Sunday, October 16, 2022

Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Genesis 32:22-30
Psalm 121
2 Timothy 3:14-4:5
Luke 18:1-8

Yahweh will keep your going out and your coming in, from this time forward, and forever more.

Have you ever noticed that the grocers put the milk at the very back of the store? Grocery stores are specially designed this way. I don’t know about you, but I try to go to the grocery store and get as much as I might need for a few days or a week, but there’s always something I need in between. Milk is one of those items that often requires a quick trip to the store. I always complained that the milk should be closer to the entrance so that we don’t need to walk through the whole store to get that one item. But that’s the point. The grocer wants you to walk by thousands of other items so that you might pick up a few extra items along the way. Milk does not have a large profit margin, but the products you pass along the way do.

The next time you run into the store for the gallon of milk, take notice to how many endcap specials you pass. See how there is a refrigerator unit with easy bake cookie dough and a rack with donuts close by. These displays are purposely placed in the hopes that you will be thinking about that milk you plan to purchase and how good it would taste with some hot cookies or fresh donuts. On the way back to the checkout stand you’ll pass other items that you just can’t pass up. You will see items that appear to be on sale or brand-new offerings from your favorite companies. These displays are meant to manipulate you into buying more than you want or need. I laugh when I see someone holding a half dozen items in their arms as they walk from the milk display. “I wasn’t going to buy much. That’s why I didn’t get a cart.” We’ve all been there, I’m sure.

This technique is used in many other places where we are trying to “sell” something, even in the Church. Churches plan programs with the hope of getting people through the doors, offering activities and experiences that will draw new people into their pews. We forget that God is the one who draws people in, and He does so with His Word. It is great when people

We don’t have to be manipulative. We don’t have to try to sell people something they do not need or want. We are called to simply share the love of God with those whom God has placed in our path. Living faith is not something that requires a special degree or a ministerial vocation. Living faith is taking God with us into our daily lives, continuing to worship and praise God in our homes, jobs and schools. We tend to put our faith into a box when we walk into the world, but in doing so we also hide God from a world that desperately needs His grace. God has entrusted us with a very special gift, and He daily gives us the opportunity to share it. All too often we ignore the opportunities to evangelize because we are afraid, but we have nothing to fear. God is with us in our daily lives.

Yet all too often we use manipulation to get our way, not trusting in God but trusting in our own ability to make things happen.

We aren’t very good at waiting for God to make things right, even when He has promised to do so. We see opportunities to get things done, so we do them, forgetting that God has a plan. Then we find that we are caught up in a situation that is not what God intends and we struggle. The best example of this is Abraham and Sarah who did not wait for God to fulfill His promise of children, and we are still struggling with the animosity between Isaac and Ishmael today in the Middle East and around the world.

Jacob was born under a promise, but human impatience and uncertainty got in the way of God’s fulfillment of that promise. Jacob was the son of Isaac and Rebecca, a twin whose brother was named Esau. They wrestled with each other even in the womb. Esau was born first; Jacob followed closely, grasping the heel of his brother’s foot. The boys were completely different. Jacob was a handsome and quiet young man, the opposite of his rugged brother who hunted the wild game their father loved. Esau was favored by Isaac, Jacob by Rebecca. God had promised Rebecca that Jacob would inherit the promises, and they took matters into their own hands to ensure that the promise would be fulfilled.

Jacob is an interesting but not very likeable character. From the beginning of his life, he wrestled with his brother and with the promises of God. He struggled with his brother Esau over the blessing of Isaac and his inheritance. He struggled with Laban over the woman he loved. He struggled with his wives, their maids, and the children they gave him. Jacob wrestled with his fears, his doubts, and his place in the story of God’s people. The promises for Jacob were clear from the beginning, but he did not trust God. The voices that guided him did not trust that God is faithful. He lied and cheated and inflicted revenge on those who lied to and cheated him. He manipulated things to his benefit and ran away when the going got tough. He played favorites and served himself.

Jacob is not totally to blame. Though he took the birthright from Esau, Esau gave it away for a bowl of soup. He worked seven long years for the right to marry Rachel and Laban tricked him into taking Leah. Laban tried to take advantage of Jacob, cheating him out his rightful pay. He took matters into his own hands. Rebecca helped him take control of the blessing from his father. It seemed to her that it was necessary to do so that God’s promises could be fulfilled. In every situation, the actions were justified by the thought that they helped bring about God’s purpose for Jacob. However, every time we take matters into our own hands, we show our lack of trust in God. We think that God needs our help to be faithful.

During the years that he was gone, Jacob had built a dynasty for himself. He had wives, servants, children, and great wealth. Then one day, he heard the voice of God who told him to go home. He was afraid, but he obeyed. He sent a message to Esau announcing his return and Esau answered by coming to meet him with an army of hundreds. Still afraid and doubting God’s promises, Jacob divided his people and possessions into two groups, hoping that if Esau destroyed one group the other group will survive.

Then he prayed. He prayed a prayer in which he recognized his unworthiness, confessed his doubt, and reminded God of His promises. On the night before he faced his brother, he wrestled with his own doubts. To be reconciled to his brother, Jacob first needed to overcome all that had kept him from living as God had intended. He was a sinful man who had to face his greatest sin: his lack of trust in God. Everything he did against men, he did against God, because it was his way of ensuring that God’s promises would be fulfilled. Before he faced his past and began his future, he had to face his God.

This is an odd story because in many ways it does not fit in with our understanding of God. We must ask too many questions. Who is this “man” wrestling with Jacob? If it is God, why can’t he prevail against a mere man? Why does He have to hurt Jacob to win? Why doesn’t He know Jacob’s name? Why does He have to leave by dawn?

Do we need the answers to all these questions? God is mysterious. He is mysterious because He is God. We are merely human, sinners unable to know and fully understand His purpose and His plan for our lives. We hold on to our own sovereignty and justify our lack of trust by claiming that we are aiding God’s plan. The mystery gives us room to be independent, to trust or not trust God’s faithfulness.

Jacob was about to meet with Esau, his brother with whom he had been fighting for his entire life. God’s promises were wrapped up in that relationship and instead of trusting God to be faithful, Jacob had taken control. It was necessary for Jacob to wrestle with God, to understand that God is in control of his life and his destiny. He had to give himself to God, to be humbled in His presence, to recognize his own mortality before he met with his brother. He had to wrestle with himself to fully trust God.

Journeys are not easy. The temporal dangers are obvious: weather, criminals, and health issues cause difficulty along the path. I had a friend who did the Camino de Santiago a few years ago and she experienced blisters and exhaustion and other maladies along the way. Some pilgrims choose to make the journey even more difficult by adding spiritual practices: they fast or some even take parts of the journey on their knees. The journey serves as a way of humbling themselves and becoming worthy to stand in the presence of the divine. Other people go on pilgrimages out of a sense of duty or requirement of their religion.

The Jews made pilgrimages to the Temple in Jerusalem. They went to the temple to make sacrifices, as well as to worship and honor God at the special feasts and festivals during the year. It was a difficult journey. The roads were harsh and dangerous. No one knew if they would make it home alive, particularly through the hills that surrounded the city. Robbers and murderers hid in the rocky crevices of those hills waiting for travelers. The conditions were unwelcoming to the pilgrims, but they took these journeys with the assurance of God’s presence. The Jews did not make a pilgrimage to a sacred place to meet God, they knew that they only way they could arrive to Jerusalem was if God walked with them.

We take all sorts of journeys in our life. Some are short, like trips to the mall or the grocery store. Some are more important like the journey through our school years or a trip to the altar. Our journeys can be physical like a trip to Grandmother’s house, or they can be emotional as we make decisions that will transform our lives. We also take spiritual journeys.

The psalmist knew what it was like to take a hard journey. He wrote as a pilgrim who has gone to the Temple in Jerusalem to do his duty as a man of faith. The song of praise looks toward the journey home, a blessing for the faithful people of God as they left the house of the Lord to face the dangers of the world enriched, inspired, and prepared after their time in Jerusalem. We don’t know what we will face during our journeys. The Jewish pilgrims faced murderers and thieves in the mountains outside the city. They faced the heat of the desert and the loneliness of the road. They faced the reality of returning to the world after experiencing the divine.

Our scriptures this week are about the relationship with have with God. In each of the lessons we see some aspect of our communication with the God of our salvation. We wrestle with God. We seek God’s blessing as we go out into the world to face the dangers that threaten our physical, emotional and spiritual lives. We stand firm in the scriptures, reading God’s Word regularly to keep it fresh on our minds and in our hearts. We come before God repeatedly seeking His mercy and grace. All these ways of communicating are journeys in of themselves as we learn to dwell in the presence of God. He is the destination of our life of faith, but He is also there with us.

The psalm for today was apparently used at the end of worship during those feasts and festivals that brought pilgrims into the Temple. The community of faith sought the blessing of God as they were beginning their trip back to their homes. “Who will save us? God will save us.” The song finishes with a benediction, an invocation of God’s blessings over the community of faith as they went their separate ways. “Yahweh will keep your going out and your coming in, from this time forward, and forever more.” God does not sleep. He takes care of His people. We found this passage written in stone on a doorway in Germany as a reminder to all those who enter and leave the home that God is with them.

The ideal is to trust in God’s will and His timing, but we often tend to be more like the woman in today’s Gospel lesson. She reminds me of a pesky five-year-old. Those of us with children remember that age. Children can be very persistent. They can ask, plead, haggle, deal, cry, and beg in a matter of minutes. It takes the most unfaltering mother to keep saying “No” repeatedly. Sometimes our response is just like that of the judge, but there were times when I weighed and measured the choices. We wonder if it better to teach the lesson that we cannot have everything we want, or to use it as an opportunity of grace.

The judge had no fear of God or concern for men. He had ruled against the woman time and time again. Her opponent was probably a powerful man. The woman could do nothing for the judge’s career or for his personal fortune. It would not pay him to rule in her favor. Perhaps he had received or expected a bribe from the litigants. We do not know the story behind the appeals. She was a widow; she probably lost everything when her husband died with no means of support and no authority. She had no one to stand up for her. She was alone and she really had no choice. She had to fight by appealing to the judge’s sense of justice.

And if he wouldn’t listen to what was good, right, and true, she would appeal to his sense of personal protection. Though he was a man who had no fear of God and no regard for humans, he did have a sense of his position. Her constant appeals were not only annoying, but they revealed her plight to the community. Like the mother who finally answers that pesky five-year-old, the judge gave up and said, “yet because this widow bothers me, I will defend her, or else she will wear me out by her continual coming.” The translation does fully convey the intent of these words.

Her persistence should be understood as “to strike in the eye” or “to give a black eye to someone.” In other words, this powerful and authoritative judge recognized that the weak widow could do damage to his reputation and his future. He saw that even though the widow had no wealth to pay him or power to secure him a better position, she could destroy his reputation in the community and make his job more difficult. He gave in to her cries and ruled in her favor. Sometimes human justice comes through the unrighteous motives of men.

Jesus told His parables to teach about the Kingdom of God, but the unjust judge is not a parallel for God. Jesus used the parable to show an exaggeration of a typical human response to a situation and then compared it to the reality of God’s ways. God does not have to be threatened with a loss of his power and authority to respond to human need or provide right justice. God could have stopped the wrestling match with Jacob any time he wanted. God is just and when he hears the cries of His people, He responds with mercy and grace, and He does so according to His good and perfect will. That’s why we can, and should, trust in Him.

This is not just a story about the persistence of prayer as it is often interpreted. Some people suggest that we should just keep praying for the same childish things over and over again like a pesky five-year-old until God finally gives in and gives us what we want. But this is also a story about justice. Is a child getting what they want a matter of justice? Is a judge who rules in favor of a widow a matter of justice? The lesson of this parable is to be persistent in matters of justice, to cry out to God for things to be made right in the world and with the world. God hears and He will always rule in favor of justice. Our journey is meant to take us to a place where we trust that God knows what is happening and that He is working to make everything right. What will Jesus find in our lives when He comes again? Are we working to grow His kingdom, to help those lost see that salvation is found in Him?

Many Christians are not prepared to take the Gospel to the world. They believe, but they do not think they understand enough about their faith to share it with others. They wrestle with God, struggling with the people and circumstances they face. They worry that they can’t be what God has gifted them to be or do what God has called them to do. They are afraid that they will do or say something wrong. They’d rather just let the professionals do the work of the Kingdom, but the Gospel was not meant to be proclaimed only by trained ministers. It is a simple message: God loves you so much that Jesus died to ensure you forgiveness and peace. Oh, there are aspects that make it more difficult, especially when they ask the hard questions, but God has given us all we need to know in the scriptures. He has given us a library of books to help us deal with the harder questions that will come from those who wish to know more.

Timothy was struggling. Paul’s letter was written to encourage the young pastor to be bold with his faith and the preaching of God’s Word. He had all he needed to do God’s work. “But you remain in the things which you have learned and have been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them. From infancy, you have known the holy Scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus.”

Paul was among those who taught Timothy about faith in Jesus Christ, along with his mother and grandmother. I can imagine time around the fire as the family sang psalms and repeated the stories about everything that God did for the nation of Israel. I can imagine the prayers they said together as they prepared to sleep at night. I can imagine them going to the synagogue to worship God together. Timothy was brought up in the faith. His journey wasn’t a very hard one at first, but as a young pastor in the early days of the Church, Timothy faced all sorts of obstacles. The elders questioned his age. The Jews questioned his faith. The world questioned his life. Paul knew Timothy needed encouragement as he looked up into the hills. Who would be his help?

Paul told him to look to the scriptures. “Every Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness, that each person who belongs to God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” Paul urged Timothy to preach boldly despite the struggles he would face in this world; he could trust that God was with him as he went to do the work he was called to do. We are encouraged to have the same kind of trust as we go on our own journeys of faith.

Paul writes not only for Timothy but for all of us, “But you be sober in all things, suffer hardship, do the work of an evangelist, and fulfill your ministry.” Despite the struggles we will face, the people and issues we will wrestle, let us always remember the source of our strength and the foundation of our faith is God.

Throughout his life journey, Jacob struggled with his family, his future, and his fears. He struggled with God. In the end he discovered that he was not in control and that whenever he tried, he made life more difficult for himself. Paul wrote to Timothy about continuing in faith in Jesus Christ, by standing firm on the instruction he had received and believed. The widow in Jesus’ parable reminds us to be persistent in prayer but also in moving forward in faith, doing what is right according to God’s Word.

We don’t always recognize the journey as we travel. Our daily work and our everyday activities are part of a greater journey. We aren’t necessarily headed to a special place; we aren’t always seeking a sacred place. However, everywhere we go is sacred when know that God is with us always. He does not sleep. He helps us through our struggles and keeps us in our coming and going. He wrestles with us, and we wrestle with the world. We don’t need to make the journey to prove our worthiness to be in His presence. God loves His people and has chosen to be a part of our lives. Trusting in His graciousness, we join with the psalmist and sing songs of praise.

Our destination is always God. All that we do in faith is leading us to Him. We try to control the journey, so we work hard to make things happen, like Jacob, and we lose touch with the God who has set us on our path. Jesus asks, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” Will He find us acting on our faith as we journey toward God with God at our side, trusting in His mercy and grace every step of the way?

It is my prayer that as God calls us to live faithfully in the world that we will respond with courage and peace, that we’ll face our Esaus and our judges with trust that God is with us. We know that God is faithful and that He will be with us on our journey of faith, giving us opportunities to share His Word with those who are lost and hungering for His presence in their lives. I also pray that we will heed the words of Paul to Timothy: that we will discharge our duties in a way that will glorify God and draw many into a relationship with Jesus. Our evangelism is not about manipulating people to become part of our community of faith. It is about taking God into the world with the strength, encouragement, prayer, and grace that God has provided through the body of Christ.