What Disciples Do: Wrestle with Faith

Jacob is nervous, anxious, …apprehensive; tomorrow, he will meet his brother again after all these years. When he ran away, it was for his life. How angry is Esau still? All in the same night, Jacob sends a gift of goats and sheep, camels, cows and donkeys with his servants. Then he sends ahead his wives and children. And then he is alone. Verse 24 says, “And Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until the break of the day.” In the morning, Jacob will name the place Peniel, “face of God”, because he will know the identity of his wrestling opponent; he wrestled with God all night.

“Do I really have to meet Esau tomorrow?” “Is there another way?” “Can I just run away now?” “Will he still hate me?” “Will he try to kill me?” So many questions as he got ready to walk into the unknown. But it was an unknown God was calling him into. Reconciliation. Making his past right so he can move into God’s future plans for him.

We don’t know exactly what happened that night. Jacob was left with his hip out of joint, his name changed from meaning deceiver and liar to Israel, one who strives with God. What we do know is that as he lay alone under the stars that night, God was holding onto him and wrestling him in a direction that he did not relish.

In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the first book in C.S. Lewis’s allegorical Chronicles of Narnia series, Susan and Lucy are nervous as they prepare to meet Aslan, who represents Jesus. They ask Mr. and Mrs. Beaver if Aslan is a man. Mr. Beaver replies,

“Aslan a man? Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-beyond-the Sea. Don’t you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion– the Lion, the great Lion.”
“Ooh!” says Susan. “I’d thought he was a man. Is he–quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”
“That you will, dearie, and make no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver, “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”
“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver. “Don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about being safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”
Jacob wrestling all night long with God shows us that like Aslan, God is very good, but not always safe. True disciples wrestle with who God is AND with what God calls them to do.

One of the criticisms that is sometimes launched against studying theology is that you might lose your faith when in reality, questioning our faith, wrestling alone with God, allows us to know what we believe because we have taken it apart and questioned it, and put it back together for ourselves. Wrestling with our faith allows us to wrestle with faith when life’s challenges come along.

As young children, we learn the Bible stories in no particular order, and we are told what we are supposed to learn from them. As we go through elementary and middle school, we begin to understand the order of the Biblical stories – Moses and Jesus weren’t alive at the same time, in the same place – and we learn what our faith community, our church, believes. We realize that our church gives us a sense of stability in life, a rudder, and that we belong here. As we reach adulthood, we begin to question and wrestle with what we believe. I think it is important to realize that the questioning that comes with college and young adulthood is developmental and that if the church refuses to engage in wrestling and in questions, if we don’t acknowledge and even point out contradictions in the Biblical narrative, when young adults develop to this point in their faith, the church will not be there to help them, and they will go somewhere else to wrestle. Eventually, we may come to a place where we accept the paradoxes of faith, the mysteries of the Sacraments’ symbolism and power, the reality that any calling of God involves risk and sacrifice. Our hip may be out of joint, but we have seen the face of God.

Along the way, we admit that we, too, are named Jacob. We, too, are deceivers in need of a new identity. We, too, wrestle with God until we are willing to go back and reconcile our broken relationships. We, too, wrestle with God, who is good, very good, but not safe, seeking God’s blessing in our lives and struggling with the reality that it lies in doing God’s will. I read recently a claim that I have found to ring true in my life. If your plan for your life isn’t scary, if what you believe God is calling you to do and engage in doesn’t frighten you, if the path is clear and marked out and without obstacles and risks, then it isn’t God’s plan for you.

God-sized plans bring us to our knees, they wrestle our self-confidence. The path is not clear, the way is not obvious. But the vision looms in the distance and beckons us forward even through the challenges.

This week I attended a meeting for Room in the Inn church leaders. This year marks 10 years of hosting guests through the winter months and providing food, shelter, and hospitality. Lisa Anderson, the founder, began the ministry that first winter with her small congregation. The next year, a few more congregations also offered their places of worship. Now, the network has more than 50 churches, it offers housing year-round for women, children, and families and through the winter months for all. Recently, Lisa got a phone call. A nursing home is moving. Did Room in the Inn want the building and all the furnishings? Lisa swallowed. One of the gaps that we have tried to fill, but been inadequate at Room in the Inn, is housing for people who are getting out of the hospital and have lost their house or apartment during their illness. The hospitals drive up with these people who are well enough to leave the hospital, but not well enough to learn how to live on the street, and drop them off at the door of the Carpenter’s House, the central hub for Room in the Inn. How could a building with hospital beds help?
Lisa could see that connection. But, it needs a new roof, Lisa wrestled with God. Room in the Inn doesn’t have the money for capital outlay. The next day, she got a phone call with an offer to do capital improvement projects for Room in the Inn. The roof is paid for. Room in the Inn accepted the building. It is getting some work done. But there are still lots of questions, lots of wrestling going on. Who will staff it? What will the rules and policies be? How will it be funded?

We continue to wrestle. We wrestle with our faith, so that we are able to wrestle with faith as we face the challenges of life, and in the wrestling we come face to face with God.