I was travelling down a dirt road last Thursday in a rush to
get to the Woodbury farm. Some of you
folks know where that is, a mere 20 minute drive away, across the river past
the golf course. Well, it’s been a few
years since I had been there last and Tim was the one who drove out more
often. Anyway, I miscalculated and found
the road to be muddy and slick from snow or frost or maybe a combination of
both. And I was not comfortable in
driving my tiny car 80 klicks an hour.
The slower I went, the later I got and the more nervous I felt.
Just when I thought my turn-off was close, a pick-up truck
whose driver was much more used to country roads than me, came barrelling down
the middle, charging straight at me, scattering mud as they approached. I was so busy trying to make sure I wouldn’t
hit the truck or the ditch that I completely missed my turnoff and the next
thing I knew, I was at an intersection I had never seen before, and the road
ahead was marked with the ominous sign, ‘dead end!
Well, the only sensible thing to do was to pull a u-turn and
retrace my steps. It was closer than I
thought and I soon was greeting old friends that I hadn’t seen in far too long!
Sometimes the only way forward is to turn around and go back
the way you came. Jacob was in that
exact situation. He had come to an
impasse with Laban; after dashing away with his sheep and his wives, Laban
chased him down and accused him of theft and cowardice. The two men decided that good fences make
good neighbours, to erect a stone to remind them on whose side of the border
they were on and that the trickery and scams would stop between them.
That still left Jacob with the difficult quandary; where to
go from here. His uncle had scammed him
repeatedly and he discovered how much that hurt. So it was time to make a u-turn and go back
to where he had come from. That was a
problem, because while Laban had scammed Jacob of wages, Jacob had scammed Esau
of his rights! Now Jacob could have
tried a con, but instead he chose to be honest.
He chose to recognize that he was afraid of Esau and what his brother
might do. And that night he couldn’t
sleep.
Tossing and turning about what he might face in the
morning. I imagine there are some lucky
folks who never experienced that, but I have never met them. If you are one of those lucky folks, please
come teach me how! There he was, facing
every incident, every conversation he had with his brother, and coming to the
realization that only the truth would set him free. Our scriptures talk about the fruit of the
Spirit being love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness,
gentleness and self-control. One could
call that being grown-up, but it is not easy to be all those things when
feeling so afraid.
Jacob did what any alcoholic would do who knows their twelve
steps. Confess his life was out of
control, ask God for help, then a small but not insignificant step of doing
what they call an inventory of themselves, a searching exploration of all the wrongs
and hurts they had dealt other people, a deep confession of their failings and
shortcomings. A vigorous wrestling with
their conscious, their ego, their need to be right no matter what. That step, which we practise in part every
time we join in saying a confession on a Sunday morning, is the kind of reality
check that can leave a man limping for life.
It is a constant reminder that maybe just maybe we could do better by
our fellow human beings. That maybe just
maybe the con game when we pretend that we are always in the right and everyone
else is wrong is just that, and the only ones we are conning are ourselves.
One psychologist says that there are two kinds of people,
wise people and foolish people. When
wise people encounter something difficult, they learn from it. They hear a truth about the world or
themselves and they change because of it.
Foolish people hear a truth and ignore it or pretend it doesn’t apply to
them and they don’t learn anything. They
deny, blame, or make excuses for their behaviour. Of course the reality is that there is only
one kind of person. We are all Jacobs
stuck with nights of wrestling with angels of truths. Sometimes we listen to the angels and grow,
and sometimes we ignore the angels and don’t.
I made excuses for being late. Did you hear them? I underestimated the time it would take to
arrive, I blamed the muddy roads and the speeding truck. All that could have been avoided if I had
made an accurate assessment of the time and the weather. Sometimes the road is bad, sometimes it’s
not. Will I learn from it, sure hope
so. But the good news is there was love
and forgiveness at the end of the journey.
That was what Jacob so dearly needed from the angel. But he didn’t just get that, he got a whole
new identity, wrestling God. No more
heel grabber. Wrestling God. Powerful.
Sometimes wrestling with God, sometimes wrestling for God. And it’s his name that came down the ages and
still exists today in a country of independence. Now that’s change!
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