I often find it awkward that my favorite movie is a film that I can’t really recommend in this setting. [1] It is full of violence, mayhem, disturbing sex, and all manner of objectionable content. So, you need to know that I do not remotely recommend Fight Club…but it also happens to be my favorite movie. So I guess it makes sense that [2] as I was preparing a two part message on my favorite narrative in Genesis I kept thinking of this film…and so I eventually just went with it and titled the talks:
How to Lose a Fight…and Win.
Fight Club Clip – Your Assignment: Start a Fight and Lose
I’m just going to go with the metaphor and organize tonight’s talk like it is a pay per view MMA fight.
I’m going to give you the pre-fight analysis…we are going to tell the back story of the fighters…then we will go to the octagon…we’ll watch the fight unfold…and then we do a little post fight analysis….and tune in for the awarding of the prize purse…so first:
I. Pre-Fight Analysis: Introducing The Fighters
So before we watch at the Fight, I feel like we have to introduce the fighters.
First, we have ‘the challenger’…actually, let’s do this Sports Center style and throw it to our ring side analysts for a bio
Frankly, I think Jacob is the most interesting human character in Genesis…which is probably why this is my favorite passage.
Jacob has been gone for 20 years. That’s longer than some of you have been alive. He never saw his mom again. She’s dead. But in chapter 32 it’s been 20 years and he wants to go home. [3]
This fight will be the climax of Jacob’s story. Up until tonight’s match Jacob has lived a life of oblique, passive aggressive conflict with everyone he encountered, his brother, his family, his wives, his uncle and mostly, his Father’s God…twenty years earlier, as he left the promise land, he had this crazy mystical vision as he left the land of a stairway from heaven…but there is absolutely no evidence in his story to date that he gives any allegiance to Yahweh.
The reason Jacob is my favorite patriarch is because he is easily the most disappointing patriarch. As Alyssa showed us so well last week, he has messy relationship with multiple women, he is pretty much a total failure as a father, and, we have no evidence that he has thought of God in the twenty years since he left home and saw the cosmic vision of the angels from heaven. Basically the story of those twenty years is a story of a man disappointing women, stealing from relatives, cheating employers, and dabbling in Mesopotamian goat sorcery. But now he is scared. He wants to come home…but his brother is waiting for him at the river.
You see Esau is the reason Jacob left in the first place. Jacob had cheated his brother and Esau had vowed to kill him. And you get the sense that this would not have been difficult for Esau. Now maybe the first description of Jacob’s twin brother doesn’t get this across:
25:25 “The first came out red, all his body like a hairy coat, so they called him Esau.
Honestly, red and hairy, four letter name that begins with E…you get the picture that baby Esau looked something like this [4]
But Jacob is picturing something far more imposing. Listen to how the text describes the twins:
25:27 “When the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, dwelling in the tents. [5] Isaac loved Esau…but Rebekah loved Jacob.”
In the original Hebrew this means…Jacob was a bookish mommas boy who liked to cook and stay inside and probably listened to a lot of Taylor Swift…and his brother was more of a monster truck and fire arms guy. You get the sense that if Esau wanted to kill Jacob, it would not be hard. And Jacob’s mama apparently felt that way because when she learned that Esau wanted to kill Jacob her advice to her boy was…”Run away” – Genesis 27:43 (Also Monte Python and the Holy Grail)
Jacob’s memory of Esau is big, strong, and proficient with weapons...[6] (Taylor)
The passage describes Jacob’s response as ‘great fear and distress.’ You see, you get the sense throughout the Jacob story, that his whole life he’s always been the cleverest guy in the room.[7] I mean in some ways, he’s Michael Weston, but with less noble motivations. Like Weston Jacob always had a plan and was always smarter than the other guy…and given the number of cows and goats he owned, he probably ate a lot of yogurt. [8] But there was one way he probably wasn’t like Weston…Jacob never really learned to fight. He was the schemer, his brother was the fighter.
And now, after all he had been through, Jacob was staring across the river at an army that he imagined had been assembled to disassemble him. So Jacob goes into scheming mode. He opens his cleverness bag and hatches a plan to minimize the damage. Commentators go nuts describing the tactics of Jacob’s plan. Everything he does is clever and calculating, the way he divides the party, the way he uses the river, his tactics were flawless…and fundamentally useless. Half way through his planning, he realizes, that his best efforts will not prevail against Esau and 400 of his best men (Sesame Street Monster pic…um I’m not sure that exactly the picture Jacob had in his head…maybe something more like this…that still might not be imposing enough….how about this). Jacob is understandably terrified…Which brings us to verse 9.
9: “Then Jacob prayed.”
You see, up to this point, Jacob lived by cleverness and guile and probably felt like he’d done pretty well for himself. He got himself the woman he wanted…and three others. He had 12 sons. He built a flock through clever selective breeding and shadowy Mesopotamian agri-sorcery.[9] There is no doubt, Jacob had become ‘something’…but in this moment, by the river, it looked like all of that was for nothing. His cleverness and trickery had finally come back to find him…so Jacob does something that we have no record of him ever doing before…
9: “Then Jacob prayed.”
The prayer starts out a little underwhelming… Jacob essentially says…hey God, listen, you were the one who told me I had to come back here…If this goes badly it’s on you…but then we see the first crack in Jacob’s self will and self reliance...and this is how prayer generally goes…it starts out critical of God, but in his Holy presence quickly turns to critical introspection…we often come to God angry about his shortcomings and leave aware of our…and so eventually the prayer gets to a more self aware, vulnerable space…
“I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan [10], and now I have become two camps…”
And that’s one of the remarkable things about prayer, once you get to a space where you are being honest with God, you stop trying to deceive yourself…and you often get to the bottom of the matter…and for Jacob, the bottom of the matter is that he was scared. He goes on:
“Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him…”
This is a really intimate, honest, moment…but it’s brief. Jacob immediately goes back to planning. Only this time, the point of the planning isn’t escape…its damage control. He splits up his family (slide) and then[11] in a phenomenally cowardly act, he sends them ahead of him to face whatever revenge Esau has in mind.
But his plan does something else…it isolates Jacob and leaves us with one of those really poignant moments the Scriptures are full of if you take the time to linger over them…Jacob finds himself standing on the far bank of the river in the middle of the night, his family scattered so in a best case scenario, only half of them would be slaughtered. He is facing an army of 400 ready to inflict a 20 year vendetta on him. He stands on the far side of that river, still cowardly, still bitter, and totally alone. The passage lingers on it…
V24 “So Jacob was left alone…”
There is a volume of poetry and silence that rests in the pause half way through verse 24. Jacob is at the end of himself. He is standing alone in the dark. It is quiet. He might hear the distant sound of his herds across the water, he can probably hear the river eddies bubble and flow past him. It’s a terrible, viscerally, stark, lonely, moment…
V24 “So Jacob was left alone…”
Only he wasn’t. Look at the rest of the verse:
V24 “So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.”
What? I mean, was he alone or not? And who is the man? Which brings me to the other fighter. So, let’s send it back ringside:
ii. The Champion: ???
Note: The guys assure me that those aren't their bare butts, that they were wearing gold shorts and in the blur it just looks like they were naked. This seems like an odd disclaimer in the middle of a talk. I showed the edited version on Tuesday night. ‘Who is this guy that Jacob wrestles?’ The text frankly is coy. It’s abrupt. Honestly I wish verse 24 was like 5 times longer. The author spends 33 words detailing precisely how many of each ungulate Jacob set aside for his brother. (Shoot, these verses are so detailed you could do a biomass calculation on the gift…X lbs if you are interested). But here it only gives us:
V24 “So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.”
The verse calls him ‘a man’[12] , elsewhere the Scriptures[13] call him ‘an angel’ but neither of those can be the whole story, because at the end of the smack down…when everything is said and done…there is a moment of recognition. It is like those final moments of a movie with a great twist ending, a film like the Sixth Sense of The Usual Suspects where someone we thought we had pegged is actually not even close to who we thought they were.
Jacob realizes that his opponent was not just a man or even a cosmic messenger…at the end of the fight Jacob realizes that he has in a confusing but indisputable way…fought God himself.
V30 “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.”
You see, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is a God who in a confusing but indisputable way tends to show up…I mean actually show up…in a corporeal, physical, form, from time to time…usually at the climax of the story.[14] This happens several times in Genesis. It is actually one of the surprising themes of the book but we haven’t really dealt with yet. Theologians call these appearances ‘theophanies’ which essentially is a fancy word for ‘times that God shows up’. Historically, Christians have interpreted these as appearances of the second person of the trinity…previews of the incarnate Word…or, in other words…Jesus shows up.[15] To describe how this works, let’s go back to Fight Club…
In Fight Club, before we meet Brad Pitt’s character, he shows up five times …which is a clue to how the story will play out. Now you probably won’t notice it the first time…most people don’t even notice it the third time. In all but one case he just blips on the screen for a single frame…but if you watch this film as many times as my wife and I have, you eventually notice that Tyler Durden makes shadowy and indisputable appearances before he is introduced as a main character.
(Tyler shows up at 0:17) [16]
That is what I make of these theophanies…the places where God ‘shows up’ in an ambiguous but undeniably corporeal form…it is a preview of the coming main character…it is a hint that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is predisposed to enter time and space as a corporeal human figure at the climax of the story. It foreshadows the incarnation (Caravaggio slide)…it foreshadows the climax of the story (cross slide)…it foreshadows the reality that God will ultimately wrestle with evil and with us in Jesus (gethsemene slide) [17] …and he will win…and if we lose to him, we’ll win to. [18] Which leads me to the fight…
II. The Fight: Now We Take You to the Octagon
And so, Jacob, ‘the grasper’, is a man who has cheated and worked his way to what seems like success, but who has struggled with the God of Abraham and Isaac his whole life…and now its on…he finally throws down with that God.
The way I picture this is like Lieutenant Dan in Forest Gump
Like Lieutenant Dan, Jacob has spent decades struggling with God quietly, it was been a subtle, passive aggressive struggle…but now if finally comes to a head…both of them are sick of the subtle struggle…tension has been building between them for decades…and finally, it’s time do this thing. [19]
But then it gets weirder. They wrestle all night [20]…and Jacob will not be overpowered. He continues to stubbornly resist God. And Jacob continues his assaults. So his opponent does something that changes the nature of the fight and reveals a little of his identity. HE just touches Jacob on the leg, and Jacob is undone. And now the nature of the conflict has changed. Jacob can’t fight any more. The single offensive touch renders him unable to fight.
I imagine a wave of realization crashing over Jacob. He probably thought he was holding his own in the match…
“Are you messing with me…I wanted you to think you were doing well.”
But he suddenly realizes that he is hopelessly overmatched…
“Because I know something you don’t know” “I am not left handed either.”
It is suddenly clear that he cannot win this fight. He is going to lose. At this point he could have done what he had always done[21] …he could have run (or, I guess, limped)…but he could have sulked and retreated in defiance. He could have retreated in terror. But he doesn’t.
But dawn breaks Jacob is still struggling, only he isn’t fighting any more…his leg won’t let him. By the end he’s just holding on as hard as he can.[22] He’s broken, he’s beaten, he’s fought as hard as he can, but he has lost…he’s totally undone by the slightest touch of his opponent…but he won’t let go.
V 26 But Jacob says, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
And, finally, Jacob, wounded, broken, and at the end of himself, has learned how to fight with God. You don’t wrestle with God by assaulting him or by landing blows, you wrestle with God by holding on as tight as you can…and that’s how you lose a fight…and win.
When I was a kid, my parents bought an old farm house with the idea that they would re-do it. Worst decision they ever made. Twenty years later, the house looked great, but their marriage was a catastrophe.
But the living room was the last room they re-did. So when my brother Nic and I were little, there was this raggedy old couch and a piece of stained red shag carpet that only covered about 85% of the plywood floor and had burn marks from a fondue accident. And this is where some of my best childhood memories happened. This is where my brother and I would wrestle my dad.
Now these little matches would always play out the same way. We’d run at him from every direction, and fly through the air at him[23] , trying to knock him over. But it never worked. He’d always catch us flying at him and toss us effortlessly through the air into that old couch, which hadn’t been comfortable since the Nixon era. It was like that scene in Lion King where the hyenas jumping Mufassa and he throws them off practically without effort …or the scene in Jurrasic park where the TREX opened a can on the little velociraptors that had been wreaking havoc the whole movie (xkcd cartoon - reveal shirt).
And so it would go on like this for a while…dozens of times we would come at him, and dozens of times we would end up careening through the air…but it always ended the same way. After we finally got tired of being thrown into the couch Nic and I would each grab one of my Dad’s legs and hold on as tight as we could…and this would somehow always result with my Dad toppling on the couch to our delight and total satisfaction. Now for years, I thought we had used physics and cleverness[24] to beat my dad. And some people read this passage like that.
But I know better now. I’ve been ‘defeated’ by Charis and Aletheia enough times to reinterpret those memories I have of taking my Dad down. I mean they excell at being adorable, but they suck at fighting...they can't take me, unless i let them.
If you wrestle someone out of your weight class but who loves you, you don’t win by landing blows...you win by holding on as tight as you can. You win by holding on and going for the ride. Which leads me to the…
III. Post fight analysis: Awarding the Purse
Verse 26 is actually a pretty comic picture. Jacob and God wrestle. God tries to win Jacob over but he will not be won. Jacob continues to resist God throughout the night with everything in him. So God literally ‘lifts a finger’ in offense…he just touches Jacob and Jacob is totally undone. And so Jacob just holds on and goes for the ride. Day comes and God makes to leave…but Jacob is still clinging to him…he’s beaten but the nature of the conflict has changed. Now he is not trying to beat God…he’s trying to hold on to him to get what he needs. He knows he needs something from God and asks for ‘a blessing.’ Most commentators believe he is asking, in particular, for help with his Esau problem. He asks this powerful opponent who undid defeated him with a touch to save his family and his cowardly butt from the lynch mob waiting for him across the river.
And then something weird happens…God blesses him. He gives Jacob two things.[25] You see here is the cool thing about losing to God, when you wrestle with God, the prize purse goes to the loser. But God doesn’t give Jacob what he is asking for…like God usually does, he gives Jacob something better than Jacob asks for. He goes beyond the immediate need the external circumstance that Jacob sees as his problem…and gets at the fundamental reality of Jacob’s problem…which is Jacob. He offers Jacob a new, God centered, missional identity oozing with meaning and purpose that his life has always lacked. He re-writes Jacob into his story of redemption…Telling him ‘you shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel.”[26] Now there is a lot to say here, so I’ll take up this theme of identity change in two weeks when we re-visit this passage
But I want to wrap up with the second thing God gave Jacob… you see the Belt that is counter-intuitively conferred upon Jacob as the loser of that battle…the greatest spoils of losing to God…is God.
When you lose the struggle against God…you win…you win God.
And if we think about the rest of the story, that shouldn’t surprise us. This is the same wrestler that said “whoever should lose his life for my sake will gain it” (Mark 8:35)…and this is the same wrestler who, when he found himself in a cosmic battle with evil and death himself, lost the fight and won.
And because of the way Jesus lost that battle to win it…surrendering to Jesus, clinging to him and going for the ride, changes everything. Jesus is qualified to accept our unconditional surrender to God, and if we lose, we win, we win God…Jesus immediately turns adversity and enmity into reconciliation and acceptance and we begin to see who God really is. Surrendering to Jesus draws back the shroud covering reality to reveal the face of God which, because of Jesus, is unexpectedly for us.[27]
And this is precisely what Jacob experienced in his surrender. Jacob lost to God and won…and his prize was that he, the most pathetic of the patriarchs, got to do something none of them did in their lives…he got see God and he got to see a God who was unexpectedly for him. And this is precisely what his new name means ‘Israel means ‘God struggles for him.’ But there is more direct evidence in the text.
32:30 “So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel (God’s face), saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.”
…which I feel like leads to a very obvious question…what does God’s face look like? He doesn’t immediately say…but then we get a really curious verse in the post script. You see, the next day, Jacob still has to get up and face Esau. [28] And he does, only Esau is not interested in killing him…Esau has come to be reconciled to his estranged brother. Verse 4 in the next chapter says:
33:4 But Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him; he threw his arms around his neck and kissed him.[29] And they wept.
And after their reunion, Jacob tells Esau:
33:10 “For I have seen your face, which is like seeing the face of God, and you have accepted me.”
At first this seems weird…God looks like Esau’s hairy red mug? (back to the elmo well) Probably not. But what is it about Esau that reminds Jacob of the God he just met.’ Forgiveness, reconciliation, and acceptance despite a dark history of offense. He expected violence from Esau and found reconciliation. That is what God’s face looks like. Wrestling with God, struggling with Jesus, throwing down with your creator…it will bring you to the end of yourself. And the only way to win, is to lose.
I was talking to Dan about this passage last week and he said something that stuck with me. He said “one of the really interesting characteristics that emerges from this passage about the God we worship is that, from time to time, he’ll mug you.” And it doesn’t matter if you have known him a long time like Abraham or if you have fought him off most of your life like Jacob, there are times in your life where he’ll come after you and he’ll come hard.
You see the process of spiritual formation is not composed entirely of placid times of quiet reflection…it’s not all stained glass and singing…sometimes spiritual formation takes a violent turn. You can reach a point of stubbornness and self will that Jesus will mug you to foil your self destruction…he’ll throw down. And if Jesus comes after you hard to save you from yourself…you best let him. And then in a counterintuitive plot twist, the final result of God throwing down with you…is that you get to ask for a blessing…but we will take up the topic of the blessing in two weeks.
So your assignment, is if you start a fight with God…lose. Some of you have been wrestling with God for years…and what you really need to do is change your tactics from assault to embrace. Quit trying to beat him…hold on as tight as you can and go for the ride. Some of you may be going through something really difficult right now…and it may be that God has just touched your hip. He wants to use the difficult circumstance to change you from a fighter to a clinger. Lose the fight…and win. You will almost certainly come out of the experience wounded…but you will also come out having ‘seen God face to face’. [30]
[1] I am also contemplating an intro that revolves around the idea that “I have never won a fight.”
[2]At this point in writing this intro…this exact word…”Where is My Mind?” by Pixies came up on Pandora. If I was just a little more of a mystic I’d consider that Divine sanction for using a fight club metaphor.
[3] He saw a camp of angels twice…once when he left ‘the land’ and once when he re-entered
[4] This is Driscoll’s joke. I stole it.
[5] AD: He was the “artist” of the family…the “sensitive second child”
[6] maybe something like this:
"imposing picture of Aaron in hunting gear holding a weapon"
And, he shows up with an army. Esau shows up with 400 men…and I’m guessing these dudes are more like Esau than Jacob (aaron Beiber – or add Taylor with a gun picture, maybe Kiho with a gun).
[7] I feel like there is a ‘if I only had a wheelbarrow’ joke here….or ’what I would give for a holocaust cloak’
[8] Was a fan of dairy products.
[9] The agri-sourcery is only one indication that Jacob and his family were not exclusive Yahwehists in Haran. The most interesting one is Rachel’s successful attempt to swipe an idol (and then hide it by feigned menstruation – no wonder Jacob loved this woman, or maybe proximity had conformed her character to his) on her way out of town. Feeling like you needed daddy’s household idol for your trip back to the promise land is a sign that your family is not “all in” on the covenant. Actually, in naming Judah “This time I will praise Yahweh,” it is Leah who shows the most devotion to the God of Jacob’s fathers’.
[10] There is something about this stick - Hebrews 11
[11] I want to say “like a little bitch” here.
[12] He may have thought it was Esau.
[13] Hosea
[14] Pearl: JesusJesusJesusJesusJesusJesusJesusJesusJesusJesusJesusJesusJesusJesusJesusJesus
[15] This seems to be John’s assessment when he says: “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.” Jn 1:18
[16] There is a clip that slows them down here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbFEpFSRHVs
[17] Pearl: “He was with God in the beginning” (John 1)
[19] Zach: This clips covers what you’re talking about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNzPsfnN3sU
Of course the problem is that it’s another clip…But I happen to love this scene… and it’s action packed and has excellent one-liners
[20] Stuff Adam Darbonne Says: Usually when a preacher talks to college students about two people wrestling all night it’s not in a positive light
[21] BL: I feel like perhaps you should add a further description of what happens in Jacob's head once his hip is touched. He is not just "undone" (which you mention a few times). At the point of being undone and realizing the TRUE superiority of the one he thought he could defy, he is then faced with another choice - to let go and cower from the mighty One, or to cling to Him. I think his choice to submit rather than just lie there defeated or slink away is noteworthy... for Jacob and in our experience of God too: once we realize who He is, will we walk away in denial? or will we then choose a new way of relating to Him, clinging to him dependently and longing for his blessing?
[22] The grasper learns a new form of grasping.
[23] Back in the day this used to be called ‘Jimmy Superfly Snooka’ style…but I suspect that that is a reference that most college students would miss.
[24] AD ““Because we were nerds, even as 5 year olds…”
[25] And so, Jacob is wounded and helpless, finally overcome, finally beyond his resources…but he holds on to this mysterious figure…beliving that he is the only hope to And so he asks for help…despite his sorry position he asks for a reward…and
[26] Ps 30:5 “For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes in the morning.”
[27] The Esau narrative below is evidence of this, but so is the name change which I am going to deal with in 2 weeks. Jacob goes from ‘Jacob’ – ‘the grasper’ to ‘Israel’ – ‘Yahweh struggles for him’
[28] This is what Peter Berger calls mysticism’s “morning after problem.” Encountering God changes you, but it doesn’t always change your world, – “even if an angel appeared to me last night…this morning. I get up, I brush my teeth, I have breakfast…and with each of these actions the memory of last night’s angel begins to fade.” –Peter Berger “A Far Glory”
[29] Every commentator, without fail, recognizes the parallels here between this verse and Luke 15 (the prodigal son). It is more than a coincidence. This is what Evans would call an ‘echo’ – Esau’s counterintuitive acceptance when condemnation was expected is the picture Jesus takes up to describe ‘the face of God.’
[30] …you will come out reconciled and accepted…and you will come out a different person. But we’ll take that idea up in two weeks.
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