October 18, 1998
Early on in Christian history, St. Paul urges that things in church be done decently and in order. In the 16th century Anglicans perfected it. We call that perfection the Book of Common Prayer, the wonderful instrument of worship, a collection of beautifully written prayers — decent and in good order, always addressing God with deference, grace and respect.
The other book that we read, the Holy Scriptures, presents prayer in a bit different light. In the scriptures, communication with God is a lot more like communication between people. It is not always so wonderful or beautiful as our beloved Book of Common Prayer. In today's reading from Genesis, Jacob is wrestling with God.
We know that Jacob was a twin and his twin brother was born first,
but Jacob had been promised the higher position. Almost from his
birth, Jacob is doing everything in his power to make sure that
God's promise comes about. He tricks his blind and nearly dead
father into giving the proper blessing. He cheats his brother
out of the birthright of the first born. He conspires with his
mother to do so. Once he realizes Esau is not real happy with
the set of circumstances, he goes off and falls in love with Rachel,
the younger of two sisters. He gets a sort of comeuppance at the
wedding when he takes the veil off and discovers it is Leah, who
is not quite so pretty. He disdains Leah and marries Rachel too,
but Leah is the one who had all the children, or most of them.
And now he is coming home to make atonement with his brother. And he hears that Esau is approaching him with 400 men, and he says, "Oh Leah, honey, why don't you take the boys and go on ahead and we will meet you tomorrow." (You know that is just in case Esau decides to kill all of Jacob's family and at least it is Leah that gets done in, and not Rachel).
And now tonight he has a dream and he wrestles with God, or the angel of God. All night long, he wrestles and as dawn is breaking, God sees that he is not going to be able to conquer headstrong Jacob, so he hits him on the hip, knocking the hip out of joint causing him to limp in pain for the rest of his life and changes his name from Jacob to Israel which means "contended with God."
The Hebrew nation, the nation of Israel, is known as a contentious nation with God throughout its history, through the kingdom and right up to the time of our Lord. The chosen people of God are always presented as a nation that wrestles with God, that approaches God and bargains with him. Abraham had bargained with God over the fate of Sodom. His grandson will bargain and argue with God and wrestle with him. Gideon bargains with God, telling him he has made the wrong choice. Moses argues with God. Jonah jumps on a ship and heads the other direction when God asks him to do something, and then fusses at God when the people of Nineveh repent.
And yet, in our Book of Common Prayer, in our corporate worship we would not dream of doing so. I can remember being told as a lad that you shouldn't be impolite to God — that God doesn't think that's funny. Jesus tells the story today that suggests the same thing - that is, that interaction with people should not necessarily be qualitatively different from the way we approach God. He says to us, when we interact with other people who won't listen to us, we contend with them, we keep coming over and over again trying to wear them down. And just as we do that with other people, why not do it with God? God is an easier target, he says. God is more soft hearted than the people you know. Since you demand response and justice from each other, should you not expect it from God, who actually loves you and is on your side, and wants the best for you?
When we interact with each other, we expect things to happen. When we interact with one another, we expect the other person to listen. We expect the other person to consider our point of view, consider what we want to do, what we want to have happen. When we interact with each other, we expect that the people we interact with care about us, care about our causes and will respond appropriately. You and I both know that when other people don't respond the way we expect them to, we get louder. That is one of our choices. Sometimes we get sulky, and nobody is comfortable around a sulking person. So if they don't respond to our loudness, maybe they will respond with our thrust out lower lip. If that doesn't work, perhaps we will get angry, beat on their desks, or on their door to demand their attention. Or perhaps we will be more conciliatory and try to reason with them and appeal to their higher nature. We expect that with each other. We have a whole variety of ways in which to approach people. We bring from that variety whatever seems to be the most appropriate or to have the best chance of succeeding when we engage in our human relationships.
Jesus is calling us today to expectant prayer, to expect that God will listen, to expect that God will care, to expect that he will respond. Expectant prayer grows from a sense of trust, believing that God actually does get involved in his creation on a daily basis, believing that God actually is involved in our lives and in the things that we do and in the things that we think, that he really cares about those things. Expectant prayer grows from the trust that God is responsive to us and if we ask, he will actually listen and will give us what we need.
I think the scriptures also call us to contentious prayer. Contentious prayer grows from real trust in God, trusting that God will be patient with us, that he will indeed wrestle with us when we are in a wrestling mood. Remember the two-year-old that you raised or the two-year-old you were? When you are in one of those foul two-year-old humors, and you are thrashing around on the floor, a mom or a dad picks you up and holds you closely to keep you from hurting yourself. When we are in that "hold your breath til you turn blue" mood with God, do you not think that God will hold us close — to keep us from hurting ourselves, will wrestle with us, and take control of us?
Contentious prayer grows from a real trust that God will give us what he has promised, just like he gave to Jacob, now become Israel, exactly what he was promised before Jacob was even born. Contentious prayer will help us also to come to the point of trusting that God will continue, in spite of our contentiousness, to send us out to do his work in the world around us.
So whether our prayer is expectant or contentious, we are bidden to engage in a relationship with God. We are also bidden to do so in the sure and certain knowledge that he will give us all of what we need. To contend or expect from God in the sure and certain knowledge that he will give us a good bit of what we just want. He will give us a good bit of what we just find pleasure in. We are bidden to be expectant with God and to contend with God in the sure and certain knowledge that God will give us more than enough to meet whatever need we may have, so that with the extra that is flowing out we may be a blessing to others around us.
AMEN
The Rev. Dr. Robert Certain
rgcertain@stmargarets.org
18 October 1998