19th Sunday after Pentecost

"Jacob Wrestling with the Angel." Gustave Dore, 1855

Pray always and not lose heart. That’s why Jesus tells this story to the disciples. But…what if we pray for health, but there is still a spot on the PET scan? We pray for peace, but violence is everywhere. We pray for our children and our families, but there's still conflict and trouble. We pray and pray and pra… and there’s no answer. It’s so easy to lose heart. And that’s what we’ve seen in these last couple chapters of Luke: uncertain disciples, worried about not having enough faith, unable to pray, unable to believe, unable to trust. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it.

And what about this story Jesus tells? This is one of Jesus’ parables that draw lessons from the immoral realities of life in a broken world. Then as now, a judge is a person with extraordinary power. Although being a widow is no easy thing today, back then, it meant not only the loss of her husband, but also social standing, economic livelihood—the loss of life as she had known it.                   

This widow only had one thing left. A plan and the capacity to be a pest about it. And, when you only have one weapon, you use it. So she annoyed this judge constantly. She shouted aloud in his courtroom: “Give me justice!" She knocked on his chamber doors, left messages on his voicemail, called him at home, interrupted him at fancy lunches with the other lawyers, showed up at his tee time at the Jerusalem Golf Club.                                                                              

Notice, though, the judge doesn't take her case on its own merits—we don’t even know the details of her lawsuit.  He decides to give her justice based on his own convenience, or maybe concern for his own reputation, or maybe because he’s just done with her bugging him. 

The judge says, “I will justify her. Not because she’s got a good case, but for my own reasons. I will justify her though she is weak, though we are enemies.” And in that, we hear the echoes of what Paul says in Romans, “For while we were weak, while we were yet sinners, while we were the enemies of God, Christ died for the ungodly.”

  God gives us his grace and mercy, not because of our persistence or our strength, but because of his own decision to do so. It’s the same in baptism: God makes us righteous, not because we have decided to follow him, or are such good people. No, God makes us righteous in baptism and forgives our sins because he is so good, and has decided to give us that righteousness.

It’s not that perseverance gets us what we want; perseverance permits us to go on when we don’t get what we want. And what we want—the merits of our claim—doesn’t finally matter anyway. If anything we have matters, it is our simple trust in the gracious thing that God did in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.    

This parable is not really about the bad judge and it's not really about the persistent widow. This is finally a story about God and you and me. This story says, if a poor widow with no standing can finally get justice out of a judge with no honor, how much more will you find a God who will give you justice, who will vindicate you, who will even forgive all your sin!

Look at that weird story in the first lesson.  It doesn’t seem to be connected to the parable Jesus tells, but stick with me. Jacob, one of the great Old Testament patriarchs, is just rotten.  He’s a liar and a cheat. He slyly talked his older brother out of his inheritance, conspired with his mother to get for himself the blessing their father intended for that brother, engaged in a years-long struggle with his unfair uncle to get the daughter of his that he loved. And then, having married that girl’s sister AND her, he keeps a couple of extra "maids" on the side and uses them as baby-makers. I mean, this is a family that is so messed up that it has reality-TV levels of dysfunction, and you kind of expect Maury Povich or Jerry Springer to show up with a microphone and a paternity test!

But now, Jacob has gone back home to face his brother. He’s sent some expensive gifts on across the river, along with his wives and herds and flocks, I guess hoping to buy his brother’s forgiveness. He’s hoping that his big bro Esau won’t hold his sins against him, that he will not wipe out his family and household in vengeful rage.

And so, at night, anxious and alone, on the banks of the river Jabbok, Jacob wrestles with a man. But this isn’t just some mugger. It’s not even just an angel. The Hebrew here tells us that this is the person of God who has taken on human flesh. Jacob wrestled with God and he did not let go of God—not even in the dark, not even when he didn’t know what was going on or who he was opposing, not even when God put his hip out of joint and he was limping in pain, not even when the sun was starting to rise—Jacob did not let go of God, even demanding a blessing!

If you know anything about pro wrestling, this gets even better when you I tell you that the name “Jacob” means “the one who grabs the heel.” Jacob is literally the bad guy, the “heel.” He got that name because when he and his twin were born, he had grabbed on to his brother’s heel as they were coming out of their mother and wouldn’t let go. And then he lives up to his name with a life of cheating, lying, sinning and blowing up his family. And now he is here, fighting God himself.

But how is it that God cannot win a fight against a human man? If this is God, how can he not prevail against Jacob? He should be able to defeat him easily unless….unless this fight is a little foretaste of another fight. Another fight when the descendents of Jacob will grab the heel of another Brother, God in the flesh, and take a hammer and nail that heel to a cross. And in that nailing, in the blood of that Brother, the family rift is healed, forever and ever.

Is there any other God who loves his people so much that he loses to them so that they can win in him? A God who comes to man, as a man? A God who allows himself to be bested by a creature-- a creature who is then re-named, re-blessed, redeemed in the victorious defeat of the God who is love.

If you want to know the depths of the mercy of our God, look no further than this fight. Here is a God who gives up everything to give us everything. Here is the God who loses all that we might gain all.

Jacob was marked by God, and given a new name. We, too, are marked by God and given a new name: the sign of his cross that is marked on us at baptism is on us forever, and our new name is "beloved of God." Forgiven and justified by God because God chooses to love us, and for no other reason.

It’s a simple message for us, really. God has us in his grip and has promised to hear us. No matter the dark, the doubt, the difficulties believing that our prayers are heard. No matter what things we wrestle with in the night. No matter if what our eyes see, does not match up with our heart believes. No matter if we look around and are tempted to believe that our prayers don't "work." No matter if we think we’re beyond the love of God, and have lied and cheated and schemed like Jacob. We do not lose heart because our heart is Jesus’ heart. And God justifies the unrighteous, gives grace to the undeserving, and is faithful to his promise.

Yes, we will limp along, scarred. I don’t know what that limp will look like for you; I only know that all of us share an inherent, mortal weakness. But that weakness reminds us that each day we live, we live only by the mercy of God. Should the Lord let go of us, even for a few seconds, we will be as helpless as a baby dropped into a den of starving wolves. The life of the baptized disciple of Jesus isn’t about us getting stronger, being proud of our persistence and our faith, or our status as “good Christians.” It’s about us growing increasingly aware of our weakness and the Lord’s strength.

And yet, even in our weakness, he fills us with himself. We are limping along—saint and sinner, heel and hero, judge and widow, Jacob and Israel. We are called by all kinds of names, filled with all kinds of sin. Struggling to trust God, struggling to pray, struggling to not lose heart.  But realize this: you are not limping to God or away from him or apart from him-- but with him. With him. And the hands that hold you up still bear the scars of a sacrifice joyfully made for you, a time when he lost, so that you could win. Amen.