Pentecost 10, year A, 2026

We’ve been jumping all over the place with our readings and sermons lately, but one theme I’ve noted seems to be that this is the year of my favorite readings.  Today we get another one.  Jacob wrestling.  Jacob is one of my favourite people in the bible…he is not the most savoury of characters, he is a trickster, cunning and ambitious, but loveable in his own way.

             Jacob’s whole life had been a struggle, even before he was born Jacob and his twin Esau fought in the womb and when they were born Jacob was grasping his brothers heel.   So, he is called the ‘grasper’ Jacob, and he spends his whole life living up to his name.  However, in today’s reading Jacob is given a new name reflecting his struggles, Jacob the grasper is renamed Israel, “he who struggles with God”.

Names carried a lot of weight in ancient times.  Your name told people not just what to call you, but who you were, who you are related to, where you came from and perhaps what you family thought of you.  Think of the names that we have and what they mean about us…Mc’s, and  Mac’s,  tell you what clan your ancestors came from.  Perhaps your name says where you are from or what your family’s trade used to be…like Cooper or London.   Some names explain what your family saw in you…like Hope or Joy.

Biblically your name told people your identity, your station in life, your importance.  Even today how we are introduced says something about who we are …Am I, Liz, or the Rev Elizabeth Richens, Master of Divinity, Incumbent of St. Andrew, Woodhaven.  Or others might name me, Mrs. Andy Richens, or simply Syd’s mom.

How you name someone tells people who they are and what they think of you. So, it is noteworthy that when God asks Jacob’s name, Jacob doesn’t include his affiliations…he doesn’t claim his relations to Abraham, or to Isaac…he simply calls himself Jacob…the grasper.  He stands alone, he grasps for power alone, …that’s how Jacob sees himself …as alone.

And perhaps it is true because in our reading we find that once again Jacob is alone, at night in the wilderness, having sent his family and flocks away from him.

Jacob in this reading is heading back home, and he has been told his that brother is coming to meet him.  Perhaps you recall his brother Esau, from whom Jacob tricked out of his rights and privileges as first born, taking not only his father’s blessing as first born, but also out of Esau’s inheritance.

This resulted in Esau threatening to kill Jacob, and Jacob fleeing to his relatives remaining there for many years.  Now he is returning home and Esau is coming to meet him with 400 men.  An ominous sign.  So the cunning Jacob divides his people and flocks into groups in order that if Esau attacks, at least one group might survive, and sends them on…staying alone in the wilderness.

And there he meets “a man” who appears out of nowhere and grapples with our grasper.   This man or angel or God himself, wrestles with Jacob all night long without prevailing.  Jacob is tenacious! And as daylight begins to break the ‘man’ sees that he cannot win, and so he takes a page from Jacob’s own book and plays false, putting Jacobs hip out of joint.  Still the grasper will not let go.

“ Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”

But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

27 The man asked him, “What is your name?”

“Jacob,” he answered.

28 Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel,[j] because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”

 

And there, after another, very physical, struggle Jacob receives a new name…Israel…one who has striven with God…and prevailed.  A name that truly describes Jacob’s relationship with God.

It isn’t only his name that changes, Jacob…or rather Israel leaves this encounter with a limp.  No one can wrestle with God and leave unchanged.

And that is exactly what we need to happen…to wrestle with God and become changed, named anew and carrying those battle scars with us.

So why is it then… some Christians still believe that it’s not up to them to question tradition, or scripture or heaven forbid…God.

Long gone are the days when the bible was only in Latin and the sacraments were only for the few, long gone are the days when people needed the priest to interpret God’s word for them.  

Gone are the days of ‘believe, and question not’

Passive, unthinking obedience is not what God wants from our relationship with him.  Jacob was so firm and confident in his relationship with God that he pinned God down and demanded a blessing. 

Now this may sound a bit much to most of us, but what about the other end of the scale, is it more acceptable to beg for a blessing, or plead for God’s favour?  

For a very long time it was taught to approach God as a shameful, disgraced people…groveling for crumbs at the throne of a King.  That only the priest was worthy to speak to God…but that is neither beneficial nor scriptural.  Yes, the priests were the ones who offered sacrifice, but people in scripture have had a lot to say to God, the psalms being my favourite examples. Now perhaps God doesn’t need to physically grapple with us, as he did with Jacob.   We are still to be like unto Jacob…called to struggle with God and ask for…perhaps even demand God’s blessing. 

It is up to us to build such a relationship with God that we know we can argue back and forth with faith, scripture, real life and prophetic vision.  Honest debate fuels deeper intimacy, reading scripture with an open questioning mind helps us to understand where we are in our journey of faith.  Taking time to wrestle with God…demanding to know who God is and being willing to risk in order to be blessed means you have strength in your faith.

Jacob had spent his life struggling, questioning, messing up, making up and having faith.  In the end he became the name sake of the nation of Israel…one who struggles with God.

We may not be named so, but we too are called to struggle with God.    We are not called to mindless obedience and substanceless faith, but we are called on a journey …to travel our whole lives with God.  Arguing, praising, questioning, debating and,…from time to time… demanding and yelling at God.  God can take it, in fact, I believe God wants us to be in a relationship that is close enough that hot words can occasionally fly, just as praise will occasionally soar.

We are invited to become a people like Jacob…a people who know that we are God’s people and that God is with us…Emmanuel.

 And just like Jacob who left both blessed and limping …if we embrace God whole heartedly…our lives will never be the same.

Praise to the God of Jacob, who invites us to be renamed and reborn into relationship with him.