Genesis 32:22-31
Resources
1. James G. Williams, The Bible, Violence, and the Sacred, pp. 46-50. He highlights the importance of the words name and face in this passage, and takes on Roland Barthes's structuralist approach to this passage that accepts a Freudian reading in terms of the Oedipal complex. Williams concludes his exposition of Jacob meeting Esau:
To conclude concerning the story of Jacob and Esau, the relation of the brothers is a model of mimetic desire and rivalry precisely because the brothers are twins, a factor that intensifies the rivalry and the need to differentiate the two. This need for differentiation functioned in Israel's traditions as a story of Israel's differentiation from its ancestral stock and relationships. At the same time it discloses that separation and identity can and should take place without violence. As already noted, in the Jacob model of origins, the hero's injury or disability is not primarily a sign of his outsider status and an indication of his fate as a victim. The figure of Jacob is basically different from the expelled hero or sacred king. Unlike the blindness of Oedipus, Jacob's limp is a sign of his success, a sign that he has been victorious without scapegoating or being scapegoated. The truth of the revelation to which the text bears witness (which, because of its debt to the myth of the unconscious and of endless signification, an analysis like Barthes's will not touch), is that there is an Other whose providential reality is necessary to liberation from victimization because this Other is beyond differences and accepts human creatures in spite of the differences they make between God and man and between each other. (pp. 53-54)2. Walter Brueggemann, in his Interpretation commentary on Genesis, notes that Frederick Buechner called this passage The Magnificent Defeat [the title of a sermon that lent its name to a book of sermons], but suggests instead, "The Crippling Victory." He comments further:
Jacob is a cripple with a blessing. Israel must ponder how it is that blessings are given and at what cost. This same theology of weakness in power and power in weakness turns this text toward the New Testament and the gospel of the cross. This same dialectic stands behind Jesus' encounter with his disciples (Mark 10:35-45). They want thrones, an equivalent to asking the name. Jesus counters by asking them about cups, baptisms, and crosses. Like Jacob, they are invited to person of faith who prevail, but to do so with a limp. (p. 271)Reflections and Questions
1. I continue to find it important to talk about the prayer of Jabez phenomenon (see the official "Prayer of Jabez" website). Dr. Bruce Wilkinson continues to make huge money from his series of books about praying for success, based on to short verses from 1 Chronicles (4:9-10):
Jabez was honored more than his brothers; and his mother named him Jabez, saying, "Because I bore him in pain." Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, "Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from hurt and harm!" And God granted what he asked.If we want to expand on these two verses, I would do so by noticing similarities to the more expansive sagas in Genesis. Jacob is a brother favored by his mother whose name comes from how he was born (i.e., at the heel of his twin, Esau). Jacob also strives for the bigger portion, the blessing from his father, and God grants it to him. But at what cost? He must run away from home in fear for his life. In today's passage, he is finally returning home after many years, still fearing for his life. He gets blessed again, but this time it is with his brother's forgiveness. Which is the greater blessing, the one he stole from his brother, or the one he receives from his brother by sheer grace?
At the Jabbok River, he strives with God and wrestles away the blessing of a new name, a new start. But is this only a precursor for the real blessing he would receive the next day through his brother? After a lifetime of rivalry with his brother, he is finally freed of that struggle by resolving the struggle with God himself and procuring the new start offered by forgiveness. Jacob, upon being welcomed by Esau, convinces him to take a gift:
Jacob said, "No, please; if I find favor with you, then accept my present from my hand; for truly to see your face is like seeing the face of God -- since you have received me with such favor. Please accept my gift that is brought to you, because God has dealt graciously with me, and because I have everything I want." So he urged him, and he took it. (Genesis 33:10-11)Jacob recognizes what the true blessing is.
What about those who pray the prayer of Jabez? They may get what they are asking for, but do they recognize the cost? Continued rivalry with fellow children of God? When Jesus urges us to pray without ceasing, what do we pray for? What would it take for the Son of Man to come and to find faith on earth? Let us pray without ceasing, and let our prayer be the prayer of God's kingdom, God's justice. Let it be a prayer for the blessing of forgiveness.
2 Timothy 3:14-4:5
Reflections and Questions
1. This passage is about the "sacred writings," but notice the phrase "knowing from whom you learned it." Without the "sacred writings" as a living word transmitted through other faithful disciples, Scripture becomes "dead letters." In recent years, some biblical scholars have approached Scripture without faith and often manifested what "dead letters" means.
2. On the other hand, there is the approach of the biblical literalists who seem to want to reduce the words on the page to "dead letters" by emphasizing the literalness of the words, elevating the text itself over the "living word" as it has been faithfully transmitted to us via the faithful. With every word being literally true in their eyes, they are able to lift verses, or even phrases, out of context to justify their own versions of the truth.
3. The warning in 2 Tim. 4:3-4 thus takes on an ironic twist against those who seek to be faithful by literalism. The writer of 2 Tim. warns us,
For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.Many fundamentalists see themselves as defending sound doctrine from those who have itchy ears. But the tragic irony, I think, is that their literalist method leads them to be precisely those folks they aim to defend against. Taking every word literally allows them to lift verses and phrases out of their living contexts such that they can make these verses and phrases bend to their desires. Most especially, they fall back into the myths of sacred violence that Christ came to liberate us from.
How can this be? By making the text itself an idol. The value of Scripture is always an offshoot from the Living Word, that came most especially through the Word incarnate in Jesus Christ, and then has been transmitted through the ages by the breath of God, the Spirit of God, the Paraclete.
4. The Greek word translated as "inspired by God" (NRSV) is theopneustos, literally "God-breathed," "God-spirited." The Holy Spirit is the breath of life, the giver and sustainer of life, and it also keeps God's word alive. It makes sure that it always remains a living word.
Luke 18:1-8
Reflections and Questions
1. In the Gospel two weeks ago (Proper 22C), Luke 17:5-10, Jesus' disciples pray to have their faith increased, but they don't seem to understand what faith is, so Jesus doesn't answer them straightforwardly. In our comments on the Proper 22C Gospel, we talked about learning to understand faith in terms of forgiveness and the willingness to serve, following a master who forgives and serves.
In this week's passage, Jesus urges his disciples to pray without ceasing, giving them the example of the widow and the unjust judge. But he ends with a question, "And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?" Is this a holdover from two weeks ago? Jesus still has doubts about whether his disciples know what faith is?
2. These questions link the Gospel Lesson with our comments on the First Lesson. We might even end with the same words: When Jesus urges us to pray without ceasing, what do we pray for? What would it take for the Son of Man to come and to find faith on earth? Let us pray without ceasing, and let our prayer be the prayer of God's kingdom, of God's justice. Let it be a prayer for the blessing of forgiveness.
Link to a sermon entitled "Pray Always . . . for the Reign of Forgiveness."
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Link to another Resource for Preaching from the Perspective of Mimetic Theory: PreachingPeace.org
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