Ordination season is upon us now and a new group of men are being ordained all over the country. Never forget how necessary priests are not just in the obvious and external ways but also in more hidden ways.
Holy Order – As priests we are ordained to Holy Orders. Thus, among the many ways we can understand the ministry of the ordained clergy is that we provide “holy order” by our obedience to the Bishop or Superior and by unifying the faithful under our care to the Bishop and the Church. Nothing is more egregious (and also silly) as a disobedient priest who thereby creates disorder. By our obedient link to the Bishop we help exercise a threefold office of teaching, governing and sanctifying. Priests preserve order in the Church by uniting their parishioners in the truth of the Gospel. And, like it or not, priests also unify the faithful by the charitable but clear authority of the priestly office which is meant to resolve conflicts, set directions and observe proper limits. Unity is a very precious gift from the Lord which He, by his own design, has rooted in the Sacrament named for that very gift of Holy Order.
Sanctifying Ministry – I would like to mention only very briefly one aspect of the sanctifying ministry of the priest. Surely we sanctify the faithful in a unique way through the celebration of the Sacraments and the proclamation of God’s Word. But another way we do this, a way perhaps more hidden and ordinary, is to pray for our people. The Church both commends us to pray for the faithful under our care and also commands it.
A Ministry of Prayer – How does she command it? By the obligation to pray the Liturgy of the Hours, also known as the Breviary. Every day we priests are obligated to pray this somewhat lengthy series of prayers and to earnestly pray for the faithful and in union with the whole Church. The basic series of prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours includes: The Office of Readings, Morning Prayer, Mid Day Prayer, Evening Prayer and Night Prayer. Ideally we should pray it through out the day at each appointed hour. But, due to our busy and often unpredictable schedules many of us pray large sections of it in the morning and another part of it later in the evening.
An image: But you must know that your priests pray for you. As I hold the Breviary in my hands I often imagine I am holding the faithful of my parish in my very hands. It is my duty and privilege to pray for them, and also for the whole Church.
Someone is praying for you – I want to keep this brief (always a challenge for me) because I simply want you to know that someone is praying for you. Surely my prayers are especially for my parishioners. But you who regularly read this blog are parishioners of mine too. I pray for you each day.
I also wanted to keep this short in hopes that you might see this video which is a very touching way of depicting how priests pray for their people and their people pray for them.
In the use of language certain sophistication is necessary that appreciates the different modes of speech that are often used. A lot of communication breaks down today because many lack the sophistication necessary to understand when various modes of speech are being employed and how they are to be interpreted.
Not only does this lead to poor communication, but it also affects Biblical interpretation and also the way in which many understand Church teaching and practices.
In hopes of greater understanding of the often subtle and different modes of speech, perhaps we can review some terms and distinctions related to modes of speech.
Denotation vs. Connotation – Denotation refers to the literal, dictionary meaning of a word, usually the first meaning of word listed there. For example, the denotative meaning of the word “snake” is “any of numerous scaly, legless, often venomous reptiles of long and cylindrical body and found in most tropical as well as temperate regions.”
Connotation, on the other hand, refers to the associations that are connected to a certain word or the emotional suggestions related to that word. The connotative meanings of a word tap into the denotative meanings but also point beyond the merely literal meaning. The connotations for the word snake could include evil or danger. Thus to call snake would speak to their poisonous, predatory or dangerous tendencies. A snake connotes danger and sinister practices.
Connotation opens language to a wide variety of meanings and interpretations based on context. Such deviations from literal meaning are called “figures of speech” or figurative language. There are many different kinds of figures of speech, such as
Simile, – A simile is a comparison between two dissimilar objects using a word like as or like to connect them. Notice that simile means something is “like” something else in certain respects. It does not mean that they are identical.
Thus, when Jesus warned against casting our pearls before swine, he is using a simile and saying that human beings can adopt certain traits associated with pigs. He is not say humans ARE pigs. Since, pigs only value what they can eat, putting fine but inedible things before pigs mean that they will simply be trampled underfoot. And some people who rather carnal can develop the same attitude toward the pearls of “spiritual gifts” since they do not provide simple bodily pleasure. In this sense people are like (simul) pigs by having a similar trait, but Jesus is not saying they actually are pigs. And this is simile.
Metaphor, – A metaphor is like a simile, except that a metaphor compares two dissimilar objects without using a word like as or like. If you say, “My girlfriend is an angel” you are using metaphor. But again a certain trait of an angel is being borrowed, not the full angelic reality. Even though one says, “My girlfriend is an angel” this is not a declaration that she has a complete angelic nature and is not, in fact, human.
If you say, in the words of an old song: “When I take my sugar to tea,” “sugar” here does not refer to the granular sucrose material, but to a woman. And the woman is not actual sugar. Yes, she is a “sweetie,” but possessed of female human nature.
This is metaphor: two dissimilar objects are compared or have some common trait though they are distinct.
In the Bible some err in understanding certain texts because they miss the metaphor. Thus, in Genesis when there is reference to a race of “giants” (Gen 6:1-4), one need not necessarily take this as a literal declaration that there used to be people on the planet who were over ten feet tall. For example, of the generation of priests in the 1940s and 1950s I might say, “They were real giants!” Or I might speak of that era as the “age of the giants.” But I do not refer to their physical stature. But rather to their influence and power. It is a metaphor, a figure of speech.
And thus in biblical texts we ought to consider that the use of metaphor may explain certain things like giants. It is not always clear when metaphor is being used, but reading everything in an unvarying literalistic way, many yield poor results, and thus the Church permits recourse to the possibility and likelihood of metaphor in many cases.
Personification – One may describe an inanimate object, animal, or abstraction with human qualities and characteristics, as though it were a person this is personification.
For example, I call my older model Crown Victoria car, “Betty Grable” as a term of affection, for its stately but older quality, and because I got it from my parents after their death. And Betty Grable speaks to their generation. My Secretary calls her call “Betty Boop” because it is a spunky and sportier car, with a lot of pizzaz.
Hyperbole (sometimes called overstatement) – occurs when you exaggerate a point that you are trying to make for emphasis. If you say, “There must have been a million people there,” you are using hyperbole. There were not likely an exact million in attendance, but the point is there were a lot of people.
When Jesus says, if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out (e.g. Matt 5), He is not giving a command that we mutilate ourselves. He is using an exaggeration that emphasizes we ought to be serious about sin and removing its causes, and that it is more serious to sin that to lose an eye.
Understatement – is related to hyperbole in that understatement is the opposite of hyperbole: Understatement implies more than is actually stated. Let’s say an event was standing room only, and when someone asks you if there were many people there, you say, “Oh yes, there were a few people there.”
Paradox – refers to a form a speech that provocatively goes against the common way of understanding something. Paradox seems initially to have contradictory elements, but after some reflection and contextualizing, those elements can later make sense.
For example, when Jesus says we must lose our life to preserve or save it, we are initially puzzled, since we usually do not think we can possess or preserve something we have lost. Losing money (for example) is the opposite of saving it. Thus, the saying of Jesus that we must lose in order to save is paradoxical.
But of course what he means is that we must often lose one thing to make room for something greater. We must let go of lesser and passing things to inherit greater and eternal things. And thus the context helps resolve the tension of the paradox.
A pun – is a play on word that occurs when one word is used that reminds you of another word, or words. You can, for example, use a word that looks like or sounds like another word.
For example, English-speaking Christians can play on the word Sun and Son perhaps by saying, “The women went out to the tomb very early at the rising of the son (sun).” When spoken aloud (as opposed to writing – wherein the words are spelled differently) an English speaker can play on the similar sound and thus use a creative figure of speech.
Another example of a pun occurs in the playful words of an old country song: “Ever since you hung up on me, I’m hung up on you.” In this sentence the phrase “hung up” is being used playfully in two very different senses. One puns by playfully interposing two different senses in the same sentence.
Verbal Irony –Irony involves a contradiction. Being ironic means that you say something but mean the opposite to what you say.
For example, suppose some one tells me that he had a big repair bill on something and I say, “Well, aren’t you lucky!” I mean exactly the opposite of what I actually say.
Or suppose you are on a basketball court and one player makes a great shot, and the other players say (in admiration) “He’s bad!” Which actually means he is good!
In John’s gospel there are many verses dripping with irony. For example, the man born blind comes to see who Jesus is, while the Pharisees who could see, will not recognize Jesus. This causes Jesus to say, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”
Later in John the Temple leaders, who are unjustly seeking to kill the Son of God will not come into the Praetorium (governor’s house) because they do not want to sin by incurring ritual impurity before the Sabbath. John records this fact with an almost derisive irony.
Too many today have lost touch with the subtlety of human language and this causes error, tension, misunderstanding, and the taking of offense when none is intended. On the Internet forum misunderstanding is often magnified, since the helpful signals of facial expression and tone of voice are missing. I have often written something in a light-hearted and jocose way, only to be interpreted as being deadly serious by some who also take offense where I mean none.
Thus, more than ever, we do well to remember that speech has modes, and employs a lot of subtle and sophisticated devices.
So how about a little sophistication from us all who read? How about also giving the benefit of the doubt to the writer, and presuming more often a benign interpretation of the words before rushing to extreme conclusion.
Just sayin…. (by which I really mean I am just writing, and also by which I don’t mean say I am JUST writing, for I am also thinking… )
Boy! (an interjective, personification of an imaginary interlocutor) I think I’d just better quit (by which I really just mean to stop temporarily) while I’m ahead (a spatial allusion not to be literally interpreted). Do you get my drift?
At the bottom of this post is a powerful video that asks a fundamental moral question of a new and powerful scientific ability: “Should We?”
One of the great ethical and moral questions that besets us with new technologies, especially medical technologies, is whether our sheer capacity to do something thereby permits us to do that thing. Of course the answer to this ought to be “no.” Ability alone does not permit us to do anything we like.
I, for example, have the capacity, at least physically to do a lot of things I ought not do. I can steal, lie, damage, destroy and kill. Simply being able to do these things, even if I have “my own good reasons” for wanting to do them, does not give me carte blanche to in fact do them.
Groups and nations also have many capacities that they ought not act on. Perhaps one group more powerful than another can force its will on another, or one nation more powerful than another invade and enslave another nation. But again the mere power or capacity to act, does not give the group or nation the simple right to act. And of course the group or nation having the power will claim to have good reasons for doing what they do, but at the end of the day those reasons must judged by others, not merely asserted by the one who has the power.
Power without recognized limits can be a very ugly and destructive thing. And the power or capacity alone to do something is NOT a moral argument.
To some extent, everyone will recognize what has just been said as reasonable. But often, when it comes to science and new technologies, thinking becomes suddenly more fuzzy. This is especially the case in the realm of medicine, and medical technologies such as embryonic stem cell research, genetic manipulation, cloning, and many types of “reproductive” technologies such as in-vitro fertilization.
It will be granted that such matters often involve a lot of technical details that are difficult to understand. It is also understandable that many heart-wrenching issues revolve around such discussions, such as the hope to end disease or to overcome infertility.
But, too frequently we are asked refrain from any moral judgement by proponents of such things, and are often asked to accept the unreasonable notion that we ought to be able to do something merely because we are able to that thing, and the proponents have self-proclaimed good reasons to do it.
But as we saw above, in less heart-wrenching scenarios, mere ability, even if coupled with self-proclaimed good reasons is not alone a worthy moral argument. Many very ugly things have happened in human history on such faulty terms.
Again, let it be clearly stated, the ability to do something does not thereby confer the right to do it. Power does amount to a moral argument, and to the contrary, power often demands greater moral restraint of its possessor.
In the video below, which I hope you get a chance to see, the question is asked. “Should we?” For it would seem that we are close to capacity to bring certain extinct species back to life on this planet. Can we do this? It would seem we are close. But should we? Now THAT is a worthy and necessary moral consideration.
We have generally been conditioned by environmentalists to see extinction as always bad. But perhaps some extinction is necessary and god in the cycle of nature. Who gets to say what particular species might be good to reintroduce and what ones ought not?
Think about it. And think too about the modern moral tendency, especially in medicine to equate capacity with permission and moral rectitude. Many today demand the right to engage in certain scientific procedures and medical interventions simply because we can. Well, we can…but should we?
One of the more misunderstood of the deadly sins is sloth. In the wider culture sloth is often equated simply with laziness.
But sloth has a lot more subtleties than simple laziness. In fact, sloth can sometimes manifest as workaholism and other frantic worldly activities and busyness.
This is because sloth is most fundamentally defined as a “sorrow or aversion to the good things that God offers” such as a moral life, and deeper spiritual fruitfulness etc. There are some who find such things unappealing, and instead of joyfully accepting these gifts, they are sorrowful toward them or averse. One way to avoid God, and to avoid engaging in spiritual practices is to busy one’s self with the world, to dive into career and become a kind of a workaholic. Thus one simply says, “I’m far too busy to pray, or to spend time reflecting, or to read Scripture, or go to church etc. Such a person is not lazy but they are slothful.
Other forms of sloth do more consistently manifest in the form of a kind of laziness. Some people permit themselves to be mired in laziness or boredom, and a kind of tiredness such that they cannot rouse themselves to prayer other spiritual activities.
Yet another form of sloth, a form that is subtler, is a kind of discouragement that sets in once one has embarked on the spiritual path or vocation, and been at it a few years. And thus, one may get married, or become a religious or be ordained a priest, and after four or five years, when the newness worn off, a kind of Discouragement and boredom set in. And this boredom tempts one to think they made a mistake or must leave the path simply because the thrill and newness is gone.
The secular world often refers to this sort of sloth as the “five-year itch.” And usually applies this expression to marriage. And it is a very common thing that after four or five years of marriage, the greatest danger for divorce arises. The same is true of the priesthood and religious life. Four or five years into a vocation is a critical time period. The newness and thrill have worn off and now it comes time for the daily living, without the previous emotional intensity.
CS Lewis in the Screwtape Letters has “Uncle Screwtape” explain the slothful discouragement to Wormwood in this way, and instructs his “student demon” thus:
Work hard, then, on the disappointment or anticlimax which is certainly coming….It occurs when lovers have got married and begin the real task of learning to live together. In every department of life it marks the transition from dreaming aspiration to laborious doing…..[Careful my dear Wormwood], If once they get through this initial dryness successfully, they become much less dependent on emotion and therefore much harder to tempt! (Letter 2)
And by this form of discouragement (a subtle form of sloth) one is tempted to give up one’s current course of action and run off to something new and seemingly more thrilling. Grave becomes the temptation at this point to stray from, or end marriages, leave the priesthood or religious life, or some other spiritual course. One is no longer thrilled and excited of the gift that God has given. But now there is sorrow and a kind of aversion to it. This is sloth.
The Desert Fathers of the Church, based on Psalm 91 referred to this type of sloth as the “noonday devil.” (Psalm 91:6 in the Latin Vulgate spoke of a morsu insanientis meridie – the scourge that bites at noon, i.e. the “noonday devil”).
Indeed, most of us experience this noonday devil, at least from time to time, between noon and 3 PM as a kind of sluggishness sleepiness that sets in on us. Many cultures, rather than battle this, have introduced an afternoon siesta.
Whatever the case, shortly after lunch, a sleepiness and boredom sets in. The newness of the day is gone and the day now seems to drag on and cannot end fast enough. The eyes are heavy and one longs to sleep. Yes, the noonday devil is upon us.
And this noonday devil which besets us is also a symbol of the discouragement that often sets in when one has embarked on a vocation or spiritual path that is no longer new, and now requires the daily work which may no longer thrill. Early afternoon in ones vocational or spiritual walk is a dangerous and tempting time.
One of the Desert Fathers, Evagrius of Pontus (A. D. 345-399) writes as follows:
The demon of acedia (sloth), also called the “noonday demon,” is the most oppressive of all demons. He attacks the monk about the fourth hour and besieges his soul until the eighth hour….He makes the sun appear sluggish and immobile as if the day had fifty hours…. Moreover the demon sends him hatred against the place…. and makes him think he has lost the love…. and stirs the monk to long for different places…and to flee from the race-course. (On Eight Evil Thoughts, Acedia)
A pretty clear description of the kind of temptation besets many, both in their vocations and in their Christian walk.
Beware of sloth, beware of the noonday devil. See it for what it is; name it; know its moves. Understand too, that the noonday devil manifests for only a time. If one will persevere through the midday hours of life and the Christian walk, one will also find that the noonday devil eventually departs, as one settles in to a proper and steady rhythm of the Christian walk or vocation.
However mystifying, disconcerting, and discouraging the noonday devil may seem, most who are able to persevere are glad they did, and that they stayed the course.
Always remember, the devil is a liar. Life cannot be and should not be thrilling at every moment, or lived at a 1000 miles an hour. Such a pace and intensity cannot be maintained. Slow, steady and organic growth is ultimately what is best for the human person.
Stay the course and ignore the noonday devil who taps into the subtleties of the wound in our soul called the deadly sin of sloth. Presuming that one has properly discerned the Christian walk and particular vocation, one should trust in the Lord and stay the course.
Whatever the emotional state steady as you go, Age quod agis – Do what you are doing! Rebuke the noonday devil in the Name of Jesus.
Today’s Gospel provides a kind of prescription for peace in a world of woe. Lets look at this gospel in four stages.
I. The Place – The text says plainly: Jesus journeyed to a city called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd accompanied him.
The name of the city “Nain” means “Fair” in the sense of “beautiful.” For sitting upon a high hill, it had a magnificent view.
And here is a too is an apt description of this world which has its fair beauty, its magnificent vistas, its pleasures and offerings. As men and women of faith, we ought to appreciate the beauty of what God has done. We ought not, as the old saying goes, “Walk through a field and miss the color purple.” God has given us many gifts, and the mystic in all of us is invited to wonder and awe, to gratitude and serene joy.
Yes, we, with Jesus and his disciples are journeying to a city called “Nain” with its fair beauty.
And do not miss the word “journey” in this line. For, as we go through life, we are sorely tempted to walk right past “the color purple;” to be unreflective, and ungrateful. Part of life’s task is to make the journey that sees God’s glory, and that is able to be in living conscious contact with God at all times, seeing his beauty and glory on display and being in mystical contemplation of it. We need to journey to a city called “Nain” by having our eyes open to God’s fair beauty. This is the gift of wonder and awe.
If we can make this journey, we will have in place, the first prescription for peace. For the world, with all its woe, never looses the fair beauty of God’s glory. And appreciating this, gives serene peace even in the midst of storms. God is always present and speaking to us in what He has made and is sustaining.
II. The Pain – And yet, fair though this world is, the very next thing we encounter is pain. The text says, As he drew near to the gate of the city, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. A large crowd from the city was with her.….
For indeed, we live in a fallen world, governed by a fallen angel, and we have fallen natures. God had made paradise for us. And while we do not fully know all the parameters of what that Paradise would have been, nevertheless, it is clear that Adam and Eve were driven from the best of what God had made.
Adam was told that the ground was now cursed on account of him, and it brought forth thorns and thistles in a kind of protest. Work for him became arduous and sweaty, and a kind of battle sets up against the forces of nature for him to get his food etc.
Eve will bring forth her children in pain. Strife and some degree of shame also went into her relationship with her husband, and he with her.
The first shedding of blood takes place as God kills an animal and clothes them in its skins. For the world is now grown cold and hostile.
And while the world is not lost all it’s fair beauty, yet still a long scarlet cord of suffering and death reaches from outside Eden’s closed gates to this moment outside the gates of Nain.
And such a pain it is! A woman, already a widow having lost her husband, has now lost her only son, and her livelihood as well.
And thus, we do well to maintain a sober perspective about this world. There is much to enjoy which comes to us from the hand of God. And yet we must also remember that we live in Paradise Lost. Its once and future glory is still on display, but it’s pain is very present.
Simple sobriety about this provides a kind of strange serenity. There are certain hard truths that, if we accept them, will set us free. And one of those hard truths is that life is hard. Joy will come with the morning light, but there are some nights of weeping to endure as we journey to a heavenly homeland where sorrows and sighs are no more.
Accepting the pain of this world is a second part of the prescription for peace in a world of woe.
III. The Portrait of Jesus –The Text says, When the Lord saw her, he was moved with pity for her. This woman’s sorrow becomes his own. And while there is a mystery to God’s allowance of suffering, we must never think that Lord is unmoved or uncaring regarding our sorrow.
There is an old saying that “Jesus did not merely come to get us out of trouble, but first to get into trouble with us.” Yes, He takes up our pain, and experiences it to the top. And old hymn says of him, Jesus knows all about our struggles, He will guide till the day is done; There’s not a friend like the lowly Jesus, No, not one! No, not one!
Note too that the word Pity comes from “pietas” a word for family love. Jesus looks at this woman and sees a sister, a Mother, a family member and he is moved with family love.
Learning to trust in Jesus’ love for us, especially when we suffer, is a critical part of the prescription for peace. We need to pray constantly in suffering: “Jesus I trust in your love for me!” This brings peace if we pray it in the Holy Spirit.
IV. The Preview –The text says, [Jesus] said to her, “Do not weep.” He stepped forward and touched the coffin; at this the bearers halted, and he said, “Young man, I tell you, arise!” The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. –
We have here a directive of Jesus not to weep, but that directive is rooted in what he plans to do. This is more than a human, “Cheer up, don’t be sad” wish. Jesus is about to give her back her son, and, based on this fact, comes his directive “Do not weep.”
She and the others standing by and weeping with her are about to get a preview of what the Lord will do for all who believe when we are delivered from “Paradise Lost” to the Kingdom of Heaven.
In a very moving line we are told simply, “Jesus gave him to his mother.”
But do you realize that one day the Lord will do this for you? Jesus will return and restore everything and everyone, which the devil and this world have stolen from us. It will all be given back, and more than we can ever imagine add unto it.
We may of course all wish that the Lord had raised some of our loved ones as he did for this widow. But what is done here is a powerful preview for this widow and for us. But even if you have not had this particular preview of what the Lord will do, you have surely had others.
In my own life the Lord has given me victories over sufferings, and setbacks. I have experienced healings and restorations, as I pray and am sure you have too. These are previews and down payments, if you will, on the total restoration that the Lord is going to effect in your life. What ever you have lost, you will recover it all and far more beside.
What previews have you had in your life…what victories, what healing and restoration? These are like previews of the promised and more than full restoration. What is your testimony?
It is important for your to reflect on the previews the Lord has already give, for these are another important part of the prescription for peace: the promise of complete restoration and the previews or down payments he has already made.
Here then is a prescription for peace in a world of woe:
Make the Journey to Nain, a place called fair and beautiful. That is let the Lord open your eyes to the beauty and blessings all around you, and come to see the magnificence of His glory on display at every moment. It will give you peace and serene joy.
Ask the grace to accept that we currently and for a brief time live in Paradise Lost, and that life is hard. But this sober acceptance of life’s sorrows brings a paradoxical serenity as our resentments that we do not live in a perfect world goes away. Accepting that this world, with all its beauty, also has hardships brings peace and a determination to journey to the place where joys will never end.
Accept the Lord’s love for you even in the mysterious allowance of suffering, accept that he is deeply moved and just say over and over, “Jesus, I trust in your Love for me.”
Be alert to the previews that God has already given you and is giving of the future glory that awaits the faithful. And, having accepted this evidence, this testimony from the Holy Spirit, peacefully accept the Lord’s invitation not weep and his promise that you will recover it all, and much more besides.
A prescription for peace in a world of woe.
(I am sorry that the comments section of the blog has still not been repaired. So comments cannot be left)
It seems we have been hacked (again) and since the blog is unstable I am unable to post today. All the comments have vanished and posting comments is not possible. The webmasters are working on it and hopefully the problem will soon be resolved.
Msgr Pope – Friday Afternoon June 7 (Feast of the Sacred Heart)
Some of God’s gifts come in strange and terrifying packages. And I was reminded of this earlier this week when I read from the book of Job in the Office of Readings the following lines:
The earth, though out of it comes forth bread, is in fiery upheaval underneath. Job 28:2
It is a true fact that we live just above a fiery cauldron, separated by a thin membrane of earthly crust rife with cracks through which fire routinely flares in volcanoes in fissures; a crust that is always shifting, and even shaking violently in earthquakes.
And yet, where it not for this violent cauldron beneath us, it seems unlikely that we would have life here at all. Volcanoes and other tectonic activity keep our soil rich and recycled. In this fiery cauldron are brewed some of our most useful minerals, and most beautiful gems. Whole island chains and land masses are formed by eruptions, and geothermal energy is resource we have just begun to tap. Many scientists think too that volcanoes had a profound influence on the formation of an atmosphere in the early Earth period, and that the molten core of the earth has an important influence on the Van Allen belts, a magnetic field that keep harmful radiation portion of the sun’s rays away from the earth’s surface.
Yes, Job had it right, some of God’s gifts come strange packages. The earth’s capacity to bring forth bread is directly connected to the fact that it is on fire beneath. And yet, what a strange and terrifying package this gift comes in. For it remains true that volcanoes and other seismic activity have claimed enormous number of lives and property.
Water too, such a rich source of life and blessing, can also turn in a moment to utterly destroyed life in huge numbers. Floods and tsunamis can sweep away huge areas in a moment.
And yet who could ever deny that without water, life would be impossible. Ah water, nothing more life-giving, and nothing more deadly. Some of God’s gifts come in strange and terrifying packages.
I have often wondered why so many cities throughout the world are built on or near floodplains, and along the “ring of fire” with its volcanoes and fault lines. But of course the answer is plain enough. It is in these very areas that some of the richest soil and greatest resources are to be found.
God and nature’s most life giving gifts are but 3° separated from disaster and instant death. We live on the edge of an abyss because that is where life is found.
Such a thin line, really.Mors et vita duello, conflixere mirando! (Death and life compete in a stupendous conflict). To live is to cheat death.
All the basic elements and forces: earth, air, water and and fire, so death-dealing and yet so life-giving; somehow all part of the great cycle of living and dying that God intends.
Only God is existence itself, the rest of us are contingent beings, and part of a cycle. Only in union with Christ, who said, I am the life, will we ever cheat death. As Fulton Sheen once said, Christ gave the earth the only serious wound it ever received, the wound of an empty tomb. And with Christ, and only with Christ, will we one day give the earth that same wound.
For now, we live above the cauldron, upon a thin crust. Beneath us burns a tremendous fire. But somehow, mysteriously, it is the source of our bread:
The earth, though out of it comes forth bread, is in fiery upheaval underneath. Job 28:2
Yes, some of God’s greatest gifts come in strange and terrifying packages.
One of the stranger affections of God in the Old Testament is the special love that God had for Jacob. His name, according to some means “grabber” or “usurper”. Even in the womb he strove and wrestled with his twin brother Esau. And though Esau made it out first, Jacob came forth grabbing his brother’s heel. Thus they named him Jacob (“grabber”).
And though he was a “mama’s boy” he was also a schemer, a trickster and an outright liar. His mother, Rebekah, favored him and schemed with him to steal the birthright from his brother Esau, by lying to his blind father Isaac and obtaining the blessing under false pretense.
His brother sought to kill him for this and he fled north to live with Laban, an uncle who was even a greater trickster and schemer than he. For fourteen years he labored for him hoping to win his beloved Rachel. In wonderful payback, Laban tricked him into marrying her “less attractive” sister Leah by hiding her appearance at the wedding. Jacob had thought he was marrying Rachel, but when the veil was pulled back: surprise! Only seven years later would Jacob finally secure Rachel from Laban.
Frankly, Jacob deserved it all. He was a schemer who was out-schemed. He was a trickster, a shyster, and an out-right liar who succumbed to all his own devices by someone more devious than even he.
Yet, God seemed to have a heart for Jacob. At the end of the day, God loves sinners like you and me as well. And in Jacob, a hard case to say the least, God demonstrates that his love is not based on some human merit. God knows and loves us long before we are born (cf Jer 1:5) and his love is not the result of our merit, but the cause of it.
There came a critical moment in Jacob’s life where God’s love reached down and worked a transformation.
It was a dark and sleepless night in the desert. And for reasons too lengthy to describe here, Jacob had come to a point in his life where he realized that he had to try and reconcile with his brother Esau. He realized that this carried risk, and that his brother might kill him, having found him (he did not, they were later to be beautifully reconciled).
Perhaps this was the reason for his troubled sleep, and perhaps too, his desire to reconcile with his brother pleased God. But whatever the reason, God reached down to touch Jacob.
We pick up the story at Genesis 32:21
I. DISTRESSED man – The text says, So the [peace] offering [to Esau] passed on before him; and he himself lodged that night in the camp. 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. (Gen 32:21-24)
Jacob is distressed. He has, somewhat willingly, and yet also for reasons of his own sued for peace with his brother Esau so as to be able to return to his homeland. How his brother will react is unknown to him. And thus he is distressed and sleepless.
And so it is for many of us that our sins have a way of catching up with us. If we indulge them, sooner or later we are no longer able to sleep the sleep of the just, and all the promises of sin now become bills that are overdue.
Having come to this distressed and critical place in his life, God goes to work on Jacob to purify him and test him. On a dark and lonely night in the desert, Jacob finds himself alone and afraid, and God will meet him. Note three things about how God works:
1. God brings Jacob to a place of isolation – This is difficult for God to do! Oh how we love distraction, noise and company. We surround ourselves with so many diversions, usually in an attempt to avoid considering who we are, what we are doing, where we are going, and who is God. So God brings Jacob to a kind of isolation, on a dark and sleepless night in the desert. The text says, And Jacob was left alone; It’s time to think, it’s time to pray and look to deeper issues.
2. God brings Jacob to a place of confrontation – verse 24b says, and a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day.
Who is this “man?” The Book of Hosea answers and supplies other details of the event: He strove with the angel and prevailed, he wept and sought his favor. He met God at Bethel, and there God spoke with him– the LORD the God of hosts, the LORD is his name: (Hos 12:4-5)
Yes, it is the Lord who wrestles, who strives with Jacob. God mixes it up with him, and shakes him up. And here is an image for the spiritual life. Too many today think God only exists to affirm and console us. He can, and does do this, but God has a way of afflicting the comfortable as well as comforting the afflicted. Yes, God needs to wrestle us to the ground at times, to throw us off balance to get us to think, and try new things, and to discover strengths we did not know we had.
3. God brings Jacob to a place of desperation – the text says, 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(Gen 32:25).
It is interesting to consider that God cannot “prevail” over Jacob. But though omnipotent, God will not simply overrule our will. And thus, in striving with Jacob, God can only bring him so far. But God will leave him with a lingering memory of this night, and the lesson that Jacob must learn to lean and trust.
He is a hard case so God disables him. Having knocked out Jacob’s sciatic muscle, God leaves him with the necessity to literally limp and lean on a cane the rest of his life. Jacob must learn to lean, and he will never forget this lesson, since he must physically lean from now on.
Thus Jacob, a distressed man on a dark desert night wrestles with God beneath the stars and learns that the answer to his distress is to strive with God, to walk with God, to wrestle with the issues in his life, with God. Jacob up to now has not well trusted and walked with God. He has schemed, manipulated and maneuvered his way through life. Now he has learned to lean, to trust, and realize he is a dependent man.
II. DEPENDENT man – The text next records: Then the man said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.”
If the “the man” is God, as the text of Hosea teaches, then it seems odd that God would have to ask someone to “let him go,” and for a mere man, as Jacob is, to say to God “I will not let you go” as if man could “not let” God do anything!
But the request of “the man” may also be understood as a rhetorical device, pulling from Jacob the required request. So the Man says, “Let me go!” But God wants Jacob, and us, to come to the place where we say, “I will not let you go!”
In saying, “I will not let you go,” Jacob is finally saying, “Don’t go, I need your blessing! Lord you’re my only hope. I need you, without you I am sunk”
God needs to get all of us to this place!
This critical moment has brought Jacob an insight that he must have God’s blessing, that he wholly depends on God. And this leads us to the next stage:
III. DIFFERENT Man – The text records: And the man 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.” (Gen 32:27-28)
Here is the critical moment. Jacob finally owns his name. Before he had lied to his Father Isaac who, when blind, asked him: “What is your name?” And Jacob lied saying: “I am Esau.”
But but after this encounter with God, Jacob finally speaks the truth saying, “My name is Jacob.” And in saying there is a kind of confession: “My name is Jacob…my name is deceiver, grabber, usurper, con artist, and shyster!”
Thus Jacob makes a confession, acknowledging all that his name “literally” implies of him has been true.
But receiving this confession, God wipes this slate clean and gives him a new name: Israel, a name that means, “He who wrestles, or strives with God.”
And in being renamed he becomes a new man. He is different now, he is dependent. He will walk a new path and walk in a new way, with a humble limp, leaning on the Lord, and striving with him, not against him.
And thus Jacob (Israel) wins by losing! God had to break him to bless him, and cripple him to crown him. Jacob would never be the same again, he would limp for life and always remember how God blessed him in his brokenness. Scripture says, A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. (Ps 51:17)
Postscript – There is a kind of picture of the “New Man” Jacob had become in the Book of Hebrews: By faith Jacob, when he was a dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph; and worshiped, leaning upon the top of his staff. (Heb 11:21) Yes, he had learned to lean. He limped the rest of his life. He needed a staff to support him. He learned to lean.
Have you learned to lean?
There is a battle you can’t afford to win, the battle with God. Yes, that is a battle you cannot afford to win! Learn to lean, and delight to depend: the story of Jacob’s conversion. How about yours?
Ordination season is upon us now and a new group of men are being ordained all over the country. Never forget how necessary priests are not just in the obvious and external ways but also in more hidden ways.
