A few years ago a very valuable missing painting was found. It had been used by the unknowing owner for wrapping fish. That’s how I feel about this story in a way. Why would such an extraordinary and pivotal account in the history of God and man be used to explain why Jews do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip? It makes me wonder how many other stories are being used to wrap fish and when we unroll them we are surprised and delighted at the irony of God to take something so precious and use it for such a common purpose.

The beginning of the story is only understood then by knowing the end. Why did they tell this story? What does this story explain? Obviously, not some great truth in the eyes of the writer but it was something important. It was to explain why we do things the way we do in our family. What are our rules and traditions and where do they come from? Are they “because I say so” or, worse, silent expectations with no explanation or just there for some outdated reason? Why would it be so important to pass on to generation after generation the reason for a particular food regulation?

When you unroll the story you see it is much more than that. The story explains us – not just Jacob. It explains God’s unique relationship with our family over thousands of years. It is the thread that allows us to trace back those thousands of years and discover why we are the way we are and why we share certain characteristics that make no sense otherwise.

And it does with a brief but unforgettabl story. This is the power of stories, isn’t it? You cannot forget them. They fly under the radar. They appear to be simple – even innocent – and then you cannot remember when you let them get into your head. Someone told me years ago that part of the power of stories is you cannot disagree with them. They are not facts to be argued. They are truths that arrive in a package you cannot resist opening. Of course, that is why Jesus and many great teachers taught with stories. They fooled the wise and delighted the simple. Many of the greatest lessons begin with, “That reminds me of a story.”

You may have read any of the many articles about why some people are leaving the church. Several of the interviews point to their being discouraged by the behavior of some of the people in the church and the hypocrisies and inconsistencies making them give up on the church. Those people would not have liked Jacob. In fact, they might have thought less of God for tolerating Jacob’s behavior.

He was cunning, deceptive, manipulative, ambitious, lived by his wits, cruel at times, played favorites for his purposes, without loyalty, arrogant – and extremely successful. God had blessed him and stayed with him just as he had promised when Jacob was running from Esau.

This is the man we meet at the beginning of the story. The last time he had passed through this territory he was on the run with nothing. An enraged Esau was behind him and a devious uncle and future father-in-law was his destination. This time – twenty years later – he is still on the run but his enraged father-in-law Laban is behind him and his brother Esau is in front of him. That is the perfect description of Jacob. He never stops disappointing people. No one can trust him. He is aloof and detached from what we would consider basic human values and relationships. He is concerned only for himself.

Even when he prays it sounds insincere. “I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant. I had only my staff when I crossed the Jordan, but now I have become two groups. Save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid he will come and attack me, and also the mothers with their children.”

But after praying he schemes. He comes up with an elaborate plan to protect himself and ingratiate himself with Esau. He’ll stretch out his decoys and gifts to protect himself and delay Esau’s coming after him. He’ll flatter and bribe Esau. What else would someone like Jacob do? He has put everything he has in trade for his life – his survival. His will to live is stronger than any attachment to anyone or anything.

He is now alone. Of course, he has always been alone, hasn’t he? He is alone and waiting to see if his giving up his possessions and family to Esau will appease him. What else could Esau want but revenge? What else could distract and delay him? He just needed time to think and plan.

This is not a dark night of the soul for Jacob. He is not questioning his life or having a spiritual retreat. This is a man at the very peak of his powers who has worked his way from nothing to extraordinary success.

In a three act play the first act is used to establish the main character and the world in which they live. Somewhere in the opening act an incident occurs that confronts him and leads to the first turning point. This would be the end of Act 1. The lights would go down with Jacob sitting by himself in the dark. Waiting for his scheme to either work or fail.

What would we expect of God at this point? What might God say to the one he has chosen and led all these years?

Encouragement?

Comfort?

A miracle?

Deliverance?

An angel to sit with him?

What does he get?

In the second act of the play the character attempts to resolve the problem only to find themselves in a worse situation. Here they learn who they are and what they are capable of to deal with the defining challenge

What does he get from God? He gets a fight and one that cripples him for the rest of his life. He is for the first time in his life outwitted – even cheated by someone else. Until now he has come out unscratched and with the advantage but not this time.

It’s important to note that this is not Jacob starting the fight. God’s angel jumps him out of nowhere in the dark. Of course, it is an unfair fight and eventually the angel taps Jacob in his hip and it’s over. Almost over, actually, for Jacob clings and will not let him go until he gets a blessing from him.

What an unusual request, I think. He already has the original blessing that includes everything he could possibly want. “I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I promised you.”

What would be the blessing for one who already has more than enough?

But he really doesn’t have more than enough, does he? Like Jesus says to the Rich Young Ruler, “Yet one thing you are lacking.” It is the same with Jacob. There is something missing. Some gap in his nature that separates him from everyone in his life. Some basic disengagement that allows him to betray, misuse, manipulate, and feel nothing.

In “Finding God at Harvard”, Kelly Monroe Kuhlberg writes about the spiritual journeys she discovered there among the professors and students. One of them is Dr. Glenn Loury, a professor of economics.

“Although a wonderful and beautiful woman loved me and had agreed to become my wife, I was unable and unwilling to consummate with her the relationship that our marriage made possible. I was unable to be faithful to that relationship. I am not speaking now only of adultery; I was unable to be faithful to be present emotionally. I was unable to set aside enough of my selfishness to build a life with someone else. Marriage involves give and take, but I gave little. My pride and a self-centered outlook eliminated any chance for a fruitful union.

I was dead in spirit, despite the fact that I had professional success as a tenured professor at Harvard. What more could one ask for? I had reached the pinnacle of my profession. When I went to Washington, people in the Halls of Power knew my name. I had research grants. I had prestige. Nevertheless, I often found myself in the depths of depression, saying, “Life has no meaning.” I would say this out loud, with such regularity that my wife came to expect it of me. This is not to say that I was suicidal or psychotic; I was not. For me, there was no real joy. My achievements gave me no sense of fulfillment. Nothing in my life had any sense of depth and meaning. I thought of myself as living on the surface of things. Life seemed to be one chore or contest after another, in which I hoped to score high, to win accolades, and to achieve financial gains. But there was no continuity, no coherence, no thread of meaning which gave these various achievements ultimate significance.”

And that is why, I think, the angel said, “What is your name?” It was God’s way of holding up a mirror to Jacob and saying, “Yes, that is who you really have become. You are now everything that name describes – crafty, grasping, deceitful, unfeeling and – alone.”

But God – his God and the God of his fathers – wants more than that for Jacob. He wants to change his name and his nature but it will hurt – not only now but later. Does he want this blessing? Does he want the pain that goes with it?

Do you remember the story by Hans Christian Anderson that was made into a movie a few years ago and has just been remade this year – The Little Mermaid? What is her desire? To become a human being so she could love the Prince and be loved for the rest of their lives.

Maybe you remember the movie “City of Angels” with Nicholas Cage and Meg Ryan. It is about Seth, an angel, who gives up his immortality to become mortal because he wants to love. “Seth knows no fear, no pain, no hunger, he hears music in the sunrise. But he’d give it all up, he loves you that much.”

And then Act 3:

Jacob’s blessing received there changed his life – and his nature. He is never the same after that. He is now one who feels pain and loss. The uncaring and detached manipulator is gone forever. We see a much different Jacob when he hears that Joseph has died. Instead of shrugging off the loss, he tears his clothes and mourns for many days. “All his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. “No, he said, in mourning and grief I will go down to the grave to my son.” So his father wept for him. Later, when he thinks he has lost Benjamin, he is nearly broken because his life was so closely bound up with the boy’s life.

The exchange does not come without cost. Not for anyone God calls. How does he respond to Pharoah’s question about his age? “My years have been few and difficult, and they do not equal the years of the pilgrimage of my fathers.” The price of the blessing he receives is expensive. Those who are called to carry that blessing pay a price for it. They suffer. They bear both the burden  and the responsibility of the blessing. It is what Peter calls the fellowship of suffering. It is what Paul describes as the life of an apostle for the sake of the gospel. It is what the writer of Hebrews calls those of whom the world was not worth but they endured.

It is the life of those who have seen God face to face.

I love the image at the end of the story and the beginning of the new day. Israel at sunrise limping off to face Esau. “Jacob looked up and there was Esau, coming with his four hundred men.” But this time, he puts his family in safety behind him and he goes in front to meet Esau. “But Esau ran to meet Jacob; he threw his arms around his neck and kissed him. And they wept.” Both of them.

That is how we know he has been changed, isn’t it? He is now one of us. He struggles. He suffers. He limps. He weeps. But he is never alone again.

And at the end of his life he is surrounded by those who love and admire him. He is taken home by the dignitaries of Pharaoh’s court and all the officials of Egypt as well as all the members of Joseph’s household. “Chariots and horsemen also went up with him. It was a very large company.” It was worth the struggle in the end.

The theologian Paul Tillich wrote: 

“Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life. It strikes us when we feel that our separation is deeper than usual, because we have violated another life, a life which we loved, or from which we were estranged. It strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our indifference, our weakness, our hostility, and our lack of direction have become intolerable to us. It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: ‘You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything, do not perform anything, do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!”

If that happens to you or to me we will understand the blessing and the crippling of Jacob. It explains more than a dietary law. It explains the grace of God for one such as I.