Genesis 32: 22-32

The same night he [Jacob] 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 will 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. Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the thigh muscle that is on the hip socket, because he struck Jacob on the hip socket at the thigh muscle.

Matthew 9: 16-17

No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak, for the patch pulls away from the cloak, and a worse tear is made. Neither is new wine put into old wineskins; otherwise, the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins are destroyed; but new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.

John 3: 1-8 (from "The Message" A paraphrase rendering of the Bible by retired Presbyterian pastor, Eugene Peterson)

There was a man of the Pharisee sect, Nicodemus, a prominent leader among the Jews. Late one night he visited Jesus and said, "Rabbi, we all know you're a teacher straight from God. No one could do all the God-pointing, God-revealing acts you do if God weren't in on it."

Jesus said, "You're absolutely right. Take it from me: Unless a person is born from above, it's not possible to see what I'm pointing to--to God's kingdom."

"How can anyone," said Nicodemus, "be born who has already been born and grown up? You can't re-enter your mother's womb and be born again. What are you saying with this 'born-from-above' talk?

Jesus said, "You're not listening. Let me say it again. Unless a person submits to this original creation--the 'wind hovering over the water' creation, the invisible moving the visible, a baptism into a new life--it's not possible to enter God's kingdom. When you look at a baby, it's just that: a body you can look at and touch. But the person who takes shape within is formed by something you can't see and touch--the Spirit--and becomes a living spirit.

"So don't be so surprised when I tell you that you have to be 'born from above'--out of this world, so to speak. You know well enough how the wind blows this way and that. You hear it rustling through the trees, but you have no idea where it comes from or where it's headed next. That's the way it is with everyone 'born from above' by the wind of God, the Spirit of God."

Sermon Text

When I was about thirteen or so, when my body was changing quickly, quickly, quickly, I awoke one night with an excruciating pain in my hip. Scared, I eased out of bed and limped to report this agony to my father, who was still up. He listened carefully as I described what it felt like. I saw his eyes soften and wrinkle ever so slightly at the corners, the way eyes do when there is a smile coming; only he didn't smile. He just said serenely: "Don't worry, Tom. It's a growing pain. It'll pass. Go back to bed. You'll be all right in the morning. I figured this must have happened to him once, so I trusted the voice of experience. And he was right. It was just a growing pain--by the morning, gone.

This morning I bid you to think about growing pains, not those caused by the maturing of our bodies, but rather, those caused by the maturing of our minds and our hearts and our souls. In our reading from Genesis, Jacob--who earlier in this saga tricked his father and cheated his older brother to get ahead--this conniver and manipulator, Jacob (which in Hebrew means "the supplanter") is backed up to a wall of sorts. His older brother Esau, surely enraged and looking to get even, is bearing down upon him and is about to overtake him at the river Jabbok. Jacob knows he has to face this hairy hulk of a brother; and if he is to make peace with him, must also come to grips with his own past, admit who he, Jacob, has really been; and somehow make peace with all of that too, and move on.

That night Jacob wrestles with a man sent from God. Whether in a dream, or waking, the story doesn't say; but in some fashion Jacob wrestles all night long with God as it were, tossing and turning, gasping and grasping, trying to make sense of who Jacob has been right on up to this river, and who he's supposed to be on the other side, if indeed he gets there. Oh, to be a fly on the wall of Jacob's dream, or to have a front row seat at that riverbank and overhear Jacob's struggle!

"Didn't you want me to trick Esau, God? Wasn't that your plan? Mama sure saw it that way. I was doing it all for you, God, honestly. All for you! And now, you want to kill me for doing what I thought was your will? God, that isn't fair!"

That's how I imagine Jacob struggling, trying to defend himself, trying to save face in the eyes of his maker. "Didn't you make me do this, God? Didn't you? It's not my fault, God, this rift with my brother. It's yours!"

The wrestler doesn't say much to Jacob. He remains mostly silent as he rolls with Jacob's every lunge, absorbing his anger and giving nothing extraordinary back, not even his name. Isn't that so like God: mostly silent and enigmatic, especially when our backs are against some wall. God never takes the blame. God won't save us by letting us off the hook. But if we're up to it, God will wrestle with us, and help us take responsibility for who we have been, and where we are going.

Consider what happened in the Bible story. The man in Jacob's night wouldn't do what Jacob wanted him to do. He wouldn't excuse Jacob's behavior. Instead, he wrestled with Jacob, forcing him to find answers to his own nagging questions. Jacob wanted to make peace with his past by lying to himself, by claiming that deceiving his father and cheating his brother wasn't really his idea. It was all God's idea, and he was simply God's pawn. But no, the man in the night would not be Jacob's fall guy. He refused to take responsibility for Jacob's past. Instead, he struggled with Jacob; and through that struggle Jacob received a blessing.

Notice, the blessing did not come without pain. Jacob limped after struggling with the wrestler in his night. I have a friend who is now a professor of worship. That friend, Heather Elkins, used to write marvelous Biblically based plays and poems when we were campus pastors at Duke University. One of her plays was based on the story of Jacob's wrestling with God. I'll never forget what she wrote at the end of that drama. She wrote: "Israel, Israel, the name for any Jew who limps with the blessing of God."

That line called to my attention that this story is not just about one man. Rather, it's a story that can apply to virtually anyone. Jacob received a new name as his reward for wrestling with God and finally taking responsibility for his past and his future. That new name was 'Israel'. It would become the name of a whole nation of people who acknowledged a covenant with God, a covenant that bound the conscience of each and every person in the nation. So, Jacob's struggle with God is by no means unique. It is every human's struggle who acknowledges responsibility for himself or herself in the eyes of God.

Understanding this story as the story of a whole people and not just one man's story means that you can take things from it and apply them to your own life. Sadly it's often true that believers try to use God as their fall guy. Have you ever done that? "I'm not responsible, God. It was all your idea, not mine. You called, and I obeyed." That's such an easy ploy, right? People of the Big Easy, America, please listen up: It's so easy for pious people to become self-righteous, and excuse their reprehensible behavior, as Jacob tried to do, saying it's all a part of God's plan. That's too, too easy, my brothers and sisters. Why, folk have been doing that long before Jacob's time. It's a common creaturely ploy. But there's a stubborn, compassionate Creator who, if we have even a wee bit of conscience yet unfettered by self, will wrestle with us in the dark night of our souls, and not let us off 'til we be blessed with a limp.

Yes, I said blessed. For you see, a limp may be taken as a sign that you are maturing. My Dad said, "Don't worry Tom. It's a growing pain." That relieved me. I could go back to sleep even though the pain persisted, because I experienced it not as a symptom of some frightful affliction, but rather as a sign that I was growing up; and I did so want to grow up! Later I would discover that there are growing pains of several sorts, not just physical, but mental, and spiritual too. You can't mature without some pain. When your body matures, whether you are a teenager or a senior citizen, it hurts. And when your mind and spirit grow, and you come to a river that you can't ford or swim without leaving some old and familiar baggage behind, it hurts to leave it, not knowing just how you will fare without it on the other side.

There is pain associated with finding a new, right container for the still-growing self. I think that's what Jesus was getting at when he said that new wine can't be put in old wine skins. New, fermenting wine will explode the old containers. New wine has to be put in new skins. My, but it's a pain, though, fashioning new skins! Can't we just stay in our old ones? Some scribe expressed precisely that feeling when he appended a line to Jesus' unsettling teaching, (Luke 5:39) which says: "And no one after drinking old wine desires new wine, but says, "The old is good.'" That scribe's solution to the pain of growing is: No need for new containers if you stick to the good old wine. So please, give me that old time religion, he implies. It's much better, because it doesn't threaten to bust the old skins. That's not what Jesus taught, though, seems to me. He taught that growing is painful. The gospel of God's kingdom is new wine, fermenting wine, powerful wine, explosive wine. It requires new skins, and new skins don't come easy. So, there will be pain in growing. But you needn't lose sleep over it. Take it as a sign of your maturing toward your truer self, your God-self. Take your limp as a blessing. Morning is dawning, and with it, a new day.