Limping Our Way to Wholeness: A Sermon for 19 Pentecost, Proper 24

Today’s reading from the Book of Genesis gives us the opportunity to explore what wrestling with one’s demons or “shadow side” might be like: grappling with the family system into which we are born; tussling with our own identity; and sparring with our own sense of self (or, as is most common, our lack of a sense of self).   

In many ways Jacob was no different than many of us today.  He was engaged in a wrestling match not only with God, but with himself.  He grew up in the shadows of his grandfather Abraham, his father Isaac, and his twin brother Esau.  His name – Jacob – means “heel-catcher", "supplanter", or "leg-puller," because he was said to have come out of Rebekah’s womb grabbing for the heel of his minutes-older brother Esau.  How many of us grew up grabbing at the heels of our older siblings, parents, or relatives, trying to catch up with them so to speak?  I know that I did!

At this point in Jacob’s narrative, most everything that he has gotten in life has been by his own cunning, kniving, leg-pulling ways.  He deceived Isaac and Esau years ago, and as a result, he received the blessing from his father that should have gone to Esau.  And after spending twenty years with his uncle Laban, he deceived him as well by slipping away into the night with his two daughters Rachel and Leah.  But now as Jacob is journeying back to the Promised Land – where God has commanded him to go – he gets word from his servants that his brother Esau awaits him on the other side of the river with an army of 400 men.  His brother who he deceived and cheated out of their father’s blessing that was rightfully his.  How could this be?  He had received God’s blessing through the dream on the stone pillow at Bethel.  In another dream God commanded him to return home to the Promised Land.  Was this all a trap?  Was his reckoning with Esau finally due?  Was his leg-pulling finally going to catch up with him? 

On his journey to the Promised Land, Jacob got his two wives Rachel and Leah, their eleven children, and all of their servants and livestock safely across the Jabbok River to settle in for the night before the next day’s encounter with Esau and his formidable army.  But rather than spending the night with his family, Jacob doubled back across the river to spend the night alone.  He had some issues that he needed to sort through.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve doubled back across the river before.  Perhaps that’s why I like the Jacob narrative so much.  So many times in my life, in order for me to proceed forward to take on a new challenge, I have first needed to take a few steps backwards.  And almost always, those steps backwards were steps away from home – away from the family system into which I was born and formed.  So much of my formation happened at home, but even more my growth and development happened when I crossed back to the other side of the river and did some wrestling.  So figuratively speaking, I walk with a limp just like Jacob – a constant reminder of my struggles with myself and with God.  I imagine that all of us here today walk with a limp of some sort or another. 

That night by the Jabbok River, before Jacob could return with his new family to his old home, before Jacob could face the wrath of his older brother Esau, he had to face himself, and all of his demons, shadows, and darkness.  And what a face-off it was!

There are many interpretations of exactly with whom it was that Jacob wrestled that night.  But one not-so-common reading of this passage - but one that I find very illuminating – is that Jacob was not only wrestling with God, but he was also confronting his shadow side.  And as daybreak approached, Jacob hadn’t  prevailed.  But Jacob’s shadow side - his undifferentiated self – “struck him on the hip socket” – imposing on him a lifelong injury, while also demanding to be turned loose by Jacob.  You see, self-awareness in the form of daylight was approaching, and our shadow sides do not like daylight.  They prefer the safety of the shadows of darkness.  But Jacob held tightly to himself, even though he was severely injured, and before he let go of that part of himself, he demanded a blessing. 

You see, God had blessed Jacob.  Isaac had blessed Jacob. But Jacob had never blessed himself.  And in order for him to go on as his own person in life, with a healthy sense of identity – out from the shadows of his father and brother, Jacob needed to have one final showdown with God and himself.  Jacob demanded a blessing from his own worst enemy – himself - and he received it.  And with this blessing, he received a new name.  He was no longer just Jacob-the-leg-puller, Jacob-the-supplanter, or Jacob-the heel-grabber – he was now named Israel.  His shadow side finally blessed him after he had striven with both God and himself.  And from then on, Jacob had a new name.  A new identity.  He was finally moving closer to being a self-differentiated person, which is very difficult to do.

Now you’ve heard me say that if you a reading a story in the Bible, and it involves water - especially a river - then something important is going to happen.  Well, this theory certainly holds true today!  It’s no accident that this wrestling match happened by a river.  This was Jacob’s baptism.  His new birth.  His cleansing.  And now he had a new name.  But even though he had a new name and a new identity, he was still injured from his past.  He forever walked with a limp, which served as a reminder that for him, he didn’t come to his own sense of self without a mighty struggle.

Jacob had an angry Esau and an army of 400 men waiting for him.  But his biggest battle was with himself and with God the night before.  Once he wrestled with and blessed himself, he not only prevailed then and there, but he prevailed on the other side of the river as well.  When I think of this sequence of events in Jacob’s life, I am reminded of the night many generations later when Jesus was arrested.  He didn’t have an army of 400 men to face – for him it was the chief priest and elders, Roman soldiers, Pontius Pilate, and the cross that waited. 

The disciples accompanied Jesus to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray, but at one point Jesus decided that he – like Jacob – needed to be by himself.  He crossed back over the river so to speak, and wrestled with himself and his Father, asking that this cup be removed from him, but only if it was his Father’s will.  I don’t think Jacob could have faced Esau and his army if he hadn’t crossed back over the river the night before, and I don’t think Jesus could have faced the cross without crossing back over to Gethsemane the night before as well.  We can access our deepest strength, faith, courage, and wisdom only after we have striven with our deepest demons, enemies, and fears, and only after we have striven with God.

As we continue our individual journeys as children of God as well as our journey together as the Body of Christ here at Christ the King, I encourage each of us from time to time to cross back over the river and take on the shadows and demons that wait for us.  I trust that if we have the courage to do so, we, like Jacob, and like Jesus, will be blessed and encounter new life in ways that we might have never imagined.