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Home Page
The Rector's Welcome
Worship
Sermons
Music & the Organ
Newsletter
Schedule & Events
History
Programs & Ministries
Tour the Building
Links
Map & Directions
Monthly Calendar
Home Page
The Rector's Welcome
Worship
Sermons
Music & the Organ
Newsletter
Schedule & Events
History
Programs & Ministries
Tour the Building
Links
Map & Directions
Monthly Calendar
Fr. J. D. Ousley
21 October 2007Gen 32. Lk. 18“Getting God's Attention”
In the Name of God: Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Amen.
As the autumn season arrives, clergy often hear their parishioners describe what they did over the summer.
One activity that we hear about is golf. Some golfers might even tell us that they feel 'closer to God on the golf course than they do in church.'
Now I don't play golf, so I can't judge whether being on the golf course is a stimulus to spiritual growth. But I can say that when the Bible uses sports metaphors to refer to getting close to God, it uses much more aggressive even combative images.
One example of sports found in the Old Testament is wrestling. We encounter the primary source for this image in today's First Reading.
In the lesson, Jacob wrestles with a mysterious stranger; the stranger is said in this translation to be a 'man' but the context suggests that the Jacob's opponent is really an angel or some other kind of divine messenger.
The struggle goes on all night. Finally, Jacob survives the battle. Because he survives, he is given a new name: 'Israel,' which means "one what has struggled with God." The stranger tells him that this name has been chosen because Jacob has struggled "with God and with humans, and [has] prevailed."
Now ancient peoples believed that the origin of their names was particularly significant. Since the many descendants of Jacob came to be known by his new name, they recognized that built into their very identity as the people of Israel was this idea of wrestling with the Divine. They would always be people who struggled with God.
Jesus was, of course, a descendant of Jacob himself, so he was aware of this vital aspect of Hebrew philosophy. In the Gospel story we just heard, he gives his own interpretation of this idea. But instead of wrestling, Jesus uses the image of another kind of ferocious combat: he uses the example of the law suit.
In Christ's story, a woman is involved in a court case. In order to win the case, she needs to get a decision from the judge involved — and he unfortunately is a lazy crook. But the woman is persistent.
She pesters the judge until finally he exclaims, "Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice." Why does he grant her justice? So he says, "that she may not wear me out by continually coming' up and bothering me."
After telling this story, Christ comments, "Will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them."
Now we don't really need to wrestle with God to get his attention! God is all-knowing, and what he knows will include our problems, and he will respond in love as he can.
But both lessons illustrate an aspect of the spiritual life that can easily be overlooked.
We may, for example, limit ourselves to what I will call, 'a golfer's view of God.' We may mistakenly think that the spiritual life is nothing more than a pleasant stroll around the golf course of life.
On this view, God is a kind of ideal golfing companion who always compliments us on good shots and who pretends not to be looking when we hit the ball out of bounds. Nor does our agreeable partner protest when we neglect to record all our strokes on the score card. Such a God is accepting and nice!
And, happily, there is a lot of truth in this point of view: calm and benign spiritual moments do occur from time to time — and not only on the golf course!
But it may also happen that our relations with the divine Spirit are not always so placid. Our contacts with God can become turbulent and complicated when our interests in the spiritual are deflected by worries about job or family. Life becomes anything but calm! The imperfections of the world crowd out the perfections of the God who created it.
When things aren't going well, we find ourselves — like Jacob, and like the widow — struggling. We don't feel God's guiding spirit. We aren't comforted by God's presence. What, then do we do?
The first principle to be learned from these lessons will be well known to athletes, wrestlers and golfers alike: persistence. Jacob keeps wrestling all night even though his hip is thrown out of joint. He keeps wrestling until his supernatural opponent finally gives in.
The widow, too, in her legal dispute keeps at it. Her large capacity for nagging the corrupt judge finally persuades him to give her the just verdict that she deserves.
But to be persistent, we need to attain a fundamental spiritual strength. Good college wrestlers are successful not just because they fight hard but because they train hard. Indeed, they may hardly ever stop working out, and running, and watching what they eat!
Now the application of this idea to religion is pretty obvious. Assume that 'getting God's attention' requires a certain spiritual perception. Isn't it then likely that there will be ways to refine our sensitivities to the spiritual?
And might we not need to train our souls, like the wrestler trains his body, in order to develop our ability to pray? And might this not mean that we have to carry persistence to a whole new level? We can't only address God when we have a crisis and expect that we will be able to pray with coherence and confidence.
It's no wonder, then, that all the classic writers on prayer talk about discipline and this spiritual discipline often sounds like the discipline of a superior athlete.
There are traditional rules about not eating and sleeping too much, there are recommended times for spiritual workouts such as daily prayers; there are major events in prayer life comparable to tournaments like going on a retreat. And of course, there are crises comparable to an athlete's injury — like problems with prayer.
Interestingly, we see three examples of these elements of spiritual discipline in the story of Jacob wrestling with the angel: First, Jacob's previous relationship of following God's will lead to his all-night vigil in the wilderness; second, the strange spiritual combatant Jacob faces, the angel or mystical being may reflect the darkness in Jacob's own soul; and third, the injury to his hip symbolizes the permanent spiritual change that results.
Notice, too, that the episode concludes with what is in effect an awards ceremony. In recognition of Jacob's extraordinary battle with the angel, he is given a new name. Like winning the Heavyweight Championship of the World, this new name, 'Israel,' will stay with him for life.
Every time he hears his own name, Israel will be reminded of the night that his spirit was transformed through his struggle with the living God. In the church today, we implicitly allude to our ongoing relationship with the divine when we 'name' children and adults at their baptisms — in the case of children, the names represent the help they will be given in battles yet to come.
What finally seems most significant in these lessons is the idea that religion is a kind of contest. Christianity isn't a passive experience — we can't simply come to church and get injected with wisdom and inoculated with spiritual goodness — and then casually go on about our business. Instead we have to make the effort to enter into a spiritual contest.
Religion doesn't involve meekly asking God for things and waiting for the answers to be handed down. We have to be sure we want the right things. And once we have determined that we are being led in the right direction, we must, like wrestlers, 'go to the mat' to get what we want.
Needless to say, God doesn't have moments when he isn't 'paying attention!' God is, as the theologians say, 'omnipresent' — present throughout the universe. God is always paying attention. As the choir will sing today, God "watching over Israel, slumbers not, nor sleeps".
But like a busy parent who is doing housework and answering the phone at the same time as she is minding her children, God can seem not to be attending to the needs of his children. And it is in those moments that, from the point of view of the believer, we need to make our case before God.
We have to wrestle, to struggle, to confront our own needs and our own weaknesses. We have to pay attention to ourselves, to look at the shadows in our souls. Happily, though, this is one sporting event we can be sure to win.
For as Jesus said, "Will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them?"
And now unto that same God Father, Son, and Holy Spirit be ascribed as is most justly due all might, majesty, power, dominion and praise, now and forever, Amen.