9th Sunday after Pentecost
August 6, 2017
Genesis 32:22-31; Matthew 14:13-21
Anyone ever argued with God? What did you argue over? How
long did the argument last? The biggest argument I ever had with God occurred
not too far from here. It was 20 years ago and we were in Damascus, visiting my
mom’s best friend. That was the time and place my parents chose to tell us
children that they were separating and going to get divorced. It was January,
there was over a foot of snow on the ground, the wind chill was below zero, and
my response was to go take a walk. I bundled up and walked, I don’t know where.
As I walked, I argued with God. The walk lasted about half an hour. The
argument with God lasted about 7 years. That’s about how long it took me to
understand what there was to understand, to accept what I couldn’t understand,
to come to peace with it. One of the final keys came through a Nicholas Sparks
book, of all things. During that time, I didn’t leave the church. I didn’t stop
praying or worshiping or bible study. God and I just had this ongoing argument.
My parents moved on and remarried. They are both now much more happily married
than they ever were during their 20 years of marriage to each other. It just
took me longer, because growing up I thought they had a normal, healthy,
Christian marriage. I also thought Christians didn’t get divorced. I had to
allow some grace for that, and then come to terms with the fact that their
marriage was not healthy. I did a lot of arguing with God.
We
have two examples this morning of folks who argued, or struggled with God.
Jacob is getting ready to go meet his brother, Esau, from whom he’s been
estranged for a very long time. Jacob has already sent presents on ahead to his
brother. He’s had his family go ahead and cross the river into Canaan, the
promised land. And Jacob’s camped out on the river bank overnight. And he
spends the night wrestling, all night long, and when he’s told to give up, he
refuses and says, “I will not let you go until you bless me.” In the blessing,
Jacob gets a new name, Israel, “because you have struggled with God and with
humans and have overcome.” Jacob struggled and did not give up. Then, this
reading is paired with the story of Jesus feeding the multitudes. He’d had
compassion on the large crowd that had followed him and spent the day healing
the sick. As the day drew to a close, the disciples advised Jesus to send away
the crowd so they could go get some dinner. Jesus says, “No, you feed them.”
The disciples argue back and say, “No, we don’t have enough food.” Jesus says,
“Bring to me what food you do have.” And Jesus takes the five loaves and two
fish and blesses them, breaks them, and gives them back to the disciples to
give to the crowd. There was so much extra food that the disciples collected 12
baskets full of leftovers. The disciples went from a fear of scarcity, of not
enough, to such abundance, that they had more at the end than they did at the
beginning.
The first lesson when you’re arguing with God is to not
give up. My husband’s alma mater is NC State where there was this famous men’s
basketball coach in the 1980s who died from cancer, Jimmy Valvano. His most
famous encouragement, that you see printed places around Raleigh, is “Don’t
give up. Don’t ever give up.” When you are struggling, when you are going
through a dark night of the soul, don’t
give up. It is more faithful to stay
in the conversation, to stay in the argument, than to walk away. You don’t
know what God is going to do if you turn your back. And God is never going to
turn God’s back on you. God stays faithful. God stays in the conversation. God
can handle all the abuse you throw at God, if your argument turns ugly. Staying
in the conversation is a more faithful response than giving in to fear or
despair. Don’t give up! The disciples tried to. They were afraid there wasn’t
enough food. They told Jesus to send the crowd away. Jesus said no. Don’t
despair. Don’t be afraid. You do have
enough. And the disciples stayed and Jesus showed them that they did, in fact,
have enough.
Then
Jacob, he wrestled All. Night. Long.
Talk about feeling tired and exhausted a good reason to give up. He needed
rest. Jacob was about to meet his brother the next day for the first time in
years. They had not parted on good terms. They had not spoken to each other for
a very long time. I understand why Jacob had trouble sleeping. He had a lot on
his mind. It was the night before a big day. But he didn’t spend it thinking
about it, tossing and turning in his bed. Jacob spent the night wrestling
physically, with his body and not just with his mind. And yet he didn’t give
up. Even when asked to, he still didn’t stop. Even though the night was over
and the sun was coming up, he still didn’t stop. “I will not let you go unless
you bless me.” And God did bless him. “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but
Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”
The only reason Jacob overcame was because he didn’t give up.
Now,
you should probably also know that when
you argue with God, you may be marked by the struggle. Jacob was given a
new name and a new limp. Jacob saw
God face-to-face and his life was spared, but he was marked by the encounter.
For the last part of the wrestling match, Jacob had a hurt hip. Talk about
another good reason to have stopped; he was injured. But he kept going. And
Jacob received a new name, as well as the physical reminder of the struggle in
his hip.
Another
big argument I’ve had with God was over leaving Nicaragua, returning to the
U.S., and starting seminary. I had signed a three year contract with a mission
agency to serve in Nicaragua. I had students who knew that. I had supporters
who knew that. My host family knew that. And here was God calling me to break
that contract. Three years had never felt like the right number. Since I loved
it there, I thought it would be longer. I never dreamt it would be shorter. God
planted me on my butt to get the point through to me. When the doctor first diagnosed
me with rheumatoid arthritis, he put me on bedrest. God will do all kinds of
things to get your attention. And talk about being marked? My arthritis is a
pain, literally at times. And when I’m paying attention, I’m remembering it’s
like Jacob’s hip. It’s my marker of how God got me here, in this pulpit. It’s
God using something bad, a chronic disease, for something good: coming to be a
pastor.
And
that is the third thing about arguing with God. When you struggle with God, you may be redeemed. Esau had good cause to be so mad at Jacob. The
reason for their falling out was because Jacob pretended to be his brother and
tricked their father into giving Jacob the blessing of the firstborn. Jacob wasn’t the firstborn twin, he was born second, grabbing onto Esau’s heel. His
name, Jacob, means ‘he grasps the heel,’ a saying in Hebrew to describe someone
who deceives. So Jacob the deceiver, the trickster, struggled with God and
becomes the nation of Israel through his twelve sons plus daughters and their offspring.
This is because “genuine change is not possible without struggle.”[1]
The struggle comes first. Then the redemption can come.
I
have been reading the Bible y’all gave me, and it has a whole page commentary
about Jacob’s wrestling match with God.[2]
It mentions that to be part of God’s people is to struggle with God. That’s
normal. It’s part of the relationship. And that makes sense, because if you
think about it, anyone you’re in
relationship with, you argue with them from time to time. So, of course that includes God. and for
those who lived in Biblical times, struggling with God wasn’t just normal, but essential and it left the faithful
limping. I would argue that arguing with God is part of your faith development.
You trust God enough to argue with God. You trust that your relationship with
God can survive a disagreement. And you are changed from arguing with God.
Limping, yes. You’re struggling with the One who made the heavens and the
earth. Yes, you’re going to be marked when you take on your Creator. However,
like Jacob and the disciples, future blessing cannot be separated from the struggle.
Jacob was about to enter the promised land and be reconciled with his brother.
The disciples were about to feed thousands of people with just two fish and
five loaves of bread. There is blessing that comes after the struggle. There is
redemption. There is change.
With
some arguments, we want to know who wins and who loses. When you argue with
God, and stay in the argument and struggle and are willing to be marked by God
and changed by God, this is an argument that’s a win-win. These are the kinds
of struggles that can draw you closer to God, if you let them. So, if something
is majorly not going according to your life plan, or, more faithfully, what you
understand is God’s plan for your life, take it up with God! In fact, that may
be the first problem. God, this is what I understood, this is what I thought,
this is what I expected. Why are we now taking a left turn? Or a zigzag? Was
this in your plan all along? Or, as we journey down this new path together, I
know you’ll be with me and I know you can use it to change me, to draw me
closer to you, to make me more like you. As I said, God wins, and you win. “And
when the strife is fierce, the warfare long, Steals on the ear the distant
triumph song, And hearts are brave, again, and arms are strong. Alleluia,
Alleluia!” That’s from the hymn, “For All the Saints.” Remember, you’re in good
company. You’re not ever alone. Thanks be to God.
No comments:
Post a Comment