brokenness are places where God is healing.   And we pray that our wounds turn into scars and from those scars (where healing has taken place) we can then proclaim what the Lord is doing:  healing us and making us whole!

As you confess your name out loud, what do you call yourself?  Discouraged?  Worthless?  Divorced?  Widowed? Sinner?  Coward?  Bully?

These are difficult words, but also hear God’s proclamation:  “You are my Son, my Daughter!  With you, I am well-pleased.  You are the one I have redeemed at great cost!  You are my child!”

You are loved!  Remember that this day.  

I’ll leave you on that note.  Take care!

P (Prayer): Lord, remind us that we are named and claimed by you. Thank you!  Amen.  

To Receive a Blessing

  S (Scripture): Genesis 27:5 Now Rebekah had been listening while Isaac spoke to his son Esau. When Esau went out to the open fields to hunt down some wild game and bring it back, 6 Rebekah said to her son Jacob, “Look, I overheard your father tell your brother Esau, 7 ‘Bring me some wild game and prepare for me some tasty food. Then I will eat it and bless you in the presence of the Lord before I die.’ 8 Now then, my son, do exactly what I tell you! 9 Go to the flock and get me two of the best young goats. I’ll prepare them in a tasty way for your father, just the way he loves them. 10 Then you will take it to your father. Thus he will eat it and bless you before he dies.”

O (Observation): Jacob follows through. He tricks his father, Isaac, into blessing him. The firstborn son, if alive, was the one who was supposed to receive the father’s blessing.  And even though Jacob and Esau were twins, Esau was birthed first.  Esau was to receive the blessing.  

For whatever reason, Jacob’s trickery takes place.  Jacob is the first person we come across who pulls any kind of stunt like this.  (And Jacob’s kids play a trick on  Jacob later on, when they bring back Joseph’s bloody coat, suggesting that Joseph was dead, though he really wasn’t.)

What is even more odd than Jacob’s trickery?  God stays with Jacob!  God allows the blessing to really take root.  Jacob’s descendants are blessed.  Jacob sees the angels in a dream – asecending and descending.   Jacob wrestles with God (or God’s angel) and is given the name “Israel.”

This turn of events – Jacob stealing the blessing – has shown a creativity unparalleled to that point.  And what comes into focus, perhaps, is the importance of the blessing.   The one blessed receives the blessing, no matter what.   

A (Application): What norms have you encountered that have held back a blessing?   Have you ever been so creative as to find a way to maneuver around traditions and customs to seek the greater good?

Being creative is sometimes a prerequisite to receiving a blessing.  A blessing may be a sense of peace, a senses of having done the right thing (without harming someone else).   

That might seem an odd thing to say, but many customs have been maneuvered around for the right reasons. 

Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr., are two folks who come to mind.  

The ELCA, in allowing room for those who are in the LGBTQ community to serve as pastors and to receive a marriage blessing, have perhaps taken a lesson from Jacob.   They have shifted the traditional idea of who can receive a blessing. And God sustains those who receive blessing, as we see in the case of Jacob.  

In what ways is Jacob wrong for what he has done?  In what ways is Jacob blessed?  In what ways has the ELCA moved in ways many consider wrong?  In what ways have we in theELCA been blessed in the meantime?

P (Prayer): Lord, sometimes we follow all the rules, and sometimes we bend them.  In all cases, we seek your blessing.  Please consider us – redeemed sinners – as your chosen people, nonetheless.   Take our actions and inactions and transform them for the good of all.  Call us to just actions.   Amen.