Howard C. Wilkinson - "Jacob's Wrestling Adversary" (April 18, 1971)

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	(choir singing in unison)	0:06
	(organ playing light music)	0:32
	(choir singing in unison)	0:55
	(organ playing light music)
-	The grace of the Lord, Jesus Christ,	3:57
	and the love of God be with you all.	3:59
	When Christians come together	4:03
	before the Lord of the universe,	4:04
	we make confession of our sins and inadequacies,	4:07
	and open ourselves to the healing love of God.	4:12
	Will you join me in our general confession of prayer?	4:17
	Let us pray.	4:22
	Oh most merciful Father,	4:26
	who will us not the death of any sinner,	4:28
	but rather that he should return unto Thee and be saved.	4:31
	Comfort us who are grieved by the weight of our sins.	4:36
	We confess to Thee that we have been slow to believe	4:40
	the good news made known in Jesus Christ.	4:44
	We confess that like the disciples of all,	4:47
	we have not expected great things to happen to us.	4:51
	We have doubted the power of Christ's resurrection	4:55
	in our lives.	4:57
	Forgive us for believing that the triumph of right	4:59
	is too good to be true.	5:03
	Restore us through Thy pardoning grace,	5:05
	to a childlike faith.	5:08
	We pray in Jesus name.	5:10
	Amen.	5:13
	Let us hear and receive and faith these assuring words,	5:17
	the words of our Lord, be of good cheer,	5:23
	your sins are forgiven.	5:26
	Go and sin no more.	5:28
	And these words from the epistles of the New Testament,	5:33
	if anyone is in Jesus, the Christ, he is a new being.	5:36
	The old has passed away and the new has come.	5:40
	For freedom, Christ has set us free.	5:44
	Stand fast, therefore,	5:48
	and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery	5:50
	for you were called to freedom brothers,	5:54
	only do not use your freedom	5:57
	as an opportunity for the flesh,	5:59
	but through love, be servants one of another.	6:01
	For the whole law is fulfilled in one word,	6:06
	you shall love your neighbor as yourself.	6:10
	(organ playing light music)	6:22
	(choir singing in unison)	7:40
-	The scripture lesson for this morning	9:56
	is from Genesis 32:22-30.	9:58
	"The same night, he rose and took his two wives,	10:03
	his two maids, and his 11 children,	10:06
	and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.	10:08
	He took them and sent them across the stream.	10:10
	And likewise, everything that he had.	10:13
	And Jacob was left alone.	10:16
	And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day.	10:18
	When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob,	10:22
	he touched the hollow of his thigh	10:25
	and Jacob's thigh was put out of joint	10:27
	as he wrestled with him.	10:30
	Then he said, 'Let me go, for the day is breaking.'	10:32
	But Jacob said,	10:35
	'I will not let you go, unless you bless me.'	10:37
	And he said to him, 'What is your name?'	10:40
	And he said, 'Jacob.'	10:43
	Then he said,	10:45
	'Your name shall no more be called Jacob, but Israel.	10:46
	For you have striven with God and with men	10:50
	and have prevailed.'	10:52
	Then Jacob asked him, 'Tell me I pray, your name.'	10:54
	But he said, 'Why is it that you ask my name?'	10:58
	And there, he blessed him.	11:02
	So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying,	11:04
	'For I have seen God face to face,	11:08
	and yet my life is preserved.'"	11:10
	This ends the scripture.	11:13
	(organ playing light music)	11:16
	(choir singing in unison)	11:26
	(organ playing light music)
-	The Lord be with you?	12:01
Congregation	And also with you.	12:03
-	Let us pray.	12:04
	Let us offer unto God our prayers of thanksgiving,	12:10
	intercession, and supplication.	12:14
	Oh God of promise and fulfillment,	12:20
	so much that is beautiful in our lives comes to us first	12:25
	in the shape of a promise.	12:28
	Therefore, on this day of promise,	12:32
	this day of the son's life giving warmth,	12:35
	this new green day of shoots and buds,	12:39
	we seek your presence and peaceful and heartfelt thanks.	12:44
	For this day, we have known the sun on our faces.	12:51
	We have felt the moist rich earth yield under our feet.	12:55
	We have heard the singing of birds	13:00
	and the laughing of children.	13:02
	And we have rejoiced with you at these promises of new life.	13:04
	Take this our thanksgiving, our rejoicing Lord,	13:11
	and transform it into new life	13:15
	within as well as in the world around us.	13:18
	Take the old deadness of winter from our hearts	13:22
	and fill them up with freshness and newness	13:26
	with hope that is expressed in love,	13:30
	and send us forth full of promise we asked	13:34
	to transform this your creation.	13:37
	This creation in which despite all the warmth of your son	13:40
	is still locked in the deadly throws of the winter of war.	13:44
	God, whose son has taught us that we are members	13:51
	one of another.	13:54
	We take our place in the human family	13:57
	by offering our prayers of intercession for our world,	13:58
	for our brothers, and our sisters.	14:03
	When enabling spirit of God, send forth we ask,	14:09
	redeemers and the rescuers into the trouble places	14:14
	of our world and our lives.	14:19
	Call forth those who are able to save,	14:23
	able to protect, and able to free.	14:26
	Lord God heightened the hope of the fearful	14:31
	who were lost and who are hurt.	14:35
	Lengthen he hope of the fearful who hunt,	14:39
	who help, and who freed.	14:42
	Father God, lengthen all over the world,	14:46
	the days and the hours for finding and for freeing,	14:50
	and shorten the hours and the minutes	14:55
	for waiting and for suffering.	14:57
	Redeeming Lord, save the lost,	15:01
	free the oppressed,	15:06
	receive the dying,	15:10
	comfort the grieving,	15:12
	by the operation of your amazing grace we ask.	15:16
	Almighty God, we come to you with our needs and petitions.	15:25
	A strange mixture of common men and women.	15:30
	A few among us are good people,	15:35
	some are evil who bear your name,	15:38
	but most are never either like most men in most places.	15:42
	For we are builders, trials in hand,	15:49
	but guns loaded, loosely holstered.	15:51
	Some of us are here for love of you and every brother,	15:56
	but most of us out of restless curiosity	16:00
	for want of a better temple.	16:04
	We are men of moderation in both virtue and vice,	16:07
	which is to say, we maintain a pale neutrality.	16:11
	We have an allergy to risk.	16:16
	We don't often fail, but then we don't often try.	16:19
	We are a safety first people, oh, God,	16:25
	more concerned with the state of our stocks	16:28
	than of our souls.	16:31
	We are drabbed strangers one to the other.	16:33
	Oh God, help us in our need of new life.	16:38
	If we truly are your people,	16:43
	color us creation and incarnation	16:46
	and the resurrection on this year day.	16:49
	Out of the mud of the first chaos,	16:53
	you brought meaning and creation.	16:55
	Out of confused babbled folk,	16:59
	you brought forth a Pentecost, speaking loud,	17:01
	shouting people of joy.	17:04
	Out of the dark smells of a tomb,	17:07
	you brought forth joy in the morning.	17:09
	Out of us, surely you can do it again.	17:14
	Oh God, take our commonness, our curiosity,	17:19
	our restlessness, our indecision,	17:23
	our neutrality, our musty moderation.	17:26
	Do your windy hovering and quicken us once again, we ask.	17:31
	Give us safety last.	17:36
	Give us risk ability.	17:39
	Pour even into us the life giving spirit of our Lord.	17:41
	Make us while with you enough at times to be taken	17:48
	as we're your first disciples for mid-morning drunks.	17:51
	We asked this in the name and in the spirit of Jesus	17:58
	who died and rose again on this day.	18:03
	And who taught us we might pray together	18:07
	as Christians saying,	18:10
	our Father who art in heaven,	18:12
	hallowed be Thy name,	18:15
	Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done,	18:17
	on earth as it is in heaven.	18:21
	Give us this day our daily bread	18:24
	and forgive us our trespasses,	18:26
	as we forgive those who trespass against us.	18:29
	And lead us not into temptation,	18:33
	but deliver us from evil.	18:35
	For thine is the kingdom,	18:38
	and the power, and the glory, forever.	18:40
	Amen.	18:44
-	On this campus, we have a variety of religious groups,	19:18
	student religious organizations of one sort or another.	19:25
	They do an assortment of tasks.	19:30
	The wide does one group of things.	19:38
	The denominational groups do certain things	19:43
	and they do them in different ways.	19:48
	Three of the denominational groups have gone together	19:52
	and who one group which they call the United Ministries.	19:55
	Then there's the Fellowship of Christian Athletes,	20:01
	which this weekend is having a retreat away from here.	20:05
	All except for two members of the FCA at least.	20:11
	I think those two probably are not back from Atlanta yet.	20:16
	Leo Hart and Wes Chesson were this week down in Atlanta	20:20
	signing up the contract	20:25
	with the Atlanta Professional Football team.	20:26
	I happened to be down there at the same time,	20:30
	and they were the two biggest people in the Atlanta news.	20:33
	Now, don't misunderstand me,	20:39
	I wasn't down there in connection with that signing.	20:40
	The only thing I signed down there was a hotel registered.	20:44
	But Wes and Leo were there,	20:47
	and you would have been very proud as Duke people	20:50
	of the things which were said about these two fine gentlemen	20:56
	in the Atlanta newspapers.	21:00
	Have another group here which we call, Blue Jeans.	21:04
	Now, if you go around the campus	21:09
	and you see students wearing blue jeans,	21:11
	not everyone who is wearing blue jeans	21:14
	is a member of Blue Jeans.	21:17
	And not everybody in Blue Jeans wears blue jeans.	21:19
	It can get a little confusing.	21:23
	But the idea of the organization	21:26
	is suggested by that article of clothing.	21:29
	And they are currently leading a cleanup drive of the campus	21:34
	and they are suggesting that you get with them on it.	21:38
	And if you know of some section of the campus	21:43
	that needs to be cleaned up,	21:46
	get in touch with them.	21:48
	They do not mean your own private room	21:50
	because that's your responsibility.	21:52
	But anything beyond that, they would be glad to hear about.	21:55
	They are ushering	22:01
	and receiving the offering in chapel today.	22:02
	And a representative of the group	22:05
	is our lector in the service this morning.	22:07
	We are very, very grateful to Blue Jeans	22:11
	for many fine acts of service,	22:14
	which they have performed during the past several years	22:16
	in which they are performing this year.	22:20
	I'm very proud that I have been honored	22:23
	by being made an honorary member of that organization.	22:25
	Well, the sermon.	22:31
	The story of "Jacob at Jabbok"	22:36
	is not only a fascinating literary drama,	22:42
	but it is crucial	22:47
	to an understanding of the history of the Hebrew people.	22:48
	And it offers the only existing ancient explanation	22:52
	of the meaning of the name, Israel.	22:57
	More importantly, for our concerns this morning,	23:02
	it provides a symbol of the struggle	23:05
	that is taking place within the souls of people	23:07
	on our campus and in our nation today.	23:10
	In so doing, it hints at some of the valuable insights,	23:16
	and points toward a resolution of the struggle.	23:21
	So all of this, you see,	23:26
	makes it a story worth our attention.	23:27
	Now, since you may need to give labored thought	23:32
	later in the sermon,	23:35
	let me suggest that for the present,	23:36
	you simply sit back and relax	23:38
	while I recount the story of "Jacob at Jabbok."	23:41
	When Jacob and his caravan pulled up	23:48
	at the crossing of that river,	23:50
	he was nearly home and he was worried.	23:52
	Jacob had good cause to worry.	23:56
	His God had directed him to move back home after 20 years,	23:59
	but his brother, Esau, lived there.	24:05
	And before Jacob left home previously,	24:08
	he had tricked his brother out of his birthright.	24:11
	Jacob, you see, was a smooth operator,	24:15
	and by one device or another,	24:19
	he had outmaneuvered not only his brother Esau,	24:20
	but also his father, Isaac,	24:24
	and his father-in-law Laban.	24:27
	If Jacob we're living today,	24:31
	we probably would call him Tricky Jake.	24:33
	He was indeed the supplanter,	24:38
	the square of flatwoods has called him a rascal.	24:42
	Now, as he approached his old home grounds,	24:48
	his conscience was hurting him,	24:51
	and he was afraid that the stored up anger of Esau	24:53
	would boil over on top of his guilty head.	24:57
	So he prayed to his God and he said in effect this,	25:01
	"Now Lord, you're the one who told me to come home,	25:05
	so please protect me from Esau."	25:10
	Well, whatever else you may say about Jacob,	25:15
	he was a fellow who believed in covering all the bets.	25:17
	Therefore, in addition to asking for Jehovah's protection	25:21
	against Esau,	25:24
	he enterprised a strategy all of his own.	25:26
	Before crossing over the river into his homeland,	25:30
	he sent hundreds of choice livestock	25:33
	over ahead by some servants.	25:38
	Instructing the servants to tell Esau	25:43
	that they were a present, not mark you,	25:45
	from thy brother, Jacob,	25:49
	but from, quote, thy servant, Jacob.	25:53
	Then he sent his wives over, and his maid servants,	25:59
	and his men servants.	26:03
	Last of all, he sent ahead, his 11 sons.	26:05
	He wanted an Esau to look at all that parade of people	26:08
	before he actually saw the man	26:13
	who had stolen his birthright.	26:15
	He hoped that when last of all, he had to face Esau himself,	26:18
	his brother's anger would have cooled a bit.	26:24
	But there was one thing Jacob had not foreseen.	26:27
	He did not know what would happen to him	26:32
	after he had sent everything and everybody ahead,	26:36
	and he was left alone to crossover Jabbok	26:41
	into his homeland by himself.	26:45
	All alone, he was defenseless against his own conscience,	26:50
	and a mighty struggle took place that night	26:55
	on the banks of the Jabbok.	26:59
	According to the Genesis account,	27:02
	Jacob was confronted by a man	27:04
	who wrestled with him all night.	27:06
	At least Jacob thought it was a man	27:09
	while the struggle was going on.	27:11
	At the dawn Jacob's thigh was out of joint	27:14
	and the wrestling adversary wanted to disengage.	27:19
	But by this time in the light of the dawn,	27:23
	Jacob realized the true nature of the struggle.	27:25
	I knew that he had not basically been wrestling with a man,	27:29
	but that fundamentally he had been wrestling with Jehovah.	27:33
	So I clung tightly to the adversary	27:39
	and pled with him to give him a blessing	27:41
	before he should leave.	27:44
	So Jehovah asked him to speak his name,	27:48
	and he readily admitted it was, Jacob,	27:52
	the supplanter,	27:56
	or more literally one who takes you by the heel	27:59
	and trips you up.	28:03
	Then Jehovah said that he would bless him	28:06
	by giving him a new name, Israel,	28:09
	one who wrestles with God.	28:14
	Consequently,	28:18
	when he emerged on the other side of the Jabbok,	28:19
	he was essentially a different person.	28:22
	Israel, not Jacob.	28:24
	All his descendants have been called Israelites.	28:28
	And a new nation today in the near east, bears his name.	28:32
	The name given him at the Jabbok,	28:37
	at the end of his wrestling match with God.	28:40
	Well, this fascinating biblical story,	28:45
	fairly bristles with questions	28:48
	for the old Testament scholar.	28:50
	The linguistic textual and exegetical puzzles	28:53
	pile on top of each other.	28:56
	They're so numerous and so interwoven	28:59
	that if we attempted even to describe them,	29:01
	there would be no time left	29:04
	for application of the power of this narrative	29:05
	to our contemporary dilemmas.	29:09
	So I shall properly leave the exegesis to the exegetes.	29:12
	I might say, incidentally,	29:17
	that those of you who would refer a Roman Catholic source	29:19
	will find a splendid treatment of this story	29:22
	in the Jerome Biblical Commentary	29:26
	edited by our own Roland Murphy and his colleagues,	29:29
	Brown and Fitzmyer.	29:32
	Those of you who wish a Protestant commentary	29:36
	will find the interpreter's Bible to be helpful.	29:38
	But for our purposes in this sermon,	29:43
	there are four salient features in the account.	29:45
	First, Jacob wrestled all night with an adversary	29:49
	whose identity he did not know.	29:53
	Second, he assumed during the struggle	29:56
	that his opponent was merely a man.	30:02
	Third, he was surprised to learn in the light of the dawn	30:07
	that basically he was wrestling against God.	30:11
	Fourth, from the struggle, he emerged a new and better man.	30:16
	Okay.	30:23
	There are those who questioned	30:27
	whether any physical struggle took place that night.	30:28
	I'm not now gonna get hung up on that question.	30:35
	Instead, I wish to dispose of it	30:38
	by countering with another question,	30:41
	one raised by Robertson of Brighton.	30:44
	He said,	30:47
	"Suppose we admit	30:48
	that a being whose awful presence Jacob felt	30:50
	had no form which could be grappled by a human hand.	30:54
	Is it any less real because of that?"	31:01
	Actually what we're primarily concerned with	31:08
	is what was in Jacob's mind and heart?	31:10
	In his mind,	31:15
	he at first thought he was wrestling with a man,	31:16
	later became convinced that this was a struggle with God.	31:20
	If you have not noticed it before,	31:26
	it is certainly worth knowing now	31:28
	that one of the recurring themes	31:31
	of the Judeo Christian scriptures	31:32
	is the reality and the importance of encountering God	31:34
	by encountering man.	31:40
	Think about that.	31:45
	Christ taught when we feed hungry people,	31:49
	we are feeding him.	31:52
	That when we give water to thirsty humans,	31:54
	we are giving God a drink.	31:56
	That when we give lodging to strangers,	31:59
	we're providing housing to the king of the universe.	32:02
	That when we give clothing to poor children,	32:06
	we are putting clothes on God's back.	32:08
	And when we go to prison to visit,	32:13
	we're visiting God in the form of the prisoner.	32:16
	You see, Isaiah told the Hebrews	32:22
	that even the attack of the Assyrians upon them	32:25
	was an instrument of God's judgment.	32:29
	That in their beating from the Assyrians,	32:33
	God was beating them.	32:37
	His judgment was being inflicted upon them.	32:39
	He called Assyria the rod of God's anger	32:43
	and said that the staff in the hand of the Assyria	32:45
	was God's indignation.	32:49
	When therefore we read that Jacob found himself	32:53
	struggling against God,	32:56
	when at first he only thought he was wrestling a man,	32:57
	this word is consistent with the entire biblical tradition.	33:01
	Okay?	33:08
	If you and I are wise today,	33:09
	we will examine the struggles of our own lives.	33:11
	Now, and see if we mistakenly are thinking	33:15
	that we merely wrestle against men,	33:20
	when in reality, our adversary, maybe God.	33:24
	When we contend selfishly or dishonesty	33:31
	against our fellow man,	33:35
	we almost certainly are wrestling against God.	33:36
	Let us now take a brief look	33:42
	at some of the encounters of our time,	33:44
	and raise this question about them.	33:47
	I shall not here to give any answers,	33:51
	but we'll leave with you the questions.	33:54
	One of them concerns the greatly protracted	33:58
	and undeclared war in Vietnam.	34:01
	Many thousands of American college students	34:06
	have been petitioning their government	34:08
	in a wide variety of urgent ways to end the killing.	34:11
	They have pointed out how many years	34:17
	we have spent in destroying that land.	34:19
	and in dissipating the wealth of our own land.	34:23
	How many hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children,	34:28
	we officially acknowledged having killed over there?	34:32
	How many thousands of our own young men	34:37
	will never come back?	34:40
	They have pointed out	34:42
	how the customary civilized distinctions of warfare	34:43
	have been erased in this one.	34:47
	To the extent that now our nation cannot decide	34:50
	if the Mỹ Lai massacre was an atrocity or a thing of valor.	34:54
	Or whether the man who ordered it was a criminal or a hero.	35:01
	They appointed to the facts,	35:06
	which tend to show that communism is stronger today	35:08
	in Southeast Asia,	35:13
	than it was when we first became involved	35:15
	in the way we have been involved.	35:18
	These college students	35:22
	are putting pressure on Mister Nixon to stop the killing.	35:24
	Mister Nixon who has many heavy burdens to bear	35:32
	is well aware of this pressure.	35:37
	He realizes that for some time,	35:40
	there has been a struggle between himself	35:42
	and the students over this matter.	35:45
	Mister Nixon would like to wind down the war in such a way,	35:50
	and it's such a time as not to lose face.	35:54
	But he would like at the same time	35:59
	to keep up his political popularity	36:00
	as the 1972 elections approach.	36:04
	I find myself in all this questioning.	36:09
	If Mister Nixon's struggle is primarily a contest	36:14
	between himself and the college generation.	36:19
	I wonder instead if in the heart of Richard Milhous Nixon,	36:23
	it is not basically a struggle	36:28
	between himself and the God of his Quaker ancestors.	36:31
	I wonder.	36:36
	Next, let us glance at another struggle in our land.	36:41
	There's a running contest between various groups	36:46
	which are committed either openly or behind some facade	36:49
	to a preservation of white supremacy.	36:54
	On the one hand and various other groups,	36:57
	working for racial equality and brotherhood.	37:00
	The arena of this contest is sometimes the courts,	37:06
	sometimes the election booth, sometimes the lecture hall,	37:09
	sometimes the church.	37:14
	These racial supremacy groups are inclined	37:17
	to look upon certain lawyers, Supreme Court judges,	37:20
	preachers, editors, as their adversaries.	37:25
	Indeed in a superficial human sense, they may be,	37:31
	but in a more profound sense,	37:36
	I wonder if the real adversary of the racist groups	37:39
	is not the God whose word declares	37:44
	that he has made of one blood all nations of men.	37:46
	Prominent Layman told me after Martin Luther King's funeral,	37:52
	that he had done a lot to oppose king during his lifetime.	37:55
	And that he had at times held strong feelings against him.	38:01
	But he said,	38:06
	"I have developed a growing feeling, that in opposing king,	38:09
	I was really fighting against my God."	38:16
	I will mention one other area of struggle.	38:22
	On various campuses,	38:26
	there are some students	38:27
	who wish to have certain policies eliminated,	38:29
	certain standards removed	38:32
	which support Christian sexual behavior.	38:35
	They struggle against deans and faculty members	38:40
	who seek to maintain Christian policies	38:42
	and ethical norms of sexual practice.	38:45
	This struggle goes on at a variety of levels,	38:49
	in the student press,	38:53
	in negotiations between students and college authorities,	38:55
	and in such groups as our own coco loco.	39:00
	I wonder if the students	39:05
	who seek to bring about the removal of these policies	39:07
	and these standards,	39:11
	and who desired to usher in	39:13
	an era of unbridled sexual activity	39:14
	are not more basically fighting against God	39:19
	then against the deans.	39:25
	Now, most deans that I know would be as surprised	39:29
	as the students to hear that they represent God.	39:31
	But that does not change the possibility	39:36
	that for the students subjectively,	39:38
	his struggle against a dean	39:42
	who is seeking to call him the ethical living	39:44
	would effectively be a form of wrestling	39:47
	against the God of his own conscience.	39:52
	Well, it's worth noting just at this point,	39:57
	that practically all of us, myself included,	39:59
	would very much prefer seeing our struggles	40:02
	with our fellow humans as being just that and nothing more.	40:05
	The thought that we are fighting against God	40:11
	is an awesome thought.	40:13
	As a kid growing up in Texas,	40:17
	I read of a young man who went into court for the first time	40:19
	when he was being tried on a charge of cattle rustling.	40:22
	When his case was called, he heard the clerk say loudly,	40:26
	"The State of Texas versus Willie Jones."	40:30
	Willie Jones cried out, "My soul, what an awful majority."	40:35
	What of Willie Jones thought it was an awesome thing	40:41
	to fight against the State of Texas,	40:43
	how much more we resist the thought	40:46
	of bucking the governor of the universe.	40:49
	Yet that is precisely one of the truths	40:53
	embedded in the account of "Jacob at Jabbok."	40:59
	Not only are we made anxious by the thought of God's power,	41:05
	but we are made even more uncomfortable	41:10
	by the thought of God's righteousness.	41:12
	A student in a struggle with a dean	41:16
	can comfort himself by the thought that deans are imperfect,	41:19
	but you see, God is not.	41:24
	A white racist can comfort himself	41:30
	by thinking that the civil rights lawyer	41:32
	probably got drunk last week and beat up his wife.	41:34
	But the God against whom he really is struggling,	41:40
	didn't do anything wrong last week.	41:43
	When college students sting Mister Nixon's conscience	41:47
	about the war,	41:51
	he can console himself by saying,	41:52
	"Who are they to be telling me what's right?	41:54
	Why I'm informed some of them smoke pot	41:56
	and don't go to class like they should."	41:58
	But can Mister Nixon find flaws in Jesus Christ?	42:03
	The prince of peace?	42:07
	Yes?	42:12
	All of us resist the thought	42:13
	that our God confronts us through our struggles	42:16
	with our fellow man.	42:18
	It makes us very uneasy,	42:21
	but this is clearly the teaching	42:23
	of the Judeo Christian scriptures in general,	42:24
	and of the Jacob beck episode in particular.	42:28
	Well, there remains one troublesome assumption	42:32
	which underlies the entire narrative	42:35
	that we've been dealing with.	42:39
	And we'd better bring it out into the open	42:41
	before coming to the final point.	42:43
	It is the assumption that God in this Jacob drama	42:46
	is playing the role of adversary.	42:53
	We prefer to think of the Almighty	43:00
	as an indulgent and permissive great grandfather	43:02
	who provides all sorts of goodies for us,	43:05
	then goes to bed early and doesn't know or care	43:08
	what we do while he's asleep.	43:11
	We would like to think	43:15
	that if we want to napalm the natives of Vietnam,	43:16
	God will be too nearsighted to see it.	43:19
	Or at least when I'd want to run the risk	43:23
	of alienating our affection toward him	43:25
	by passing judgment upon us.	43:27
	We're more comfortable thinking	43:31
	that God will wink at our racism,	43:33
	then that we will have to face him as adversary	43:36
	if we are unfair to minorities.	43:40
	There are some people who have hypnotized themselves	43:44
	into thinking that God will chuckle them under the chin	43:47
	while they're engaged in the act of adultery,	43:50
	because he's devised for them a kind of freedom	43:53
	which the scriptures know nothing about.	43:55
	But Walter Russell Bowie has pointed out	44:01
	that during the night of wrestling,	44:04
	God was enough of an adversary	44:06
	to throw Jacob's hip out of joint.	44:10
	And that if we are wise,	44:14
	we will take seriously the judgments of God,	44:15
	which are true and righteous all together.	44:19
	However, if the thought of God being our adversary	44:25
	makes us uncomfortable as it ought to make us,	44:30
	we will all be happy and relieved to know	44:33
	that there is a way by which we can change that situation.	44:37
	Jacob found that way and so can we.	44:42
	When the night of struggle was ended,	44:47
	light broke over Jacob.	44:50
	He realized he was wrestling against God.	44:53
	He then had the good judgment	44:56
	to cease struggling against God	44:58
	and prayed not for protection against Esau as before,	45:02
	the selfish prayer,	45:09
	but he prayed that God would give him	45:11
	one of God's blessings.	45:14
	So when God asked him to acknowledge his true identity,	45:19
	he readily confessed that he was a supplanter, Jacob.	45:22
	Then God gave him a new name, Israel,	45:28
	and set him on the road to being a new person.	45:33
	God ceased then to be his adversary and became his enabler,	45:39
	his helper, his father.	45:46
	This can happen for you	45:52
	just as it did for the man called, Jacob.	45:55
	Let us pray.	46:01
	Oh God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.	46:03
	Father of our Lord Jesus.	46:07
	Granted in all our struggles with Thee,	46:10
	we may have the grace to yield to Thy will	46:12
	and always to seek Thy blessing,	46:16
	for Christ's sake and for our own sake.	46:19
	Amen.	46:24
	(organ playing light music)	46:30
	(choir singing in unison)	47:15
	(organ playing light music)
	(choir singing in unison)	50:17
	(organ playing light music)	56:03
	(choir singing in unison)	56:29
	(organ playing light music)
-	Almighty and redeeming God,	57:18
	accept and use these are gifts	57:21
	for the ministries of your church in the world, we ask.	57:24
	Receive with our resources, the offering of our whole being,	57:28
	which we give to the one who gave his life to us	57:33
	and to the many who need the healing touch of his life	57:37
	once again who made incarnate.	57:41
	Let us go forth now to be Christ,	57:49
	to our neighbor and the world.	57:51
	And you go forth with peace,	57:53
	and the deep restlessness of God.	57:56
	With courage for all the struggles that will lie ahead.	57:59
	And with joy to fill the cup of all your celebrations.	58:04
	And may the love, the grace, and the presence of God,	58:09
	the Father, the Son,	58:13
	and the Holy Spirit be with you all.	58:14
	(choir singing in unison)	58:24
	(bell dinging)	59:35
	(man speaking indistinctly)

Item Info

Title:

Howard C. Wilkinson - "Jacob's Wrestling Adversary" (April 18, 1971)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4dv1hp8t

Date:

April 18, 1971

Speaker:

Wilkinson, Howard C.

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0569
ref6341_rxf
uachapelsermaud
duke:628268
dcrau002556
ark:/87924/r4dv1hp8t
96ab4803-2d8e-402d-b4e6-2f860fc5246f

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

Related Resources:

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Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

Format:

Provenance:

The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

Educational Use Permitted

Rights Note:

This material is made available for educational and non-commercial use. This recording may contain 3rd party materials, such as music or readings that are therefore not covered by the license indicated here. Copyright in this material has not been transferred to Duke University. For other reuses of this material beyond those permitted by fair use or otherwise allowed under the Copyright Act, please see our page on copyright and citations https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/research/citations-and-permissions.

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Howard C. Wilkinson - "Jacob's Wrestling Adversary" (April 18, 1971)

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1. Howard C. Wilkinson - "Jacob's Wrestling Adversary" (April 18, 1971)

Duke University Archives

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Howard C. Wilkinson - "Jacob's Wrestling Adversary" (April 18, 1971)

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Duke University Archives

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