August 3, 2014:  May God’s words alone be spoken, may God’s words alone be heard.  Amen.
It is really great to be back.  I missed you all, and prayed for you all daily while I was away.  Now, in the Sunday Paper, there is a bit about the experience I was on – our diocesan trip to Taize, but I want to tell you a bit more, because it relates to one of the passages we heard today.
About Taizé itself…it is located in Eastern France, about 5 hours SE of Paris.  The Community is made up of over a hundred brothers both Roman Catholics and Protestants, seeking to live as their website says, as “a sign of reconciliation between divided Christians and between separated peoples.”  Over the years, young adults have been coming to Taizé in ever greater numbers; coming from every continent to take part in weekly meetings.”  The week we went there were over 3,400 people, most of them young adults or high schoolers. Church leaders regular come to Taizé, with the community welcoming Pope John Paul II, four Archbishops of Canterbury, Orthodox metropolitans, the fourteen Lutheran bishops of Sweden, and countless pastors from all over the world, including yours truly.  On a visit to the community in 1986, Pope John Paul II spoke to the young people there, saying “(…) Like you, pilgrims and friends of the community, the pope is only passing through. But one passes through Taizé as one passes close to a spring of water. The traveller stops, quenches his thirst and continues on his way.”
“…as one passes close to a spring of water…”
Each day, we worshiped, using the meditative chants that are sung in all different languages – we sang in Slavonic, Polish, German, Spanish, Italian, you name it, we likely sang in it.  In fact, I even went to daily song practice.  Now, I avoided it at first, not be a great sight reader, I said to a fellow traveler “I really don’t want to work that hard at it.”  But, one of my bible study group members Renata, who is from Croatia, asked me to go…so I went, and along the way, she told me a story about another time in song practice when, as we did then, she was sitting in the alto section and along came a few young boys who sat down next to some of the young girls.  The choir director, a funny and joyful sister of the community, turned and asked them “Excuse me, but are you altos?”  Startled, they replied, “No, we are Catholics!”  Something got a bit lost in translation I suspect.
And that is the miracle of the place…thousands of people, young people (and some adults) from different countries/languages/cultures/and choir sections, all together singing praises to God, studying together the Word of God, working together, and not much was lost in translation, because the Holy Spirit worked through it all.  Each day during the week, our diocesan group would gather and share the signs of God’s grace we encountered that day – in our times of worship, study, work, play, or personal reflection…it was, beyond a doubt, a most transformative experience at that “spring of water.”
And this morning, we are hearing of another transformative experience beside a body of water…the story of Jacob at Jabbock.  Now, this is a great story in and of itself, but without placing it in the context of the entire story of Jacob, it loses something.
So let me just give you the cliff notes version of this story…[Tell story of Jacob – name means heel…grabs heel, trickster (Esau, Isaac, Laban), Rachel/Leah, home again and rut rho…Esau and the 400).  So that brings us up to today, where Jacob is alone at night and has an encounter with God.  Now, this isn’t the first time Jacob has had a strange nighttime engagement with the divine.  The first was at Bethel, commonly known to many a Sunday school class as Jacob’s ladder.  God promises Jacob all that was promised to Abraham, and after this Jacob says to God, if you give me all of these things you have promised me God, than hey “I’m your guy. Seriously – I’ll even cut you in for 10%.”  Hmmm…not exactly what I suspect God wants to hear.
Here he is now though, about to meet up with his past in the form of his brother.  All the cheating, lying, tricking…he is about to meet his maker…and then – he does!
Now, another Isaac, not Jacob’s dad, but Sir Isaac Newton, the physicist, once said as his first law of motion: “Everything continues in a state of rest unless it is compelled to change by forces impressed upon it.”  Yes, well it would seem that some mighty powerful force is about to impress a few things on Jacob, and set forth a whole lot of motion in the form of change.
And here Jacob is laying alone beside this river, knowing that in the days to come, perhaps even as soon as the next morning, he will meet up with his brother Esau and the 400…and along comes a man appears who wrestles with him until it is almost dawn.  In an ironic twist, it is Jacob who is the victim of foul play, as his mysterious adversary gives him one below the belt – knocking out his hip.  And we end up with dawn approaching and no clear winner of this odd battle.  So often we look at the text here and say that Jacob prevailed so that means he won!  He beat God!
In the adult bible study this week at Taize we followed and reflected on the story of Jacob – the whole story, and in this part of it, Br. John, our leader, pointed out that a learned Rabbi had said that this translation of “prevailed” is not a good one.  It is more accurately “to be able,” meaning that he remained whole.  “Victory is found in continuing the journey,” says Br. John.  And I would add that God would not defeat us – we are God’s beloved children and no parent would seek to defeat their child.  And, we cannot defeat God, let alone fully comprehend all that God is, so there was no “prevailing,” – a tie was inevitable.
So what was the point?  Why did God wrestle with Jacob in the first place.  One could argue that it was not God at all, but Jacob wrestling with himself.  That, his impending reunion with his brother Esau was like a mirror being held up to him – revealing who he was, and he didn’t like what he saw.  I think that is a great way to look at this story, because often times, in fact I would argue that always, are greatest battles are with our own demons.
But there are also times in our lives where we wrestle with God, or perhaps our understanding of how God is supposed to work in our lives.  This is especially true when difficult things happen in our lives, right?
Whether or not he was wrestling with God, or wresting with his soul, he comes out of the experience a changed man.  He is wounded physically, he is given a rightly inherited blessing, and a new name – a new identity – a fresh start.  No longer Jacob, the heel, he is transformed.  And he names the place Peniel – face of God.
But, as listeners of the lectionary on Sundays, we are robbed of the fullness of this transformation, because in the verses before and after this text, none of which make it into the readings for this week, last week, or next week, the fullness of what is happening is revealed.
As we know, when he prayed after encountering God at Bethel, his prayer was all about what God could do for him.  But, just before this encounter at Jabbock, he prayed again, this time that he might be delivered from his fate with his brother, and he acknowledges to God in that prayer that he is too little for all that God has given to him.  What a change! Jacob has grown up!  Which leads me to wonder if that is what really led to his experience at Jabbock.
Even more telling is what happens after this fight at Jabbock.  Jacob, the transformed weaseling, conniving, trickster, sets out to meet his brother.  And completely out of character, doesn’t hide behind his people, but walks ahead of them, bowing seven times as they neared Esau and his men.  Esau sees his brother approaching and runs to meet him…and you know what happens?  Esau embraces and kisses his brother.  And Jacob himself recognizes what has happened, and says “truly to see your face is like seeing the face of God—since you have received me with such favour.”  There it is again – face of God.  He sees the face of God at Jabbock, and in his brother.  And like those famous lines from Les Miserable, Jacob comes to understand that “to love another person is to see the face of God.”  You don’t have to fight, trick, scheme, or anything else.  You just have to love – and allow yourself to be loved.
I think our encounters with God are often like those of Jacob -we wrestle, we are transformed, and we experience grace.   Jacob certainly did.  “The story of the wrestling match tells us much about Jacob, about the man he was, and about the man he becomes. It is also, of course, a parable of the nation Israel. Israel is the nation that wrestles with God. She holds on to God fiercely, even when God seems absent or uncaring.”  Certainly they have struggled as a people – persecuted, yet still faithful to God.  And yet in the news today, Israel is also a country – a country at war with the people of Gaza.  Senseless killing on both sides, with no end in sight.  And, unfortunately, that is not the only fighting in the world, as we are all very much aware.
And that brings me back to Taize…there were people there from Ukraine and The Netherlands, from Palestine and Israel, from Iraq and the United States – singing, praying, eating, working, living, and studying together.  It was transformative for us all, and while we do not have a limp to show for it, and our names were not changed, we, like Jacob, were all marked in a very real way by the experience.  And that is something all of us as Christians can claim…because we are marked and named in baptism in no less a way as Jacob was.
Jacob leaves Jabbock with a broken hip.  There was in his very walk a sign of God for all the world to see, and in his changed behavior, there it was again.  Now imagine a world where the first thing people notice about us is that we are filled with God’s grace, and see Christ in one another, most especially the marginalized.  I sometimes wonder how we might all act if in our baptism, we were marked not only with oil, but with some sort of visible scar – like Harry Potter – like Jacob’s hip.  See, people likely noticed Jacob – his physical change, yes, but also the change in who he was.  And when they noticed, he had a story to tell.
Remember the quote by Pope John Paul II when he experienced Taize, he said “one passes through Taizé as one passes close to a spring of water.  The traveller stops, quenches his thirst and continues on his way.”  That’s the key, isn’t it…The traveller doesn’t linger, but moves on!!  But, the pontiff continued saying… “The brothers of the community, you know, do not want to keep you. They want, in prayer and silence, to enable you to drink the living water promised by Christ, to know his joy, to discern his presence, to respond to his call, then to set out again to witness to his love and to serve your brothers and sisters in your parishes, your schools, your universities, and in all your places of work.”
And I pray that in some real abiding sense, it is what happens here every Sunday.  We come here to taste that spring of water – the body and blood of Christ – and we do it in community as we did at Taize.  But it is not for this spring of water that we live – but for carrying this out into the world.
To carry peace into a world at war.
To carry hope into a world in despair.
To carry love into a world in pain.
The gift of blessing and new life given to Jacob is ours as well as children of God.  The question is, what will we do with that gift?
Amen.

Note: The sermon as written may not be as delivered on any given Sunday.

The Rev. Diana Wilcox
Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge
August 3, 2014
Pent 8, Proper 13 – Year A – Track 1
1st Reading – Genesis 32:22-31
Psalm 17: 1-7, 16
2nd Reading – Romans 9:1-5
Gospel – Matthew 14:13-21