Wrestling with God

Wrestling with God

Baptism of Rex William Snow Armstrong

“I will not let you go unless you bless me.” Genesis 32.26

I thought I could do no better today than to start with those opening lines of that wonderful Alan Bennett sermon from Beyond the Fringe. It let’s me get the rugby done with and an introduction to Jacob and Esau all in one go. (I’ll try and use his mocking, parsonic voice.)

First verse of the fourteenth chapter of the Second Book of Kings: 'And he said, "But my brother Esau is an hairy man, but I am a smooth man."' Perhaps I might say the same thing in a different way by quoting you the words of that grand old English poet, W.E. Henley, who said:

When that One Great Scorer comes
To mark against your name;
It matters not who won or lost,
But how you played the game.

This is a wonderful and mysterious story of Jacob wrestling with the Angel. His name, Jacob, means ‘hold the heel’ and came to mean twister, or cheat. (Although in those name-your-baby books, they generously say it means Conqueror.)

He followed his twin brother, Esau, out of the womb, grasping his heel, and eventually cheated him out of his birthright as the firstborn.

Jacob’s parents, Isaac and Rebekah, and his grandparents, Abraham and Sarah, represented two generations of dysfunctional family life. Hollyoaks and Eastenders are tame in comparison.

Now 20 years after the grand swindle, Jacob’s returning to face his brother Esau. He’s become very wealthy by more cheating and lying and at the expense of his cheating and lying uncle, Laban.

Life with his two cheating and lying wives is not surprisingly complicated. Rachel stole the household gods when they ran away from uncle Laban’s boys; hid them in the saddle bags of her camel, sat on them and said she couldn’t get up to be searched because it was the wrong time of the month. (Gen 31.33ff.)

But now Jacob is afraid as he hears that his brother Esau is heading towards him with 400 armed men. It’s not looking like a kiss and make up party.

Jacob is a bad man; but strangely devoted to God. So he calls out to God, remembering the vision he had 20 years before at Bethel, when God showed him a glimpse of heaven and promised him the earth:

Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau: for I fear him, lest he will come and smite me, and the mothers with their children. And thou saidst, I will surely prosper thee, and make thy descendents as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude. (vv 11,12)

He waits for an answer to his prayer, for another vision, for a voice from the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

And there is nothing.

So he uses his brains, charm and cunning. He sends plenty of bribes on ahead of him, and eventually, the women and children.

Finally he is on his own in the night, by the ford over the river Jabbok. He’s probably contemplating doing a runner at this point, but he knows he’d miss the money, the servants and the women.

And then, there is the Curious Incident of the Man in the Night-Time. It reads as if it’s the most natural thing in the world: “So Jacob was left alone and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.” (v.25)

They are evenly matched and it’s looking like a draw, when the stranger cheats, and hits him below the belt. (Probably the meaning of this rather strange business about the hip or the thigh.)

Lets now go to the Tate Britain and take up the story. For there is the magnificent alabaster sculpture by Sir Jacob Epstein, Jacob and the Angel, created in the middle of the Second World War.

The two great seven foot, endomorphic, naked men, who look as if they have walked out of a Beryl Cook painting, are in an ambiguous embrace. We can clearly see that the Angel is holding Jacob up, and yet Jacob might suppose that he is clinging to the Angel.

The man wants to be off before the dawn reveals his identity. But Jacob is persistent. Like the woman with the unjust judge in today’s Gospel parable, he will not let God go until he blesses him. For by now he is realising that this wrestling match is the continuation of his apparently unanswered prayer to God.

Jacob is a cheat and a twister and now God has won by fighting foul. He has always wanted to bless Jacob, but Jacob would not let him. He would not become naked and vulnerable. He wanted to stay proud and independent.

The embrace of struggle is the embrace of love. It is a life-changing encounter that leaves Jacob both wounded and blessed.

And to remind him forever after of this, he is given a new name, Israel: Yisra’el, the one who sarahs — the one who strives — with El — with God himself.

Christianity has never been easy-believism. An encounter with the living God, now as then, leaves us both wounded and blessed.

Jesus makes this crystal clear in his teaching. We are to take up our cross and follow him.

For young Rex we hope a long, happy and contented life. But we know that that, however much we try to protect him, there will be the childhood scrapes and bruises.

And as he grows into a man, he will also gather emotional and spiritual bruises, which as he learns to handle them, will add to the richness of his life.

Our ability to grow mature emotionally and spiritually is determined by the degree of woundedness in our lives. And more than that; the degree to which we have processed and wrestled with those wounds.

Here at this Table we come to celebrate the wounds of the one who loves us and who was wounded for us.

I hope you read stories to Rex. And that sometime you might read him Oscar Wilde’s lovely story, The Selfish Giant. The Giant too has been searching for God, and like Jacob asks: ‘Who are you?’

Downstairs ran the Giant in great joy, and out into the garden. He hastened across the grass, and came near to the child. And when he came quite close his face grew red with anger, and he said, "Who hath dared to wound thee?"

For on the palms of the child's hands were the prints of two nails, and the prints of two nails were on the little feet.

"Who hath dared to wound thee?" cried the Giant; "tell me, that I may take my big sword and slay him."

"Nay!" answered the child; "but these are the wounds of Love."

"Who art thou?" said the Giant, and a strange awe fell on him, and he knelt before the little child.

And the child smiled on the Giant, and said to him, "You let me play once in your garden, to-day you shall come with me to my garden, which is Paradise."

“I will not let you go unless you bless me.” Genesis 32.26

Servant & Evangelist - Deaconing

Servant & Evangelist - the Ministry of a Deacon
Ordination to the diaconate of Rosy Barrie, Margaret Legg & Bill Radmall
by the Bishop of London

“… do the work of an evangelist, fulfil your ministry.” 2 Tim 4.5

I had just finished a primary school assembly about Noah’s Ark – not a subject I would have chosen myself - and explained that I couldn’t stay for the usual class awards because I had to go off and meet with some deacons.

“Who knows what a deacon is?” I realised immediately what a stupid question that was to a bunch of five to ten year olds. Two hands went up however. A very young girl in the front row who it turned out was still troubled by the Ark story: “Were you in the ark, sir?” The older ones laughed and I said “No”. She looked puzzled and said: “So why weren’t you drowned?”

The other hand was that of an older boy who I guessed might just know what a deacon was: “Is it something you put on a hill and set fire to?” Only a letter out!

There are so many rich themes in tonight’s readings for St Luke’s Day, and many of them relate to that question ‘What is a deacon?”

Strengthen the feeble hands, says Isaiah, tell
the good news of Redemption as Streams in the Desert.

Paul sets an example to Timothy of the values of companionship and collaborative ministry – Luke is with me; bring Mark to me – the same Mark whom years previously Paul had all but written off as too whimpish – but now, bring him, because he is helpful to me in my ministry.

Although Paul knows his martyrdom is just around the corner – and that always made the New International translation of our verse a particularly unfortunate rendering of the Greek: ‘keep your head in all situations’. So although Paul was about to lose his head, he wanted the scrolls and the parchments. Study is a responsibility at all times for all who minister in the church of Jesus Christ.

Paul also speaks of those who desert when the going gets tough, and Christian ministry although always rewarding and a great privilege, is sometimes very difficult – not least because of the very people we are trying to serve. As the old adage has it;

To dwell above with those we love,
O that will be glory.
But to live below with those we know
Is quite a different story!

But Paul points to the comfort and strength he receives from God as well: The Lord stood at my side.

More themes in our Gospel; Jesus sends us out as, ‘Lambs among wolves’, and ‘Labourers in the harvest’ to demonstrate and proclaim the Kingdom of God.

It’s a comfort to many of us that he also tells us to accept hospitality as part of our Gospel ministry. He warns us, however, about being too choosy. Don’t turn down the Athenaeum for the Garrick!

In Luke’s other great book, the Acts of the Apostles, he makes further links between the ministry of the Deacon especially and showing hospitality to the needy and the neglected. So much pastoral succour and love may be offered around the table. It can be a very demanding ministry. I think it must have been a weary deacon who defined hospitality as the art of making people feel at home, when you wish they were!

So there are many rich themes in our readings, but two more which are the basis of all the others.

From our text:
“Do the work of an evangelist. Fulfil your ministry.”

The root of the word ministry and deacon is the same. Paul tells Timothy that he must fulfil his diakonia, his servanthood.

You are being ordained deacons in the church of Jesus Christ who came to us as the deacon King; who washed his disciples’ feet and commanded them to love one another as he loved them.

The high calling to which you are being ordained, for the rest of your life, is that of deacon, servant. Whatever other ministry you may go on to exercise, the diaconal ministry remains the foundation.

When the Bishop goes to old fashioned churches like St Mary’s Bourne St, and his vestments are laid out, there is a dalmatic set out for him, the liturgical vestment of a deacon – Andrew is wearing one tonight - and whatever other grand and symbolic vestments he puts on over that, it remains the first and foundational garment, to remind him that he is always deacon as well as bishop. English Monarchs wear a dalmatic at their coronation.

In one sense all Christians are to ‘fulfil their ministry’ in what is called the priesthood of all believers, or of all the baptized. But deacons provide a particular, sacramental focus for servant leadership.

I know that all three of you have already been involved in ministry for many years. But today signals a public recognition and a transition from being ministers in general to deacons in particular.

You yourselves become signs of the kingdom, a proclamation of the Gospel, marked servants of Jesus Christ. Whenever you feel put upon, taken for granted, pre-occupied with trivia that someone else should be doing; then as well as kicking the cat and taking it out on your spouse, you must also give thanks to God for your diaconal charism. (And you may need to run a course for your church members on collaborative every member ministry!)

The second foundational theme in our text is encapsulated in Paul’s phrase ‘do the work of an evangelist!’

Evangelism is a word that has been laden with so many other associations over the last century that it has been quietly dropped by some parts of the Christian Church. As one of my evangelical friends told me the other day – ‘I thought evangelism was something I shouldn’t even do to my dog, let alone my friends.’

Indeed, on the way here I and everyone else in my carriage were evangelised – given this tract, which tells us how to be sure of heaven, and for good measure, how to be sure of hell! (I’m reminded of a church notice board I saw near here years ago. It said in big dayglow letters: ‘Are you tired of sin? Then come inside.’ And some wag had added in felt tip underneath: ‘If not, phone Bayswater 2372.’)

But Paul’s understanding and command to Timothy was simple and clear. He did not tell Timothy to be an evangelist – or to give tracts out and embarrass people on the tube – but to do the work of an evangelist. And that is simply to make the good news of Jesus Christ known in everything that we say or do.

To go back to those beacons burning on hilltops, our Lord reminds us that we should not hide our light under a bushel, or inside the four walls of our churches.

Deacons have traditionally been those who have gone out to the margins of society; to the unchurched, whether rich or poor, and to the marginalised whether within the church community or outside. Deacons have been the go-betweens for priests and bishops, representing them to the world and bringing the needs of the world back to the church in prayer.

This is why liturgically a deacon (Andrew today) reads the Gospel, the good news; and why he will lead the prayers – bringing the needs of the world to God in prayer. And why he sends us back out into the world at the end of the service.

And this is all part of doing the work of an evangelist. It is brokering a meeting between those who need God, and a God who loved the world so much that he gave his only Son Jesus Christ, to save us from our sins, to be our advocate in heaven and to bring us to eternal life.

Deacons, you, are to remind the church when it becomes self-absorbed, that we are to fulfil the Eleventh Commandment of our Lord – to go into all the world and preach the Gospel. This is not an optional extra for evangelical Christians; it is the calling of the whole church of God.

We should all listen to the next words that the Bishop will read to us, and remember, that the call to be servants and proclaimers of the Gospel, focussed in the ministry of these almost-deacons, is the calling of all of us who love and follow the Lord Jesus Christ.

“Fulfil your ministry. Do the work of an evangelist.”

Faith, Trinity 18

Faith

“Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief.” Mk 9. 24
Trinity 18 (Harvest): Habbakuk 1.1-4; 2.1-4; Ps 37.1-9; 2 Tim 1.1-14

So the man comes home from church one evening having just heard a stirring sermon on ‘If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea,” and it would obey you.’

There is a large sycamore tree right outside his window that obscures a beautiful view of the sea. Before he goes to bed he looks at the tree and says: ‘Lord, I really have faith that you can remove this tree and throw it in the sea.’ He pulls the curtains and goes to bed.

First thing in the morning he leaps up and pulls back the curtains. He looks at the sycamore tree and says: ‘I knew it would still be there!’

At first sight this saying of Jesus might seem to suggest that if we only had a tiny amount of real, genuine faith, then we could move mountains or replant trees in the sea.

This is obviously the sort of thing that the disciples have in mind when they ask him to increase their faith.

You can almost imagine Peter saying to the Lord after this statement about tree replanting, ‘Really Lord!?’

And the Lord saying unto Peter: ‘Don’t be so daft!’ – or words to that effect.

Jesus is pulling their leg. He’s teasing them. He’s using humour and hyperbole again to show them how they’ve got it all wrong.

We still often talk about faith as if you can have it in varying amounts. ‘He has tremendous faith’ can either mean he’s very devout, or, rather naïve, or even, particularly stupid.

Like the schoolboy definition of faith: faith is believing something you know isn’t true.

It is not the quantity of faith that is important. It is the nature of the faith, and what you have faith ‘in’, that is paramount.

By the ‘nature of faith’, I mean that it must be a belief that affects your actions? I believe that wasting energy is bad for the environment, so instead of driving to the shops, I walk.

But belief that affects actions is not enough. Young children who believe in Santa Claus can behave in significantly different ways for at least a few days before Christmas. But there is no Santa Claus.

More tragically, suicide bombers sincerely believe they will go straight to heaven. It is a defiant act of faith.

No, it is not just the nature, or sincerity, or depth of our faith that is critical. It is also what we have faith ‘in’ that is crucial.

My uncle had great faith in number 7 running in the 2.30 at Doncaster; and in many other horses throughout his long life. It was nearly always misplaced faith.

I must have told you about the strict Baptist minister visiting Newmarket. Out of curiosity he goes to the races, and knowing that nobody knows him there, decides to have a flutter. He goes to the paddock first and is intrigued to see a Catholic priest praying in Latin over a horse. He is even more surprised when it wins. The priest prays over two or three more horses and they all win.

So finally he lays half the church funds on the horse the priest next prays over. The horse starts well but then keels over before the first fence and dies. The minister is distraught and rushes to ask the priest what happened. “Ah that’s the trouble with you Baptists,” the priest replies, “you don’t know the difference between a blessing and the last rites.”

So before faith leads to actions, we need to be assured that the content of our faith is sound and will not lead to foolish actions.

This is why Christian theology, which down through the centuries has tried to wrestle with what the Bible teaches us, is so important. In Anselm’s phrase, it is faith seeking understanding. Othodoxy leads to orthopraxis. Right belief leads to right actions.

Many of the struggles of the Anglican communion at the moment are centred on this very thing.

As we use Richard Hooker’s three-legged stool of Scripture, Tradition & Reason, we come up with different answers to the question: how should I act in response to my faith?

We have a guide in conscience, and in the peace of Christ, which is supposed to rule in our hearts and minds. But Scripture warns us that the human conscience can be seared, and that selfish desire can lull our heart into a false sense of peace.

This is why Christianity is essentially a communal faith. We need each other to save us from ourselves, as we try to act out our faith.

So the lives of the saints, and of our brothers and sisters around us and around the world, help to form the content of our faith and encourage us to act on that faith, to ‘taste and see that the Lord is good.’

Occasionally there will be some incident in our life or in the lives of those close to us, which acts as a fillip to our faith. It gives us a sense that God really is there and that our relationship with him is not just wishful thinking. It is never ‘proof’, but it is an encouragement to go on believing.

When I was young, I ran a youth club on a barge on the river Adur in Shoreham. A number of the teenagers became Christians and exhibited that naivety of faith which can often be such an inspiration to us old cynics who’ve seen it all and are more prone to put things down to co-incidence than prayer!

We outgrew the one barge and needed another one. They prayed and we found another barge, floated it and claimed it. We needed timber, pitch pine to be specific. They prayed and the old Palace Pier in Brighton was being scrapped and they gave us all the timber we needed.

And most strangely, we needed coach screws – huge screws for fixing the timbers together. Their faith was all stoked up and they prayed for coach screws. As we went on a Sunday afternoon walk up the riverbank, through the south downs valley, incredibly, we found coach screws in the grass along a hundred yard stretch, far more than we needed.

God had not rained them down like manna from heaven. That would have been a bit irresponsible of the Almighty. They had been thrown there a decade before, by the railwaymen taking up the old Horsham line which was axed in the Beeching cuts, that many of you will remember. Whether co-incidence or not, certainly it was an encouragement to faith.

But what if acting on our faith does not lead to greater blessing, but seems to add to the difficulties of our life. Or what if, however much we believe and pray, the horrors and messiness of life do not go away?

If today’s readings have any common thread, it is, how do you keep faith, when all around you wickedness and chaos seem to go unchecked, and the task ahead of you as a disciple of Jesus Christ seems impossible and unrealistic?

So Habakkuk complains to the Lord: “Why do you tolerate wrong? …The law is paralyzed and justice never prevails!” (1.3f) The Psalm (37) takes up a similar theme.

In the reading from Luke, the disciples begin to grasp the enormity of the Gospel project and ask simply: “Lord increase our faith.” (Lk 17.5)

At the end of Habakkuk’s short prophecy, he sums up the Christian position:

“Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines; though the produce of the olive fails and the fields yield no food; though the flock is cut off from the fold and there is no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation.” (Hab 3.17f)

It was refreshing to hear on the radio this harvest Sunday morning, a farmer whose crops had been decimated by floods, expressing just this same thought.

Acting in faith is a statement that we do believe that God is good; that right will triumph over evil; that saving the world is a project worth giving our life to.

In Stanford’s anthem (at the offertory - see below) based on Habakkuk’s prophecy, you will hear how he turns the gloom into an assertion of faith as we come to the Altar of God.

For every time we come to this Table and taste the food of heaven, we are offering a Eucharist, a thanksgiving for God’s sustaining harvest in our lives.

And we bring our mustard seed of faith, seeking to understand what God is doing in our lives and in our world.

It is not always easy to believe and to shape our actions to our belief, but whenever we come in penitence and faith to the bread and the wine, we can say with honesty:

“Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief.” Mk 9. 24

Offertory Anthem

"For lo I raise up"

Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924)

For lo I raise up that bitter and hasty nation,
Which march thro' the breadth of the earth,
To possess the dwelling places that are not theirs.
They are terrible and dreadful,
Their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves.
Their horses also are swifter than leopards,
And are more fierce than the evening wolves.
And their horsemen spread themselves,
Yea, their horsemen come from far.
They fly as an eagle that hasteth to devour,
They come all of them for violence;
Their faces are set as the east-wind,
And they gather captives as the sand.
Yea, he scoffeth at kings,
And princes are a derision unto him.
For he heapeth up dust and taketh it.
Then shall he sweep by as a wind that shall pass over,
And be guilty,
Even he, whose might is his God.
Art not Thou from everlasting,
O Lord, my God, mine Holy One?
We shall not die.
O Lord, thou hast ordained him for judgment,
And thou, O Rock hast established him for correction.
I will stand upon my watch and set me upon the tower,
And look forth to see what he will say to me,
And what I shall answer concerning my complaint.
And the Lord answered me and said:
The vision is yet for the appointed time,
And it hasteth toward the end, and shall not lie,
Tho' it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come.
For the earth shall be filled
with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord,
As the waters cover the sea.
But the Lord is in his holy temple:
Let all the earth keep silence before Him.

Habakkuk 1.6-12; 2.1, 3. 14, 20