GOD THE MENDER

July 12;,-1987,.11:00 a.m. Worship Service
John M. Buchanan
Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago

Scripture
Matthew 5:21-24
Genesis 33:1-14

“leave your pift there before the altar and po; first. be: reconciled to your
brother, and then come and offer your gift." -~~Matthew 5:24. (RSV)

At our most. expansive we have been able to talk about. God as» the
power of reconciliation, the cosmic.energy of healing working always to:
bring all things into beautiful. and harmonious unity.

And yet, we have always known that at the heart of the matter it is
more particular and more personal than that. At our best we have known
that God begins as a healer of the human spirit in relationship with other
human spirits. God is.a fixer:of human brokenness::: The very heart. ofthe
matter is that God is a mender:. It is there from the beginning, one of our
oldest and best and. most important. stories... [It 'is there in the segment
of an old story we just heard. It -is truly. a Genesis story - It- is: pre-
Israel. The story was around.a long time before there was an Israel ora
Moses or the Ten Commandments.’ It is one of the stories which was passed
down orally, around thousands of camp fires; across generations of
wandering Semites before it was written down. It is a formative story for
Judaism and Christianity. It. is, because of its age alone, a very precious
treasure. It is not a simple story - nor a short one — so let me sketch it
briefly so we can see the matter before us more clearly... It is about,
among other things, a God who is a mender.

The last time Jacob had seen his twin brother: Esau, it was one of
those frightened, over the shoulder glances to see if the pursuer.is
gaining pround on you. Jacob was on the lam, headed for the border,
running for his life... The last time he heard Esau's voice, it was a threat
to kill. The last time they were together Jacob had just cheated Esau out
of everything he had ~—- and it was that last experience which had been on
Jacob's mind, fairly consistently for nearly twenty years. To say that the
relationship between the brothers was broken is. putting it mildly.

From the beginning it had seemed that they were headed in different
directions, marching-to very different drummers... His father Isaac
preferred Esau; liked °Esau's ‘manly interests, encouraged Esau's -love of
hunting and farming. His mother, Rebekah, favored Jacob who, we are told,
“dwelt-in tents..." While Esau was out killing: game with Isaac, Jacob was
home helping in the kitchen.. And I guess that. was a lot more significant
before we became sensitive to sex-role stereotyping.

In any event, Jacob, early on in the story, convinces his brother
Esau to trade his birthright for a bowl of pottage; which turns out to be

rich, aromatic, lentil. soup... The stery is made a little more plausible
when you ponder haw powerful the aroma of your favorite food is and how you
have been heard to say - “{'d kill for a Vienna Frank smothered in onions

and relish," or as one of my colleagues said to my son last week at 9:00
p.m. in the parking lot ~- "I'd give you $500 for that pizza you're
carrying."

Esau must have said something like: "I'd give anything for some of
that vegetable soup you're cooking, Jacob.".. And Jacob said: "O.K., how
about your birthright?" And maybe Esau didn't think Jacob was serious but
he agreed and we know, early on, that the relationship between these twin
brothers is a little peculiar.

And that isn't the worst of it. For instance, years after the
pottage incident, Jacob deceives his father - by impersonating his brother
and ends up receiving the blessing and the first. part of the inheritance.
His father Isaac is nearly blind. Jacob effects an elaborate disguise to
impersonate Esau. It's pretty sorry and shabby business. Esau is furious,
threatens to kill Jacob and with an assist from his mother, Jacob heads out
for his Uncle Laban's: place, across the border. . That's the last time he
saw. Esau. ;

On the first night.of that escape, Jacob had a strange dream, a
ladder connecting heaven and earth, and angeis on the ladder and the voice
of God promising to be with Jacob and keep him wherever he went. When he
came to the land to the East he met his Uncle Laban's daughters, Leah and
Rachel, marries them both, has a lot of children, becomes enormously
wealthy by systematically stealing his Uncle Laban's livestock right out
from under him, and when he has so much it's getting embarrassing, he hears
God calling him home. While Laban is out of town on business, Jacob and
his wives and children and servants and cattle set out, in caravan, for
home, the promised land. At the last minute Rachel runs back and steals
her. father's personal household gods, for good measure. -

As they near the border Jacob begins to worry and at the ford of a
stream by name of Jabbok:.- sends his entire entourage across and sits down
to wait out the night.

During that night Jacob is accosted by an anonymous stranger with
whom he wrestles. The stranger who never reveals his name, - but clearly
either is God or represents God, wounds Jacob in the hip, blesses him and
gives him a new name...Israel. And in the early light of
dawn he limps across the steam to the promised land - home - and some
unfinished business with Esau.

It wasn't long until his worst fears are confirmed. He sees them
coming on the horizon —- sees the dust from 400 horsemen -— fear clutches and
burns in his throat. 400 horsemen with Esau out front! And he leaps into
action, gets everybody organized —- women and children out front - surely he
won't attack! - beloved Rachel and her only son Joseph in the rear. And
then Jacob does one of those peculiar, inexplicable things he has a way of
doing. Having set it up soe that a troupe of mothers and nannies and babies

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are what the 400 horsemen will. see when they come over the brow of the-hill
at full gallop... Jacob steps out in front himself and when the gap has
narrowed so that the two brothers can see one another ~ Jacob falis down,
bowing his neck to the dust -— seven times -. in eloquent and abject homage ~
apology - to his brother.

This is, at once a funny scene and a poignant scene, an
embarrassingiy humiliating gesture — this enormously powerful potentate,
bowing and scraping - right in front of his women and children and
servants.... And when Esau takes it ali in, he stops his troop of 400
horsemen, dismounts, runs to Jacob, without reservation or thought for his
own dignity, and the tears begin to flow and he falls on his brother, -not
in anger, but in love and relief and joy and they embrace and kiss and they
weep, both of them, tears, the tears of mature and strong men running down
their faces. And when they. get around to talking Jacob says something
striking to his brother - simple and beautiful - and strong and
unforgettable: “truly, to see your face is like seeing the face of God.'

And then the story begins to disintegrate again. [I almost hate to
say it, but there is at least a possibility that Jacob pulls one last scam.
That's quite a statement - in a culture where to’ see God was to die,-a-
culture which revered God's holiness so much that: God's name -— Yahweh —- was
never pronounced. That's quite a statement in the middie of this
incredible tale of family intrigue, ladders between heaven and earth,
wrestling with strangers, stealing sheep from your father-in-law... to
your brother, estranged for twenty years — "truly to see your face is like
seeing the face of God."

What do you make of this story? It's entertaining. It has complex
characterizations, humor, romance, sentiment, excitement and enough
internal intrigue and deception to be a long-running soap opera. . But. does
this story, I wonder, intersect: with our stories? Does it help us to-see
the ways and piaces where. God is actively present.in our lives? If it
does, it becomes God's Word tous.

There are these common, everyday, middle-of-life experiences in
Jacob's story. God encounters Jacob, not so much in holy places — altars,
tabernacles and temples, as in common places —- when Jacob spends the night,
his head on a stone, when he wrestles a stranger till dawn, and when he
experiences reconciliation and healing with his brother. God comes in the
commonplace and God comes into the life of a man who is not saintly in his
behavior, by any one's standards. Jacob is a wonderful mixture of courage
and cowardice, commitment and opportunism, high ‘ideals and iow performance
He sounds like us. If God can find Jacob interesting, pursue -Jacob, use
Jacob, stay with Jacob, surely there's hepe for you and me. The first and
important thing about this story is simply that Jacob is the hero and that
God is involved in it. It's a radical notion to think of a God who steps
into the middle of life and who uses people like us to do God's work.

In the second place, Jacob's encounter with God, at the Jabbok,. and
his encounter with his estranged brother, are very much part of the same,
single experience. Jacob goes directly from the mysterious encounter with}
the holy to the difficult but very human and unholy confrontation with his|
estranged brother and there is something of the genius of Judaism and

|

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Christianity in that. Jacob's experience with God is authenticated by his
experience with his brother... not only can't you separate the two, but
there is the suggestion here that the first isn't real until the second
happens. Stated radically that means that religious experiences ~ born
again experiences, mystical meetings with God, overwhelming conversion
experiences are not ultimately private; in fact they aren't authentic
unless they result in altered behavior, such as reconciled and redeemed
human relationships.

The meeting with God leaves. Jacob crippled. Jacob is equipped for
reconciling because he's-wounded. He knows-something new. about -
vulnerability, about his own humanity.

"God will not be: taken: lightly," is the way. one scholar. sees this
text....: "There will be. no-cheap reconciliations. On the way Co the
affronted brother, Jacob. must deal with the crippling {and blessing) God.'
(God-who blesses him-but also leaves him-crippled.) -[Genesis, p. 272,
Interpretation] :

Jewish poet and author, Arthur I. Waslow, has written a poem and a
book. about Jacob called Godwrestling. In it he observes: "To wrestle with
God is also to wrestle with human beings - ourselves and others. It is to
face polarities. and unify them." . [see The Preacher as Jacob, Kenneth L.
Gibble, p..109, 110]

The genius of Judaism is in understanding that when you break with
brothers and sisters you break with God. The New Testament.is full of that
antiphonal dynamic of grace...

"Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors"... linguistically
crafted so you won't be-able to separate the two, so you won't try to
experience divine healing apart from human healing... God's forgiveness
apart from your forgiving others, or put positively, so that you will
learn to experience God's forgiveness by forgiving those also who have
wronged you. - “You cannot love God and hate your brother," the author of
the First. Letter. of John taught. :

Jesus.put it this way:

"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not
kill.' But.I say to you that. everyone who is angry with
a brother or sister shall be liable to judgment." And.
_then, in case. they. didn't get the point, “If you are
offering your gift at the altar, and there remember. that
someone has something against you, leave your gift
before the altar: and go; first be reconciled to that...

a person - and-then come and offer your. gift."

aX That was a provocative and radical way of saying that God is
¥Y) fundamentally a mender; that God puts a higher priority on getting your
_ relationships right, than:-performing your religious duties right, in this
7 instance: the highest and holiest act - placing your gift on the. sacred. altar.

"Now, this is not the direction we go, left to our own devices. We

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are more inclined to define religion as doing religious things and if ‘there
are relational issues they're confined to me and my God, walking together
in the garden - during which we are assured that, -indeed, we are number
one... or talking together in the privileged privacy of my bed-time
prayers. In fact, we have been known to universalize that mentality and
conclude that faith in God has nothing to do with other people, ;
particularly with the structures of society in which other people and we
co-habit; like schools, courts, political parties and hospitals.

Jesus forever ruled out the insular religion: that confines itself to
the sanctuary of the individual soul. Jesus, the Jew - knew that life is
in community and so is religion. Jesus - the many-times Great Grandson of
Jacob who wrestled with Ged and then confronted his estranged brother,
taught that the two are inseparable. Jesus, Word of God incarnate, is-the
evidence that the whole energy of God is invested in healing human beings —
human society and personal human relationships.

oN

Suddenly, this ancient story comes in tight. Suddenly we're looking
— no more at broad cosmic issues - or an ancient comedy —.but in a mirror —-
at my relationships with my spouse, my friend, my child, my parent, my
colleague... Suddenly this old, old story is coming at us with some very
contemporary truth... Who hasn't nursed a grudge?» Who hasn't been:
virtually entrapped in the:familiar dynamic of emotional punch ~ counter
punch... "I'm not speaking till she does..."- “He's the one who should
apologize, not me..." "Hell will freeze over before I ask her again..."
Who hasn't almost nurtured the brokenness of a relationship? Who doesn't
need a little help mending? ;

Jacob assumed Esau had been nursing that grudge for twenty years.. He
was wrong - but he might not be far off target in our situation... It
seems to me that we do have a way of enjoying the brokenness sometime...
Frederick Buechner has written my favorite description of sustained

anger...

“Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger .is the most fun.
To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances
long past, to roll your tongue over the prospect of
bitter confrontations yet to come, to savor to the last
toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the
pain you are giving back - in many ways it is a feast fit
for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are
wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast ‘is
you." [F. Beuchner, Wishful Thinking, p.2]

That: is not what God had in mind in creating you and me. Here is a
very old story which suggests that the power and presence of God in
interpersonal relationships is always pressing for healing. That there is
something about God's love for us and our attempt to respond to it that
wants to be expressed between people, in love and acceptance and grace and
assertive forgiveness.

Do you feel the power of that in this story?... That gracé which is
“. Gospel thousand of years béfore Jesus is born? Esau jumped off his horse,

“came flying down the draw and in extravagant~and-fult affection reached

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down and pulled Jacob. up and embraced him. God likes that, the old story
suggests. And - God is like that. That's Grace. That's Gospel. And in
~ the same manner the father, in one of Jesus':- best stories, comes flying.
down. the road and before. the prodigal son can get the apology out,. throws
his-arms around him and.embraces him. and forgives. him... God likes to see
that-kind of thing happen... God is Like that. : ;

The power to heal resides with the offended. The offender can-
apologize; in a sense, must apologize, but forgiveness happens when the
offended forgives. If you have had occasion to forgive or to ask forgiveness,
you know that with children, or your parents, you know the fulility of

hanging reconciliation on. an apology... “I'm. not budging till -you say I'm
sorry." The miracle of healing happens when the offended person reaches
deep inside and says.- "what has happened will no longer be a-barrier

between us. I. will not. allow it to continue. to separate us."

50 we believe that in the fullness of time, what God began with his
servant Jacob - between Jacob and his brother Esau, actually —- what God is
up to in this story - became incarnate - penetrated history -.time and
space — was born in Bethelehem and lived among us.

We believe that among the myriad of meanings Jesus Christ has for us
~ the critical one is the healing, reconciling, mending of that.which is
broken. We. believe that in Jesus Christ God -has shown the dimensions of
grace.

_ We believe that in Jesus Christ God has reached down and done what
was necessary to reconcile... God has forgiven assertively... God has
brought together what is broken... between God and ourselves... within our
own souls and between us — and those from whom. for whatever reason, we
are separated.

John Greenleaf Whittier wrote a beautiful poem - 0 Brother Man.

O man - O woman ~
fold to your heart - your sister —- your brother...
to worship rightly is to love each other... ~

And the poem moves from the personal to the global... to the lovely image
of a tree of peace growing out of the ashes of anger.

The heart of the matter is that the Lord of the Universe and the
Creator of everything that is — is a Mender.

“Truly to see your.face is like seeing the face of God,". Jacob said
to Esau... . Truly.

Amen,

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