Bible Text: Exodus 32:22-32 | Preacher: Pastor Dorry Newcomer | Series: Genesis | Back in early January, before most of us had even heard of coronavirus, Lima Church began studying the book of Genesis.  I said on that first Sunday of the new year that 2020 is the year everything comes into focus, and that maybe by looking at these ancient stories, we could gain some perspective on what God most wants for the church today.  I was especially excited to preach a series on the book of Genesis because it contains two of my all-time favorite Bible stories.  My first favorite comes from Genesis chapter 2, when God created Adam and realized it is not good for man to be alone, so God created a helper for him.  The Hebrew word we translate as helper is ‘ezer, which means savior.  This has long been a favorite passage for me because it teaches us God never meant for men to have power over women.  In fact, God created women to save men!

But that story is a favorite for a new reason these days, as I learn about social distancing—a term I never heard before this week.  We were created to be partners, helpers, companions—in some sense, saviors for each other.  Relationships with other people can be a source of stress—but they are also what makes life really enjoyable.  And they are what makes life even possible!  None of us is self-sufficient.  We know we need each other.  What a strange irony to think about how, for the next couple weeks at least, what we most need from each other is to keep our distance from one another!

Which brings me to my second favorite story in Genesis, and that is the story of Jacob wrestling all night.  There is no social distancing in wrestling.  It is about a close as you can get to another person!  Of course, Jacob wasn’t wrestling another person.  He was wrestling God.  This is not the first time Jacob has spent the night all alone and encountered God.  Last week we read about Jacob having his stairway to heaven dream.  He was on the run, after having stolen his brother Esau’s blessing from their father Isaac.  It was on the darkest, loneliness night of Jacob’s life that God appeared to him in a dream and said, Jacob, it’s going to be okay. I will not leave you.  I will not give up on you.  This is good news for any of us who are feeling lonely, isolated, and afraid these days.  God is with us and will not leave us!

God also told Jacob that his life was going to have a happy ending.  He assured him that God would do the good things in him and through him that God promised in his covenant with Jacob’s grandfather Abraham.  But before God could do all those things, God and Jacob were going to have to take it to the mat.  Somethings were going to have to be hammered out.  Jacob was going to spend the night wrestling.

When, many years ago, I first read the story of Jacob’s wrestling match, I thought, that’s me!  I feel like am in a wrestling match with life all the time!  I wrestle with my feelings, I wrestle with making decisions, I wrestle with trying to understand myself.  I think it’s interesting that Jacob didn’t realize who he was wrestling with until the very end.  He probably assumed he was wrestling with someone his brother Esau sent to attack him.  But as we have talked about during Lent, our real enemy is always the enemy within.  Jacob wasn’t wrestling with another person who wanted to hurt him.  He was wrestling with the God who wanted to refine him.  He was wrestling to discover and set free his truest self.

This week, I feel like we have become a nation of wrestlers.  We are wrestling with the truth that the once far away corona virus is in our communities, and in response, we are watching the news and checking social media like never before.  We are wrestling with our fears over what might happen next, and in response, we are buying up toilet paper and meat and bleach.  We are wrestling with decisions about what is prudent and wise versus what is over-reacting, and in response we are seeing people Fight, Flight and Freeze.  Some of us have felt paralyzed, others are partying like it’s 1999, and others are waiting in long lines to get tested for COVID-19.  We have become a nation of wrestlers.

Which is interesting, because when Jacob wrestled with God, he got a new name, the name that would go on to become a whole nation:  Israel.  This is the nation, the family line, that would eventually produce Jesus.  The New Testament calls the followers of Jesus the “new Israel”.  It’s not only Americans who are a nation of wrestlers.  All Christians around the world are to be a holy nation of wrestlers.  And what we know about wrestling is, it is very tiring—but it can also be very rewarding.  Wrestling with God gave Jacob the opportunity to display his strengths. It gave him the opportunity to test his endurance.  It gave him the opportunity to experience humility.  And it gave him a new name.

It might surprise you to hear that those same gifts can be ours.  No doubt we will emerge from this crisis exhausted.  But what we might not realize yet is, we can emerge from this crisis rewarded.  We can spend all our energy, only to regress and emerge with names like Selfish and Greedy and Scared.  Or we can spend the same amount of energy in a different direction, and emerge from this crisis with names like Responsible and Generous and Neighborly.  This is the first time I’ve ever video recorded a sermon and posted it on the internet.  I’m having my own little personal technology crisis!  But here I am, doing things I never did before.  And I’ll bet, so are you.  We can emerge from this experience with the vision and freedom to claim a confident new identity.

I realized today, both of my favorite stories in Genesis are about identity.  And our identities almost always require struggle in order to claim.  At some point in the night, Jacob realized he was not wrestling an enemy who was trying to destroy him.  He was wrestling for a blessing from the God who created him.  Jacob would not stop wrestling until God blessed him, until God gave him the sacred gifts he knew this encounter could yield.  Jacob was not made perfect, but he got a new name, a new calling, a new mission.  Our faith encourages us that God can use this corona virus wrestling situation to give us similar blessings.

Friends, it is not good for us to be alone.  We were created to be partners, helpers, companions—in some sense, saviors for each other.  And that’s why it is so hard to not be together in worship.  But if we look past that, we are seeing examples of people being ‘ezer for each other all around us.  Researchers and scientists, working around the clock to understand this virus and develop preventatives and therapies.  First responders and health care workers, risking their well-being to care for others.  Business owners and employees, sacrificing income to slow the spread.  Students missing out on activities and celebrations they worked hard for, to try to protect someone else.  Parents staying home, taking on the herculean task of keeping their kids occupied and calm, for at least two weeks!  If you ask me, we are a nation of ‘ezers.  Even if some of us get ill, by doing all the good we can in the midst of this crisis, we are a life-saving people.  COVID-19 is not God’s will for anyone.  But seeing us become more compassionate, caring, creative, and connected to the other members of our human family?  We are wrestling for a blessing, the blessing of making God’s dreams come true for God’s people.

And so I’m going to stand by what I said in early January:  this is the year 2020, the year everything comes into focus.  The COVID-19 pandemic is a cruel reality, and I know we are all praying for it to end quickly.  But it is also, in its own way, a blessing, because it can help us see what kind of people we really want to be.  We might forever walk with a limp. But this struggle can move us forward, setting us free to become our truest and best selves.  May it be so.  In the name of Jesus, Amen.