"Now he arose that same night and took his two wives and his two maids and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. And he took them and sent them across the stream. And he sent across whatever he had. Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. And when he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he touched the socket of his thigh; so the socket of Jacob’s thigh was dislocated while he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking.” But he said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” And he said, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel; for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him and said, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And he blessed him there. So Jacob named the place Peniel, for he said, “I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been preserved.” Now the sun rose upon him just as he crossed over Penuel, and he was limping on his thigh.
INTRODUCTION
Listen with me to a story. A story that we may all find is in someway our story. This is a story about a great man named Israel, who at this moment is neither great, nor is he known by the name Israel. But then, as Shakespear has Juliet ask "what is in a name? that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." None of us got to chose the name by which we are known, if we had many of us would have chosen a different name. Perhaps Elvis? Some of us prefer to answer to a pet name given to us by a loved one, and abhor those nick names given by classmates wanting to shame us. Some seek to make a name for themselves. There are names that have become household names. Names of terror like Alexander, Napoleon, or Hilter. Names of faith like the Apostle Paul, Gregory the Great, and Mother Theresa of Calcuta. Some names created to mean one thing have come to mean something distinctly different. A name for indistructability became disaster when the name was Titanic. I.B.M literally means International Business Machine, but to many who work for that company it has come to mean "I’ve Been Moved." When, after wresting all night beside the river Jabbok, God asked his opponent what is your name, he was asking more than what do people call you. At this period in the middle east to know someones name was to have power over them. People believed that a person’s name held the key to the very essence of their soul. So when God asked what is your name, He was asking in essence "name for me the very nature of your being." The reply God received was, "I am Jacob, the supplanter."
A LIFE OF CONFLICT
To understand Jacob’s name we must start even before his entrance into life. While still in his mother’s womb he and his brother caused such agitation that Rebekah thought she would surely die before giving birth. Seeking God in prayer Rebekah received this insight from God. "Two nations are in you womb, and two peoples, born of you, shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the elder shall serve the younger." These two children were children of promise. And it would be through them that God would continue to carry out that promise he had given Abraham that "through his seed all nations would be blessed." When time came for giving birth the first child was covered with hair and red of skin, so they called him Esau. But as he came forth from his mother’s womb the second child was found grasping Esau’s ankle. This second son they called Jacob, which means "heel/trickster/over-reacher/supplanter." Children of promise, now newly named.
When we are born we are born into families, and it is these families that influence our identity. It is our parents who name us and it is our families who tell us who we are to be. Were there is love this is a wonderous thing, were there is conflict it is the children that suffer. Unaware of these dynamics children are often triangled into the troubled relationship between husband and wife. This was true for both Esau and Jacob. Issac and Rebekha’s relationship had grown cold and distant by the time these two boys came onto the seen. This distance was manifested in the parents favortism for one son over that of the other. Issac chose his first born Esau as his favored son. Esau was daddy’s boy, a man’s man. Strong of body and familiar with the hard life of a hunter. Jacob, on the other hand, was picked by Rebekah to be momma’s boy, a son of gentle spirit, who as a farmer hung around the tents like the women.
This contrived alliance between father and eldest son up against that of mother and youngest son fostered a tense relationship between these two brothers. For you see both Esau and Jacob knew that in their society it was the first born son who would inherit all of their father’s wealth. Jacob understood quite well that as the second son he would get nothing, and if he every forgot this fact for a moment the rest of his family was there to remind him. But Rebekah had no intent of allowing her favorate son to go without. From his early childhood Rebekah set out to teach Jacob what she herself knew all so well, that in the tent of Issac you got only what you could take by your own cleverness and deceit. Under her tuterage Jacob grew up to become, as Walter Brueggeman discribes him, a rascal. And so the stage was set for the struggle that had originated between husband and wife to now be passed on to Esau and Jacob.
We first see this struggle manifest itself when Esau coming back from a failed hunting trip is famished and finds Jacob cooking a lentle stew. Esau asks his brother for some of the stew. Jacob refuses to give his the stew but he will sell it to him. "Well, what do you want?" asks Esau. "I want your birthright" answers Jacob. Esau growing hungrier by the moment and tired over this relentless argument over the birthright of the first born son gives in and sells it to Jacob. In a later scene, when Isaac had grown old and almost blind, he calls for his favored son Esau. He tells him to go out and kill a deer for his father, prepare it as Isaac likes it, and bring it to his father. For this day Isaac will bless Esau. Hearing what is about to take place Rebekah steps in and convinces Jacob to dress up like his brother and to go into his father Isaac’s tent and receive the blessing as if he was Esau. So Jacob tricks his father and steals from his brother the blessing. When Esau hears of this his anger overwhelms him and he decides to kill his brother Jacob.
BETHAL THE HOUSE OF GOD
Hearing of this threat Jacob knows that he must run for his life, and so Rabekah (mother dear) comes running to his rescue. She deceives Isaac into sending Jacob to her brother Labon under the ruse that Jacob is going there to find a wife. For God forbid that her son should marry a pagan woman from one of those tribes that lived near them. Fooled by this story Isaac blesses Jacob and sends him on his way. When Esau hears that Jacob has both escaped his wrath and been blessed by their father to go get a proper wife, he runs out and to spite his parents marries a woman of pagan beliefs. And we thought disfunctional families were a modern occurance!
Jacob has bought the birthright of the firstborn, he has stolen the firstborn blessing, but when he leaves his father’s tent he leaves with nothing. On his way to his uncle Labon Jacob stops for the night and lays down to sleep. While asleep he has a dream where he sees a ladder going up to heaven with angels going up and down on it. He than hears a voice saying to him: "I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give you and to your descendants; and your descendants shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and by you and your descendants shall
all the families of the earth bless themselves."
Where God spoke to Rebekah the first time, now God speaks to Jacob directly. God claims that He is the God of Jacobs ancesters and that he Jacob was a child of promise. Jacob is amazed and crys out that "surely this is the house of God and I did not know it," so he calls the place Bethal, which in Hebrew means "house of God." But not wanting to let an opportunity like this pass him by, what would mother say, Jacob strikes up a bargain with God. If God will look after Jacob, help him prosper, and bring him safely home, than will he serve the God of his fathers. If Jacob is anything, he certainly is bold.
IN LABAN’S TENT
Finally Jacob comes to his uncle’s home town. This is hopeful time for Jacob. He is in a new land with a new people. His name is not known to them and therefore carries no soiled history. Here is a chance to start over, to make a new name for himself. With his uncle’s family he will try to deal honestly, for why repeat the deceitful events of home that left him with nothing but broken relationships. But all plans of both mice and men come to not when it comes to families and the names they bear. For you see the mother that had trained Jacob so well in the art of deceit has sent him to live with the very people who had trained her. Jacob is about to learn the hard way that if he thought his mother Rebekah was a good hustler, she’s got nothing next to her brother Labon.
The trickster is now about to become the tricked, and from day one the con-jobs never seem to end. First Jacob agrees to work for 7 years that he might marry Labon’s younger daughter Rachel, just to find himself tricked into marry the elder daughter Leah. In the end he must work 14 years to marry Rachel, the woman that he loves. This is not a case of romance, but a case of abuse. At the end of the 14 years Jacob wants to leave but Labon tricks him to stay on for the fee of keeping all sheep that are either spotted or striped. After Jacob agrees Labon has his sons quickly remove out of the herd all spotted and stripped sheep three miles away so that Jacob will not find them. But in the thrill of the con-job the master trickster Labon has forgotten one thing, the God of promise. No matter how hard Labon seeks to trick Jacob out of all he has God blesses Jacob and his both his family and his possesions multiply.
In fact God blesses Jacob to such an extent that Labon’s sons begin to complain that at this rate Jacob will have all of their father’s wealth. This theme is all too familiar to Jacob and so he decides to return home. But not trusting Labon and his sons Jacob takes his family and possessions and sneaks out at night. His escape is not clean but they do finally arrive at the River Jabbok. By this time messengers sent out ahead have returned to tell Jacob that his brother Esua is coming with over 4 hundren men. Fearing that his brother is coming to kill him Jacob sends his family ahead of him but he remains behind, what a man of courage!
JACOB WRESTLES WITH GOD BY THE JABBOK
When all of his family have passed out of his sight a man comes and wrestles with Jacob throughout the night. In this passage it is unclear who Jacob wrestles with. Is it his brother Esau over the birthright bought, is it his father Isaac over the blessing stolen, or is it his uncle Labon over being deceitfully used? Perhaps through this night Jacob struggles with them all, but in the end Jacob comes to realize that it is God he is struggling with and has been all of his life. But Jacob finds here no condemnation for having struggled with God. To his suprise he is not cast out from the presence of God, but is instead embraced. For by the river Jabbok you see, it is not only Jacob who has come to wrestle with God, but it is also God who has come to wrestle with Jacob.
God made Jacob a child of His promise, but instead of living out of that promise Jacob has lived by his need to control. Fear of being shafted keeps Jacob from truely trusting God. But no longer will God allow this to continue, so God comes and wrestles with Jacob, but still Jacob will not give in. So God strikes his hip so that it is dislocated, but still Jacob will not give up. Then as the sun begins to rise God tells Jacob to let Him go for He must leave. Finally Jacob realizes that his need to struggle will not win for him what he seeks. God is leaving, this may be his last opportunity. Out of desperation Jacob cries out from the depth of his heart for that which he most deeply longs for, but fears he will never receive. "Bless me." In the following silence of Jacob’s pain he hears God say, "What is your Name?"
Without a name there can be no blessing, for a blessing must reach into the very essence of one’s soul. "I am Jacob." And in the speaking of his name, Jacob has laid claim to all of who he is, warts and all. “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel; for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed.” A promise given is now made manifest and Jacob knows he will never be the same. At this moment it dawns of Jacob that no matter where he has been, no matter what he has faced, he has always been dwelling in Bethal the house of God.
CONCLUSION
Like Jacob many of us struggle to accept the promise of blessing from God. We talk about blessing, we sing about blessing, we listen to sermons about blessing, we even claim to believe in God’s blessing. But our experience whispers in our ears "remember, you never get something for nothing." The scripture may say God loves us, but our families have told us we are unlovable. The hymns may say God has a place for us in his kingdom, but our society says if we would die today nobody would even notice our absence. But even as we struggle to have faith in God’s promise of blessing, God remains faithful to us. He will not leave us or forsake us. He will not give up on us. If we must run from him, than he will pursue us like the hound of heaven. If we feel we must hide from Him, than he will seek us out. If we find we are only capable of wrestling with belief in God, than out of love for us God will drawn close into the embrace of our struggle. He will pursue us and wrestle with us until we finally call out from the depths of our soul and ask for that which we have long to receive from God all of our lives but were afraid He would never give us, His Blessing. But it is in that moment when finally we cry out to God what is our deepest desire and name who we truely are, that we find we are in the loving embrace of God and we are blessed.
So than, what is in a name? you ask us Juliet. Simply everything, for we are called Christians and we are the children of God.