At the end of our last VBS meeting, the volunteers reminisced about the past years. They recalled a woman, in her eighties at the time, who provided snacks for the children. Now this is a task assigned to at least one volunteer every year. But what made this woman special in the minds of those volunteers is not that she provided the snacks, but that she also prepared meals for all the volunteers.
There was a hush over the group. We were for a moment rapt in contemplation over the extraordinary generosity of the woman. Finally, one of the volunteers broke the silence, and exclaimed: “Bless her heart!” Another woman nodded, and said, “yes, bless her heart.”
The word “bless” is not a word we use every day. For that reason, we’re hard pressed to give it a precise definition. What exactly does it mean to say “bless her heart!”? Apart from this expression, we seldom have occasion to use the word unless we are in the habit of “blessing” our food before we eat or responding to someone who has sneezed with a courteous “bless you!”
But “blessing” has far more significance in the world of the Bible than it does in our world. On the giving of God’s blessing, our very life depends. After God created them, God blessed the first human pair and said, “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen. 1:28). Later, God blessed Abraham, and declared that all the families of the earth would be blessed through him (Gen. 12:3). And God continued to bless his people through the mediation of the Levitical priest: “May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace” (Num. 6:24-26).
When God adds his blessing to life, it grows, flourishes and thrives. Conversely, when God withholds his blessing from life, it wilts, withers and dies.
Blessing is at the heart of the story of Jacob, who is featured in our first lesson for today. We have met Jacob in the pages of Genesis before. But perhaps a brief review is in order.
Jacob is the son of Isaac, who, in turn, is the son of Abraham. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are the patriarchs of Israel.
Isaac is the husband of Rebekah, and she bears two sons for Isaac. In addition to Jacob, there is Esau.
Now as the firstborn, Esau was rightful heir to the blessing of his father Isaac. But with the help of his mother, Jacob deceived his father, who bestowed on him the blessing instead of his brother Esau in a case of mistaken identity.
When Esau in turn sought his father’s blessing, his father refused him. No blessing remained for him. It now belonged to his brother Jacob. Furious, Esau plotted how he might kill his brother Jacob.
When Jacob learned of his brother’s plan, he fled. Wearied from the journey, he chose a place to lay down for the night. Here he dreamed of a ladder on which angels ascended and descended. God spoke to him in the dream. Upon awaking, he exclaimed: “surely, this is the place of God, and I did not know it!” He named the place Bethel, which means “house of God.”
Strengthened by his encounter with God at Bethel, Jacob pressed on until he reached Paddan Aram to work for his uncle Laban. There Jacob met the woman of his dreams and resolved to make her his wife. Her name is Rachel. Even though he came up against obstacles, Jacob did not give up. After working for Laban in Paddan Aram for a total of twenty years, Jacob prepared to return home, now a wealthy man, with wives and children and servants and flocks and herds.
But no sooner did Jacob begin to enjoy his success than trouble began to plague him again. “Man is born to trouble, as surely as the sparks fly upward” (Job 5:7). No doubt paraphrasing Job, the great psychologist Carl Jung observed: “Nobody, as long as he moves about among the chaotic currents of life, is without trouble.”
This is a fact of life impossible to deny. The Bible is nothing if not realistic in this regard. In life our biggest problems often immediately follow our biggest successes. In Jacob’s case, returning home meant confronting an aggrieved brother who is justifiably furious at him for cheating him out of the blessing to which he as the first born was rightly entitled.
When he learned that Esau was approaching him with 400 men, Jacob sent a message to him, explaining all that he has done and become. Then he sent gifts to him, in the hope of pacifying him.
When we catch up with him in today’s reading, we find him sending his family and the rest of his possessions over the river Jabbok. Jacob’s assumption is that armed men would not mow down women and children. Having carried out his complex plan, Jacob spends the night all alone by the Jabbok.
What happens next is very mysterious. A man comes out of the darkness and attacks Jacob. Who is this man? Is it Jacob’s own self-projection? That is, is Jacob wrestling with himself?
On occasion, when our past comes back to haunt us, when regrets gnaw away at us, we wrestle with our thoughts until daybreak, depriving ourselves of a good night’s sleep. The prospect of meeting Esau may have triggered memories in Jacob of the wrong that he did to his brother, causing him inner turmoil.
But the story does not tell us that he is wrestling with himself, but with a man. But as he and the man wrestle through the night, Jacob realizes that he is wrestling with God. Then in verse 28, we learn that Jacob has indeed been wrestling with God.
This is remarkable. How is it that the omnipotent God does not instantly annihilate a mere man in a fight? But God does not come to Jacob with hostile purpose. God comes to be present to him, to meet him face to face, to be involved with him. Indeed, the very word translated here as “wrestle” contains nuances of “intertwining, knotting around one another, being tied together.”
It’s hard to imagine a more startling image of God’s involvement in Jacob’s life—indeed, in our lives—than that of a wrestling match. But God comes to Jacob ultimately to bless him. And Jacob will not cease from his struggle until he obtains God’s blessing. In what does this blessing consist?
Remember Jacob is the beneficiary of God’s original blessing of Abraham. “I will be with you and make your name great. I will make your descendants as numerous as the sand on the seashore, as the stars in the sky.” But that promise of blessing again stands under threat. Esau is approaching him with 400 men, and Jacob’s afraid for his life, and for that of his family. To bless here consists in God’s acting to guard, to protect from danger, to promote life, to make life grow, flourish and thrive.
That is what Jacob is seeking from God. “I will not let you go until you bless me.” Jacob clings to God in his crisis, in his difficulties, where God meets with him face to face. God is there with him in the struggle, and consents to bless him.
For his persistence, Jacob receives a new name. This is significant. Names in the world of the Bible carried a significance that they do not in our world. A name spoke of a person’s character, his deeds, his identity. To be given a new name was to be given a changed identity. Jacob means “supplanter.” This is one who takes over someone’s role or place. The name fits because this in effect is what Jacob did to his brother Esau.
But the mysterious figure changes his name to Israel. The word “Israel” most likely comes from a Hebrew verb (lesarot), which means to “struggle.” The Hebrew word “ruler” or “prince” also comes from this verb. The name of Abraham’s wife Sara is from this same word group.
Jacob became Israel precisely because he struggled with both heaven and earth, both God and humanity, and overcame.
God graciously comes to us too in our struggle, in our difficulties, and consents to meet us in them, enabling us to overcome them.
This truth finds supreme expression in Jesus Christ. In our gospel lesson we see Jesus in the middle of an all-too-common human problem. There is too much need, and too few resources. There is too much demand, and too little supply. In those moments when this problem weighs especially heavily on us, which may be many throughout the course of our lives, we wonder, “does God even care?”
The disciples have only five loaves and two fish. But there are five thousand people to feed, not even counting the women and children. The demands of the hour exceed their limited resources. They can only say: “This is all we have. It is not enough.” What else can they do but to dismiss the people in the hope that they will find food in the surrounding villages?
But the God who blesses us is there in the person of Jesus. He is not intimidated by difficulties. He does not counsel us to flee from our problems, to run from our responsibilities, but rather to face them. “You give them something to eat.”
We are easily discouraged by the difficulties that overwhelm us, that surpass our ability to cope. But faith is nothing if not directed to the impossible. If faith only sees five loaves and two fishes, and immediately concedes defeat, it is not faith. It is certainly not biblical faith that believes Jesus is risen from the dead and still works powerfully among his people in the world today through his Spirit.
“Bring them to me,” Jesus tells the disciples. Note that responding to this summons is an act of faith. Faith means to commit our problems, and the little we have to meet them, to Jesus, in the expectation of his help, his blessing. It means to give to Jesus, everything that we are and have, in practical obedience to his summons, allowing him into our lives to do what only he can do with them.
Jesus took the five loaves, broke and blessed them, and then gave them back to his disciples, who then distributed them to the crowds.
Let us be clear here. This is not magic; this is a miracle. There is a difference. Note the disciples are still the agents. To be sure, they receive their task back with the blessing of Jesus, but it is still their task.
The lesson teaches us here that we, God’s people, share in Jesus’ power more than we may realize. The blessing of Jesus is given to us to promote life, to help it to grow, flourish, and thrive.
But, like the disciples, too often we stand there overwhelmed, immobilized by the difficulties like a wrestler in a submission hold.
But in Jesus Christ God gives to us his blessing. When we need the approval of a trusted mentor, we long to hear from him the words: “You have my blessing.” These words liberate us. They set us free to tackle again the project before us, to continue on in our life’s course despite the obstacles, just as Jacob did.
From Jesus we have this blessing. Because we are blessed by Jesus, we have to learn to act courageously. We have to learn to believe we have more than enough to be of big help to ourselves and to those around us.
Jesus blesses us. Then Jesus uses what we have in our hands and give to him to bless others through us.
One final lesson. It is no accident that when hear that Jesus takes, blesses, breaks and gives the loaves, we hear echoes of the Lord’s Supper. Let us not miss the point here. Before sending us out to feed the world, God first feeds us in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Before sending us out to promote life and to make it grow, flourish and thrive, he first feeds us with the Bread of Life, which is Jesus Christ himself.
Let us then approach the Lord’s table with eager expectation that he will fill us with his blessing. Let us all eat and be filled. In him we will find not only enough, but an abundance, with enough left over to bless those around us. Amen.