A fair fight?
Preacher: Joanna Love DCS, Wild Goose Resource Group
Readings: Genesis 32: 22-31; Luke 18: 1-8
Good morning on this Festival Sunday. What a wonderful thing to be celebrating – the human voice. Especially in its creative capacity for singing.
Alongside the music this morning we have two stories from the Bible. These are also testament to the human voice in storytelling; originating centuries ago, these are stories told and retold, simplified, embellished, reshaped, handed on.
As we heard, we have first the tale of a night time encounter in the life of Jacob, one of the patriarchs of ancient Israel. And secondly a parable told by Jesus, featuring a judge reluctant to do his job properly.
Two snapshots from the whole Biblical album – is there anything in them that might be music to our ears this morning?
Let’s enter into the worlds crafted by the voices of their times.
Jacob. What a complicated man. A brief backstory. He was the younger brother of twins and he was born fighting. He and his twin were chalk and cheese, each the favourite of a different parent. That was asking for trouble, as you can imagine. Egged on by his manipulating mother, Jacob succeeded in cheating his brother out of the birthright and fatherly blessing that belonged to the firstborn son.
After such betrayals, Jacob had to flee from his brother who was ready to kill him.
So we pick up what we heard read, finding Jacob by the Jabbok River. Years have passed since Jacob ran away and he’s done pretty well for himself. The day of reckoning is ahead. Finally, the brothers are about to meet again. Time to face the music.
It is going to be a sleepless night for Jacob, with plenty to think about, perhaps imagining many scenarios of what the morning might bring. It seems that Jacob chooses to be alone.
There is a sense of aloneness at the beginning of Jesus’ parable too. Why would a widow need to come to a judge alone? No widow would choose to be alone; she shouldn’t be having to fend for herself. Yet Jesus’ story describes her as having to act on her own behalf, without the protection she should have had from her late husband’s relatives or her grown up children, if she had any.
Jesus had no doubt seen some women in real life in that most precarious predicament – no one looking out for her, or at her side as she seeks help because somebody is causing her distress.
But her cries fall on deaf ears. The authority figure she goes to is completely disengaged, unmoved by her plight, refusing to defend her.
We have not found much to sing about so far. Sibling rivalry. Fractured family. Insomnia and dread. No protection for the vulnerable and a failure of authority to do what it is there for. Chosen or unchosen aloneness. It doesn’t sound cheering; it does sound familiar.
We hardly need to name the breakdowns and injustice and isolation that is plaguing too many of us right now. Maybe there’s something good in noticing that the Bible is not a compendium of perfect people but the imperfect expressions of real people who struggle, and who, in their own day, in their own voices, develop an understanding of God and see how God shows up for them… what difference does it make when the story of struggle is a God story?
So Jacob might have expected to spend the night alone with all his angst. But he’s not alone for long. He is met in the darkness by a stranger and they get into one almighty fight. But it is a strangely equal fight. And it is a strangely clean fight. Neither overcomes the other. It’s not a fight to the death, quite the opposite, it’s almost, a fight to the life…
Jacob is eventually wounded. And he is eventually blessed. And at the end of his fight night, Jacob is sure it is God who met him; God whose face he has seen.
Why would God come to someone as a wrestling partner? Why would a physical fight be the best gift for Jacob that night?
Let’s embody this gift for a moment. I’ll invite you in a moment, if you wish, to pair up with someone beside you, put a palm flat against your partner’s, and for just half a minute, exert the maximum matching strength against each other. Find that strongest but equal force, and feel it for just 30 seconds. So if you wish, I invite you to engage your hands, and our 30 seconds starts now…
How are we? Exhausted, energised, uncomfortable, surprised…?? The wisdom of God in the wisdom of the body. The most effective gift to Jacob in that moment. He didn’t need to work things out in his head. He needed a workout in the body. And sometimes, so do we.
There is no such intimate, sweaty drama for the widow and judge of Jesus’ parable. Their distance and detachment is eventually resolved only because the judge doesn’t want to be driven to distraction by her pester power. There is no equality, no satisfying meeting and engaging, but a huge power imbalance which is eventually turned on its head.
But Jesus did not tell this story to protest against what vulnerable people had to contend with or the lengths they had to go to get justice. Neither was Jesus directing this at the judges who cared so little for ordinary citizens.
He told this parable to make a contrast. See that judge? See God? God is nothing like that judge. What God is about is as far away from that judge as you could possibly imagine.
So don’t lose heart. Stories like this wouldn’t need told if people never did lose heart.
A second invitation for a brief interaction – using our voices this time! What injustice will you never cease to cry out about? It’s OK if your heart is in right now; it’s OK if your heart has bottomed out of it right now. Shall we take a minute of conversation, to share with someone near us, what injustice will you never cease to cry out about?
One minute… if you wish, share your thoughts…
So we remember and we honour the fair fights and the unfair fights that come our way, and our struggle not to lose heart. We gather up these stories in a retelling of them. It’s not quite a song to finish with, but a ballad style of poem…
The river’s steady running
like a humming chorus drone
a solo heartbeat thrumming
in a man, his fate unknown
when evening turns to sunrise,
he’ll have stayed or he’ll have flown,
will he have the heart to face the morning?
Will his brother come with mercy
or with murderous intent?
a sudden brute ferocious energy
meets all he needs to vent
writhing in the darkness
til his breath and body’s spent
can he have the heart to face the morning?
The clouds are tinged with colour
growing paleness in the skies,
wounded, undefeated,
holding on to recognise
the face of God, the wonder –
‘I have seen yet I’m alive!’
does he have the heart to face the morning?
Be with us, God of Jacob
in our complicated nights
the derangement of estrangement
all the wrong we cannot right
will you gift us with the wildness
of a holy, wholesome fight
that we have the heart to face the morning?
The singing of the voiceless
like a record on repeat
unashamed to come defenceless
crying, ‘This is what I need!’
her demand has all the impact
of a bruised and broken reed
will she have the heart to face the morning?
Her world reduced to trudging
up and down the same old road
to confront the cruel inertia
hearing yet another no
when the powerful can’t be bothered
where is there left to go?
can she have the heart to face the morning?
Another day, another walk,
the lonely protest sung
and for no respect or conscience stirred
but only that he’s done
with being pestered, her request he’ll grant
if she will no more come
may she have the heart to face the morning
Be with us, God of Jesus,
in our tired, unravelled days
when determination falters,
when perseverance frays
if it’s true you’re not indifferent,
come and be the One who stays
that your people have the heart to face the morning
Thanks be to God for these and all our thoughts on God’s word. Amen.