A Reflection on Philippians 1:21-30

(Click on the title to hear JJ's sermon)

The lectionary from last week asked us to consider two seemingly unrelated paragraphs from the first chapter of Paul’s epistle to the Philippians as one unified section in the letter.

In the first paragraph, vv. 21-26, Paul reflects about his current circumstance in prison – “for to me, living is Christ and dieing is gain.”

What does Paul mean that for him, living is Christ? Does Paul envision it to mean the mystical union between Christ and the Christian that he often talks about, ala Galatians 2:20? In other words, is the implication that the entire identity of the Christian is subsumed into the life of Christ, so that as we go about our lives it is not we who work, play, socialize, etc., but rather Christ within us – we take on the identity of Christ? Or does the phrase mean that the ministry of Christ and his mission to spread the gospel and reconcile all peoples back to God became the sole object of his devotion, to the exclusion of everything else?

Regardless of how you understand Paul when he says that for him living is Christ, the one thing that I can say for certain that living for me has not always been about or in Christ. Rather, living for me has been primarily for JJ. I have been too busy with my agenda, my desires, my wants, my needs that at the end of the day, there is precious little left to give to Jesus. “I will live for Jesus tomorrow,” I vow, only to have tomorrow turn out just like today.

But Paul also says that dieing is gain. How should we read this in light of Paul’s other comments about the end of time and the bodily resurrection? Are we to assume that there is a place where the Spirit goes upon death to wait and be with Christ, only to return and participate in the bodily resurrection? Or does Paul mean that his martyrdom would give him special privileges so that he can skip the bodily resurrection and go straight to God, as early Catholic theology thought? Or does Paul mean that since God is in control of the space/time continuum, he can work it so that death, for each individual, is the time of the resurrection for that individual? Or does he simply mean that death is gain because it is a cessation of all of the suffering that he has had to endure as an apostle?

Everyone has their own opinion about what Paul means, but here is the real truth…I have no idea. Any speculation about the implications of this passage relative to the experience of life after death is just that – speculation. I really wish Paul were answering the question that I want him to answer, which is what specifically and in great detail happens when we die. However, it is going to have to be enough for us to know that Paul considers dieing to be far better than living, regardless of the exact details of death.

But what is really interesting to me about this paragraph is that Paul’s angst about his situation gives the clear impression that he has a choice whether he will continue to live or to die – “I don’t know which to choose,” says Paul. “My desire is death. Death is advantageous to me, it is to my benefit. Death is my best option.” On the other hand, living is to the gain, benefit, advantage of the Philippian church. Does Paul really have a choice, does he really have control over whether he lives or dies? And is that really the issue here? Let’s table that one for a moment.

In the second half of the passage, Paul encourages the Philippians to “live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that, whether I come and see you or am absent and hear about you, I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel…” What doe you suppose Paul means to live a life worth of the gospel?

I think he answers this question in the clause which follows “so that” in verse 27. In other words, a worthy walk is one in which the people of God walk together in like-mindedness. They live together in one spirit. We live together in one faith, in one gospel, sharing the same love. It can be said that we walk worthy of the gospel when we are united in Christ. It is a foundational principle of the gospel call that disparate and diverse people are called out of the various lives into one glorious kingdom of Heaven, inaugurated by a savior who had room in his kingdom for all people. The gospel unites people. It breaks down the barriers between people; and if there are divisions, ill-will, bad feelings, backbiting and such like among us then we dishonor the gospel.

So what do these two seemingly unrelated paragraphs have to do with each other, and why is the lectionary asking us to consider them together?

Paul’s overarching concern for the church, as he stipulated in the thanksgiving earlier in chapter 1, is that the church be pure, holy, and blameless, and that they walk together in unity; and there is no way that the church can be pure, holy, and blameless when its members are acting impure, unholy, and trying to assign blame. Furthermore, such behaviors lead to division within the church; such behaviors threaten the stability of the church, dishonor the gospel, and threaten the success of the gospel. Therefore, Paul uses his own story to demonstrate to the Philippians what it looks like to look out for the interests of others ahead of your own. Paul says that even though dieing is to my benefit, advantage, and gain, I choose to stay in this life because it is what you need me to do. It is exactly what the Christ hymn of Philippians 2 is all about. This is what it means to die to self, take up the cross, and follow Christ. Paul’s story provides the Philippians with a model of love determining action on which to pattern their own lives.

In other words, if the church is going to have a walk worthy of the gospel, if the church is going to be unified, like-minded, sharing the same spirit and love, then its members are going to have to make it a priority to set personal gain aside and intentionally pursue congregational unity.

This is tough, isn’t it? In a society that values the rights of the individual over the needs and rights of the group, this is especially hard. We just don’t have this kind of group think encoded in our DNA. We are taught from the beginning that we have to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. We are encoded with the messages of self-sufficiency, self-gratification, and self-aggrandizement. Setting aside my need to be right and to win simply does not sit well with us, but that is exactly what is needed if we are going to be successful or even survive as a church.

I know that we face some uncertain times in the years ahead. That uncertainty is going to bring with it the great temptation to pursue our individual agendas, to get our individual ways, and to lobby for our individual plans. Let us firmly resolve, with Paul, that we will intentionally choose not that which is to our personal advantage, our personal benefit, our personal gain, but rather that which is most edifying, most encouraging, and most conducive to peace and unity in the church.

A Reflection on Romans 14:1-12

The epistolary passage from this past week, Romans 14:1-12, is actually part of a larger section that stretches to chapter 15:7 or 13, depending on who you read. When read as a whole, 14:1-15:13 is a unified statement about the business of judging fellow members of the church. Many believe that Paul’s initial reason for writing the letter to the Romans was to address a growing tension between Jewish and Gentile Christians over the necessity of keeping the Law, embodied in this passage by the issues of eating meat and keeping certain days as holy. The result of this growing tension is that one group of Christians was apparently judging the other, causing Paul to write the letter and put the situation to rights.

Since Paul concedes that there is a stronger Christian, and one who is “weak in faith,” I would expect him to correct the situation by declaring which side is right, and which side is wrong. What is needed is for someone with sufficient pastoral authority to enter into the dispute regarding eating meat and keeping holy days and deliver the truth on the matter. I expect Paul to do this because I am frequently concerned with determining who is right and who is wrong in any given situation; nor do I believe that I am alone in that concern. Indeed, a good doctrinal debate seems, at times, to be the very air which a congregation breathes.

Interestingly, Paul does not appear to be concerned about delivering the truth about this point of doctrine and therefore correcting someone’s supposed error. In fact, he mentions the “correct” position later on in chapter 14, though he issues no apostolic edict to the “weak” to shape up and embrace the right position. Rather, Paul’s words are shaped by his concern for the unity of the church. Put another way, eating meat and keeping one day as a holy day over another are irrelevant in the kingdom - each person must make his or her own decision about that issue. However, what is very relevant in the kingdom is how we get along in the face of our differences of opinion. It is very easy to be a coherent community of faith when everyone agrees about everything (in fact, I believe that the push some churches make toward unanimity is due to their fear about how to handle differences of opinion). What is not easy is to maintain unity in the face of diversity.

Paul handles this situation in two ways. First, he issues a blanket statement that Christians are not to judge their fellow Christians His argument works like this - If we are all servants of Christ, then who are we to sit in judgment over a fellow-servant? As far as I know, Christ has appointed no one to the position of head-servant in the kingdom, and until he does, I am going to continue assuming, with Paul, that we are all equal. But what does Paul mean that we shouldn’t judge? I think vs. 10 gets us close to a definition when Paul asks – “or why do you despise your brother or sister?” Judging does not have to be an active, in your face condemnation of someone’s beliefs or behavior. Judging is a more subtle affair. I think we are judging our fellow Christians when we quietly sit back and bask in the sure knowledge that we have got it right, got it figured out, and they have not. Judgment says “they must be stupid, ignorant, or simply don’t care about the truth if they don’t think like or hold the same positions that I do.” They don’t even have to know that we are judging them. We can sit back and quietly despise them and the only one it affects is us. Unfortunately, sitting in judgment will destroy relationships in the church, and it will tear the unity of the church apart.

In this passage, Paul also handles the situation by appealing to our relationship with Jesus. “We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.” Paul has been carefully building this case throughout the book of Romans. There is a fundamental identity change when we take on Christ in baptism. We take on his identity, we become clothed in Christ. Paul encourages the church to be transformed into Christ’s image. The acceptance of Christ in baptism means that we accept not only his lordship, but also his mission, ministry, and very self. So, when we judge our fellow Christians, we are not only rebelling against the image of Christ that we bear, but also denigrating the image of Christ in others.

Jesus and Paul are very concerned about the unity of the church. Church unity is not only threatened by open warfare within the congregation over differences of opinion. It is also threatened when Christians take it upon themselves to sit in the judgment seat over their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. It is very easy to slip into judgment mode. I am certainly guilty of judging others. I know how good it feels to judge. But let us be vigilant to welcome all of our fellow Christians, regardless of how much we disagree with them, for when we welcome them, we welcome Christ in our midst.

A Reflection on Matthew 18:15-20

The gospel reading for this past Sunday, Matthew 18:15-20, is special because it is one of only two places where Jesus actually mentions the church (the other is Peter’s confession in Matthew 16).This paragraph appears to be divided into two parts. Part one, vv. 15-17, is often referred to as the justification for the practice of church discipline. It is a three step process detailing how members of the Christian community are to hold each other accountable to the life of holiness and righteous that Jesus calls us to. It begins with first singly confronting a brother or sister in sin, progresses through a group intervention, and ends with a pronouncement before the church, proclaiming that the one in sin is to be as a pagan or tax collector to the church, i.e. to be as one who is outside the community of faith. However uncomfortable I am with this practice, its uniqueness within the gospels makes it stand out.

This passage has been referred to as “The Rule of Christ” for centuries, and has been used as the basis for significant portions of the confessions of faith since the Protestant Reformation. The Belgric Confession (1561) says that the process of church discipline is one of the three markers of the true church, along with “the pure preaching of the gospel” and “the pure administration of the sacraments as Christ instituted them;” likewise, the Westminster Confession (one of the most influential statements of faith in modern times, written in 1647) devotes an entire chapter (chapter 30) to the question of church discipline. Rather than being an instrument of punishment for bad behavior, Christians for centuries have recognized that church discipline is a tool of reconciliation, designed to use the influence of the community to restore and repair broken relationships with God and fellow Christians.

Why does Jesus place this very heavy responsibility on the church’s collective shoulders? Despite our individualistic tendencies, the church is not a collection of individuals, but it is one community. Just as there are three persons of the Trinity, but one God; so there are many members of the church, but only one body. Paul makes this argument over and over again. Church is primarily a communal experience. And in the community, what one person does affects the rest of the community. In other words, the sins of one person hurts the entire church.

God apparently sees his people collectively, as well as individually. One person cannot act sinfully with impunity. God is concerned not only with individual salvation, which is where we tend to place our focus, but on the purity of the church. Ephesians 5:26-27 (which appears in the midst of a passage talking about the importance of mutual submission in the church) says that Christ died not only to save individuals, but to have a pure church, holy and blameless, and if that is to happen then we must be concerned as a church with holding each other accountable for living holy and righteous lives.

Part two of the passage, vv. 18-20, is concerned with the business of binding and loosing, a phrase which occurs in both Matthew 16 and 18 (the only two passages in the gospels which mention the church). What does this binding and loosing mean?

As I see it, there are two possibilities. The first, and least likely, is that it refers to the authority of the church to forgive and retain sin. (The church has been given this authority, but it is better established by John 20:22-23 and James 5:13-16.) The most likely meaning of binding and loosing has to do with the practice of determining the application of scriptural commandments for contemporary situations. In other words, final authority rests with the community to identify which behaviors constitute sin and which therefore require repentance. This is consistent with Matthew's understanding of the Great Commission (28:20). In order to fulfill the mission entrusted to us, the church must be able to discern what obedience Jesus’ commands look like, and those entering into discipleship must accept the church’s authority in determining what it means to follow Jesus.

As a church, we instinctively put this grave responsibility into practice. For example, though slavery was once a tolerated if not accepted practice in the church, the church in its wisdom has determined, based on the authority that is granted it by Christ, that slavery is a sinful practice which cannot characterize anyone who claims to be a follower of Jesus. Another example comes right here from Cahaba Valley. Though many would say that the Bible clearly prohibits women from holding an eldership role or authoritative teaching role in the church, we have decided, based on everything we understand about God, the equality we all share in Christ, the first century context, our modern context, and good interpretive principles, that there should be no restrictions placed on women and that they should have equal participation with men in the life, worship, and leadership of the church.

Matthew 18:15-20, with its accountability process and weighty authority to bind and loose, can seem to be a heavy burden. However, if we see it for what it is, it does not have to be a passage which elicits a groan every time it is mentioned. If we view it as a passage which encourages mutual submission, patterned after Jesus’ submission to his own father’s will, that seeks to keep the church pure and holy; and if we view it as a passage which grants the church broad authority to negotiate the difficult path of discerning what it looks like to be the church which belongs to Christ in a pluralistic society, then it can become a powerful exercise of grace and love, two ideas which I know we can all get behind.

Reflections on Romans 12:1-2

Paul apparently wrote the book of Romans to address friction that existed between Jewish and Gentile Christians. Originally, the church in Rome was likely primarily made up of Jewish Christians. However, the Jewish expulsion from Rome meant that for all intents and purposes, the church was now a Gentile church. When Nero allowed the Jews to return in A.D. 54, the returning Jewish Christians came back to a very different church, one in which they were now the minority. Therefore, Paul wrote the letter to bring these two groups together into one coherent, unified community of faith. All of Paul’s thinking and all of his ethical instructions served one primary purpose – the establishment and maintenance of the Christian community. Paul believed that the success of the mission of the church is directly tied to the cohesiveness and unity of the church.

And so, in Romans, Paul sought to bring both Jews and Gentiles together by laying out his basic theology of salvation by grace through faith. One of the major themes of the first 11 chapters is that all Christians, regardless of ethnic or religious background, are united in the death of Christ and in their new status as a new creation in Christ. Believers' participation in this new creation calls for a distinction between life lived according to the ways of the present age and life lived by the Spirit of God (Rom. 8:5-8). Romans 6:1-10 makes it clear that baptism into Christ means baptism into his death, in order to live with him and for him. Christians enter into fellowship with Christ in his total self-surrender to the will of the Father in order to find acceptance with the Father through his atoning work on their behalf. The moral implication of this is to live out the new obedience which baptism into Christ's death entails. We are consequently challenged to offer ourselves to God 'as those who have been brought from death to life,' recognizing that the purpose of this self-dedication is holiness.

In Romans 12, Paul begins his description of what it looks like for Christians to walk by the Spirit. Verses 1-2 initiate this discussion by using the language of worship and sacrifice – Christians are to offer their bodies as ‘living sacrifices,’ which is an act of daily worship. Paul's intent is not to separate "spiritual" worship from "earthly" or inner experience from outer. Rather, he aims to sacralize everyday conduct and thus to remove the barrier between worldly and "spiritual" behavior for those in Christ. For Paul, the way that we offer ourselves as living sacrifices is through a radical life of discipleship marked by high standards of moral and ethical behavior. There is a danger of accenting the inwardness of Christian worship and not taking sufficient account of the fact that we are to yield our bodies to God's service; and the service God calls for is the obedience of faith expressed by those whose minds are being transformed, so that they will no longer be conformed in lifestyle to the values, attitudes and behavior of 'this age,' but rather demonstrate the life of holiness that glorifies a holy God.

But what does Paul mean in vs. 2 that Christians are to be transformed by the renewing of the mind, and how does that relate to the ability to discern what the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God is?

The renewal of the church mind is a thorough reorientation of life in accordance with the truth learned in Christ. It is a call for community ethical discernment. Paul probably did not refer to the renewal of individual minds but to the way the church as a community perceives God and tests his will. (Elsewhere Paul calls on the church to be “united in the same mind” so they can judge together what is right, 1 Cor. 1:10; see also Phil. 2:1-4). Remember that the critical issue behind the writing of Romans was how Jewish and Gentile Christians could together discern God's will for their lives.

Interestingly, Paul relates the individual’s call to daily worship through a sacrificial life to the renewal of the mind of the church. In other words, if the church wants to discern God’s will and find its way in the world, it must first begin by making an intentional and deliberate decision to live sacrificial lives. When the community joins together in such an undertaking, it has the effect of transforming us as a group and making clear how God wants us to carry out God’s mission. I am not sure how all of this practically happens, but I affirm that it does, and I am grateful for the mystery of God’s continued action in the life of the church.

Reflections on Matthew 15:10-20

Matthew 15 begins with a dispute between Jesus, the scribes, and Pharisees over the correct method and ritual for washing one’s hands before eating. The obvious background of this passage are the Jewish food laws of the Old Testament and the traditions that the Pharisees had established to make sure that they could be clean and pure despite their necessary daily contact with the unclean and impure. The common thread that binds all of these laws and rituals together is the idea that they intensified the separation of Israelites from the neighboring Gentile peoples, allowing them to maintain their faith in God. In other words, if a holy God was going to live among you, then you needed to do your best to practice holy living.

Jesus’ disciples did not practice the ritual hand-washing before eating. To the Pharisees, this was not simply a breach of social etiquette. They perceived the disciples behavior as a blatant slap in the face at millennia of tradition dating back to the Levitical laws of Moses. Furthermore, they saw their behavior as a blatant disregard for God, the one who had stipulated the laws in the first place.

It is against this backdrop that Jesus said to the people around him that “it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles” (Matt. 15:11). Jesus is not issuing what amounts to a critique of all Pharisees; nor is this a critique of all ‘‘outward forms of religion.’’ Jesus is not against maintaining ‘‘the traditions of the elders.’’ He finds nothing wrong with the ritual of washing hands. Rather, Jesus is against an improperly drawn boundary of acceptance.

Like Jesus, I am against drawing boundaries of inclusion or exclusion along a certain set of doctrines, practices, and traditions that have nothing to do with the heart of who God is and what God’s message of reconciliation and redemption is to God’s people. Praise God that we have been freed from such legalistic constraints and have been freed to talk about the true heart of the gospel, which is grace and mercy and love and accepting people for who they are and where they are and making sure they know of God’s love for them and of God’s desire to be in a relationship with them!

But Jesus didn’t leave it there. His problem with the Pharisees was not that they drew a clear boundary of pure and impure, clean and unclean, acceptable and unacceptable behavior for those who claim to be a part of the kingdom of God, but rather that they drew the wrong one.

In the conclusion of our gospel lection, verses17-20, Jesus drew a fairly clear boundary of what is pure and impure, clean and unclean, acceptable and unacceptable behavior for those who claim to be a part of the kingdom of God, but it was not based on anything external like the keeping of traditions, the eating of food, and the washing of hands. Jesus’ standard of purity has to do with ethical and moral behavior which flows out of the thoughts and intentions of the heart. The larger claim to which the whole passage points is that it isn’t what we eat or drink that defiles us but what we say and do and intend. It is not our religious rituals that do us in; it is rather the intent of our heart and how we live because of it.

There is a delicate line here somewhere that I am not entirely sure how to walk. There are many questions based on this passage that I do not know how to answer. How do we preach a radical message of grace, mercy, and love while at the same time holding each other to a radical standard of discipleship that places us in a position to be formed by the Spirit into the image of Christ? How do we know when to supersede one tradition for the life of the spirit? How do we address the root cause of impure and unclean behavior like theft, murder, slander, greed, materialism, selfishness, etc by getting to the ‘‘heart’’ of a ‘‘defiled’’ person rather than simply focusing on his or her behavior?

I am not sure that I yet know the answers to these questions. I do know that the church needs a group of believers who are committed to spreading the message of God’s radical love and inclusiveness while at the same time holding itself to a radical standard of discipleship that bears witness as a holy people to a holy God.

A Reflection on Matthew 14:22-33

The gospel reading from last Sunday comes from Matthew 14:22-33. As the story picks up in vs. 22, we find Jesus attempting to find some solace in prayer. So, he sent his disciples ahead of him across the lake while he remained behind to dismiss the crowds that he had fed with the loaves and the fishes and then spend some time alone. The text tells us that before the disciples could complete their journey across the lake they got trapped in the midst of a storm.

You know the rest of the story. Jesus comes to them walking on the water, Peter hops out and does his thing, sinks, gets rebuked by Jesus, the seas calm once they get in the boat, and then in vs. 33 the disciples exclaim to Jesus that “truly you are the son of God!”

Preachers tend to preach this passage by focusing either on Peter’s faith (or lack thereof), or by focusing on the conclusion that the disciples come to at the end of the story when Jesus calms the storm. However, neither one of these perspectives answers the question that I have simply overlooked – why was Jesus walking on the water?

I believe that Jesus walked on the water because it was the fastest way of getting to his disciples who needed him. His closest friends, his dearest companions, the disciples whom he loved very much were in trouble and their trouble, their need overcame his need to be alone and he went to them in the quickest way he could, he walked to them on the water. Jesus went to great lengths to rescue his disciples from what had to be certain death.

And now I can at least guess at why this story is in Matthew’s gospel. Matthew is writing to a church that is struggling to survive without the physical presence of its savior. And it is not easy. There are people who are against them. In some cases, even their own family is against them. The church, throughout the centuries, has frequently found itself in the position not unlike those 12 disciples – struggling to move forward when the world is against it. The church has often existed and lived within a storm.

I know that it can often look like we here at Cahaba Valley are in the midst of a storm. How can we get our message out to a society that appears to not want to listen? How can our message be relevant to our culture, when our voice is just one of a multitude of voices, and when we do not put on the best show, have the best programs, or the resources to meet everyone’s ever present needs? How are we going to get new people into this church so that we do not die a slow death as our current membership gets older? I have heard many of you ask these questions, and I have asked these questions.

Matthew included this story in his gospel to speak to us, Christ’s church, and tell us that we should take courage and not be afraid, because Jesus is coming and he will meet our needs.

Unfortunately, the story does not end with Jesus walking on the water. Many people overlook the response of the disciples to this miracle. The disciples, upon seeing Jesus coming to them across the lake assume that he is a ghost and are frozen with terror.

Isn’t this the way of things? Our fear can be so paralyzing that we fail to see the fact that Jesus is responding to the needs of his people. There is much to be afraid of. We can be afraid of the church stagnating and dieing, we can be afraid of the unknown, we can even be afraid of the change that will come from trying to pursue God’s will for this church. But let us not be so paralyzed with fear that we fail to see Jesus coming to rescue us and meet our needs.

A Reflection on Genesis 32:22-32

The Old Testament reading last Sunday was a story from the life of the patriarch Jacob. After swindling his brother Esau out of his birthright, he deceived his father into giving him the blessing that rightfully belonged to Esau. This made Esau mad, so Jacob ran off to find a wife from his mother’s relatives. After being tricked by his twice over father-in-law, he managed to turn the tide and obtain a large family and great wealth through business practices that were opportunistic at best and downright deceitful at worst. Jacob is a thoroughly self-centered and self-serving opportunist. Not exactly hero of faith material.

I imagine Jacob experienced at least a smidgeon of fear when God told him to take his questionably gotten family and wealth and return to his home country, which meant that an inevitable meeting with his brother Esau. Not knowing how Esau would respond to his estranged brother, Jacob devised a plan to assuage Esau’s anger before it could find expression. The plan involved flattery, bribery, bargaining with God, and using his own family as a human shield behind which he could make his escape. However, before he could bring his plan to fruition, he encountered a mysterious man at the Jabbok River, with whom he wrestled until dawn.

The ambiguity of Sunday’s lection has left me with two prominent questions: who did Jacob wrestle, and why?

I think the wrestling match occurred to stop Jacob from escaping behind the shield of his wealth and family. Interestingly, though, it is Jacob who pursued the fight even after he was permanently injured. It was the mysterious man who, at the approach of day, pled with Jacob to let him go, prompting me to ask the question – why is Jacob holding on?

I think it is because he was afraid. Despite all of his elaborate plans, daybreak and his failure to escape meant that he was still going to have to face his greatest fear – his brother.

There is much that could be said about this encounter with the faceless, nameless stranger, the least of which is that it was profoundly shaping in Jacob’s life. His identity was changed because of it. Somehow, through this wrestling match, Jacob came face to face with himself, his doubts, his fears, and his guilt. He would carry a limp from this fight for the rest of his life. But that was a small price to pay for the victory of conquering his fear and humbling himself before his brother.

What is the message of Jacob’s wrestling match for us today? We could talk about the transformative value of encountering God, or the value and power that comes in facing our greatest fears. We could talk about the transformative affect of humbling ourselves before a brother or sister whom we have wronged. We could say one of a number of different things about this story. Or we could simply say that Jacob’s life was a lot like ours – complex, messy, filled with fear and self-doubt, faith at times hanging by a thread, and yet proof that all the while God is faithful; even when we are at our worst, God is at work fulfilling his purpose in us.