God Who Touches

I’m getting a lot of mileage out of Genesis 32:24-32 this week:

“So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, ‘Let me go, for it is daybreak.’

But Jacob replied, ‘I will not let you go unless you bless me.’

The man asked him, ‘What is your name?’

‘Jacob,’ he answered.

Then the man said, ‘Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.’

 Jacob said, ‘Please tell me your name.”’

But he replied, ‘Why do you ask my name?’ Then he blessed him there.

So Jacob called the place Peniel (which means face of God) saying, ‘It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.’

The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip” (NIV).

Jacob wrestles with God—Undoubtedly, one of the weirdest passages of Scripture… ever…  And yet it is packed with all kinds of important discussion material: Calling, Blessing, Free Agency, Naming, Struggle, Injury, and Scars.

There may not be a better passage that deals with identity, and that’s saying something, because so much of Scripture is about living into who we are as the people of God.  If you know anything at all about Jacob’s story, you also know that he had a hard time with this from the very moment he was born, clinging to his twin brother’s foot! 

For his entire life, Jacob has wanted to be someone he is not, and I think it’s interesting that God connects this struggle to a new identity.  We’ll get to that, but let’s also think for a moment about how very physical this struggle is.  It’s tempting to ‘over spiritualize’ in such a way that we compartmentalize and fail to interact with God holistically.  That’s part of why I’ve taken so much time to work through this series on God and our senses.  It would be so much easier to back God into a corner where nothing ‘real’ ever happens… where we only have to think good spiritual thoughts a couple of times per week in order to be disciples… where God stays in God’s place, and that certainly isn’t in our actual space. 

But we have a God who touches…

In Jacob’s narrative, it’s not so gently, either!  Sure, in the end Jacob wins.  God doesn’t force us to do anything (see: free will), and Jacob seems to have chosen this wrestling match, even refusing to let go!  Yet he doesn’t walk away unscathed.  In fact, he walks away limping.  There is pain involved.   

I recently got into something of a debate (although that wasn’t my intent) about whether or not our feelings matter.  I would say yes.  I would say our feelings are often an extension of our experience, and it is difficult to argue that something is untrue if there is a firsthand account.  I wasn’t trying to imply that feelings are more important than facts, but I was trying to make it clear that truth can be found in both and that feelings hold more weight than data, like it or not.  I am not a fan of the phrase, “perception is reality,” because perception can certainly be skewed, and I guess I have had enough encounters with people who spin lies to be wary of allowing just any perceived story to stand, but there is no doubt that perception is influential and that misperception must be gently and lovingly corrected in order to avoid disaster. 

To claim that our feelings (physical, emotional, mental, social) have no place in relationship to theology and spirituality is to deny our humanity.  If humanity wasn’t on God’s radar, I’m not sure why Jesus was fully human. 

In this passage about Jacob, God touches him.  God wrenches him.  God breaks him.  It hurts!  That seems awful.

There’s a part of me that wants to say, “Well, at least God let him win,” but there’s another part of me that finds it astounding that, after this battle that lasts all night long, God asks Jacob to let go; and when he doesn’t, God calls Jacob an overcomer and blesses him with a new name that he might actually be able to live into. 

Hebrew parents were serious about naming their kids.  Jacob literally means, “he grasps the heel,” and that’s a Hebrew idiom for, “he deceives.”  This is exactly who Jacob has been for his entire life up to this point, but God renames Jacob after this very long and exhausting night that leaves him broken and limping (and I have to imagine feeling physically and emotionally spent).  God renames him Israel, which means, “He struggles with God,” and then God chooses Israel to be God’s very own people.

How crazy is that?

Well, maybe not that crazy.  Don’t we tend to be closest to the people who touch us deeply?  Another phrase for which I have no affinity is, “We hurt the ones we love the most” (double meaning… can’t even figure out how to make a comma help it read one way or the other), but I can’t say there isn’t some truth to it.  Significant relationships can cause pain, even accidentally, because we are always touching.

God has used struggling people from the beginning.  Don’t let go.  Be blessed.

L.

My Heart Hurts

I’m honestly not sure how much more my heart can take, this week.  It is raw.

It’s Sacramental Saturday at FGT, and I am dumbfounded, because I spent hours, yesterday, worshipping with people from my tribe who are deeply devoted to worship that includes (and is very often centered around) the Eucharistic meal and the grace it imparts, instituted by Jesus, commanded of us if we seek to both properly remember his death and go out, filled with his life.

This morning, one of the first things I saw was an angry message indicating that I do not, in fact, respect or take the Catholic Church seriously, because I participate in the Eucharist.  After doing my very best to answer this concern with grace and love, I just sat down and cried (OK…  let’s be real…  I didn’t actually wait to cry.  I cried as I typed the response.  Then I cried some more.  And some more.  And some more.)

I would think that I’m pretty close to out of tears, but they just keep coming.  Some have been good: Some have been terrible.  At the very least, the floodgates are damaged, but I am beginning to think they have washed away, altogether.

But at least I’m broken.  It’s necessary if we want to be like Jesus.

L.

Put this Mud in Your Eyes... Rinse... Repeat

I had this sort of humorous, kind of ironic moment, last week, when I wrote the wrong commentary!  However, it was the right commentary for today, so there's that...  John 9...

***

We all struggle with the problem of evil—particularly in light of pain and suffering, perhaps most visibly when the pain and suffering are unmerited.  We want answers.  When we read about “a man blind from birth,”[i] we want to know why.  But we’re not looking for medical explanations.  The question is not how did this happen but, instead, why does the world have to be this way.

Historically, the religious community had it all figured out.  Pain and suffering were the result of sin.  Even today, many religious communities offer the same answer.  Pain and suffering are consequences of the fall.  Humanity somehow deserves this anguish.  Suck it up and realize that this is the way the world works.  Admittedly, sometimes this makes sense.

But in this case?  When we’re presented with a man who was blind before he took his first breath?  What could he have possibly done to deserve such a lot?  Did he sin?  Was it his parents?  The disciples are working from a cut-and-dried, cause-and-effect philosophy.  It certainly affects their theodicy, which in turn affects their theology.  Lucky for them, God incarnate is standing in their midst.  Perhaps Jesus can clear this up, since he’s right there.   

Jesus immediately offers some incredibly upside-down teaching.  The Pharisees, and even the disciples, assume that the blind man is steeped in sin from birth, or at the very least his parents have caused this great calamity, because this is all they’ve ever known.  But Jesus sees this altogether differently.  In fact, as this passage comes to a close, Jesus declares, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.”[ii] Well, that surely throws a wrench in things…

Jesus takes a severe deficit and turns it into an asset.  Being born blind is not the problem.  Jesus can work with that: Jesus can even squeeze something good out of it (and he does).  As the disciples seek the rationale behind this tragedy, Jesus redirects their attention to the ways in which, “the works of God might be displayed…”[iii]  

I got a little caught up in verses 3-5… and I didn’t originally write about this in the commentary, but I think it’s something worth talking about.

We have these words, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”[iv]

And then Jesus goes on with the miraculous healing.

I read in another commentary that in verse three, there may be an ellipsis, and I use ellipses ad nauseam in my writing, so this struck a chord.  If that’s the case, instead of, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him,” we might have, “but this happened (dot… dot… dot… ellipsis… appropriate pause, wait for it…) Jesus takes a deep breath and continues, “so… that the works of God might be displayed in him…” and then the rest.

It’s not necessarily a cause and effect statement.  Instead, this may be Jesus giving voice to the fact that genuine evil, suffering, and pain are present in the world, but this is not orchestrated by God.  Instead, these things exist outside of what God actually wants, but God is still somehow able to bring some good out of them.

The man is blind.  OK.  God can heal that.  Here’s some dirt and some spit (perhaps reminiscent of God’s creative work in the beginning).  Go wash yourself (oh, that I had time to consider how this might relate to baptism and initiation into the people of God).  Sight…  Restoration… Redemption…  It’s all there.  But, of course, this is not the end of the story.  The trouble has just begun… 

In truth, on the heels of this beautiful account of renewal, the rest of John 9 is at least a little bit exasperating!

The fact that the Pharisees don’t believe the previously blind man’s story is par for the course, albeit frustrating.  This is the way of the Pharisees, who are often portrayed as attempting to catch people in their words, to manipulate the narrative.  It should come as no great surprise to us when the Pharisees question the man about Jesus and determine this miraculous act must not be ascribed to God.  We should expect the Pharisees to attempt to discredit the man and his story, his very identity.    

But neighbors who have presumably known this blind beggar for his entire life are suddenly unsure whether or not it is him, at all!  It’s somehow easier to believe he might be a completely different person than to accept a miraculous account.  And the previously blind man’s own parents?  We are told that they are afraid.[v]  Undoubtedly, they have already lost much, because the Jewish community has likely blamed their son’s affliction on the sins of the parents.  They can’t risk being kicked out of the Synagogue, altogether.  The people (the blind man’s people!) go silent.    

The man who has been healed, however, takes the chance.  His experience with Jesus speaks to the truth of who Jesus is, which is, ironically, exactly what the Pharisees ask for when they assert that he must, “Give glory to God by telling the truth,” (δὸς δόξαν τῷ Θεῷ).[vi]  In the Greek language used here, the Pharisees are not looking for praise or adoration of God but for a factual account, a truthful testimony.  Later, Jesus will allude to the issue of spiritual blindness, but as I re-read this passage I stopped to wonder whether the problem might be more directly linked to ears than eyes.  The Pharisees refuse to listen to the report for which they asked.  Although it is difficult to argue with first hand encounters, it is not impossible.  They can claim that the man lied.  They can claim that the work of Jesus is outside the scope of what may be acceptably accomplished on the Sabbath.  But they cannot take the man’s newfound sight.  His sight is worth alienation from those who blamed him for his own suffering.  In the end, he is rejected, but having lived his whole life as a blind beggar, this is nothing new.  He can see!  The Pharisaical religious community has nothing to offer him that trumps this new reality.

The man’s final words to the Pharisees speak volumes regarding who now has the upper hand:     

            

            Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he 

            opened my eyes.  We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to 

            the godly person who does his will.  Nobody has ever heard of opening the 

            eyes of a man born blind.  If this man were not from God, he could do 

            nothing.[vii]

The Pharisees have lost their power in this man’s life.  Even though they subsequently insult him, judge him, and kick him out; it hardly matters.  When Jesus hears about the man’s rejection, he finds him.  Jesus cares about his story.  Jesus has already made a remarkable difference in the man’s life.  The Pharisees didn’t listen to him, but God did.  Their claims are void.    

So, back to the problem of evil…

We don’t partner with God to alleviate the pain and suffering in the world when we neglect to listen to the other; to attentively discern who is speaking, what he or she has experienced, what great needs exist, and what we might learn from their narratives.  In this passage, Jesus offers us the ultimate example of how to work redemptively in the world.  Perhaps the next time we are tempted to ask, “Why does the world have to be this way,” we should consider an alternative. 

Perhaps we are the answer… not the cause, but the solution—God’s agents of change, working together to realize the inbreaking Kingdom. 

L.

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[i] John 9:1 (NIV)

[ii] John 9:41 (emphasis mine)

[iii] John 9:3

[iv] John 9:3-5

[v] See John 9:22

[vi] John 9:24

[vii] John 9:31-33

Prosperity Makes Me Uncomfortable

Deuteronomy 30:1-9 was part of the daily office, today.  I read it and thought to myself, “There is nothing here that I can blog.  This makes me feel uncomfortable.”

I struggle with the concept of turning to God (or turning back to God) in an attempt to gain stuff.  I know that’s not actually the point of this passage of Scripture, but I can see how it might be easily manipulated to look that way.  Follow God… be prosperous and numerous and wealthy, and even watch as curses are poured down on your enemies!

I can’t rally.

But there was this little gem, buried in the middle of it all…

“The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live” (v. 6).

I’m pretty sure circumcision of the heart is painful.  If we take the word at face value, we find ourselves talking about the cutting away of a layer that protects, that might even hide our vulnerability.  It’s bloody and messy.  It hurts and exposes. 

And this is what leads to love and life?

Well, OK…

I mean, that’s all I really want anyway… which makes me think it might qualify as prosperous…

 
L.