Inside Out Faith
Sermon for Sunshine Cathedral MCC
Sunday July 31st 2011; 10:30am Service
Rev. Brian Hutchison, M.Div.
Whenever I hear the story of Jacob wrestling with the stranger, I always think to myself, “Haven’t most of us wrestled with a stranger till daybreak and walked away limping?” …But if the stranger ends up giving you a new name, I think you might have some boundary issues. :)
Our scripture reading from the Hebrew Bible book of Genesis- the first book of the Torah- gives us a vivid bodily image. Jacob doesn’t fall asleep and have a dream that he is wrestling with a stranger. That would make a lot of sense since he had betrayed his twin brother Esau and after a time of separation, he was seeking reconciliation. But no, Jacob experienced a full-bodied wrestling match with someone… under the cover of darkness. Pay attention to the detail that before this intense wrestling happens, Jacob first sends his two wives and female servants (which of course is the perfect image of biblical family if anyone asks for the definition by the way). Jacob sends his family with all of their belongings, over the river. The river is named “Jabbok,” which we see has a close resemblance to “Jacob.” This is no mistake. This river marks a point of divine opportunity in Jacob’s life. In order for Jacob to cross over this river, this dividing point, God is going to require a change.
Even from birth, Jacob had been seeking to be ahead of his twin brother Esau. The name Jacob means “heel grabber,” and he is named that because after his hairy redheaded twin is born, he grabs his heel on the way out of the womb. Then as the two brothers grow up together, Jacob tricks Esau out of his birthright as the first child. Esau actually sells it to Jacob for a bowl of soup while Esau was facing a moment of weakness in hunger. Also, it was known that Jacob was a “mama’s boy.” He was their mother Rebekah’s favorite, while Esau was their father Isaac’s favorite. But when the time came for Isaac to give his final blessing as he died, Jacob tricked their father into blessing him instead.
Jacob’s early life makes me wonder how we may be stuck in a rut like him. Have you tricked your way through a part of your life? Have you ever used lies to get ahead or used other people to step on in order to rise to the next level in the social hierarchy? Or let me ask a similar question: Have you sought treasures first and the comfort they bring over seeking first the kin-dom of God in comforting others in need? Or perhaps a more difficult question: Have you spent so much time seeking approval of others that you forgot about the treasure that lies within?
God knew Jacob’s record of living a life of deceit. Don Miguel Ruiz calls this the “dream of a living hell.” Ruiz teaches that we create our own Hell here on earth by the ways that we seek to get ahead dishonestly, by the ways we judge others and ourselves, and by the ways we tend to beat ourselves up for not living up to the standards of others or living up to the standards of our inner judge. Never having a sense of self-worth, genuine accomplishment, or gratitude certainly is a living Hell.
In order for God to use Jacob in the way that God had promised to his father Isaac (and his wives Leah and Rachel) and Isaac’s father Abraham (and his wife Sarah), God had to show Jacob a new way. They wrestled through the night, but respectfully. No “low-blows” or damaging moves. But as the time came for the sun to rise, God (who in the Yahwist tradition often appears in special times embodied like in the Garden of Eden or in this case), God could not overpower Jacob’s choice to stick in his old ways. God could only respect Jacob’s freedom of choice. So this God-in-flesh does something that we don’t like to think of being in God’s character. God hits Jacob in the hip and does considerable damage. And God begs Jacob: “Let me go before the sun comes up!” But Jacob stays stubbornly planted. He says, “I won’t let go until you bless me.”
In one of my favorite plays, Angels in America, the main character Prior Walter takes the angel by the ankle while he’s suffering with illness from AIDS. He is sick and tired of being sick and tired, and reaches out to the closest thing to God he can find and won’t let her go. And by the suggestion of his former lover’s new lover’s Mormon mother… He quotes this scripture from Genesis, “I won’t let go until you bless me.” And though his prayer was not a cure for the virus, his fever broke and he was given a new lease on life.
Many of us are still in the pews today and can still call ourselves “Christian” or “Spiritual” or “New Thought” because regardless of the struggle, we continued to hold on to God. Many have told us that because we refuse to let go of our authenticity, we are living apart from God and will be apart from God forever. But we have refused to believe that to be true. We have called out homophobia and transphobia as lies from Hell and instead embraced God’s truth- that we ALL have sacred value and worth and have God’s blessing if only we can recognize it and affirm it within ourselves.
Nearly 43 years ago, the founder of Metropolitan Community Churches Rev. Troy Perry had his own struggle with God. He was kicked out of his Pentecostal denomination when a guilty lover reported to the church authorities that Troy was gay. Troy tried hard to accept himself, but ended up attempting suicide by cutting his wrists in his bathtub. But he survived that attempt with the help of friends and had an epiphany as if God’s voice were audible without a human voice box. The voice said in his mind’s ear, “Troy you are my son, I don’t have stepsons and stepdaughters.”
Many of us have “missed the mark” over the years by obsessively repeating the message to ourselves that we are not part of God’s flock, that we are a damned and deserted people. God is calling us to admit these horrible acts against ourselves. God is calling us to truly forgive ourselves so that we can fully accept the blessing that is waiting for us.
God’s blessing to Jacob was a moment of transformation. Or perhaps it was more so a moment of re-direction. The spirit of the past had to be left in the past, along with its naming. So God renames Jacob (which remember meant heel-grabber). Jacob’s new name was to be Israel, which in this scripture is said to mean “struggled with God.” Later in the Hebrew Bible, Israel is said to mean “God Reigns.” Put together, we find a new meaning: when we struggle with God- with God’s place in our lives, with the many meanings of God, with what we consider to be the character of the Divine, we find that God’s loving guidance reigns. It is what is steadfast and eternal. The Spirit within takes us to new heights and new depths of abundant living.
By the time Jesus approaches the crowd of 5,000 men (plus women and children) in the Gospel reading we heard today, he had gone through his struggle with meaning in the desert and had come out victorious. Jesus knew… that he knew… that he knew that God was within him, equipping him to shine the Inner Light to the world. He had silenced his inner judge and inner victim. When Jesus approached the crowd, he was moved to compassion. He immediately began to bring healing to people’s lives. A Course in Miracles says that “Healing is an act of thought by which two minds perceive their oneness and become glad.” These people were once lost in fear, lost in the ancient hierarchy of power that told them they were worth nothing. Jesus had compassion- think “co-passion”, “passion with” them over the state of their lives.
But to get to the thousands there for all to receive their healing fill, Jesus had to network. Jesus taught the disciples that they too have the God-given power to heal lives, and they went among the people and spread the filling message of Jesus: the message of equality and reconciliation in loving and joyful community. The miracle that day is nothing to be in awe about. Because this sort of feeding of thousands of hurting minds, bodies, and souls with Good News is God’s natural order! It is no surprise that there was nourishment left over, because that is just how God is! When all are not full, when all are not healed, when all are not loved and cared for, something unnatural has occurred in the world.
This past week, the young adults of MCC joined here at Sunshine Cathedral for our very first MCC Young Adult Retreat. After a powerful youth and young adult- led worship service at our last general conference in Acapulco, Mexico last year, we were energized and ready this year to wrestle with the question of who we are now and who we seek to be as the MCC of the future. I was delighted to hear again and again that we all affirm the dignity of every human being around the world and that we seek to become a church with a wider and wider embrace. The next generation of MCC leaders has the vibrant energy of the starting years of MCC and really the starting year of the Church of Jesus Christ two millennia ago.
The young adults of MCC wrestled with God and with each other this week and we came out blessed. We came out on the other side of the river that has divided us from the larger body of MCC for too long. And we are ready to move into the territory that has been promised to us from the first day that each of us were told that ALL are welcome. We interpret MCC’s radical welcome, radical hospitality as a bold invitation for young adults like myself to be affirmed as clergy, and for young adults to be represented from the local church leadership to the denomination’s senior staff, boards, and affinity groups.
Those young people that the ancient ushers for the crowd of 5000+ forgot to count were affirmed by Jesus, even when no one else would affirm them. He did not distinguish between young and old. He did not distinguish between different nationalities. He just knew that he had a mission to heal the masses, getting them each to cross the river from despair to joy, from the nightmare of a living Hell to the awake reality of a living Heaven. This is the mission that young adults of MCC today are embodying.
I ask everyone here and everyone who watches this message around the world to consider waking up and wrestling with God again. You may have stayed away from the river for fear of what’s on the other side or for fear of drowning in the ugly currents of religion. But I assure you that in your wrestling with the God of today, you will, like Jacob-now-Israel, finally behold the face of God. And you will live.
I invite you to awaken with me today by repeating after me with the same melody:
“You are the face of God
And you are in my heart
You are a part of me
You are the face of God”
And THIS is the Good News! Amen.
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