20th Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 24
Genesis 32:22-31
Luke 18:1-8
"The Dark Night of the Soul"
"The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. And Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and Jacob’s thigh was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, "Let me go, for the day is breaking." But Jacob said, "I will not let you go, unless you bless me." And he said to him, "What is your name?" And he said, "Jacob." Then he said, "Your name shall no more be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed." Then Jacob asked him, "Tell me, I pray, your name." But he said, "Why is it that you ask my name?" And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, "For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved." The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his thigh." Genesis 32:22-31, RSV.
"And he told them a parable, to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, "In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor regarded man; and there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ’Vindicate me against my adversary.’ For a while he refused; but afterward he said to himself, ’Though I neither fear God nor regard man, yet because this widow bothers me, I will vindicate her, or she will wear me out by her continual coming.’" And the Lord said, "Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God vindicate his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will vindicate them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?"" Luke 18:1-8, RSV.
Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Saviour, Jesus who is the Christ. Amen
When I was in college, my first two years I was a drama major. I really enjoyed the theater, and the different plays I got to act in, and the different plays I had to read or see. One of my favorite plays, and one of the favorite plays for a lot of people since it was one of the longest running plays on Broadway, was Fiddler on the Roof. I really enjoyed reading, listening, and studying the part of Tevye, the father of that Jewish family of all girls. If one would really study the character of Tevye, one would see he is very human, a common sort of a man, but at the same time, he is wise beyond many so-called wise people of this world.
He also has a good relationship with his God. He is comfortable with God. He can talk freely with God about most any subject. His prayers to God are from the depth of his being, and at times they are very humorous, but at the same time reflect the concerns he has with his life and the world around him.
I would like to share just one of his conversations with God this morning.
Listen not only to his words. but the feelings:
Tevye is talking to God: "Today I am a horse. Dear God did you have to make my poor old horse loose his shoe just before the Sabbath. That wasn’t nice. It’s enough you pick on me, Tevye, bless me with five daughters, a life of poverty. What have you got against my horse? Sometimes I think when things are too quiet up there, You say to Yourself: ’Let’s see, what kind of mischief can I play on my friend Tevye’. He continues talking to God: "As the Good book says, Heal us, O Lord, and we shall be healed. In other words, send us the cure, we’ve got the sickness already. I’m not really complaining--after all, with your help, I’m starving to death. You made many, many poor people. I realize, of course, that it’s no shame to be poor, but it’s no great honor either. So what would have been so terrible if I had a small fortune?"
Can you sense the comfort, the ease Tevye had in talking with God. Maybe his theology wasn’t the best blaming God for all of his troubles, but his expression, his right to express these kinds of feelings to God is what prayer is all about.
Prayer is asking, prayer is wondering, prayer is bringing to God all of the feelings from the depths of our souls, so that we might lay them before his throne. So that we might cry out from the very inner longings of our soul all the concerns, all the problems, all the things that make us who we are, and what we are.
As you can tell by now, our gospel lesson this morning concerns Prayer. Prayer is even in a sense visualized in our first lesson in very dramatic ways. Jesus tells the disciples that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.
Prayer is a struggle, a tug of war between parts of myself, between me and God, between me and others.
A poem by Ethelyn Shattuck says:
Dear Heavenly Father:
I’m working on a puzzle pure and simple.
It is I.
Dear searching child?
Here’s the answer to your puzzle pure and simple,
It is I."
Prayer is a struggle of searching, of asking, of bringing ourselves to God. In our Old Testament lesson Jacob is fighting with God. Jacob has just returned to his homeland to make peace with his brother Esau. His conscious is still bothering him about stealing the birthright from Esau, but Jacob also knows that through this brokenness, God has used him now to build a mighty nation, the nation of Israel.
This fight symbolizes for Jacob and for us, his struggle to understand the mysteries of God, to make sense out of the brokenness of this world, to discover the course that God wants him to take. He struggles with God, and finally God speaks with him, asks him his name and then tells us that he will have a new name, Israel, and from his family a mighty nation will be born. Out of that struggle, a stronger, newer, better relationship with God was established.
Jesus in our gospel lesson shows us also this struggle with prayer. He again uses a shady character, a dishonest judge, to make a point about the goodness of God. This woman was wronged by someone, and her case was in court. The judge being a dishonest man wasn’t in too much of a hurry to settle the case, because the woman being poor as women were in her day didn’t have any bribe money to help the judge along in deciding her case. So, she keeps coming to him asking that she be vindicated or in other words that she be given protection, justice, that her rights be honored.
Jesus is contrasting this dishonest judge with the loving father. If a dishonest person can be persuaded to make a decision, how much more likely will your loving father in heaven listen to your pleadings, your struggles decide for you??? Jesus is again working from the negative as he did in Luke 16: 1 with the story of the unjust steward, to make a point about a loving God hearing our struggles, hearing our cries of help and then responding to them.
Prayer is also an encounter with God. Not only do we struggle to bring from the depths of our souls, our longings, our searchings, our inner feelings to God, not only do we struggle to lay bear before the throne of God our very self, but as we do that we encounter God. We come in contact with God.
Jacob came in physical contact with God. He wrestled with God. He and God became physical, in the modern sense.
The woman was threatening to become physical with the judge in our gospel lesson. For the judge says; "I will vindicate her or she will wear me out by her continual coming." Or as one translation says, "she will come and knock me out!!!"
Prayer for us is indeed an encounter with God, and encounter between our spirit and the spirit of God which comes to us in our prayer so that we might communicate with God. We encounter the same God of Jacob, we encounter the same God Jesus is pointing to in his story of the dishonest judge, the God of love, the God who cares for us, the God who indeed comes into a physical relationship with us in prayer.
There is another poem I would like to share, the author is unknown, it says:
"The light of God surrounds me;
The love of God enfolds me;
The power of God protects me,
The presence of God watches over me;
Where I am, God is’!!"’
Yes, in prayer, you and I have a physical encounter with God. God’s spirit comes to us and mingles with our spirit so that we might be encouraged, so that we might be enabled, so that we might be strengthen to bring from the depth of our souls all those needs, doubts, struggles, joys, thanksgivings, celebrations, all those events of life into the realm of God.
Jacob wrestled with god, the woman in our gospel lesson came again and again to the judge pounding on his door to receive justice.
Some have entitled this encounters with God as the dark night of the soul. Our soul encountering God with our struggles, our doubts, our pain in life.
Have you ever had that dark night of the soul encounter with God? I have several times. I have struggled with God wanting to be like Jacob wrestle with Him to give me the answer to why I had been brought into the ministry by God, that was another struggle, and now when I was really comfortable being a minister this post polio syndrome had to hit and I had to leave?
I have struggled with God for an answer. I would have been like Jacob grabbing God by the shoulders and demanding why! why! Why did my body have to endure another disability? Why did I have to have vocal chord problems that even after surgery left me with no ability to preach orally?
Why did this happen after the struggle of deciding to go into the ministry, giving up teaching was so difficult and then coming to the peace that being a pastor was something that fit all of my previous experiences?
Like Jacob I demanded answers and I only received from God the rising of the sun as a new day dawns where I have found peace in knowing that I have struggled with god and god through Jesus Christ is by my side.
The why’s of life can never be answered fully even in our deepest struggles with God. But like Tevye, those struggles brought me into a deeper relationship with God. I have learned that God can handle my anger, my frustrations with life so our relationship is built not on some sentimental idea that life is always going to be glorious, but that in our honest relationship one gets to share not only the good, but also the challenges of life with God.
If Jacob can wrestle with God, if the women can come again and again demanding justice from the judge, I can in prayer, in honest prayer bring to God all the struggles of life and lay them at His feet.
Paul says in Romans 8:15-17 that it is our spirit along with God’s spirit that allows us to cry Abba Father.
Prayer is indeed a talk with God. It is a talk from the depths of our souls as we struggle to bring to God the very essence of our being. Prayer is an encounter with God in a very real way. It is our spirit and his Holy Spirit mingling together so that our cries, our pleading, our joys, our celebrations will be placed before the throne of heaven.
And prayer brings us into a relationship with God, a trust, a belief, a faith and tells us God will answer, he will respond, because He so very much loves us. Our faith tells us to believe that the grace of God is sufficient for us. God alone, God alone reaching his hand of love into my life is all I need to trust in as I walk my life.
A closing story sums up what I have been saying.
The tragedy left the man homeless, widowed and fatherless. Fire had swept through the trailer, and all was lost. It took some time for the full weigh of the loss to descend, and when it did, he was nearly crushed.
Like Job in the O.T. he would not be comforted...When the gift of shock was lifted, anger, resentment filled every waking thought. God had not been fair to him God had not protected his family. He had not come to him with a special visitation to explain the "why" and the "what next". He was in a wilderness as rugged as the Sinai...The greatest temptation was to add to his losses by forfeiting his faith. He felt justified. No one would fault him. Some might even support him. He prayed angrily now, daring god to hurt him further, and challenging him to give any reason to hold on to the thin thread of his.
He prayed angrily, but he prayed, and God could handle it....The anguish continued to mount until one afternoon he uttered a cry so forcefully, it could only be described as a scream. No word was spoken, just a loud angry scream against the forces of heaven and hell, as if to say, "I’ve hurt all I can, and I’ve paid my dues for love.... Help me."....
The silence that followed was quieter than silence. A peace was evident for the first time in months. Scripture might have said, "Angels cam and ministered unto him."
Satan had been overthrown, and health was coming back,for he believed, at last, that God was caring for those he lost. That God was caring for Him. that God could handle his honest anger, his honest emotions,that God can handle all our pent up emotions, feelings, denials.
Amen
