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The Wound and the Blessing
Sermon preached by John C. Hall on June 19, 2005
Text - Genesis 32:22-28
The same night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. 24 Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. 25 When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 26 Then he said, "Let me go, for the day is breaking." But Jacob said, "I will not let you go, unless you bless me." 27 So he said to him, "What is your name?" And he said, "Jacob." 28 Then the man † said, "You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed." 29 Then Jacob asked him, "Please tell me your name." But he said, "Why is it that you ask my name?" And there he blessed him. 30 So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, "For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved." 31 The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. 32 Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the thigh muscle that is on the hip socket, because he struck Jacob on the hip socket at the thigh muscle.
I picked this lesson for today because it's Father's Day and because this text is the founding story of the Jacob Group. So it's a way to honor at least a few of the fathers of our congregation.
But my purpose here goes beyond just fathers. In the story, Jacob's hip is dislocated from wrestling with a mysterious, semi-divine figure at this critical moment in his life. A dislocated hip is a rather serious and very painful wound. But in spite the wound Jacob does something remarkable. He hangs on to this man (or angel, or demon) who has just hurt him badly and he says "I will not let you go unless (or until) you bless me.
This is a story about Jacob's faith. Jacob believes that the source or cause of his wound also has the power to bless him. That's not an automatic or instinctive response. Our instinct is often not only to let go but to run away from whatever hurts us. We have that self-protective impulse in us. And we need it. Turning away from what hurts us is often exactly what we need to do. If gambling or drinking or abuse is destroying your life you need to turn away from it.
But in addition to that, do we also believe, do you believe, when we do get hurt, or wounded, that we are also in the presence of something that has the power to bless us? Does the experience of being wounded hold a potential blessing.
I chose this scripture passage for today because our congregation is about to experience a wound. I'm referring to Sandra's departure from us at the end of August. The wound is that things aren't going to be the same and we're not going to like some of the changes.
I don't want to overstate the seriousness of this wound. It's not a mortal wound. This is a healthy church at the moment. It's been wounded before, and healed. When this congregation joined the UCC in the early sixties, some people left. That wounded the church. When my predecessor Bill Roberts finished his ministry, and when the two co-associate ministers left, it wounded the church. But the church survived.
Now, after fourteen years, Sandra is leaving, and it's not just that we're going to miss her. It's that other things that we didn't necessarily even associate with her are going to change, or even fall apart from time to time.
Something happened last weekend that's a fitting example of this.
Last Sunday was Children's Day. We had the children's play, "Give Us A King" which Sandra wrote incidentally, followed by a picnic with hamburgers and hot dogs cooked outside and served in the parish hall, and games and activities for the kids. Sandra loves this sort of thing and she's the force behind it every year, as many of you know.
What most you probably don't know is that Sandra and Caitlin, her nineteen year-old daughter, came down the night before, Saturday night, to set things up. In fact, Sandra comes down every Saturday night to set things up -like the chairs in the Memorial Room for the children and for Second Hour. She says she does this because she doesn't want to have to worry about someone else forgetting to do it. This is just the way Sandra is.
So last Saturday she and Caitlin came down to set up for Children's Day. This included filling 100 balloons with water, and to put up the piñata in the Memorial Room. As soon as she entered the building, around 6 p.m., she noticed a very foul smell. The rooms weren't especially dirty. The floors looked swept. But in the kitchen were bags full of garbage that had probably sat through a day or two of that intense heat and there was a stench throughout the building. There were more bags in the hot hallway in back of the kitchen where there is no air circulation, so there the smell was especially rank. Even in the Memorial Room, she found the wastebaskets full of food. The whole place smelled like a garbage can on a hot summer day. Not the sort of atmosphere we want people to enter on Sunday morning.
Sandra didn't tell me this story to complain. In fact, she was a little leery about me telling it today because she didn't want you to think she was complaining. She mentioned it because our cleaning service wasn't on top of the situation as they need to be.
Sandra's immediate response was to get these garbage bags out of the building and into the dumpster out back. And that's what she did. She got Caitlin started filling the water balloons while she started lugging all these heavy bags, some of them so heavy she had to drag them. You can picture Sandra doing this. Some of the bags were leaking, as plastic garbage bags sometimes do, and as she hoisted them into the dumpster that garbagey-smelling liquid got on Sandra's clothes.
So now she smelled like garbage. All this Caitlin was voicing considerable displeasure about the whole situation. "Mom, why is it your job to take out the garbage? This place stinks. Now you stink! Why did I have to get mixed up in this? Why do the people need water balloons? What do water balloons have to do with Christ anyway? They're not going to do this when you're gone." I have a feeling that Caitlin is very much like Sandra thirty years ago. There is some kind of pay-back in the story.
To this argument Sandra said, "You're right. They probably won't do it when I'm gone. But some people will have fun with it tomorrow."
After a while, Sandra's husband Donald came down to help her set up the tables in the parish hall for the picnic. They set up the tables. Then they got in the car, the new car, and Donald said, "You know, you really smell bad. You're going to stink up the whole car. Maybe you should walk home." There's a lot of humor in this story, and Sandra, God bless her, was able to see it.
The reason I'm telling you this is because it's a perfect example of how dutiful, devoted, tireless, and conscientious Sandra has been all these years. There are many wonderful things about Sandra you know. What most of you don't see is what she does behind the scenes to make things go smoothly. Sandra isn't exactly what you would call a "detail person" but she pours her heart into everything she does and she wants things to go smoothly her efforts always make them go smoothly, at least a lot more smoothly than they would go without her attention. But no one sees this.
On the last Sunday in August we're going to have a reception and a celebration of Sandra's time with us. It's been a great time for me personally. To work with someone like Sandra for fourteen years has been a privilege and a treasure.
We know how each other thinks so well we don't even have to talk about many situations. Instead, we talk about the big questions. My own spiritual and intellectual life has been greatly enriched through this relationship.
The church has saved a lot of money on continuing education for me because, instead of going to a lot of events and mini-courses, all I need to stay mentally alive is talk to Sandra and listen to the lecture tapes she turned me onto. She is truly one of the most gifted conversationalists I have ever met, and this is in a congregation that is full of great conversationalists.
When she leaves, the recommendation of the Executive Committee (and this we will discuss in the meeting later this morning) is that we have a temporary associate minister to keep things as stable as possible while we figure out what to do with her position in the longer term. I have no idea who we will find for this job. But no matter whom we find, or what we do, we will feel a wound in Sandra's absence. We'll feel some emptiness. I also suspect we'll feel this wound in the form of little irritations, or maybe big irritations. Sandra herself predicts this. There are many things Sandra does that no one knows about. When she's not doing them we will know about them.
But here's the real point. Do we believe, like Jacob, that hidden in that wound, or through that wound, or though any wound we experience in our lives, there is also a blessing to be found? I believe there is. I have to believe that.
None of us will be here forever. Life is passing. It's full of painful change. That's the struggle, the wrestling match, that we're all engaged in. We get wounded in the process. This is life. But Jacob shows us how to act when you're wounded in your life struggle: "I will not let you go until you bless me." There is a blessing associated with every wound. You might say that our purpose - as a church and as individual people of faith - is to become people who are open enough to receive that blessing.
What wound in your life are you dealing with? How have you been hurt? Are you on the lookout, with your faith, for the hidden blessing it holds? |
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service, so that all may find in our community the Spirit of the living
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