1

Sermon

Second

Presbyterian

Church

460 East Main Street Lexington, Kentucky 40507

Crossing Rivers

August 10, 2014

Genesis 32: 22-32; Romans 12: 1-2

Rev. Erin Rouse

My family and I have spent a good deal of our vacation and free time together around water. . . If not standing in a river on a variety of summer trips out west, we have spent many a Saturday or a Sunday afternoon here in Kentucky on Boone Creek or the Elkhorn, fly-fishing, but also simply taking in the beauty of such moving bodies of water and all that they encompass. My husband has often said that one of the things he loves most about fly-fishing is that it usually happens in the most beautiful of parts of God’s creation. . .

It is amazing to me the power of even a small amount of what they call “flow” – the volume of cubic feet of water moving per second. . . That is why if you get out in the woods near the creeks surrounding our little corner of God’s world, you will find numerous ruins of old mills and old settlements where the power of moving water was harnessed for survival in frontier days and beyond. Did you know, by the way, that Kentucky has more miles of running water than any state in the country other than Alaska?

I know and I’m sure most of you do too, that trying to walk, trying to “cross over” such streams, creeks, rivers, can be pretty tough, even a bit harrowing.

And yet, Jacob, in our Old Testament scripture today sends his loved ones and his prized possessions over such water in the dark of the night. . . And is left alone on the banks of the Jabbok, a tributary of the great Jordan.

In scripture, rivers often have symbolic meaning. A river sometimes figures as a privileged location for a divine encounter. In addition, when one comes to a river, one must eventually “cross over” it. Therefore, crossing such a waterway can represent a time of transition, a point of demarcation, a time when one crosses over into something new, a new land, a new experience, even a new way of being. It can signify a turning point in one’s life.

A river is also symbolic of cleansing, washing, baptism. It is a place thus, where one “comes clean.” It is, in fact, where many baptisms used to take place. I’m just glad (and I bet there are a few parents of our babies glad, too) that we Presbyterians don’t make our ministers do that these days!

“Going down to the river to pray” (as that wonderful ol’ gospel song reminds us) was part of what Jacob was doing that night as he was preparing to “cross over” his river and return home.

It has been twenty long years since he left. God has told him it is time to return. And although we will find today what kind of character Jacob is he has this desire for God, a longing. And he did not want to be cast away from God.

And so he sets out from Haran where he had fled to live with his Uncle Laban, 20 years before, after he had stolen his twin brother Esau’s blessing. . . the blessing reserved for the eldest. For Esau was the twin born first. Jacob came upon Esau’s heel and was named for that. . .For Jacob means “one who takes by the heel,” “one who supplants,” “trickster,” “conniver,” “deceiver.”

I guess if you get called something like that, you may just live into such a name. . . Jacob not only deceived his brother (and his aging and blind father, Isaac) when he stole the blessing, but he also went on to trick his Uncle Laban. . . but then Laban got Jacob, too. . . And of course, Laban’s sister Rebekah, who was Jacob’s mom, had a little bit of that manipulator in her. . . So perhaps Jacob comes by all of this conniving quite naturally. . . Or maybe he is just a little like us. . . Looking out for ourselves, we become a mixture of good and not so good. . .

For those same defects are also things that can get folks ahead. . . Jacob was after all a go-getter. He is the kind we may want to hire in business as a sales person or the like. He makes things happen. He is successful. He doesn’t let go. . .or give up easily. Those traits can be used for good. . .

And in his story, Jacob uses that “hutzpah” for good.

First, Jacob prays and he plans (some might call it scheming!). He doesn’t know if his brother still wants to kill him, yet, Esau is fast approaching along with 400 men. And so Jacob separates his sizeable family and flocks into two groups to throw Esau off, sends them on ahead and is left alone on the banks of the river at this critical turning point in his life where he wrestles with God.

When I was in Seminary and had to choose a passage from Genesis upon which to write a paper, it was just after my husband, my mother, and my closest friend had all, fairly recently, had hip replacements. I wanted to get at this thing that God did to Jacob. Why did he strike him on the hip? What was it about this part of the body?

Well, of course, that did not completely get answered. . .(God doesn’t always answer us the way we want as Jacob found out, but we can still walk a way with a blessing). . . As our scripture says this is an explanation about why the Jewish people do not eat the hip (the thigh) of an animal. But I also learned that “the hip” or loin, signified this deep part of Jacob. . . the part where the promise of descendants was held. . .Jacob’s future. . . and his innermost self.

This strike on the hip was to be a reminder of all that had happened. . .a reminder in the deepest part of Jacob, a reminder of his encounter, of his “come to Jesus” moment . . . of who he had been and who he was now. . . Like a war-wound, or an old sports injury that reminds us of an earlier life. When we wrestle with God – when we come to terms with our past, with the future at hand, with who we are, sometimes we, too limp away.

There are events in all of our lives that we carry with us, even when we cross over to a new life. . . They are a part of us and can be used for good, even when we change.

And the fact of the matter is, we change. Things change. Life changes. Life changes us. God changes us. And the really wonderful thing we hear today is that when we dare to venture forward, when we dare to encounter God, when we dare to make the move God has in store, when we dare to move on, cross over, accept the change, although we may still carry whatever wound with us, we can also truly become new people. We can be renewed. We don’t throw away the old part of us – for often the old has brought us to where we are now. And it is a part that can be used as we venture forth.

One of the promises in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, tells those working the 12 step program who are at the point of making amends for past wrongs, this: “You will know a new freedom and a new happiness, you will not regret the past nor wish to close the door on it.” Basically, it says that God can use even your failings, your shortcomings for good, to help another. God can use your past for your future and for the future of the world.

In the classic book, “A Pocket Full of Rye,” by A. J. Cronin, young Laurence Carroll spends his Friday afternoons with his best friend, Frank, and the Catholic priest who has taken both boys under his wing. But, later DOCTOR Laurence Carroll moves far away from his Catholic upbringing and becomes quite self-centered, a known womanizer and heavy drinker. An “old friend” and her sick child fly to Switzerland for special treatment in the clinic he runs there, and Laurence finds he has to face his past, who he has become, and “the voice” that has been haunting him and chasing after him all these many years. In fact, at one point in the story he opens a book that was a gift long ago, and turns to the great poem entitled, “The Hound of Heaven” - the Hound of Heaven who is the God we know in Jesus Christ, the one who chases him, who “hounds” him, haunts him, corrals him, until eventually Laurence is able, not without difficulty, to make some changes and become free of the lifestyle that he only THINKS will please him. He commits himself to the long and hard task of living a just life, a right life, because you see, he knows that the other way of living isn’t near as satisfying as he thought it would be. . .

I always thought that the “Rye” in the title of this book (“A Pocket Full of Rye”) was like the rye in bread, but it signifies the rye that is in liquor - an apt metaphor for the life that Laurence had been living, until he came face to face with “the hound” who would not let him go. . .

Jacob went on to become Israel. That is some kind of a name! Some kind of a change! But, you see, the change happened because Jacob all along had been willing. He was willing to go to the banks of that river and meet God; he was willing to be obedient to God, even though he was a rascal, headstrong, willful, self-centered, manipulative, even deceitful; he was willing to come to terms with his past and his future and although he wrestled mightily with God, and our scripture says he “prevailed,” he nevertheless gave into God there on the banks of that river and was able to trust God for his future as he walked on across.

One could say well, he was wrestling with God, he HAD to “let go.” But he got what he wanted before he did. He got a blessing from his wrestling and his tenacity. The blessing of a new identity…Israel. . .And a nation.

If God can do such a thing with a scoundrel like Jacob just think what he can do with us. . . That is, unless we see a little bit of ourselves in Jacob. And then we may simply be grateful for this story – grateful to know that God can change someone like Jacob in such a way, someone like us. . .

Change is in the air. . .

It is August. And I hate to remind some of you, but school starts this week. . .in case you didn’t know it! Teachers are preparing classrooms, college students are beginning to return, traffic is picking up around town, people are moving in and moving out, kids are getting ready to go off to college. . . Parents are dusting off those alarm clocks. . . It is a time of wrestling. . .anxiety. . . excitement about what is to come, yet fear of what is to come. It is a bit bittersweet. For it is a time of change, of transition.

Even if our lives are not oriented around school, or this season that finds us preparing for the start of other events, all of us have had to face change of some sort. Some of us are facing some pretty great changes now. Some of us are preparing to cross over some pretty big rivers. It doesn’t mean that it will be easy or that there WILL be a blessing from it, although there can be. It doesn’t mean that we will be the same after we go through it – we may hurt, walk with a limp from it forever. For change is hard. . .

But, I have wondered how this story of today would have turned out, say, if Jacob had NOT crossed over and gone on to meet his brother. . .if he had turned tail and run back to Haran and lived very prosperously and I would say, “happily ever after. . .” But, I don’t think he would have been very happy. Because God had called him to this river. God had called him to cross it with all that it entailed. . . Let me tell you what happened. . .

Jacob went on to meet his brother. . .

“And Esau ran to meet him and embraced him and fell on his neck and kissed him and they wept. . .” (Genesis 33:4) And after that Jacob called his brother, Lord, as he owned in great humility who he was. He had been forgiven. He had been freed. He had been transformed.

May we have the courage to “go down by the river” ourselves. . .to cross the Jabbok or the Jordan river in our lives, to pray, to wrestle, to question, to encounter our God, to come to ourselves, to walk through the changes at hand in our lives. May we be not afraid of the waterway that lies in front of us. Or even if we are afraid, may we have the courage to plunge ahead. . . We may get a little wet. . . We may fall down a bit. . .We may limp away and we most definitely we won’t do it perfectly. Jacob didn’t! That’s for sure. But God will be with us as we cross. The Hound of Heaven will not let us go. We may even receive a blessing on the way. . . May it be so. Amen.