I do not know what your plans are for August 6, 7 and 8, but if you happen to be in Northeast Ohio on those dates, you will want to visit Twinsburg. Twinsburg is located half way between Cleveland and Akron. On those dates, TWINS from around the country will migrate to that community like bees to honey.
Texans would love this year’s celebration because the theme is “Twins Days Roundup!” All twins are encouraged to dress in western wear. While the Friday evening wiener roast is for registered twins and their families only, the festival grounds on Saturday and Sunday are open to the public. For a mere $3.00 admission you can walk around and visit with twins from all parts of America. They had over ten thousand twins last year.
So, if you can make it to Twinsburg and have somewhat of an interest in twins, then you might find today’s scripture of interest.
The scripture is a story about Jacob, but it is hard to discount his twin Esau. We are told in chapter 25 that mother Rebekah had to endure a difficult pregnancy. The child that was to be Jacob was already kicking and fighting and wrestling with his twin. When the first child was born, my guess is that Rebekah and Isaac took one look at his hairy body and red complexion and named him Esau. Esau in Hebrew means something like “red stuff”.1
The second child came out of the womb fighting. We are told that he took hold of his brother’s foot and was trying to pull him back into the womb. Such aggression, no doubt, caused them to name him Jacob, which means “heal grabber.”2
When they were young men, Jacob duped Esau who forfeited his birthright for a bowl of stew. P.T. Barnum once said, “There is a sucker born every minute.” If there was ever a “sucker”, it’s Esau. And while their father lay dying, Jacob duped the old man into giving him, not Esau, the family inheritance.
Who would have been surprised to hear Esau announce that he was going to kill Jacob! So Jacob has been on the run, on the lam, for these many years. Now, he is finally, though fearfully, coming home. Tomorrow he hopes to stand face-to-face with Esau whom he has so grievously wronged. Will Esau welcome him or kill him?
There is a “telling” bit of scripture in chapter 31: Jacob sends messengers to his brother requesting a visit. The messengers return saying that Esau will meet him tomorrow along with an army of 400 men. Jacob sends hundreds of goats, ewes and rams, camels and colts, cows and bulls, female and male donkeys, along with his children, and his many wives, ahead of him across the River Jab’bok – as a gift for his twin! My guess is that if he hears their screams from across the Jab’bok, he’ll rethink the proposed reunion.
Now, it is night. On the bank of the river, Jacob is alone. In the midst of his sleep, he is assaulted by a stranger. Who is the stranger who jumps Jacob in the night? Nobody knows. The scripture says “A man wrestled with him until day.” (Genesis 32:24).
Is this some demon, a primordial devil? The fight went on all night. Near dawn, grasping for breath, exhausted in conflict, they are reduced to speech. “Let me go, day is breaking,” says the man. “Bless me first”, says Jacob. “Well, what’s your name?” asks the stranger. The reply, “Jacob.” Then the so-called stranger says, “You are no longer Jacob. You are Israel.” And there God blessed him. “So what’s your name?” Jacob asks. There was no reply.
So, in truth, what’s going on here? What are we to make of this story? God, I believe is telling us that this is not just twin babies struggling in Rebekah’s womb, it was two nations. It was Israel and Edom, hunters and gatherers, farmers and ranchers, red states and blue states, liberals and conservatives. Jacob epitomizes the human struggle. And all of us are Jacob because our hearts want what they want, and we will wrestle life to the ground to get it.
As one Biblical scholar said of this story, “Well, there is Jacob. Take him or leave him, and the really astonishing thing is that God takes him.”3
Before the nighttime encounter, we see Jacob swaggering toward the Promised Land, boasting of his strength, his fists gnarled, ready to fight his way forward. The only thing standing between him and the Promised Land is the river Jab’bok and God. And this makes all the difference.
It was there that the love of God ambushed proud Jacob. We don’t know everything that happened, but we do know that Jacob got up the next morning with a new name, a blessing, and he walked away with a limp.
I believe Karen Armstrong can help us. In her book The Spiral staircase when she sees a person sweating, struggling with a somewhat hopeless situation, she says “I am reminded that religion is born of desperation, horror and vulnerability as well as from moments of sublime insight.”
So down at the river, the mysterious stranger wrestles Jacob, wrestles you and me to the ground. Who was the stranger? Was it divine? Was it human? Was it Jacob wrestling with himself? Was it Esau? Was it daddy Isaac? Was it God? Was it all of the above?
For Jacob, when he got through the experience, he recognized that God was somewhere in it because he says, “I have seen God face to face and I have lived and I have a blessing.”
So, if you are trying to find God? Don’t just look in the shrines and sunrises. Look in the Jacobs too. Don’t just look in the mountain top experiences. Look in the struggles as well. The Christian life does not begin with a magnificent anthem or an inspiring sermon or a fantastic sanctuary with stained glass. – No!
The Christian life begins with baptism, where God says to all of us, “OK, you fighters, you cheaters, you gambles, you ambitious folk. . .come on down to the river. . .we’ve got some wrestling to do!”
Amen
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Notes:
1 Thomas Long, Down by the River, Journal for Preachers, Pentecost 2009, p. 10
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid. p. 11
4 Bowers, First Christian Church, Stow, Ohio, 5/17/09
5 Thanks to Wm. Willimon, Changed by a God, Pulpit Resources, Pentecost 2008, pp. 21-44.
6 Wm. Sloan Coffin, Wrestling with God, the Riverside Years, Vol. I, pp. 172-175
7 Karen Armstrong, The Spiral Staircase, p. 277.
