Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The same night [Jacob] got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When 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.

What better metaphor for life could there possibly be? Wrestling—striving with God and human beings—and going lame in the process!

We strive with God. The story of Jacob is the story of our lives as fully as it is the story of the people of Israel. We usually want to leave our struggles at the door of the sanctuary when we come here. But God's Word today promises to help us cope even with our struggles, our wrestling, our striving. And it's a good thing, since so much of life is spent with such matters.

Jacob wrestled long before that night at the Jabbok. He wrestled with his twin brother, with his mother, with his twin brother, with his father, with his twin brother, with his father-in-law, with his twin brother, with his wives, with his twin brother again and again. Did I mention his skirmishes with his twin brother? Jacob wrestled, even, with God.

Do you see yourself in this story? We, too, get into skirmishes galore. Perhaps it's because, like Jacob, I'm a twin—a fraternal twin—that makes the story resonate with me. My brother and I fought all the time. Indeed, it seemed that among the four children in my family, there was always at least one spat going on. Competition, irritation, taunting. Wrestling. Striving. And I've got the scars to prove it. But you should see theirs!

Don't get me wrong; we loved one another. We just got on each others' nerves. I suspect you know what I mean.

And so, Genesis seems highly relevant. Whatever else Genesis is about, it is about brothers striving against one another: Cain and Abel, Isaac and Ishmael, Joseph and his eleven brothers, and Jacob and Esau. If ever a group needed a bit of family therapy, it is the inhabitants of the book of Genesis.

And I notice an important feature about the fraternal rivalries that are so prominent in this book. Older, stronger brothers don't do so well. Joseph is the eleventh of twelve sons and turns out to be the hero; Ishmael is older than Isaac; and Esau has every advantage over Jacob. He's older (even if only by a few minutes) and thus the possessor of the birthright. He is clearly stronger and more successful in the things that matter to the world. He is his father's favorite. In our world, Esau would be class president, halfback on the football team, and dating a cheerleader. And yet, he is not the elect of God. That privilege falls to Jacob.

With striking consistency, bigger and stronger doesn't win out in Genesis. Half the book is taken up by the stories of Jacob and Joseph, the younger and weaker brothers. To me, as a younger brother over against my two older brothers, these stories seem just right. It may be that there is gospel in these stories. :-)

The God of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph is a God who does not reward the strong and successful of this world, but a God who chooses by different standards, standards that make the first last and the last first. (How nice for us youngest siblings!) Of course, I can't count on that either! The promise not only comes from God, it will be fulfilled by God in God's own way. The elect of God need not be the winners of this world.

We might take this just a bit further. In these stories, God chooses not only the younger, often weaker brother; God chooses sinners. Do you remember Joseph as a boy? He's simply unbearable, lording it over his brothers as the father's favorite. You may remember the adult Joseph as savior of his nation and of the Egyptians, with his prophesy of the oncoming famine making it possible for Egypt to prepare for it. But read Genesis 47; Joseph manages affairs so that most of the population of Egypt becomes enslaved to Pharaoh. For the majority of the population, Joseph is an agent of oppression. And look at Jacob. I think we often forget just how duplicitous he is: he deceives and lies to his father and only then receives his blessing. He uses a variety of tricks on his in-laws that help him to go home a rich man.

True, Jacob's father-in-law treated him shabbily—making him work an extra seven years for Rachel. But Jacob gave as good as he got. His fear of Esau is far from unfounded. He had cheated Esau, and Esau had every right to be mad. And yet, he is chosen to receive and bear the promise; a sinner, as are Joseph, David, Solomon, the apostles, Paul—all of us. That God calls sinners is not a new message, found only in the New Testament; it is integral to the narratives that take up much of the Old Testament. (10/21/1998, Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Michael Root).

Back to the text:

Then the man said, "Let me go, for the day is breaking." But Jacob said, "I will not let you go, unless you bless me." So he said to him, "What is your name?" And he said, "Jacob." Then the man said, "You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed."

Here we have Jacob, younger twin, weak, sinful, duplicitous, and yet the recipient of God's covenant. Indeed, the father of a nation. And this scene is the turning point of his life. As he once sought the blessing of his father, so now he seeks the blessing of Almighty God. He wrestles, strives, and holds on until he is blessed.

Jacob simply will not let go until he is blessed. And he is blessed; in that dark night, he holds God and God holds him. Jacob wins and God's promise wins. The history of promise that began with Abraham and will move on to Christ will continue. And it will do so under the name of Israel—the one who has striven with God and with humans and prevailed. It is the model for us all.

Life is a wrestling match. We struggle and we strive with God and with human beings, looking for a blessing. I don't mean literally of course. But there is a striving of spirit that takes spiritual, emotional, and even physical energy.

In mid-October, just two weeks before the anniversary of Luther's posting of the 95 Theses, I cannot meditate on a text such as this without thinking of Luther. He is a fine example of someone who wrestled in the night with God, who held on to God until God blessed him, until he heard the gospel.

God is always there, ready to bless us, forgive us, refresh us, renew us, re-strengthen us, return us to the fray of the battle we call life.

We wrestle with our health, with our friends and family members, with our supervisors and co-workers, with our neighbors and people in stores where we shop and seek services, with decisions, with negotiations, with transactions. We wrestle with our brothers and sisters—our families. We strive with ourselves. We struggle with meaning in the face of overwhelming tragedies in the form of various kinds of terrorism and war. We wrestle with God. And God is in our wrestling matches even when we fail to notice.

God blessed Jacob and God will bless us, as well.

Genesis 32 suggests that the life of faith is a spiritual struggle.

If Jacob's life in Canaan was to receive God's blessings, Jacob had to learn to strive with God. He had to realize that his major obstacle was not his brother, but his God. Entrance into a life of blessing comes to us in the same way it came to Jacob—by clinging to God and God's promises and by depending upon God to provide.

This story reveals, as I'm sure you already know, the foundation of what would become the nation of Israel. Here that nation gets its name. And it gets a lesson to last forever. How will this nation find its blessings? Can they come from any means other than those that Jacob has learned from his struggle with God? Of course not.

This is what Moses sought to teach the people of Israel as they strove to enter the land of Canaan and secure God's blessings. It is what all of the prophets, judges, and kings worked to instill in those thick-skulled and hard-hearted people—people just like us. The only path to blessing is through striving with God and clinging to God.

This is always the way it is in life. We strive with God. And we discover blessing only when we recognize our inadequacy, trust in God's word and God's promises, and cling to God alone. And, with Jacob who received a new name, we discover who we truly are.  —  Amen.