Sunday, October 16, 2016

My Own Private Peniel Year C Proper 24 16 Oct 2016

“My Own Private Peniel”
Year C Proper 24, 16 October 2016
St. David’s Episcopal, Aylett, VA

Collect:
Almighty and everlasting God, in Christ you have revealed your glory among the nations: Preserve the works of your mercy, that your Church throughout the world may persevere with steadfast faith in the confession of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Old Testament
Genesis 32:22-31
The same night 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 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.

The Gospel
Luke 18:1-8
Jesus told his disciples a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. He said, "In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, `Grant me justice against my opponent.' For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, `Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.'" And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"



This was a hard week, again. Last week I mentioned not being sure where to go, not feeling led. But this week I can honestly say that I have preached on four of these readings, some of them more than once. Did you notice that I even quoted the Psalm for this week in last week’s sermon? Two of these readings I would list as some of my favorites in the Bible. So there is no dearth of things to say. When I am overwhelmed, though, I tend to remind myself of the K.I.S.S. principle, Keep It Simple, [Stupid]. Sweetheart is probably a better replacement for Stupid. So we will look at how we connect with God.

We all have our own private Peniel. We all wrestle with God. Some of us may see it as that. Some of us may call it all kinds of things, a dark night of the soul like John of the Cross, or a time of trial, or a bad spell. But I firmly believe that we all have a period or periods in our lives where we wrestle with God. Even in the Collect, there is a recognition that we [quote] “persevere with steadfast faith.” [endquote] There is a struggle to live a life of faith in this world. We all wrestle with God.

Why we wrestle, though, is what makes it private, just for us.

There are few scriptures that are so formative as when Jacob wrestled all night. I have had some bad nights of sleep, but I have never thrown out a hip. Kink in the back, maybe. Jacob felt forever changed from this night, and even changed his name. Israel means those who wrestle with God.

Jacob saw himself as Israel, and I would argue that we should, too. Now you might say that we should do what God says. Yep. You are right.

But we don’t. We finagle and rationalize. We obscure and ignore. We cherry-pick verses to follow, and then slap the ones not pertaining to us onto others. What a great band of hypocrites we are. I would argue that give me someone who is wrestling with God and I will see someone who is taking God seriously. We only pay attention to the things we care about.

There is an obscure little movie called Empire Records which featured several future stars as young adults. It is one day in the life of a record store. In the movie, one of the characters is a shoplifter at this small store who has been repeatedly caught, and in a moment of calm between all the crazy energy of the movie, the manager stops and asks the shoplifter who is in his office waiting for the police why he keeps coming back and causing him so much grief. And the silly shoplifter says, “Because I love this place. I would do anything to work here!” Flabbergasted, the manager says, “To have you behave all I have to do is give you a job?!?!?” We only give energy to the things we take seriously. The shoplifter with Empire Records, and us hopefully with God.

When our daughters were younger, we had a long talk with them about how they need to seek positive, not negative, attention. When we act out and misbehave, we are looking for negative attention. When we do what we are supposed to do, and try to excel, we are seeking positive attention. Maybe both are wrestling with God? The one acting out is usually out of anger, frustration, or if a little kid, low blood sugar.  Our friends in 12 Steps programs taught me a great acronym. When I am about to make an important choice that I am wondering if it is the right call, I should H.A.L.T. HALT, which stands for Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired. If I am any of those things, hungry, angry, or together, hangry, lonely or tired, I need to remedy that before I move on with whatever it was I was about to decide or do. I stop because I want to seek God’s positive attention.

What does that look like? Jesus said, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and God’s righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.” A seminary professor of mine translated the Greek this way, “Put God’s priorities first and God’s okaying of you, and everything else will fall into place.” The righteousness of God, God’s okaying of us, is that positive attention I was talking about. This is wrestling with God, too, just the other end. We take God so seriously that we strive with God to please God. We seek out that Atta’Girl, and that Atta’Boy! We seek God’s input in our lives and ways. And that is what gets us into our Gospel for the day.

Jesus’ parable is one of those unique ones. Some parables are about how wonderful the Kingdom of God is. Some are about how we should act, and what we should do. Some are about the nature of God. This one, like a few others is the opposite of that. GOD IS NOT LIKE THIS, GOD IS MUCH BETTER. This parable falls into that category. God is not like this, like all of us, is the implication.

Thank God, that God is not like us, vindictive and petty, small and cynical. The judge is all these things. The woman has a case and she calls for justice. But this judge listens to WII-FM, What’s In It For Me. He has no fear (hear the word respect there) for God or man, and yet, just to stop the constant NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE (like the Grinch) the judge does that right thing.

See, God is not like that. God respects Godself and humanity. God, actually, loves us. God knows the wrong shall fail, the right prevail, to quote the Christmas carol. And that is why we pray.

In our wrestling with God, for the most part, it is a verbal repartee. We spar with God as we lift up our prayers. The cliche, Prayer does not change things for us as much as it changes us for things, rings true. Or to put it in a more Episcopal slant, our Praying shapes our Believing.

I am an external processor. It took my wife a few years of marriage to finally figure this out. I would say something. An idea. A thought. I was “putting it out there.” It drove her crazy. She thought I was making a decision, or had made one and was announcing it. She processes internally, and when I finally get her to talk she has already made up her mind. She projected onto me the way she was. Because I am an external processor I often see my prayer life this way. You do not have to see it this way, but it helps me. In my prayers, in my innermost thoughts that I share only with God, I am “putting it out there,” or rather I am putting ME out there. I am exposing my inmost thoughts. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Might as well, God already knows my heart. And in those prayers, that exposing of my inmost self, I stand there with God and see what makes me up. And in that exposure, my desires, my wants, my hopes, my fears, I see who I am and who I am becoming in God. That is when we really wrestle, me and God.

It can be terrifying. So let’s keep it simple. If I ask for a shiny red bicycle, and I pray with all my heart for that shiny red bicycle, then I get to see that shiny red bicycle through God’s eyes. I might start to see that my blue bike is just fine. And I might see that there are those without bikes. And I might see that I use my bike about three times a year, and begin to question, do I really need a bike? Or I might see that I need to give up my car, and bike where I need to go for the earth and for my health and that shiny red bike would enable me to do that. Or whatever. There is nothing wrong with me telling God what I THINK my prayer is. And as I wrestle with God I might begin to see what God’s way for me is. At least I think so, I hope so. That is my prayer.

In my prayers, my incessant, non-stop prayers to the One that wants to hear them, we see that there is nothing that I take to God that God cannot handle. Heck, read the Psalms. God strike my enemy! God hate the evil-doer. God bless me! There is nothing hidden in the Psalms. The whole human condition is there. God is okay with all of us. We can bring it all there in prayer.

Will we? As Jesus asked, “And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” Today as we wrestle with God in our own private Peniel, and I hope you do, think of Jacob. He threw his whole self into that wrestling match, and he was forever changed. When we meet God face to face, in times of trial, and times of fear, and times of Grace, I trust we see God’s loving face looking back. God wants to hear from you, and there is nothing you can pray that God has not heard and that God cannot handle. The Good, the Bad, the Ugly.
The Lord shall watch over your going out and your coming in,

from this time forth for evermore. Amen. (Ps. 121:8)

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Blessings, Rock