Sermon preached by Fr. John Hager for the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, August 2, 2026 (Genesis 32:22-31)
Scripture can be both wonderfully close to us and mysteriously distant.
After all, the Bible is a collection of very old material—the youngest of which is nearly 2,000 years old.
All of the stories, all of the truths conveyed to us in narrative and poetry, come from times, cultures, and worlds that are so different from the ones we know.
And yet, we claim, we even trust, that scripture still has something to tell us about God. We cling to these ancient narratives because we know that they
still speak truth about God in our lives.
This point about scripture being both distant and close is especially relevant in the Old Testament. Even though the world of Jesus is far removed from ours, the world of the Hebrew Scriptures can feel even further away.
As we hear in the lesson from Genesis today: ‘The same night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.’ We know we are in a different time and place.
And yet, as one scholar asserts,
the Old Testament may be ‘the most contemporary of our Scriptures.’
It presents a view of humanity that is often stark and unmitigated: sin and evil are real, and humans do terrible, crazy, weird, and bad things as much as they are capable of loving God and one another.
The story of Jacob wrestling shows us how the Old Testament—and perhaps Scripture generally—is both close and distant. And perhaps Scripture feels both close and distant because it bears witness to a God
who is both beyond us and astonishingly near to us.
And it’s this very tension
between closeness and distance
that keeps us on our toes—
indeed, like a wrestling match with God.
But before we get to the actual wrestling match:
Where has Jacob been so far?
Who has he been?
Jacob was born clutching the heel of his (slightly older) twin brother Esau—Jacob means ‘heel-grabber’ or ‘supplanter.’ Throughout his early life, Jacob more than lives up to the name.
Jacob persuades Esau to sell him his birthright for a bowl of red lentil stew; later, with the cunning help of his mother Rebekah, Jacob deceives his old, blind father, Isaac, into giving him the death-bed blessing intended for Esau.
Scripture presents Jacob as ambitious, calculating, and insecure from his birth. He is deeply human.
Jacob’s deception leaves Esau furious. Scripture tells us that Esau hated Jacob. He threatens to kill Jacob, and so he flees.
So far, intensely human, maybe even close to us.
Even if the cultural world is removed from ours, we know deception, sibling rivalries, or even the anger that comes from witnessing unfairness and manipulation.
But even in Jacob’s flight, God does not abandon him.
Jacob dreams of a heavenly ladder, with angels ascending and descending. God speaks to Jacob and assures him that he loves him.
God’s presence doesn’t erase the reality of Jacob’s trickery and all the upset he has caused. Rather, God’s presence reveals God’s love and power to enter into Jacob’s brokenness.
Years later, Jacob has become rich and married, and is the father of a large family, but his relationships remain complicated by fear and mistrust. Eventually, he decides to return home.
But Esau hasn’t forgotten Jacob’s deception. Jacob learns that Esau is waiting for him with 400 men. Jacob, Scripture says, is greatly afraid and distressed.
And this is where the Scripture becomes at once intensely human and profoundly mysterious.
Jacob has sent his wife, children, and slaves across the river and he is left alone.
He is terrified.
A mysterious being wrestles with him all night. We don’t know the name of this mysterious opponent.
What’s curious about this is that Jacob would seem to be winning. Determined as ever, he is clearly strong physically and strong mentally—he does not want to lose. The mysterious opponent even cries, ‘Let me go! The sun is rising!’
It is Jacob who calls the shots. He won’t let go of the mysterious opponent until he blesses Jacob.
Jacob gives his name. And though he never finds out the name of his opponent, Jacob himself is given a new name. Israel.
Israel.
The name conveys the idea of struggling, contending, with God.
And Jacob, limping away into the morning, realizes that he has seen God. And not only seen God, but wrestled with him. God’s nearness blesses, but it is also mysterious, painful, intimate, and transformative. We cannot meet God and not be changed. We will walk differently.
Just take a moment to consider the fact that the name Israel means ‘one who has struggled with God.’
Even as God is beyond our knowing,
God is also close.
So close that he will wrestle with us.
So close that God will work amid our deception, our anger, our imperfection to reveal his presence, love, and power.
To wrestle with God is a part of our relationship with God.
The story of Jacob wrestling, is perhaps a definitive story for showing us the simultaneous nearness and distance of Scripture and of God himself.
The story of Jacob wrestling shows us how the Scriptures and God himself, speaking through them, living in them, coming to us in the Word
is both close and distant.
As we learned, the wrestling encounter arises from a string of very human situations, where deception, intrigue, and drama as much as love and joy shape the life of the man who will become Israel himself.
And God is there amid it all—
speaking to Jacob, blessing him, appearing to him whether he knows it or not.
Wrestling with Jacob, God will meet Jacob where he is; God will face Jacob’s determination, his anger, his curiosity;
God will even engage in a kind of intimate struggle with Jacob.
And God will wrestle with us, too; God will meet us where we are; God will face our determination, our anger;
God may even engage in a kind of intimate struggle with us.
And yet, the wrestling encounter is so mysterious, and so otherworldly. Taking place through the night and the early morning hours, the story feels like it could be in not only in another time but another world. It is like a dream.
The mysteriousness, the divine beauty of the story keeps us coming back again and again.
And, like Jacob, we may never know when and where God will meet us, wrestling with us until the break of day, when we, too, are blessed by his presence which is both far and near.
And though we may walk away a little differently, we will be changed.
