The most critical issue in family life is not anger or argument. It is avoidance.
What plagues most families is not that they are embroiled in fighting or torn by argument. What destroys families is that people drift apart from one another; they avoid one another.
You see, if you fight with somebody, it means that at least you care about him enough to engage him. It means that you take her seriously enough that you want to work it out, even if you think it’s a lost cause.
But when you really want to punish somebody, what do you do? "I’m not speaking to you." "See if I give you the time of day." "I’ll just go to my room and shut the door and forget about you." When you really want to punish somebody you shut them out. Just this week I realized that there is someone who did something with which I disagree and with whom I take serious exception. How have I been handling that problem? I have just quit talking to this person for about two weeks.
That is damaging. That’s what erodes families more than anything,
The most critical issue in family life is not anger or argument. It is avoidance.
The brothers Jacob and Esau had not seen one another now for twenty years. Not since all that mess with deceiving weak, too-little-too-late father Isaac; after which manipulative mother Rebecca had sent away mama’s boy Jacob. She sent him away, she said, for a while, until brother Esau’s anger at having been cheated should subside. But the "while” turned into twenty years, with no communication. Avoidance, withdrawal, and silence.
Who knows all that went on in the minds of either Esau or Jacob during twenty long years? One writer ... and I like his phrasing ... speaks of Jacob as "ashamed, afraid, and alone." Whenever he thought of his brother; Jacob felt "ashamed, afraid, and alone."
I wonder how many of us feel that way in our own families. I wonder how many of us have handled family tensions simply by withdrawing and avoiding.
That’s what it is, you know, when children retreat to the TV set instead of engaging their parents. That’s what it is when parents just pretend not to see what their children are doing. That’s what it is when married couples avoid the intimacies that normally accompany marriage. That’s what it is when two professional people use the pressures of work and the appearance of busyness as a pretext to stay out of each others’ lives. That’s what it is, frankly, when even the pastor claims that he has to work on the next sermon and so shuts his study door behind him. It’s avoidance.
And like Jacob, we end up feeling "ashamed, afraid, and alone,"
There must be something better. There has to be a better way to live in families. And there is. But it domes only with a struggle. Something can happen when there is a struggle with family tensions, and when God is the chief struggler. That’s what Jacob found out.
I
The first part of that struggle is to recognize that family tensions are based on suspicions that may not be real. We assume that in our families there is a hostile, unfriendly atmosphere. We jump to the conclusion that that child, that parent, that spouse harbors a hatred for us. And we poison the wells of our relationships just by assuming that they do not love us.
The truth is that there is more love to draw on than meets the eve. There is more care embedded deep down within us than we are willing to see. When we feel "ashamed, afraid, and alone" we expect hostility from our families. And merely by expecting hostility we create ourselves the hostile atmosphere.
Jacob sent messengers out to his brother Esau after these twenty long years. The messengers were instructed to tell Esau that Jacob had prospered, that he had plenty of property, and that he wanted a meeting. The messengers delivered that word to Esau, and hurried back to tell Jacob, "Your brother Esau ... is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him."
Now notice, that’s all they said. They did not say, "Now that Esau knows where you live, he’s coming to get revenge." They did not tell Jacob, "Esau says that all those flocks and herds of yours belong to him, and he’s coming to get them." The storyteller of Genesis is very, very careful not to tell you what Esau’s reaction means. There is not the least hint about what Esau had in mind when he responded to Jacob’s message.
But there is plenty about what Jacob thought the message meant! Jacob was greatly distressed, and thought that Esau was coming to destroy him and all his property!
Now you and I would have to recognize that Jacob’s response was a logical one. After all, the last time he had heard from this brother of his, the word was that Esau had vowed to kill Jacob. The last Jacob knew, Esau was out for blood. And an escort of four hundred men must mean something.
But what do you make of twenty years of silence? Twenty years of inaction? Twenty years in which there has been no threat? No, Jacob’s problem is not with Esau. Jacob’ s problem is with Jacob! Jacob’s problem is that because he has avoided his brother, he has now assumed the worst. Jacob’s issue is that because is he is "ashamed and alone" he is afraid of his brother.
Friends; I’m saving that a part of the struggle is to recognize that family tensions are based on suspicions that may not be real. When we feel "ashamed, afraid, and alone" we expect hostility, and thus we actually create the very thing we fear.
II
All right. Now, if you really are feeling ashamed, afraid, and alone, what can you do about it? If we suppose that the gulf between ourselves and somebody else in our families is infinitely wide, what can we do to bridge it?
Well, what Jacob did was to offer a prayer. Once Jacob learned that Esau’s army was on the march, first he divided up his possessions, hoping that Esau wouldn’t find them all ... and that little gesture speaks volumes about what Jacob’s real family values were ... once Jacob learned that Esau’s army was on the march, he did what most scared and desperate people do: he offered up a quick and panicky prayer.
Now I want to pick that prayer apart for a moment and see what we can learn. This is a panicky prayer. This is a prayer conceived as a quick answer to a long-standing problem. It is not an effective prayer. Let me try to show you why.
Jacob prayed, "0 God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, 0 Lord who said to me, ’Return to your country and I will do you good’, I am not worthy of the least of all the steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant …”
So far so good, I suppose. Jacob has recognized that he is unworthy, Jacob has seen that he is the recipient of grace. But now listen. Listen, because I think you will see that all of this is nothing but clever rhetoric to mask what Jacob really thinks.
"I am not worthy ... for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two companies, Deliver me, please, from the hand of my brother … for I am afraid of him …You have said, ’I will surely do you good.’”
You may have your own interpretation, but I hear Jacob saying, "Lord, I’ve done very well for myself, and I don’t want to lose it. And Lord, You promised. You promised. And I’m going to hold You to Your promise to make me prosper."
This is not an effective prayer. Prayer can be very self-serving. We use our prayer time to tell the Lord that He has to rescue us. And, like Jacob, there is no energy, no commitment to anybody else. There is no prayer for those we fear are against us.
For whom does Jacob pray? For Jacob! Do you hear Jacob praying for Esau’s welfare? You do not. Does this prayer include even a whisper of concern for Esau’s family, Esau’s feelings? It does not. There is no love in this prayer, only fear. There is no concern in this prayer, only self-preservation.
It is a superficial prayer. It is a shallow prayer that basically says, "God, you have to rescue me because I’m a good guy, I’ve achieved a lot, and besides, you promised."
Well, now, what do you think gets changed because of a prayer like that? The result of that shallow prayer we can see in a wonderful little snapshot of Jacob’s character. After praying that way, Jacob sends out a present for his brother Esau -- goats and sheep, camels and donkeys. He tries to appease Esau; hey, if this dispute is about money and property, here’s something that’ll make you happy. How about a few baubles, Esau?
The most instructive part of the story is that after Jacob had sent all these animals ahead, then he sent after them all his children and his wives, everything he had, except himself. "That same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the [river) Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone."
What a tragic picture of a man who will invest everything he has to save his skin, except the one thing that he really needed to give! Jacob will not invest himself. Jacob will not invest his own heart in his brother. Despite his prayer of desperation, which I see as a faithless prayer, a bragging prayer ... despite his prayer of desperation and his appeasing behavior, Jacob just will not be vulnerable. Jacob will not allow his own heart to be broken.
And so just as you and I try to communicate with those we love by giving them expensive gifts rather than ourselves; just as some of us take every complicated, roundabout means of saying, "I love you" instead of simply saying, "I love you"; just so Jacob has to spend the night on the banks of the river Jabbok, still "ashamed, afraid, and alone."
III
But, you know, sometimes it is in the very aloneness we have created for ourselves that we can finally get it all together. It is in that moment of desperation, that time of uncertainty and fear, when nothing else is left but God and God alone, that the work of grace can be done.
Jacob was left alone. Ashamed, afraid, and utterly alone. “ … and a man wrestled with him until daybreak .. but Jacob said, ’I will not let you go until you bless me."’
When we get lonely enough and desperate enough, the work of grace can be done.
We have here an intriguing, mysterious story. It represents a profound spiritual truth. If we have dealt with our family tensions by avoiding one another; if we have sought to appease the tensions with bribes and shallow self-serving prayers; if we have come out of it all feeling only ashamed, afraid, and alone, then here is our opportunity: to wrestle with God until we prevail. To struggle with God and not give up until an answer comes.
It’s an unusually rich picture, this picture of Jacob on the banks of the river Jabbok, wrestling all night with a mysterious and at first unknown stranger.
Notice that honest prayer is a struggle; it is a wrestling. Honest prayer is not quickly, easily done. It involves time, emotion, agony. How many of us have struggled all night long in prayer for someone? We say that we care; we say that this behavior or that attitude troubles us. But just as we have avoided a real encounter with that person who troubles us, so also we avoid a real encounter with the living God. We have refused to wrestle with God over family tensions. We expect God to be something like instant coffee, a spoonful of grounds and cup of hot water, and presto, it’s there! But the God of Jacob, the God of answered prayer, is a God who wrestles and struggles all night long.
Friends, don’t give up. Don’t give up on anybody without a struggle. Have you given God even half a chance to make a difference? You cannot hurry this. You cannot command God to work on your timetable. You must wait and let Him wrestle in His own way and in His own time with your family’s tensions. I know that some of you are indeed tempted to give up. But I know also that the only reason others of you keep your sanity is that you have simply refused to give up the struggle. The God of answered prayer is the God who wrestles and struggles with us all night long.
Now look at the immediate outcome of this struggle. The immediate outcome has nothing to do with changing Esau, it has nothing to do with Esau’s army or Esau’s attitude or Esau’s long memory for injustice. The immediate outcome has everything to do with Jacob. It is Jacob who is changed, not Esau. His very name is changed, from Jacob to Israel, from one who supplants to one who wrestles with God. It is Jacob whose character is shaped, from plotmaker to prayermaker. It is Jacob whose heart is touched, from defiance to reliance. It is Jacob who comes through the struggle and is wounded.
When God wrestles with family tensions, expect that while nothing may change immediately with that other person, everything may change with you. And expect that where you were ashamed, afraid, and alone, once you have struggled with God in prayer, you will not feel that way any longer.
Jacob called the place Peniel, face of God, saving, "For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved." Look, Jacob’s prayer has already been answered, even before he encounters his brother. He struggled with God all night long, and found that daybreak was indeed a new day. He had wrestled with God all night long, and would not let go without a blessing. What Jacob found out was that even when he yielded and lost, he had won. "I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved."
IV
After that night, on that bright morning Jacob looked up, exhausted from his struggle, yet wonderfully refreshed, and he saw his brother Esau coming. Esau still had his four hundred men. It would not seem that anything had changed with Esau.
On that bright morning Jacob looked up and then got up, limping because the wrestler had wounded him. But this time, having wrestled with God, he changed his strategy. You remember, don’t you, how after the shallow and superficial prayer, the self-serving prayer, he had sent out all his family and his cattle ahead, but stayed behind, to protect himself? Well, this time, after real prayer, after prayer that means something, Jacob changed his strategy. "He put the maids with their children in front, then Leah with her children, and Rachel and Joseph last of all. He himself went on ahead of them ... ahead of them ... bowing himself to the around seven times, until he came near his brother."
What is different? On that bright morning, Jacob put himself at risk. Jacob got out in front, Jacob set aside all of his gifts and his status symbols and his smokescreens.
On that bright morning Jacob became vulnerable to his brother.
Because God had wrestled with Jacob over family tensions, Jacob was a different person, and Jacob in faith went out to take whatever must come, but at the very least to be honest. At the very least to deal with his brother. No more avoidance, no more games, no more claims, just heart to heart and hand to hand.
What happened? I know of no more beautiful passage in all of literature than what follows. I can imagine nothing more wonderful than what happens now:
"Esau ran to meet [Jacob] and embraced him, and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept ... And Jacob said, ’To see your face, [my brother] is like seeing the face of God."
Peniel, the face of God … the place of the struggle. The face of God was given to Jacob on the nighttime side of the river Jabbok at the place called Peniel. There God wrestled with family tensions.
But on the daytime side of the river Jabbok too, the face of God. For when I have struggled long and hard over my relationship with my brother, my sister, my spouse, my child, my parent ... for when I have admitted that I am ashamed, afraid, and alone ... for when I have gone beyond shallow, superficial, self-serving prayers ... for when I take a risk and permit that mighty wrestler to struggle with what I thought was my immovable soul …
Then my brother’s hatred is exposed as love.
Then my sister’s anger is touched with tears.
Then my spouse’s silence is punctuated with care.
Then my child’s heart is pried open.
Then my parent’s hand reaches out in embrace.
Then, no longer ashamed, afraid, and alone, then to see those faces is like seeing the very face of God.
