Word to the Wise
Tuesday, July 10, 2007 - Fourteenth Tuesday in Ordinary Time
[Genesis 32:23-33 and Matthew 9:32-38]Jacob named the place Peniel, "Because I have seen God face to face, "he said, "yet my life has been spared.
Old Testament scholars struggle as much with the story of Jacob's wrestling match with God and Jacob did in wrestling with God. Nevertheless I find the whole story appealing for one very important reason. Like Abraham and Moses, Jacob contends with God and survives! I believe I have, at some point in the past, mentioned a painting I have on my office wall of a boy getting ready to throw a stone at the sky. An artist who attended a parish mission I preached in Memphis painted the piece after hearing me speak about this story. This boy was one of my student parishioners at the University of Arizona. He grew up in Eastern Montana where the sky is BIG. When he got mad at God he would go out into the field next door and pick up a rock and throw it at the sky in hopes of hitting God. He is very much alive today! The great writers of spiritual life have no problem speaking of the struggles we will have from time to time coming to terms with God. If we want to be truly intentional about our relationship with God, we have to be willing to face not just our own expectations of God but perhaps God's expectations of us. This can easily turn into a wrestling match. Even though God does not overcome Jacob in the story, Jacob does not claim victory but only survival! For me, it often the struggle to gain some clarity, but I have to settle most of the time for enough clarity to survive and not consider that I have "wrested" something from God. Maybe God lets me wrestle till I realize that I need that blessing that Jacob asks for. AMEN
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