A Divine Kick in the "Hip Socket"

Genesis 32:22-31

The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had.

Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.” The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.

ALL change, transformation, new life, recovery, growth, healing… all of it… and not just the religious bits… ALL OF IT... happens by way of death and resurrection. It happens all around us every day in ways we often hardly even notice and then it also happens in ways we can’t possibly ignore, even if we wanted to. It happens in the simple things like going to sleep and rising in the morning to a new day. It happens out in nature every year as the trees change into vibrant shades of reds and yellows, mottled browns and tangerine orange and then, in a fiery, swirling, show… they let go of life for the winter, always to rise again in the spring. It happens when we end a career and begin a new life in retirement. It happens when we surrender ourselves in an operating room and then wake in recovery. It happens when we are finally able to move through an old trauma, forgive the ones who hurt us, and rise to a new life no longer needing to carry that old grudge. It happens in our Christian Sacraments when we die to sin in the waters of baptism and rise to new life in Christ and when in the Eucharist we say together, “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.” And of course it happens in that one monument-raising-moment that comes for every single one of us when we physically die.  For that one, we try very hard to believe from this side of that death, to trust that we will indeed rise in glory to the fullness of eternal life.

But there’s the rub, isn’t it? On this side we can only TRUST that to be true. We can’t ever be fully certain, can we? We only see now through the glass dimly, as Paul says. THEN we’ll see face to face… but NOW isn’t THEN, is it?! And because NOW is not THEN and I can’t clearly see the… “THEN”... I, at least, tend to NOT approach change, transformation, new life, recovery or growth with the fiery, flamboyant, confident show with which the trees make it all look so easy. I don’t let go of the old as easily as the trees let go of their leaves. I’ve been in situations that were far less than wonderful… some were even horrible… but they were KNOWN! To give up the KNOWN, even a horrible known, for only the HOPE of something better… what if it’s worse!? I can see that death and resurrection is the way God designed creation to work but, dear Lord, was the “death” part of all that really necessary? Can’t we do it another, less painful, less scary, less unknown, less... deadly way?

That’s what wrestling with God looks like. God told Jacob to go back home and face the brother he had cheated out of everything. God told Jacob to die to his former scheming ways and rise to the new life of a healed relationship. God told Jacob to go through the waters of the Jabbok river and let the person he had been up to that moment, FULL-ON-DROWN, and then rise up on the other shore into a new life. Jacob wasn’t so sure. His brother was big. Really big! Jacob had been a big jerk.  A really big jerk!  So he approached the river without any confidence it would work out.  Then there in the middle of the river, Jacob met God and Jacob told God for an entire night, just how God should REALLY have the world work! Death and resurrection was a TERRIBLE idea, Jacob told God. The death part is scary and unknown and sometimes VERY painful. God had CLEARLY made a mistake, Jacob told God, and when God saw that Jacob would not let go of what was… would not stop fighting no matter what, God kicked him right in the “hip-socket” and yes, Virginia, it was not the “hip-socket”… It was indeed the “HIP-SOCKET” and low-blow and behold, after that… Jacob stopped fighting God.

One of the great bits of wisdom from this story is the truth that God created creation to work by way of Death and Resurrection and is sticking with it! The irony is that even though Jacob fought that truth and did NOT win his argument, MANY of us still insist on continuing Jacob’s argument with God about it even to this day! I do it.  I have wrestled with God over God’s “death and resurrection” plan… more than once! In each of those fights, I too have left the fight with a Divine kick to the hip-socket, limping into the new life God was determined I have... And determined God is! DETERMINED to get you and me and all of creation all the way THROUGH… EVERY SINGLE ONE of those changes, transformations, deaths, growths and recoveries we face and bring us into a new and abundant life AND GOD WILL DO WHATEVER IT TAKES to get us there!

We do have some say in God’s death and resurrection plan though. We can take the beautiful reminder that the trees give us every autumn, and approach each of life’s changes, transformations, deaths and opportunities for growth and recovery with a flurry of color and a beautiful release of what was, confident that the promise of new life and spring will come... AND spring does ALWAYS come... OR we can choose to fight and wrestle and struggle against each of those changes, transformations, deaths and opportunities for growth and recovery with the God who decided Death and Resurrection IS how the world is going to work and end up… still on the other side, mind you… but with our “hip-sockets” out of joint and a very painful, lingering, limp.

Either way God IS GETTING us to the other side, either as a beautiful dance partner full of color and light or by whatever means it might take, up to and including a Divine kick to the ol’ Hip Socket! EITHER WAY we get there God will bless us. EITHER WAY it happens we will be transformed into a new creation. Because you see, God is perfectly WILLING to do anything it takes to get us there, but God is totally UNWILLING to just leave us to settle for anything less than a new, abundant, and eternal life. Amen.