Let's begin with a reading from Psalm 117. Praise the Lord, all you nations, and glorify Him, all you peoples. For steadfast is His kindness towards us, and the fidelity of the Lord endures forever. The topic I have for today is obedience and the common good. In certain places I move into the abbot and how that translates into your setting, I think, if it translates prior, etc., but at least it's the vision of the rule, so I think it should make some sense, I hope, in the process. So, obedience and the common good. listening to one another and hearing what others are saying to us is challenging. And whenever someone asks us to change our ways, we usually ask or at least ask ourselves about their credentials. And such questioning, I think, is appropriate.

[01:04]

We need to discern who's saying what and for what reasons. But there is a tendency, as we know within our American culture, to view each individual as a separate and autonomous unit. And there's much credence given to the claim that one should not impose one's own values on another. This respect for the particularity of each individual is in its own way very important and laudable, but it can be taken to the extreme in which we become reluctant to challenge one another. Surely, when someone is bearing down on me, I will say something. But if I am not immediately impacted by someone else's behavior or attitudes, I may very well and probably am not going to meddle in their affairs. it is true that eventually the truth will win out.

[02:07]

And so we might ask if a conferrer is pressing the boundaries in relationships with conferrers or others who are visitors or outsiders, that conferrer will eventually be called to account for it. But if I see warning signs, it's not enough for me to stand idly by. Questions need to be raised. and our monastic family then is one in which we are responsible for one another. After Cain had killed Abel, God asked Cain where Abel was, and Cain responded with a question, am I my brother's keeper? The responsibility we have for one another does extend beyond what we usually think of in our individualistic society. It is possible, of course, to be meddling in someone else's affairs that's not appropriate. But in our society, the tendency is probably to keep our distance.

[03:12]

In a monastic family, our life together is clearly a common project. we are, to use St. Paul's terminology in 1 Corinthians 12, one body. And when one part suffers, we all suffer. But to extend this sense of commonality in terms of responsibility, when one member sins against individuals outside of the community, we are all, to some extent, responsible. We will have all kinds of reasons for saying that we're not responsible for others, but the society will hold us as members of the community accountable. They will ask us, where were you when so-and-so was doing this? And to say that I was minding my own business simply indicates, I think, that I was negligent. The bonds that we have with one another through our vows are not to be underestimated.

[04:18]

About 20 years ago, I attended a workshop. It was on assessment for candidates coming into religious orders. And this priest psychologist who conducted the workshop, he was highly regarded for his behavioral model that he had developed. And he taught it very well. But one statement he made that really has stayed with me is he said that if a candidate cannot state the conditions under which he would not continue in his vows, that candidate, if he can't state that, he really is not ready to enter into religious life. In other words, if such and such happened, then I would have to leave. For all of the wise counsel that this priest psychologist had given, this statement said something that I wasn't quite sure what to make of it. There's something that didn't seem right about it. It is good for us monastics to ask ourselves, what are those things that would make community life, monastic life, so intolerable that I could not stay with it?

[05:30]

But I think the things that I would identify at age 25 would not be probably the same things or a perfect match with those that I would identify at 45. And in the end, all the honest answers to that question would lead me to see that my monastic calling is really not simply of my own doing. There may be things that I am called to go through that God wants me to persevere in because he's calling me to a new place. And such trying times of conversion of life do not admit of a rational assessment of pluses and minuses, at least at the time that anyone is going through it. The bonds that we make with God and with one another at the time of monastic profession are much deeper than we can comprehend at the time.

[06:32]

They are bigger than any one of us. And in times of serious conflict with another monastic brother, it's well to remember that there is a bond that goes much deeper than we can imagine. So this, I think oftentimes we talk about this as the paradox of the cross. And if there's a time in which we've been deeply hurt by another confrere, and it's, I think it really, at least in my experience, it's been very important to be reminded that this bond that we have, it's a covenant. It goes much deeper than a way that we might assess simply another friendship. The brothers in the Joseph story, that had tried to settle their conflict with Joseph and they tried to do this by eliminating him. Later in Egypt, after Joseph had put them to the test

[07:33]

it was about 13 years later in the story. So, there's been some change, there's been some growth. Joseph is clearly in power at this point. And so, he's putting them to the test to see if they've changed at all. And so, he tells them that they have to bring their father, Jacob, who's elderly, down to Egypt, and that they have to bring their youngest brother, Benjamin, to Egypt. and then he tests them to see if they will sacrifice Benjamin the same way that they did him. And when Joseph saw that they had passed the test, and he saw that they were one of the ways that they passed as they felt guilty, and they still carried the guilt with them about having sold Joseph, and then they were not going to offer up Benjamin, then he was ready for reconciliation with them because he saw a real change in their way of life, their values, the way that they behaved towards one another.

[08:39]

When he ended this test by revealing his identity to them, that he was not simply the second most powerful man in Egypt, but that he was also their brother. He consoled them then and explained, do not be distressed, it says in Genesis 45, do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here. For God sent me before you to preserve life. which is really quite a remarkable statement in this account. The brothers knew that they were guilty of a terrible crime against their brother, but now that same brother is inspired to say that in retrospect, this crime was turned to a good purpose in God's plan. God saw further than they did. and had in mind that his chosen family would need to undergo the experience of exile from their land in order to be born again as this larger unit of the chosen people.

[09:48]

This trying experience of rejection and then reconciliation of a brother was to help all the brothers see that their bonds were part of a larger fabric of God's plan for the world. In our lives together as members of a community, as vowed monastics, our life is part of a larger fabric of God's plan. We, like Joseph's brothers, are most often too close to these relationships to see the bigger picture. But this bigger picture is vital to living with integrity in our day-to-day interactions with one another. God, who's enthroned on high, who's looking upon us and is present with us at all times, is calling us to be accountable. But most especially, God is saying that he's going to be there with us to assist us and to recognize the places in which we need assistance.

[10:54]

This God, who is the God of Joseph and his brothers, is also a God who will put us to the test so that we might come to understand our deeply rooted dependence upon God. So that very human tendency to be autonomous, to be in control, it's always going to stand in tension with our need to recognize that our life is a gift that God has given to us. God expects us to live this life freely, but it is part of a larger context, life with others and life with God. So, it's this capacity to see the bigger picture that makes Joseph, who said that, you know, you did this to me, you didn't fully know what you're doing, but it was part of God actually probably led you to do this in some ways, that it was part of God's bigger plan, that capacity to see that bigger picture ends up being very valuable to that family and to the whole story of salvation.

[12:06]

When we hear about this brash and young Joseph at the very beginning of the story, and he's reciting his dreams to his brothers and he says, you're all going to bow down to me. We sympathize, I think, with the brothers for being a bit skeptical about this Joseph and pushing him away a bit and not being ready to sympathize for him. Would he be king? Would he rule over them as well as rule over his father? Throughout the Old Testament, we find that there's much skepticism about the rule of a monarch because this king, the person who gets all of this unqualified authority, will grow in power and in influence so that he will bewitch the people into thinking that he wields godlike power and he will coerce them to carry out his commands. This Old Testament rhetoric, which has sort of a double mind about whether a king is a good thing or not, on one hand they want to have a king because he will give them greater protection and they'll really focus together all of their resources and they'll move in the same direction.

[13:23]

On the one hand, they want that and they ask for a king. On the other hand, Prophet Samuel had warned them, you do this, you know what's going to happen, he's going to gradually take over everything and you're going to become enslaved to him. This kind of rhetoric had a profound influence on the early colonists that went to New England in this country. And it was probably the rhetoric of the Bible that may have had an influence on the revolt, early revolt against the King of England. And so it shaped, I think, in the American spirit, because as soon as we say anything about monarchy in this country at this time, people immediately sort of snicker and they laugh and they wonder, you know, what sense does this have? And so I think there's almost embedded in us a kind of anti-monarchical or anti-kingly strain. By contrast, when you read through this Joseph story, when it all comes out in the end, what happens is we know they had the seven years of famine, or seven years of blessing, then the seven years of famine, and there had been no way of them surviving had they not had someone with sort of the

[14:42]

the inspiration or the long-term vision to store up the food so that they could eventually survive those seven years of famine. But as you read through the story, what happens is that as the Egyptians have one year famine, they start selling off some of their property. And then eventually they have to sell off all of it, and they still are in famine. So the next thing they have to do is they have to pledge themselves to work for Pharaoh. And so, what ends up, all the land of Egypt belongs to the king at the end of this famine, and the people are actually slaves or servants to him. And you begin to wonder then, Is monarchy a good thing? Well, he brought us through a real tough crisis because of his foresight and his administrative skills. But in the end, he ends up with all of the control and all of the power.

[15:44]

And so we begin to wonder, is this monarchy thing a good thing or not? According to the rule of Benedict, monasteries are monarchically organized, and monarchies really work best when the monarchs or the superior, the abbot, or whoever's in charge is in charge of a very small territory and population because you have obviously a lot of face-to-face contact and if there's a very difficult decision that's made and you have to face up you go past one another. And so it's, in a sense, this monarchical kind of rule works very well within monasteries because of this kind of face-to-face contact, which then makes the consciences of both the monk and the superior, it makes it quite operative, which you can sense if you had a king that was in a city,

[16:52]

50, 60 miles away they can make a decision, they can shore themselves up, you can try and make an appointment to get into them and they'll run you through this committee or they'll run you through this and you can never get to them. And there you can see how a kind of one man or one person rule would really be a probably have a lot of problems with it. But we know in community life, having one person in charge, that that is going to involve a lot of face-to-face contact. So the rule calls upon the abbot to consult with the community. In such a practice, it encourages listening between the superior and the community and the members of the community. And it is crucial that the abbot, who is a first among equals, listens to his monk. In our day and age, collaborative decision-making, there are voices that would like to see a larger portion of the decision-making carried out through extended discussions that get the widest possible involvement from the community.

[18:01]

And not knowing the history of how you do this here, my comments may reflect more my community, which is huge. And there really has been a move in the last, I would say, 10 or 15 years to see where we hear in our lore of an abbot back in the 40s where he would call in a monk and he'd say, I want you to go to Puerto Rico. and you go. And there's no way that you could change that at all. Whereas now, even within the congregation, there are stipulations that a monk has to be consulted on that and consent to it. So, they really wielded a considerable amount of almost imperial kind of authority in a way about 20, 30, 40 years ago, which is no longer the case. But you can see how the pendulum could swing the other way.

[19:05]

Women's communities tend to have very well spelled out, collaborative processes. And back home, the monastery of St. Benedict, the women's community is right down the road from us. We work together in the college and therefore there's a lot of times in which uh... in our department we're making decisions women's the sisters that are members of the department they will come in and they'll say now before you move on to making that final decision we need to look at how we're going to do this uh... and so you get a lot more steps in the process it begins to be uh... much more elaborate whereas probably Our tendency would be to say, well, who's ever in charge, you make the decision, then you deal with the consequences of it.

[20:07]

You consult, you go so far, but actually the decision ends up with the person that's enjoined with that. I think there is a movement to try and see things more collaborative, which really has some positives to it. But what I would like to suggest is that there are situations in which there is a real place, especially in a crisis, for having someone who's in charge that will end up making decisions that really do not reflect the majority. but they will take us in a place that the abbot looks at a bigger picture and he says in light of the longer tradition and where he discerns that we ought to go, we have to sort of step back and trust that he's making a good prudential judgment on this. It's that kind of visionary leadership, which I think, especially in a time when there's a real difficulty, that's very important, I think, to monastic communities.

[21:15]

And so, the monarchy, that's a defense of a sense that there is a place. Clearly, the abbot's place in the rule is so central, and he symbolizes Christ. And And so having that kind of authority in which he's given the benefit of the doubt can be very vital to the long-range health of a community. We know as you go through the Old Testament stories, and you get out into the wilderness, and you think of all of those stories, and the rule has so many accounts of murmuring as being the big drawback within community life. Murmuring, where does this come from? Well, I think it's a reflection at times At least you can find an echo of it in some of the stories in the wilderness wanderings. And one of the key things that they did there is Moses felt under intense pressure.

[22:22]

And even his brother Aaron and his sister Miriam at a certain point wanted, they felt a certain jealousy with him and they wanted to take over his position. And there's another account in which there was a group, Dathan and Abiram, in number 16, who tried to take over. They were trying to lead a kind of popular revolt. And these accounts, I think what they indicate is when we are in a situation in which resources are thin, we're very vulnerable, and we are chafing under the situation that we're under, it's very difficult to simply follow along with the authority that's there. Can't we get somebody else that'll come in and change this and we'll get a new vision and we'll move quickly? And if the stories in the wilderness wanderings that you find in numbers

[23:25]

10 and following. If you follow those stories, maybe the wisdom that it's telling us is that God at that point brought the Israelites out into the wilderness, and he was putting them to the test. He was forming them to really depend upon him. And what's interesting is that when they When they first got into the wilderness and they cried out for food and water, God sent it to them. After the golden calf story, it seems like their judgment and their capacity to decide what was a legitimate outcry got distorted. And so we see the stories after Exodus 32, and so these stories and numbers, those are the ones in which the people seem to be asking for things that are not really necessary, but it's coming out of a sense of uneasiness on their part. And therefore, it's judged in the stories as kind of a rebelliousness, which in effect is, it's not a rebelliousness so much against Moses as it is ultimately against

[24:34]

Yahweh who he's symbolizing and representing. So if there is an analogy with community life, when we have an authority structure and we have superiors that are in charge and they're trying to make their best way through difficult times, if we see this in this bigger vision, in this bigger picture of where God is with us, guiding us in this, that maybe the pressure's there. that God is really trying to stretch us in that. And while we can ask questions and we can try and assist and point towards perhaps new ways at times, the weight of the rule and the weight of some of these wilderness wandering stories is to listen to be obedient, to try and understand what it is that God is taking us towards in that, which the bottom line at that point is that we're trusting more deeply that God is there and is taking care of us.

[25:48]

And I think those, the stories in the Pentateuch are so powerful. Part of what I find powerful about them is whether it's the travels of Jacob and the patriarchs, or whether it's the wanderings in the wilderness, is the promise that God keeps saying is that I'll be there, and I'll be there with you, and I'll accompany you through this. And it's that kind of divine accompaniment that I think makes obedience possible, and it certainly is what's going to strengthen us in the process. So we might ask, what are ways that I have been stretched in the past year because of commands or requests that I have been asked to make on behalf of the community? on what sacrifices have I been asked to make for the sake of the common good.

[26:51]

Sometimes it's just a simple thing. You guys here, you have such a structured, regular life in which your hours, it's so striking. If you come to our place where we have morning, noon, evening prayer three times, plus Eucharist, it's such a different feel in the sense of and the size at the same time to where you really recognize when someone is there and someone is not there. But in our community where we've got over a hundred at least on the campus at a certain point in time and you're involved in multiple kinds of activities, the focus can get very diluted between, is our focus here to be a praying community or is it to be serving the students that are on our campus or the multiple visitors that are there? And it gets really, it gets watered down in a way to where you can make all kinds of rationalizations.

[28:00]

Well, I don't have to show up for this meal or I don't have to do this or And so, it can erode the focus of the life. And so, I think the real inspiration that I get from watching you is the focus on the contemplative life and service within the community. These things are a priority for you, and you hang in there with those things. Inevitably, I'm sure there are all kinds of tensions that you feel in trying to fulfill this. But it is a real profound and I think important focus that's there, which when I compare it with my own discipline back home, I see how this structure really accents what is important in the common life. So, with that, thinking about What are the requests that have really challenged me in the last year?

[29:02]

Glory be to the Father, to the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and shall be, world without end. Amen. With a reading from the conclusion of Psalm 31, Blessed be the Lord whose wondrous kindness he has shown me in a fortified city. Once I said in my anguish, I am cut off from your sight. Yet you heard the sound of my pleading when I cried out to you. Love the Lord, all you his faithful ones. The Lord keeps those who are constant, but more than requites those who act proudly. Take courage and be stout-hearted, all you who hope in the Lord." Okay, this conference is on, I've entitled it, Wrestling with God's Survival or Transformation.

[30:09]

When things do not turn out the way that we expect, it's easy to think that life is not fair. So, Psalm 73, the psalmist begins by saying, Truly God is good to the upright, to those who are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had almost slipped, for I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked." He then goes on in the psalm to describe the arrogant and when He describes that these slick, prosperous ones who seem to succeed at every turn and then are proud of their accomplishments and lorded over others. And we, I'm sure, know the profile. The psalmist suggests by the phrase, my feet had almost slipped, that he was about to throw in his lot with those who pursued that way, going after success at all costs.

[31:18]

So when you add up the pluses and the minuses of one's experience, it seems to the psalmist as if the approach that these arrogant ones to dealing with their own interests as their first priority seemed to him that this was the way that was going to pay off. And so disappointments are sure to confront us on the Christian journey. And the work that we engage in can offer us many appealing possibilities. So, in terms of my own experience, in terms of our community, where we're involved with a lot of educational possibilities, etc. Going into a profession like that is something that you can see all of the traps, all the pitfalls that stand out there. And it can consume a person, it can take all of your time, you can compete with this person and that person, you end up competing with yourself.

[32:29]

And it can create a kind of dynamic in which, you know, when we talk in monastic life about withdrawal from the ways of the world, in my own experience of going through at St. John's is probably the time of greatest withdrawal was in our novitiate. And at that point, you know, our workday was split up a bit more. In fact, your schedule reminds me a lot of my being back in Novitiate, because if you look at our schedule now, we meet for prayer morning, noon, evening, and for Eucharist. And Compline in the evening is something that we reintroduced a few years ago, and it was kind of optional. But you can see then, your day is, you have a lot of wide-open spots of time that are there. monks in formation came in a few years ago, had been with the Jesuits for a while. He was saying, well, you guys, you're really tied down, he says, with the Jesuits.

[33:31]

They have breakfast, then the rest of the day is theirs to sort of go about doing their research, pursuing this and that, etc. So there are different models of how we try and deal with our work, etc. But I think the question here, how is it then that we measure ourselves? And I think the genius of a monastic life and the vision set out in the rule is that it tries to call attention to the fact that how we secure ourselves by what we accomplish and what we do in our work can really be a trap that we can fall into. And it's very difficult to try and keep keep a sense of where do I find my self-identity? Is it in my trust that God is there sustaining me and that I bond better than with the community in that sense?

[34:37]

So, in light of Psalm 73, in which this individual felt that he'd really been done, he felt that he needed to to tie in with those that were really pursuing their own interests. If you go that route, and if you're, for example, if you set out on this career journey, things have not quite worked out, then feelings that life is unfair, that I have no place here are sure to arise. And I think when I think of our own community now, it's difficult for individuals who can't find the kind of work that really fits them. They feel kind of marginalized in the community because it has such an important place in our lives. And I suspect in some ways,

[35:40]

how it fits into your sort of rhythm of life. One of our other monks who had been with the Trappists for a while mentioned that the guy that ran the herd that he ended up having a heart attack. And he said, well, it was so complex and so much pressure, and he took this all on himself. He sort of worked himself right into the ground. So, I think in any setup, there's this danger that we could fall into that of trying to find ourselves in our work. And then if things don't work out, then we wonder, well, who's to blame for why I've lost certain balance in my life because of this? And oftentimes when things really break down, I myself can't stand to bear this just on my own.

[36:47]

So I will think of a superior colleague, teacher, who didn't give me what I needed to be successful. And eventually, if I have these feelings, I'm going to have to take responsibility and let go of the anger or the disappointment that's been governing me in this. So in the case of Psalm 73, that's what we see the psalmist going through, is that he says, my feet had almost slipped, but then he drew back from this. And what he says in verses 15 through 17 of that psalm, if I go on like this, I will betray the generation of your children. But when I thought how to understand this, it was too burdensome for me. until I went into the sanctuary of God, and then I perceived their end, the end of those that seemed to be so successful." So, trying to let go of anger and frustration and to look at one situation in a new light is challenging.

[37:56]

And the psalmist says that his efforts to try and understand it weren't even very burdensome to him. When he came to Yahweh, and somehow there was an engagement with God when he went to the sanctuary, he saw his life on a larger canvas. And he had been comparing himself to the successful, to the sleek, and to emulate them would mean that he would have to forfeit his ties with the people he was living with, but also his ancestors, the whole way of life that he had devoted himself to. So, I think, you know, when we come to monastic life, certain points, we obviously bring a lot of our past with us. And a few years ago, I was celebrating the 25th anniversary of Ordination. One of my college friends was there, whom I see pretty regularly.

[38:57]

But he brought me this, and his wife was in on this also, she brought me this gift of a picture and had an Iowa farm there. And the caption on the card was, don't forget your roots. And I suspect that when we come to monastic life, it is a rite of passage, time of transition, but we clearly are bringing a lot of our gifts, and the community expects us to bring those gifts and to contribute those. And so, there's a sense here. The psalmist said, I betray, if I went on this self-seeking way of life, I would betray the people I live with, but also where I came from, all of my, what I'd been given in the past. And so, I think in monastic life, we're also trying to bring all of the way God has gifted us up to this point and to bring them through the formation process and bring it into the life of the community and to treasure it and to celebrate it there.

[40:03]

So, we may think that once we have decided to live the Christian life and take away take leave of the ways of the world that we are set. There's enough wisdom in this room to know that you've clearly gone beyond that. That maybe for a few, they make up their minds, and the way of life fits them, and they seem to move smoothly along in this. But for many of us, there's a lot of struggle. There's a lot of question that goes on. the enticements of the world, the sense of accomplishment and the honor that comes from being involved in good activities. Those can be forces that can complicate this spiritual journey. And it seems then that each of us no matter where we're at on this spectrum of letting go or of hanging in there and fighting, what are those things that I'm most worried about?

[41:13]

What are the things that pose as really ultimate concerns in my life at these times? And these ultimate concerns then may well be in competition with God for our attention. These ultimate concerns then can turn out to be idols. And idols, as we all know, why they're so dangerous is they devour our energy and our time. They become the things that we trust in. They're going to somehow sustain us and make us go forward. In the Genesis stories, one wonders how Jacob ever made it into the Bible. Why does Jacob end up here as a patriarch and a very revered one? From the time of his birth, he's a conniver and he's a manipulator. He swindled Esau out of his birthright, and then in cooperation with his mother Rebekah, he stole the patriarchal blessing from Esau.

[42:18]

And then, as we move along in the story, you get to his dealings with his uncle Laban. It then became a battle between two characters who were almost equally crafty in trying to secure their own interests. So, why would the Israelite tradition lift up a character like Jacob and keep these stories about him alive in the memories of the people? Did they regard deceptiveness when carried out against outsiders as something that they valued or is laudable? Or even deceptiveness, cleverness, in those ancient cultures, Mesopotamia in particular, they looked upon this as a divinely inspired quality. In fact, there's one god, the god of wisdom, Enki in Mesopotamia, that he really is, he's an engineer. If you have a little trouble, he'll try and figure out a way, and he works by magic, etc.

[43:20]

But trying to find a solution to get through these things. And so they looked upon even deceptiveness in political dealings ended up being something that was inspired by the gods. And you wonder, is that why Jacob's left in here? So, after about 17 years when Jacob was off in Mesopotamia, he began to make his way back towards Canaan, promised land. And at that point, he had his two wives that he'd married there. He had a family, had 12 sons at that point, or at least 11. and a daughter, and he had many, many possessions that he was bringing back. As he drew near to the land of Canaan, he began to grow more anxious about would he meet up with Esau there. It had been 17 years, but when he met up with him, would Esau still be upset and angry with him, so much so that he was going to murder him when he left the land earlier?

[44:30]

So, we see Jacob here. What he does, he takes his family and his possessions and he divides them up into a couple of camps and he puts the the secondary wives that he had, the concubines, he puts them with their children up front, and then he puts his other wives that were, and then he followed behind. And he was going to send ahead this large gift that he was going to give to Esau. And you wonder, well, is he trying to buy him off? Or is maybe if you want to give him the benefit of the doubt, maybe he's trying to pay honor, you know, it's kind of tribute that he's giving to Esau. Maybe he's trying to make up for what he had stolen from him. It's kind of a payback. But at any rate, we find this Jacob,

[45:32]

making these plans, strategizing as he approaches back to the land. But it's at this point, it's right towards the end of chapter 32, that we hear that very memorable story of him wrestling at the Jabbok River. Now the question becomes, who is he wrestling with? And it's at night, he sends his family and all of his possessions ahead of him, and he's the last one remaining there on the other side of the Jabbok River. And then it says that some figure, and it seems like it's a human at this point, that he wrestles with that person. And they wrestle for a long time, and he says, Jacob says, tell me your name. because that would presumably give him some kind of leverage for being able to control or to deal with this force, supernatural force that was there.

[46:38]

But we know that this supernatural figure then touched his hip, threw it out, and from then on he walked along with the limp. So who was it that he was wrestling with? Was it a man? Was it an angel? Was it a troll-like figure that in sort of the mythical lore of the people? Because the Jabbok River there is one, presumably it's springtime, the waters were way up and it would have been difficult to ford across there. And the word for wrestling that occurs in this story is Ye'evok. The way they would have pronounced the Jabbok River would have been Yavok, and so you hear the wordplay between the two. It's the only place where that word for wrestle, Yavok, occurs in the Old Testament, which leads you to think that maybe this story, where it first started out,

[47:44]

was with these people that were dealing with the dangers of going across this river, fording it during that time. And therefore, you could argue that this supernatural figure was kind of like a troll or something that was somehow bound up with these forces of the flood at that time of year. So this may have influenced this account. But then you start thinking, well, what was, when you follow the narrative, what was Jacob up to? And Jacob, of course, coming back to the land, he's made these plans because he knows that Esau's there. And so during the night, Is he having, is the anxiety about meeting Esau when he gets on the other side, is that what's churning inside of him in this kind of sort of night, shadowy kind of experience? So that the person that he's wrestling with here may very well be Esau in his dreams.

[48:48]

And then when you move on in the story, it says that when he got across on the other side, the name of the place at which this wrestling had taken place was Peniel, which that word means face of God. And so, We also know that in the story, it says that when the wrestling match was over and the sun came up, and the other thing that makes you think it's kind of has these mythical, as the sun comes up, that figure he's wrestling with had to get out of there, which doesn't sound very much like Yahweh. So it seems like an earlier story was there. But also when he, tried to get the blessing, get the name, but the figure blesses him. It says that Jacob's name gets changed there. And he says, your name will be Israel. And the etymology that's given in the account for that name is that you have striven with God and with humans and have prevailed.

[50:00]

So the name change is trying to tell us that the kind of struggling that went on there, that encounter with the supernatural figure, and how that threads out into his struggles with his brother Esau, that somehow God was in those struggles, that there was something in that wrestling around that was positive. And we wonder how How is it that the God of the Old Testament, who's often portrayed as being a transcendent thunderstorm deity, very unapproachable, you look upon the face of God, you die. And here we have Jacob wrestling with a figure that then gets identified as El. It never says explicitly that this figure is Yahweh. but it hints at it and it tries to suggest that this indeed is the God of Israel whom he has engaged almost as if God were on the same level and equal with him.

[51:16]

So, you know, you wonder then when you look at Jacob Could he have formed a model of behavior for the Israelite people, or is this a patriarchal figure that's back in earlier times, and that he's being remembered as he went through experiences that are his experiences, and he's not like a model that we're to emulate subsequently. And I think there is something to that in a sense of certainly striving and trying to move forward, but A lot of the deceptiveness, the conniving that you see with Jacob, that doesn't seem to be something that they would have lifted up as kind of a model to be imitated. But what does seem to be a model for us though, and for the Israelites subsequently, was this kind of engagement with God, that somehow God does

[52:18]

draw us into wrestling matches, and that our encounter with God is not simply something that we do in our heads or we do in our spirits, but we do in everything. Our body is engaged in this, that God takes us as embodied beings, and it's in there in the midst of all of us that we are pressured by God to encounter God. So the wrestling match obviously indicates a very intense form of this. of this kind of engagement, which is, you know, when you think of who is God and you think of Anselm back in the 12th century, who tried, who in his meditations wonderfully talked about the existence of God, how could I ever doubt the existence of God? Because God is that of which nothing greater can be conceived. And so logically it was impossible to say that there isn't something larger that you can conceive of.

[53:24]

And if you can think of something bigger, that must be God. But that almost seems to be a meditative, almost an intellectual exercise for understanding who God is. This Jacob experience of God is somebody that you get when every part of yourself is really caught in this. In our meditation, it does involve these kinds of wrestlings with God, this kind of trying to understand how God is working within us and how are we bringing all the parts of ourselves together. And God is involved in that. Okay, so before leaving this wrestling match, it may be helpful to revisit the understanding of Jacob's opponent as a human being, in which the most likely profile to this dreamlike opponent, as I mentioned, would be Esau.

[54:38]

We can only imagine the sense of guilt that arose in Jacob when he reflected back on his earlier struggles with his brother. But he must have had a sense that his stealing of the birthright and then of the patriarchal blessing cut very deeply into Esau. And so, he arranged this very generous gift to be given to him. And as humans, we have to live with ourselves. Our past transgressions can come back to haunt us even much later in life if some form of reconciliation has not occurred. The kind of wrestling that Jacob was going through may well have included an element of dealing with this bad memory that he needed to somehow put to rest. And what's telling is in the following chapter, Genesis 33, when Jacob does meet up with Esau, And Esau, almost miraculously, is very well disposed towards him, and Jacob exclaims when he looks upon Esau, he says it's like looking on the face of God.

[55:54]

So that place name back in the wrestling, Peniel, face of God, then when he meets Esau, he says it's looking at meeting you is like looking on the face of God. But there you wonder almost the transformation that happened in Esau was almost like an encounter with God from Jacob's perspective because it was reconciliation was there. The proximity and the anthropomorphic form of God in the wrestling match forms a strong contrast with the image of God that we see in the story of Abraham's near sacrifice of Isaac. This story challenges us to the very roots of our faith. For God tells Abraham to take his beloved son, son of the promise, and to go to Mount Moriah and there offer him as a sacrifice to God. And we wonder, how could God ever do this?

[56:57]

could God make such a demand? You know, Christians typically, when they approach this story, and Jewish people usually stand in the place of Isaac, Christians typically stand in the shoes of Abraham, and we're the ones that get presented with this kind of challenge. And the challenge there almost seems absurd. Rationally, it just does not make sense of having, you know, they've waited, Abraham and Sarah have waited, waited. They're well beyond childbearing years and the son is born. It's his only son. It's the one who's going to carry on the promise. And now God says you ought to take the son up and offer him up on the altar. And human sacrifice, which seems, it was carried out in Christ's situations in other cultures of the time, when they were about to be overrun, they were trying to appease the anger of a god that was against them.

[58:08]

All of this just doesn't seem to fit in the Israelite mindset of what Yahweh would expect. Was God commanding Abraham, we might say, to murder Isaac? Was it an unethical command on the part of God? And I think it would be an unethical command if we put it in the context of a rational ethics. This story is saying that God, but the story tries to set us up at the very beginning, the first words we read of it, that God was putting Abraham to the test. And so, we almost expect at the very beginning that God is not going to ask for the sacrifice of the child. So, the story ends up saying that Abraham passed this test because his conviction that God was with him and that God would provide was so strong that he was ready to carry out this command.

[59:16]

Now, when we look back on this, this test was unique to Abraham. In our own day and age, if anyone reads this and they say, well, God could speak to me in this way, well, then obviously we're in deep trouble to follow in the footsteps. It was very unique to Abraham. Its horror belongs to this one-time event and we're not put to the test in exactly the same way. But it is making a point for us. When we look at the world and we see innocent children suffering terrible diseases, when we see communities devastated by natural disasters such as Katrina, these disasters which say to the rational observer that whoever is in charge of nature and of the cosmos must not be all-powerful if these things can happen. If the ruler of the universe is all-powerful, then he cannot be all-loving.

[60:17]

So the typical theodicy question. But if we walk in Abram's shoes, And we stay with God even though the circumstances call into question the extent of God's power or goodness. It is this fidelity in staying with God that we see in so many people who face terrible tragedies. We wonder, why do they stay faithful when things seem to be absurd? and they've gone way beyond what would seem to be a tolerable way of living out this mixed human condition. But it is the scent, these people that do navigate through these kinds of tragedies, absurdities, they tell us something about God. that in their own individual circumstances and in their consciences, staying with God, that God is a reality that's much bigger, and his goodness and his love exceed what we dare to ask or imagine.

[61:30]

For the faithful one who suffers, this is a living and powerful promise. This transcendent, inscrutable God of Abraham is the same God with whom Jacob has wrestled. It is in relationship with this paradoxical God that we are called to assess the fairness of the cards that we are dealt in this life. It is this God that we hope to get a glimpse of as the psalmist did in Psalm 73. We wonder when he went into the sanctuary, thought life was unfair, that he was going to throw in his lot with those that would manage their own business. What happened? What is it that touched him there? And I wonder, the God that he encountered is probably – it is that same God who wrestled with Jacob, the same God who said to Abram, take your son up to Mount Moriah and sacrifice him there, really transcendent, inscrutable, one who's very close, intimate, wrestling with you.

[62:42]

All of those two poles, that same God, is the one that the person encountered who went into the sanctuary and gained a quite different perspective on life. So, we might ask ourselves then, what is the biggest disappointment that I have suffered in my life? Or perhaps the biggest disappointment that I've suffered in the past five years? How have I dealt with this? Am I at peace with it? What did this experience tell me about God? Did I wrestle with God in this experience? And as I look back on this experience, does it seem that God wanted me to wrestle with him over this issue? And have I come to greater self-awareness and to a deeper relationship with God because of this kind of trial?

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Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and shall be world without end. Amen.

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