Genesis Fight Club: Jacob Wrestles with God (Part 2): Three Versions of You

The MP3 of this talk is available here (right click, save as)
The MP3 and text of Part 1 are also available. 

Fight Club Clip

“If you wake up at a different time, in a different place, could you wake up as a different person?”

Now, those of you who were here a couple weeks ago know I love this film? But why? Why did this film resonate so deeply when it came out? And why does it still resonate with so many, particularly young men and women? Well, what is Fight Club actually about?

It’s a movie about being sick of being you. It is about a boring guy who gets pushed around and whose deepest passions are trivial…who desperately wants to live a different kind of life. It is a story about something we all experience…a deep sense of dissatisfaction with self.

None of us are really who we want to be. And so in the next ten minutes or so I just wanted to revisit the pivotal verse the Jacob story which, as it turns out, poses precisely the same question: What do you do when you are dissatisfied with who you are? You see, Jacob really doesn’t care for being Jacob…he never really did…his story seeths with his dissatisfaction with who he was…and he tries two different ways of dealing with this dissatisfaction which align with two different approaches that are generally on offer in our culture...First he tried to:

1. Be someone else.

I mean, let’s be really honest for a minute…have you ever wished you were someone else?

Well you are not alone. I have. I think we all [2] have.[3]

This is the direction Edward Norton’s character takes this in Fight Club. At one point Brad Pitt’s character tells him…

And this is exactly how Jacob initially tries to deal with his dissatisfaction with who he was…

You see Jacob spends most of his early life trying to be someone else. [4] Jacob’s spent most of his early life trying to be his more impressive older brother…trying to be Esau. We get three stories about their early life and each one is a story of Jacob trying to supplant Esau…trying to be someone else:

i. Jacob’s struggle to be Esau start’s literally at birth. He comes out grabbing his brother’s heal. That is how he gets his name ‘the grasper’. Literally from his first breath he’s not going to be second without a fight. He wants Esau’s position.

ii. In the second story, Jacob shows that his brother may be strong and masculine…but he’s not that bright. So Jacob uses his cleverness and his mad kitchen skills to make a play for Esau’s role.

iii. Then, in the final youth story, Jacob actually puts on an Esau costume. He literally tries to become Esau so he can trick his blind dad into giving him Esau’s stuff…which leads to one of the strangest verses in the Bible:

Two things have always startled me about the Genesis narratives. 1) they are brutal honest with characters that ring true in their complexity and brokenness and 2) these stories resonate with our self understanding and the best insights of human psychology…in these ways, you could say they read like a Dostoevsky novel. Because the characters ring true and the psychology rings true, it is easy to see ourselves in these pages…we are Jacob…we are the struggler. We’ve all wanted to be someone else. And many of us have even tried to pull it off…but it never works…not really.

And we all know that. In fact, it is a relatively ubiquitous insight. Our culture’s poets and story tellers are almost unanimous on the idea that trying to be someone else is a flawed solution to the problem of our dissatisfaction with ourselves. And so they offer the alternate solution

2. Be yourself

I found dozens of quotes that illustrate this but let’s just go with three that capture the phenomenon:

The ubiquity of this idea I think is captured in the fact that it comes to us in mediums as diverse as the wrings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Step it Up 2 (which I feel the need to clarify, I have not seen). [5]

A couple weeks ago, I was exploring this idea I sent an e-mail to a bunch of friends asking them if they could think of cultural artifacts that revolve around this idea of ‘just be yourself’ and they put together a long and diverse list. The list included films from Cool Runnings, to Forest Gump, to Space Jam…it included lyrics from Pink and Audio Slave...

…it included children’s books and of course it included recent inspirational facebook posts. Which was just the tip of the iceberg. I did a image search on “Be yourself” and found page after page of crafted images that package this idea for viral inspiration.

Our cultural teachers and story tellers are unanimous on this one…well almost.

Trying to be someone else is a mistake. The key to a happy and meaningful life is, above all, to ‘be yourself.’ It is to embrace who you are more completely, more authentically and with more abandon.

‘Be yourself’ may be the first commandment of our cultural cannon.

And that is exactly what Jacob does next. After his episodes in trying to be Esau he moves to Haran and undertakes a 20 year experiment in being himself. And he learns something very important…something, I suspect if you’ve given it any thought, you’ve also learned.

‘Being yourself’ is waaay overrated.

Here’s the problem…our cultural obsession with ‘being yourself’ has, frankly, always confused me. I mean what does that even mean? A couple years ago Amanda and I stumbled on a high school drama called My So Called Life. It was a flawed series [6] and only ran for about a dozen episodes…but it had periodic flashes of substantial insight…but my favorite line of the whole thing was

Implicit in the idea that you should ‘be yourself’ is that the self is discovered rather than formed.

It makes the process of character formation a passive rather than an active process…you are at the mercy of the raw materials of ‘you’ placed there by capricious, random biological and cultural processes.

But you are a project not a puzzle. For the most part ‘you’ are something you become not something you find. Christianity uses the metaphor of ‘spiritual formation’ much more than ‘self discovery.’[7]

And that is really good news for most of us, because the person I see when I reflect on my decisions and behavior is not the person I want to be. I am petty, bitter, materialistic, selfish, apathetic, deceitful, lazy, self serving.[8] When someone tells me, ‘just be yourself’ – my response is ‘um, no thank you.’ So the cultural injunction to ‘be myself’ doesn’t make a lot of sense as a solution to the problem that Jacob faced, that Norton’s character in fight club faced and that most of us face…dissatisfaction with self.

You see, dissatisfaction with self is a healthy impulse. The alternative is narcissism. [9]

And Jacob found the same thing. After his attempts to be his brother ended and ended poorly, he moved to Haran for 20 years, where he decided to ‘just be Jacob’ – and you know what, ‘being Jacob,’ got him rich. [10] But his 20 year experiment in ‘being himself’ resulted in hurting not one, but 4 women, raising over a dozen deeply damaged children, and essentially leaving a wake of professional and relational destruction. It turns out, that Jacob wasn’t someone worth being. He spends 20 years ‘finding himself’ on a ranch in Haran, only to not like what he found.

You see, you are not a toaster. If you are going to become someone worth being, you can’t start with trying to be someone else…and you can’t start with something as shadowy and self serving as your whims and desires.

But if we can agree that being someone else is a horrible way to form your identity and that ‘being yourself’ is way overrated…where does that leave us? There has got to be a path that is better than just ‘discovering’ our disappointing selves. Is there a third option? Well, Genesis 32 suggests there is. You can:

3. Become God’s Version of You

Instead of ‘wanting to be someone else’ or ‘just being yourself’…we can cooperate with God to become His version of us.

And so there is this little dialogue after the wrestling match that goes on all night. Jacob says something about as profound as my 4 year old would say…’I won’t let go until you give me something.’ But as I talked about 2 weeks ago something fundamentally changed during the fight. Jacob’s encounter with Jesus changed his character. [11]

And so God looked past the stuff that Jacob thought he needed…and went all the way back, to the thing he wanted most from the very beginning. Jacob wanted to be someone else. He wanted to be someone who mattered. So God asks him:

‘What’s your name?’ [12]

‘Jacob’ comes the reply. And that is more than just his name, for decades it has been his identity: “Grasper, deceiver, betrayer, manipulator…” The smartest guy in the room.

And then God says – no more. You are someone else now. You are my man for my purpose and my covenant. “Your name will no longer be Jacob…but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.”

Jacob is stunned. Suddenly he starts to realize that this encounter was much more than he thought. And there is a moment like in the batman films where he asks ‘Who are you?”

The wrestler doesn’t answer…but it is clear. Yahweh himself has given Jacob a glimpse of who he could be…something better than being his brother…and something better than continuing to be himself…he could become Israel…he could become God’s version of him.

The alternative to wanting to be someone else is not to ‘be yourself’…it is to become the you who God sees…to become God’s version of you.

But here is the thing. You can’t do that. And neither could Jacob. By the end of the chapter, Jacob is already back to his old tricks, pulling one over on Esau …there is a lot of Jacob still there and there will be through his entire story.

But do you know what Israel means?

Israel means ‘God strives for him.’ When Jacob surrendered to God, God took the lead in his process of becoming.

You see, this is the turning point of the story not because Jacob magically changes or because he has a new surge of willpower but because he has entered a relationship with a transforming God. This passage is a turning point in Jacob’s identity not because Jacob has changed, but because Jesus has taken his case. And that is what happens when you surrender to Jesus, when you trust him and make that surrender public through baptism…and when you walk with him in the gradual process of becoming his version of you. Jesus takes the lead in establishing your identity and guides you along the uneven but hopeful road of transformation…of becoming his version of you.

Tonight we are going to hear three ‘Jacob stories’ – stories not of wanting to be someone else…and stories that are not satisfied with self discovery…but stories of the uneven road to becoming who God the you God sees.

-3 student testimonies of transformation and becoming – recognizing how god sees them and trying to live in that reality

Other talk MP3s available Here
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[1] I almost always write two talks and then cut one of them…this time Dan and I decided that I should just give them both.
[2] There is a whole commandment that revolves around the assumption that it is a fundamental human impulse…more than one if you include theft as an attempt to assume someone else’s material identity.
[3] AD: When I was a kid I desperately wanted to be an NFL QB, but I was 5’10 and 101 pounds- I just wasn’t an NFL QB Now I want to be Michale Westen- smoother, less flusterable, more of a rule breaker, etc.
[4] I owe this insight to Rob Bell.
[5] I had a much longer list, but went with these three because they represented the range of high brow, middle brow and low brow cultural voices.
[6] It took itself a little too seriously…but, come on, this was the same era in which “Saved by the Bell” ran for like 18 seasons.
[7] Stuff Adam Darbonne Says: There was a fight in college basketball a couple months ago (I think Cincinnati). In the press conference the guy who started fighting said something to the effect of “I’m really sorry. That wasn’t me- it’s not who I am” Whenever I hear something like that I always think, “Apparently that is you. It may not be who you want to be, but it does reveal something about you.”
[8] People say all the time ‘well no one’s perfect’ – but that’s a smokescreen…no one’s close. What they are really saying is, “I grade myself on the curve and I hate other people, so I seem pretty good to me.”
[9] And it is no coincidence that our culture who celebrates ‘be yourself’ as its canonical insight, is also characterized by narcissism.
[10] …and it got him laid…a lot. –yeah, I wrote that…then I cut it. So at least there’s that.
[11] Assault became clinging. And that was God’s plan Jacob. The grasper became the hugger.
[12]AD: There’s a great scene in the movie Miracle that illustrates this perfectly. Early in the movie the coach asks all the players who they are and they say their name and school. Then this clip happens after a terrible game. It’s 8 minutes but it’s worth watching- you could use a piece of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9AajQn7b18&feature=related
[13] Alternate ending: Now, the process of becoming Israel doesn’t happen instantaneously. Before the chapter is even over, Jacob is already doing something deceitful. There is still a lot of Jacob there, and there will be throughout his story. But he has been introduced to his true identity…who God sees that he can be. And it is the turning point in his story.
The wrestling match leaves Jacob no longer wanting to be Esau…he doesn’t want someone else’s story…but he also doesn’t want to be satisfied with Jacob…his story of self making…he emerges from that wrestling match, broken, limping, but with a picture of how God sees him.
This passage is a high noon showdown (whistling high noon music) – except it is in the middle of the night - between Jacob and God…Jacob doesn’t survive, but he gets what he always wanted…to be someone else, someone significant. You see it took him longer, but before he could be …he had to become like Abraham in at least one way…he had to become an alter builder…someone who’s best confidence is not in his or her own abilities, but in their alliance with God.
God wants Jacob to give up on being Esau, and to recognize that Jacob is a d-bag not worth being…but that when God sees him, he sees Israel…he sees a better Jacob…a Jacob transformed by wrestling with God and finding love in the face of God…a Jacob that isn’t living for himself but who is part of a mission and a purpose.

Genesis Fight Club: Jacob Wrestles with God (Part 1) -How To Lose a Fight…and Win

Mp3 (here)

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:

In two weeks we are going to re-visit this passage and that talk will get its own introductory clip from the movie, but tonight, in part 1 I want to look at what I think is the dominant theme in Genesis 32:

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.

Building Bigger Barns

Luke 12:13-31

So I have distinct memories of two times that I was studying Luke, once during grad school in Wisconsin and a second time in Buffalo shortly after I got my first engineering job. In both cases I was cruising along in the book, the stories were pretty familiar and the study was pretty unremarkable, until I ran into chapter 12 like a brick wall. Matt Chandler, pastor of The Village church, said that this passage has beaten him up. I agree.

Jesus makes two basic and related points here. First, he says, Watch out for greed. Then he says Do not worry. This is all precipitated, however, from a nonsequiter. Jesus is teaching the crowd about some pretty weighty stuff. Earlier in chapter 12 you get the verses:

2There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. 3What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs. 4"I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. 5But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.

Like I said, Jesus is not messing around in Luke 12. I honestly can’t believe this guy was listening. I can not read those verses without thinking about the things concealed that I am afraid to have made known. This guy wasn’t there to let Jesus set his agenda, he wanted to set the teacher’s agenda. He wanted Jesus to work for him. So he interrupts Jesus and asks him to force his brother to divide the inheritance with him. Now there are a few observations I’d like to make about this exchange:

i. The guy is treating Jesus as a rabbi. Rabbis were commonly called upon to adjudicate disputes like this. It is kind of ironic that he comes looking for a judge and he finds THE Judge.

ii. But the guy is not asking Jesus to make a decision. He is asking Jesus to rubber stamp his agenda. And this makes Jesus mad. I don’t think there is any question that Jesus is hot when he responds. And I think there is a subtle warning here. Don’t you dare assume that Jesus backs your agenda. He will not be used. He will not be coopted to serve your purposes. Honestly, this whole thing reminds me of the election. People on both sides essentially came to Jesus and said, tell the other folks I’m right. Or they said to each other ‘Jesus is on our side.’ We need to be very careful what we sign his name to.

iii. We have no information regarding whether this guy was actually wronged. He might have been. Jesus does not seem to think that is the point.

He takes no interest in this family dispute but uses the opportunity to teach about greed and contentment. He builds the argument from two directions. In verses 13-21 he warns about the dangers of greed, essentially developing the ‘negative’ argument. ‘Watch out,’ he says, this thing can wreck you. Then, in verses 22-34 he paints a picture of contentment, not just the absence of greed, but the active discipline of the opposite affection…and offers contentment as the antidote for worry and fear. So I will tackle the passage in these two parts. But before we get into some pretty thick material, let’s illustrate the two points with visual aids from xkcd.com:

1. Watch out for Greed

2. Cultivate Contentment

1. ‘Watch out…for greed.’

Now it may seem odd to give a talk on money and possessions to a room full of college students who don’t tend to have much of either, but let me make a case for it.

i. First, greed is an equal opportunity destroyer. It affects those with a lot and those with almost nothing. Greed is not actually a function of how much you have but of the orientation of the heart.

ii. Secondly, as UCD grads you are going to eventually have pretty strong earning potential. It is you and those like you that will resource the church for the decades to come. The patterns you set and commitments you make NOW will set the patterns for the decades when you will have significant resources.

iii. Third, Jesus says to ‘Watch out, for ALL kinds of greed.’ Lust and porn are essentially forms of greed. The are symptoms of discontent. Check out this verse in Collosians:

5Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 6Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. 7You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. 8But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these:

Doesn’t it seem like ‘greed’ is out of place on that list. All the other verbs seem to refer to sex. But ‘greed’ does too, it totally belong in this list. In Luke 12 Jesus focuses on material or financial greed. This is not surprising since Jesus talks about money approximately 12 times more frequently than he talks about sex. But the principals are the same for ALL kinds of greed. So if you just cannot get into Jesus’ warning about financial greed, many of the same principals can be applied to other parts of our lives where our behaviors include unhealthy excess.

A: The Warning

"Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions."

Jesus says ‘Watch out’ That phrase is actually significant. Why? No one thinks they are greedy. Look at the other places he uses this phrase:

“Watch out for false prophets.”
“Watch out that no one deceives you.”
“Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod.”

He uses this phrase to talk about sneaky dangers.[1] He never says “Watch out for adultery.” Why? Because you know when you stepping out on your wife. It is destructive, but it’s not sneaky. Jesus uses this phrase ‘Watch out’ for sneaky stuff. You don’t know if you are being deceived (Because you’re being deceived) and, likewise, it is easy to overlook the results of greed in your life. Tim Keller said he did a series on the seven deadly sins. You have heard of these right? They are something like lust, pride, sloth…a few others…including greed. I think there was a disturbing Brad Pitt movie on them. Keller said that when he announced the series his wife said to him, you watch, your lowest attendance will be for the week on greed. And you know what. She was right. More people came to the week on sloth, which is surprising, since it would seem like if you struggle with sloth, you wouldn’t be motivated to go hear a talk on it. You’d just stay in bed.

The reason Keller’s wife was right is that no one thinks they struggle with greed. It’s sneaky. And that is why Jesus says ‘watch out’. He says be extra vigilant on this one. The Greek phrase for ‘be on your guard’ is a military term for keeping watch for armed hostiles. He says keep your hand on your gun, work the night vision goggles, because there is a stealth enemy out to get you, and he might already be in your midst.

'Because life does not consist in the abundance of things'

So since I started perching at college life I am 3 for 3 on film illustrations, but I could not read this passage without thinking of my all time favorite movie.[2] Here is a classic scene from Fight Club:

‘The Ikea Nesting influence.’ For years after seeing this I refused to go to Ikea. It is a devastating clip. But the question ‘what kind of dining set defines me as a person’ gets right at the heart of this passage. And incidentally, did you catch the link between greed and porn. Later in the movie the Ed Norton’s charecter is talking in a bar with Brad Pitt’s character and they have this exchange;

Tyler Durden: Do you know what a duvet is?
Narrator: It's a comforter...
Tyler Durden: It's a blanket. Just a blanket. Now why do guys like you and me know what a duvet is? Is this essential to our survival, in the hunter-gatherer sense of the word? No. What are we then?
Narrator: ...Consumers?
Tyler Durden: Right. We're consumers. We are by-products of a lifestyle obsession. Murder, crime, poverty, these things don't concern me. What concerns me are celebrity magazines, television with 500 channels, some guy's name on my underwear. Rogaine, Viagra, Olestra.
Narrator: Martha Stewart.
Tyler Durden: (Bleep) Martha Stewart. Martha's polishing the brass on the Titanic. It's all going down, man. So (Bleep) off with your sofa units and Strinne green stripe patterns…What you own ends up owning you.

And this is how we are viewed in our illustrious economic system. We are consumers. There is an entire industry that spends millions of dollars in psychological research with the admitted intent of assailing our contentment and agitating our greed. But Jesus beat Tyler Durden to this punch. By saying ‘a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions’ he is saying, refuse to let them define your personhood by what you consume. Be something radically different. Be content.

B: The Story

To illustrate his warning Jesus tells a REALLY disturbing story.

The first thing to notice about this story is that the man is not primarily responsible for his excess resources. The passage says, ‘The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop.’ Did you catch that? Who produced the crop? Jesus intentionally attributes this man’s success to forces outside of his control. From the very beginning he undermines the man’s assertion that ‘his’ stuff is really his by pointing out that there are forces outside his control that have made him prosperous. I think this is Jesus’ way of saying, God gave this man an abundant year. Let’s see what he does with it.

So the man decides to store the excess. Now this is where commentators disagree on this passage. Many (even most) say there was nothing wrong with his decision to tear down a perfectly good barn to build bigger ones to store his excess. I tend not to agree. I think he begins to go wrong here. There is something suspicious about storing large quantities of resources. Now this can be taken too far. For years Amanda and I refused to save for retirement based on this passage. No one could explain to us the Biblical basis for storage in light of this passage, until someone said, 'the first barn.' There is sanctioned storage in this passage. When the man had a standard sized barn that provided adequate storage, he was not condemned. And so we have sanction for reasonable savings. It was only when he wanted to assure his future and gaurentee that he would neither have need to trust God or work, by hoarding this crop for his own use, that he is condemned

So while the commentators differ on the rightness of building the bigger barns, they are agreed that the center of this mans error is in verses 18-19:

18"Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry."

The Greek words for “I” and “my” are used 12 times in 3 verses here . This man had a passion for himself. His primary error, the essence of greed, was to take the abundance God has given him, and us it on himself alone rather than to return God’s generosity by passing the excess on to those who had need. This man is fundamentally an American, he thinks that the purpose of life is the 'pursuit of happiness.' He’s wrong. It was ultra easy for me to fill a powerpoint slide with logos and items encouraging us to ‘Eat, Drink and be Merry.’ It is our anthem. Its our destruction. Some people talk about cultural propensities for certain sins. In some cultures lying is more prevalent because it is more socially acceptable. If you ask a Christian from almost any other culture what our cultural sins are, they will say lust and greed. So more than almost any one else, we need to ‘Watch Out.’

Remember the verse from Colossians…why does Paul call greed idolatry? Because how you use resources IS WORSHIP. Hoarding them our using them in a self centered way demonstrates that you do not worship Yahweh. Money, like everything else in life, is a worship issue. When evangelicals talk about worship we generally mean singing. This frankly sucks. It is so wrong. The moments of greatest worship can be writing a check or holding your tongue. Have you ever thought about internet worship…the act of NOT clicking on sites you know are not good for you is a radical act of WORSHIP. What you buy and where you click demonstrates your allegiance.

A couple commentators pointed out that this man is talking to himself instead of to other people or to God. Notice that this is a private rather than a corporate decision. Who is his personal financial advisor? He is. So his decisions make perfect sense to him...but God calls him a fool. Which bring up the roles of community in generosity. I think Christian community has two roles in the generosity of individual Christians. First, other Christians can provide accountability. I think it is funny that we hold each other accountable on sex, affection and lust issues…but some how, our finances are too personal. Some of my professors at Wheaton used to voluntarily share their tax returns with each other and give each other permission to question whether or not the numbers demonstrate that the worship Yahweh.

But there is a second role of community in generosity: protection.[3] God says he will provide all of your needs if you are generous and, in our individualistic society, we think that means we will get a mysterious check in the mail. But God’s primary instrument for his work is his people. One role of the church is to have each other’s backs in the event that someone’s generosity leaves them exposed.

There is another subtle subtext to this passage. In the Roman and Greek world work was seen as mundane and unfortunate. If you could, you had other people labor (i.e. slaves) for you giving you the leisure necessary for philosophical and spiritual development.[4] Work was seen as fundamentally unspiritual and a hiderence to spiritual growth. This dichotomy has made its way into our culture as well. Most of us see work as bad and leisure as good. We want to put ourselves in a position where we can work as little as possible and have as much leisure as possible. The American dream is to be independently wealthy (note, independent means not dependent). But this is not the Hebrew view or the New Testament situation. In the Bible work is a PRE-Fall ordinance, which means that when Adam and Eve were living the best possible life, the ideal existence that God had in mind for them before sin messed things up, it included work. The fall made work harder, but it didn’t invent it. You do not here this preached a lot in churches, I think, because those who preach do not work outside the church...so they don’t spend much time thinking about it. You here, spend more time with your families, or spend more time in ministry, but you seldom here good biblical teaching on the other 50 hours of your week. Here’s a kicker, I think heaven will include work. Pastors and doctors will have to undergo vocational re-training with the drug dealers and prostitutes[5], but we will work in the eschaton. In addition to this man being self involved and failing to worship, he tried to create for himself a life of leisure. A life dedicated to leisure is unnatural as a life dedicated to work.

2. Cultivate Contentment as the Antidote to Worry

A. Where Worry Comes From

In verse 22 it appears that Jesus abruptly changes topic. He says: "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear.” It would appear that he made a random topic change from greed to worry…except, one of the first things you learn about biblical interpretation is that ‘Therefore’ connects the passage to whatever came before it. In mathematics, ‘therefore’ connotes a logical consequence, such as the conclusion of a syllogism. It represents a strong connection. So what is the connection between greed and worry? Worry is the proportional byproduct of vesting in loosable things. Jesus suggests that worry precedes from greed.

To unpack this idea Jesus tells two micro parables. Now I used to think that the birds and the lilies were just Hebrew parallelism. Are you familiar with parallelism? Glen actually talked about it on Sunday. It is one of the foundational structures of Hebrew poetry. You see this all the time in the Psalms where the poet says the same thing two different ways for emphasis. For example:
"O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger,
or discipline me in your wrath.

Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am faint;
Lord, heal me, for my bones are in agony." Psalm 6:1-2,

So I though, Jesus is making the same point two different ways for emphasis. But I was wrong.[6] He is drawing out two different kinds of greed that we need to watch out for. A common root cause that manifests in two opposite behaviors. He is saying there are at least two dramatically different ways that greed can lead to worry: security and image. The first is the one I struggle with the most. The story of the Raven gets at worry that resources will run out…that I will somehow come up short. This generates the impulse to horde in order to reduce uncertainty about the future and, thus, mitigate worry. Those of us affected by this kind of greed, we tend to be misers.

But the story of the lilies addresses an entirely different kind of resource worry. It is a concern about image. Will I appear important, clever, attractive, interesting, worthy of love. This kind of worry generates the opposite behavior. Instead of hoarding, this kind of worry brings with it the impulse to max out credit cards to aquire goods that will make us feel good about ourselves and seem beautiful or important in the eyes of others. .

The hoarders look at the spenders and judge. The spenders look a the hoarders and judge. But both worry and at the heart of both kinds of worry is a fundamental discontent. Greed if you will. Jesus says that both of these are symptoms of the same disease, and require the same prescription; contentment.

The Bible is consistent in its treatment of this topic. Paul says, be careful, greed is sneaky and it can mess you up before you even realize you are affected by it. And then he offers contentment as the solution.

6But godliness with contentment is great gain. 7For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. 8But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. 9People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction.

B. The Prescription

31But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well. 32"Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.”

I love the insight we get into Jesus in this passage. He is dramatically stern and tender within a few minutes of each other. Before this he was railing on religious hypocrisy and he laid into the guy who interrupted him with a family squabble. But listen to how gentle he is here in assuaging fears. Do not be afraid little flock. But after he tenderly assuages our fears, he gets shocking again. Look with me at the next verse (33):

33Sell your possessions and give to the poor.

That always floors me. It is like the previous text sets me reeling and this is the knock out upper cut. That is a radical command. The last thing I want to do is to diffuse the power of this verse…but I think there are three things we need to think about as we try to apply such a radical statement.

i. We store resources differently in our time, culture and economy than those listening to Jesus that day did. We have bank accounts, 401k’s IRA’s, Roth IRA’s, CD’s, stocks, shorts etc… There were not that many ways to store resources back then. If you had excess agricultural resources, either you build a bigger barn or you buy something of value (e.g. fine cloth was a common investment which is why he mentions the moths, it was not a completely safe investment). So when Jesus tells those listening to sell stuff, what he is essentially saying is ‘dip into what you have stored up’ your buffer if you will.

ii. How much should we liquidate to give? Well there is not a formulaic answer to this.[7] We see a variety of responses in the Scriptures. Jesus told the rich young ruler (who Bronwyn will be talking about next quarter) to give everything he had. Zacheus (who Bronwyn will also be talking about next quarter) gave half and Jesus was pleased. Barnabas sold a field.

iii. Third, he is not just talking about supporting the work of the gospel. He is interested in the poor. There are 2103 in our scriptures that address the poor and the oppressed. That is like 2096 more times than the Bible mentions homosexuality. The poor should be the special interest of the people of God.

The point here is to work out with God how much you keep and how much you give and to whom. This is dangerous ground for legalism. I have to admit that every time I see a $60,000 vehicle in the church parking lot I start to get all judgy. But we feel like God led us to buy a house in Davis a few months ago which, honestly, makes Lexus money seem like chump change. The point here is for each of us to try to simplify. For us, there is one number on our tax return that is more important than any other…more important than how much we owe or will get back…it is what our giving percentage is. It would be moral failure for Amanda and I, with what we make as a two income engineer/nurse family, to give only 10%. We want to see this percentage (not just the amount but the percentage) that we give grow each year.

For you, as students, who are already simplified by necessity, I think the goal is as your income grows, place governors on your spending. Try to lag your secular couleuges in standard of living by 5 to 10 years. Try to reject the idea that certain life stages require a certain standard of living. Intentionally rebel against the cultural expectations and wage simplicity so that you can put your excess resources into God’s business of justice, beauty, the poor and the gospel. Be rich towards God.

The passage concludes: Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. 34For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

I’ll close with this story. I 8th grade I had a friend named Korey Buzzell. Lets just say that, in 8th grade, neither of our social calendars were exactly packed. So most weekends we’d get together and play video games, chess and monopoly. We were evenly matched at chess. Most weekends we’d each win half the games and we’d never play an odd number because we were afraid to give the other one a week of bragging rights. When it came to monopoly, however, it was a different story. Korey Buzzell owned me in monopoly. I tried everyting, I tried to play precisely like him, I even took a book out of the library on monopoly strategy and read the whole thing (Yes, a book like that exists and yes, that is how popular I was in 8th grade, I had plenty of time to read it). But to this day I have never beaten Korey in monopoly. That year we probably played 30 games and I went 0-30. But here is the thing. I got really vested in each of those games. The more I lost the more I wanted to win and the more the monopoly money meant to me. But it only mattered for 2-3 hours. After Korey had all my monopoly money, which happened every time without fail, he couldn’t so much as buy a coke with it. Once the game was over it had no value. But what if there was a way to win real $ in monopoly I assure you that wining the actual cash would become the game’s primary objective.

And this is essentially the point of this passage. Jesus says “Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted.” Essentially, he is saying, ‘Stop hoarding monopoly money.’ It's value is fleeting. Go for the stuff that will last. Invest in the Kingdom. Be rich towards God.

__________________________________
[1] For this point I am indebted to Tim Keller.
[2] Actually, since the last 20 minutes of fight club fall apart, it is in a dead heat with Braveheart…but the opening hour of Fight Club was written for me, an Angsty X-er man.
[3] This point is from Keller as well.
[4] See Faith and Wealth: A History of Early Christian Ideas on the Origin, Significance and Use of Money by Justo Gonzalez. http://www.amazon.com/Faith-Wealth-History-Christian-Significance/dp/0060633174/ref=cm_cr-mr-title
[5] That is a funny picture.
[6] Again, Keller was the only one I encountered (of 5 commentaries and 12 sermons reviewed) that brought this out.
[7] This point is from John Piper’s work on this passage.