In the beginning, there was nothing. And God spoke worlds into existence. By words, God spoke worlds into existence. According to the biblical account, God spoke, and there was.

Maybe you think that’s too magical, or not the way real life works.

But I know better. I know that when parents speak constant words of criticism, children grow up thinking they will never measure up. And when parents speak words of encouragement and support, children grow up believing in their ability.

I know that when presidential candidates speak a word of hope and optimism, then people vote for them, believing that the world they describe is actually possible. And when politicians speak words about fearing those who are different, people actually live in and act from fear.

I know that when I speak words of encouragement and support to the people I work with, they take those words into their work and do excellent things.

I know that when churches constantly talk about how small and insignificant they are, they will act in ways that are small and insignificant. And when churches are told that they are changing the world for the sake of God’s purposes in the world, they find a miraculous boldness of action.

So, I don’t believe it’s a stretch of the imagination to believe that we call worlds into being by the words and speech that we use.

I decry the violence of the world. I decry that children are killed through senseless gun violence. I decry that our culture has become so fearful of the other that we think that guns have a place in providing safety.

So, I want to call into being a different world. I want to call into being a world that eschews violence.  I want to call into being a world that is based on cooperation and dialogue and love and peace. You may think that’s pie in the sky and has no connection with reality. But I don’t believe that.

And because I want a different world and because I want to call into being a different world, I have decided there is a whole set of words that I will no longer use. I will no longer say that I am “blown away” by something that is full of wonder. I don’t want my wonder to be associated with language of violence and death.

I will no longer “pull the trigger” when I am ready to move on something. When I move forward on a great opportunity, I don’t want it to be associated with killing something; I want it to be associated with bringing life.

I will no longer seek to reach a “target audience” but will talk about the group of people I’m trying to reach.

I will not longer talk about “dodging a bullet”, but of avoiding a close brush with danger.

I will not talk about people who “go ballistic” or “go postal.”  Or about things that get “shot to hell” or about “going off half-cocked” or about the realism of “no magic bullet.” I won’t talk about risky situations that are “filled with land mines” or about “shooting the messenger.”

If I think about this, there is an entire world of  language that I use that is the language of violence. With a little discipline and attentiveness, I am embarking on a crusade to remove that language from my usage.

This may seem like a small thing, but I don’t think so. I think there is power in the way we use words. The numbing of our collective psyche to violence is betrayed by the way violent language has become ubiquitous in our usage, and we don’t even notice it. In my circles, there’s been a movement to dismantle the traditional church Sunday School in favor of a very different approach. I suspect there’s some merit in the idea. But I was caught off guard when the movement was given the name, “Kill Sunday School.” There’s something drastically wrong when even in the church the best we can come up with is the language of violence to promote what otherwise might be a good idea.

So, I invite you to join me. Purge the language of violence and guns and bullets and targets from the way you speak and write. Who knows, we just might call another world into being with our words.

I’m guessing it was probably a Tuesday night. In January. That’s when we had basketball games — Tuesdays and Fridays. I don’t think it was a Friday because I was in a hurry to get home. It was a Tuesday. I still had homework. I was a junior in high school, on the varsity basketball team. Don’t be impressed. We only had 49 students in my graduating class and I wasn’t a starter. I usually got to play a little when one of the starters needed a breather or was in foul trouble. I honestly don’t remember a single thing about the game. I only remember that it was cold outside, really cold. The streets outside our high school were snow-packed, and I was anxious to get home. I didn’t have my own car; when I drove, I drove my dad’s car, a rear engine, rear drive Renault. Four door, 1100 cc engine, and a four speed stick shift.

I had parked on the street directly in front of the high school. Must have gotten there early. That was prime parking space. To get home, I proceeded along the street in front of the high school for about a block and then had to make a left turn down a side street towards Main, which would be my most direct route home.

So, I made that left turn. I don’t remember that I was going too fast, though I could have been. The car began to go in a direction that I didn’t want it to, and I couldn’t change it. I was skidding towards a parked car; I put on the brakes and I kept sliding.  I was going slow enough that when I hit the rear passenger door on the driver’s side of the parked car, it wasn’t a huge deal. I broke the turn signal on my car and put a dent in the 4-door Chevy Nova that was parked in my path.

Much worse is that the car belonged to Eddie Stafford. And that there were people around who saw that I had skidded around the corner and put a dent in Eddie Stafford’s car.

I was a junior. Eddie Stafford was a senior. I was a bench warmer on the basketball team. Eddie Stafford was the starting center, the star of the team, almost every game the high scorer and the high rebounder on our team. If we won games, it was usually because Eddie Stafford had a good game. He was not tall and lanky. He was solid. Like the Statue of Liberty. Rock solid. He was the center on the football team. He was a state qualifier in the discus. And he had a reputation that you didn’t cross him. He would make you pay for it.

So, now what do I do? I wanted so bad to just back up and keep moving. Go home as if it never happened. The thing is, I knew that others had seen me ding his car. And I figured that he would see the dent, and it would be only a matter of time before he would come looking for me asking about the dent in his car. If there was a high school mafia, Eddie Stafford was The Godfather.

Maybe I could drive. Just drive and keep driving. Never come back. Call my parents from someplace in Montana and tell them I had joined the circus. Or something.

I parked my car and headed back into school to look for Eddie Stafford, hoping somehow that I would not find him and that at least the word would get out that I had been looking for him. I was scared. Barely able to control bodily functions. Walked through the entry hallway still populated by stragglers from the game. Headed toward the locker room, and there he was. Hanging out by the doorway to the gym, smiling, doing the chit-chat thing with fans congratulating him for a good game.

Because I didn’t know how to do this, I did it the only way I could think of.  Walked up to him and said, “Hey, Eddie, something I need to talk to you about.”

“Ok. Shoot,” he said, turning his focus from the small talk around him.

“You know your car?” I said. “Parked right across the street from school?  That’s yours, right? Greenish Nova?”

“Yeah, that’s mine. What about it?”

“Well. I kinda bumped into it. I was going around the corner and slid. I almost stopped. But I hit the back door on the driver’s side. Put a little dent in the door.  I’m sorry.”

I was happy there were people around. I mean, how hard could he hit me with all these people around?

“On the door? Don’t worry about it. There were probably three dents there already. See you tomorrow.” He turned back to his adoring fans. I walked down the hallway, out the door and drove home.

And to think that I almost drove to Montana for that.

Lahiri Jhumpa’s novel, The Lowland, is a brilliant work of masterful storytelling.

The story finds its impetus in the political turmoil of India in the 1960’s, but it’s not a political novel. The story is underpinned by the structures of Indian society and culture, but it’s not a novel about India. The story goes back and forth between India and the U.S., but it’s not a novel about the immigrant experience.

The novel opens with two brothers in their childhood. Not only are they brothers, they are best friends playing and going to school in a middle class neighborhood on the wrong side of Calcutta. Udayan is the younger brother, impetuous and daring, Subhash, the older, more cautious brother. After the first few years of college, their paths diverge; Udayan becomes involved in Maoist revolutionary underground activities: Subhash goes to the US to complete his graduate work.

The decisions and consequences that each of the brothers makes early in the story reverberate throughout the story, and as it turns out, throughout Subhash’s life and the life of the next generation.

At it’s heart, it’s a story about the consequences of our decisions and the impact they have on those around us. We make decisions, sometimes in the mistaken belief that they are our decisions and that they will have, at worst, minimal impact on those around us. But they often — no usually — reverberate in places and ways that we could never have imagined, in ways both good and bad. Like it or not, we leave legacies for the people around us, and we are the recipients of the legacies of others. We often have no control over the decisions made by those we love, but we end up having to bear the consequences of their decisions. Some of us become completely immobilized by the forces over which we have no control. Others of us manage to forge a life anyway, even in the midst of the pain and tragedy that constitute the chapters of our own lives.

I. While some critics have called the novel over-reaching and that it fails to deliver on the promise of the epic story laid out in the early chapters. I don’t agree. There’s a reason why it was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize. Lahiri writes in a sparse style, yet somehow manages to be elegant within her economy of words. The tale is masterfully constructed and beautifully told; I found it to be honest, yet hopeful. It’s one of the best novels I’ve read in the past year.

If there’s anyone out there who has one more space in their brain for a post-Christmas Christmas reflection (after all it is still Christmas according to the Christian calendar — the 9th day of Christmas, if I’m counting correctly), I offer the following.  Can we put the War on Christmas to bed?  And never, ever bring back it back?

For one thing, as far as I know, no one declared a War on Christmas. What’s funny and irritating to me is that the language about a perceived War on Christmas comes from those who supposedly are speaking on behalf of Christianity. They apparently perceive an intentional movement to purge any religious connections from the larger cultural observance of Christmas. I view it as an evolving cultural shift that has less to do with trying to smack down Christianity and more to do with an increasingly diverse and globally influenced culture.  I haven’t seen any evidence of a large concerted and diabolical effort to sanitize the celebration. It has seemed more like an awareness that not everyone accepts the religious aspects of Christmas and for it not to be forced on those who hold different beliefs.

Here’s a tiny aside (rant): brothers and sisters who claim to speak for Christianity, can we just let go of the militaristic imagery? Why does every conflict or tension or disagreement have to take on the language of war. For almost my entire life, the U.S. has been in a state of perpetual war. We seem to have gotten comfortable with it. We now use militaristic language for anything we struggle against: the war on drugs, the war on cancer, the war on poverty (which in my mind has turned into a war on the poor). Frankly, I just think it’s the wrong language and the wrong imagery. Words matter. They form our thoughts and actions.

But that’s not the point I want to make. If you’re worried that the removal of manger scenes from public places and the greeting “Happy Holidays” replacing the supposedly more religious greeting, “Merry Christmas,” are going to ruin Christmas, then I think you’re barking up the wrong tree. Those things aren’t central to the celebration on Christmas in the church. Even though I am a committed Christian, I don’t consider it appropriate that government buildings and spaces display religious scenes, especially as our society becomes religiously more diverse. I don’t see the removal of religious imagery from public places as a threat. If there is a separation of church and state, it seems to me that it applies here.

If we (the church) want to spread the meaning of the season — the profound truth that God has come to make dwelling with us in the Baby of Bethlehem — then we’re not helping ourselves by wagging our fingers at the larger society and insisting that they believe like us or make room for religious references they don’t believe in. Nothing about that approach is consistent with the core of what we believe.

Besides, there’s a far greater threat to the meaning of Christmas that comes just as much from inside the church as from the larger culture. The far more insidious disintegrator of Christmas is the rampant consumerism that has grown up around the festival. The voices that are angry at the loss of “Merry Christmas” as a seasonal greeting seem to have no problem with how the holy season preceding the holy day has become a spending bacchanalia.

Don’t get me wrong. Consumerism isn’t a seasonal malady. It’s not just at Christmas that we spend money we don’t have for things we don’t need. We do that all year long. But the cultural expectation has become so great at this time of the year, that few people stop to give it a thought. What are we doing buying all this stuff?

I am complicit. I have my own issues. A few years ago, I preached a sermon revealing that I had something like 35 dress shirts in my closet. No one needs 35 dress shirts. I love the outdoors. When I’m not thinking about it, buying outdoor things seems to scratch some itch about being an outdoors person. Sierra Trading Post is my crack.

There is a restless yearning. There is a grasping for that one thing (or many things) that well satiate our thirst. That seems to be the fate of broken humanity. Being a person of faith doesn’t insulate from the yearning. But the biblical faith points us to God as the object of that yearning. And the Christian faith tells us that contentment is to be found in knowing God in Christ. Instead, we mostly join with the larger culture in seeking our satisfaction in buying things, even if we can justify it by saying that we’re buying things for others.

Rather, I think we should take a different approach. Feed the poor. Shelter the homeless. Work for peace. Show a little respect and empathy for those who have honest convictions different than ours and try to understand their point of view. When asked, tell what Christmas means in our own lives. And demonstrate by our buying habits that we have a greater love for God and for God’s world than for the things that can be bought at the mall.

He was an Episcopalian priest. But to leave it at that is a little like saying a Lamborghini is a car.

I struggle to find the right word to describe Fred. Not raconteur. Not provocateur. Not curmudgeon. He was a critic, but a lover. He had a cynical streak, but deeply loved people. He was one of the most incisive critics of the church and yet deeply loved the church.

Above all, Fred loved conversation. He was a philosopher at heart that wore the garb of a priest and theologian. He was an Okie by birth, a Sooner by education and an undergrad philosophy major, I think. Not much strong church connection as a youth. But somehow he found his way to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church and spent most of his ministry at a parish just north of New York City. I didn’t know him there, but I do know that the Okie in the tony suburbs of New York was not to be ignored.

He was a politician in the best sense of the word. While serving as rector of an Episcopalian parish in a heavily Republican district, he was also deeply interested in politics and ran for Congress several times as a Democrat. He told me the story of how he got involved in Democratic precinct politics, payed his dues, and was finally given the go ahead to run for Congress. He never had any pretensions that he would win, but he counted it as a victory when he did better than anyone expected and even made the Republican incumbent sweat a couple of times. He was bound and determined that the word get out about how we have the responsibility communally to care for one another — even in a district where it was anathema to speak such nonsense.

That we would have become friends is so unlikely. I was a conservative Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod pastor in my 30’s. Fred was a liberal, retired Episcopalian priest in his 70‘s. I was about as boring as they come. Moved to Florida from Missouri, had a stay at home wife, two small children, and drove an ancient Volvo 245 tank. He was a retired Episcopalian priest, as liberal as anyone I’d ever met, was divorced after 40 years of marriage, remarried, lived in the Naples Tennis Club and drove a royal blue Corvette.

So, just how did it happen? He had started a weekly bible study for clergy. I was not part of the original invitation. One of my Lutheran pastoral colleagues was a part of the original group.  Steve was ELCA, and I was still in the much more conservative Missouri Synod denomination. Steve mentioned to Fred that he thought I might be interested in this group, a weekly discussion and study group that valued serious theological discussion. Fred called and asked if I wanted to join. I can hardly imagine the consternation of whether he really wanted to invite an LCMS pastor to join the group!

I did become part of the group, and it stretched me unbelievably. Fred articulated theological positions that I had only known by caricature. And the more I got to know him, the more my mind became open to the possibility that I didn’t have all the answers.

The thing about Fred was that he was always thinking critically. Not in a mean or demeaning way, but in a way that wanted us always to peel away the layers to get closer to the truth. I’d talk about my position and he’d push back. He’d lay out his position and challenge me to offer critique. He was just never, ever satisfied with easy answers or with the status quo. He always believed that more dialogue, more critical thought could get us closer to the truth.

Strangely enough, we didn’t maintain very close contact after I moved away. I’m not good at maintaining long distance friendships, and apparently Fred wasn’t either. Shortly before I moved away, his second wife, whom I had known, died of brain cancer. Fred had the good fortune to fall in love again and asked me to come down and officiate at his wedding. I visited Naples a couple of times after that. When I visited, Fred was the only person I really wanted to see. And though we didn’t stay in very close contact by phone or email, when I visited it was like we were picking up where we had left off yesterday.

About 8 years ago, he was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver. It wasn’t due to the overuse of alcohol, but a genetic condition, as I understood it. (But have no illusions; he was an Episcopalian priest; happy hour was a sacrament.) He gave up alcohol. Then a few years later he was diagnosed with cancer. The treatments for his cancer were limited because of his compromised liver. In the end, the cancer went into remission and the cirrhosis got him.

Fred was a friend. A true friend. A deep friend. It’s my experience that the pastoral vocation is a lonely one. We are around people all the time, but cultivate few deep friendships. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of those friendships I’ve had, and I wouldn’t need my thumb or all of the fingers. Fred was a friend. A true friend. A deep friend. And my heart grieves for the loss.

One morning last week while I was exercising, I decided to listen to a podcast program of On Being, the weekly radio program on spirituality hosted by Krista Tippet. The one that popped up at the top of the list had the word “abortion” in the title. I was in no mood to listen to anything that had anything to do with that endless debate. I have heard enough shouting from both sides of the abortion issue to last for several lifetimes. So, I pressed the title of another program and waited for it to come on.

It came on, all right. But something went wrong (Ok, I did something wrong!) By the time I figured out that precisely the program I didn’t want to listen to was playing, I had already I gotten on the elliptical machine, worked through all the menu choices, and started my workout. I didn’t want to start all of that over, so with a big sigh, I just decided to listen to it. Am I glad I did. One of the best I’ve ever heard.

The program was part of Tippet’s Civil Conversations Project, a series of public discussions offering ideas and tools for healing our fractured civic spaces. In this particular program, she invited two persons, one from each side of the abortion issue and they simply sat on stage and had conversation.  On the pro-life side was David P. Gushee, the Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics and Director of the Center for Theology and Public Life at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. On the pro-choice side was Frances Kissling, a Roman Catholic religious and president of the Center for Health and Social Policy. She was President of Catholics for Choice from 1982 until 2007. I highly recommend listening to the program. You can access it at http://www.onbeing.org/program/pro-life-pro-choice-pro-dialogue/4863

It was fascinating to listen to the conversation unfold. Both participants had come to the place of realizing the futility of trying to change someone’s mind. So, they entered into this conversation and into other kinds of hard conversations having given up the need to be right. Sr. Kissling at one point talked about how she used to believe that certitude was a virtue. Now she believes that doubt is the virtue. She didn’t say it, but the implication is that the sense of absolute certitude is the vice, the sin, the evil. Here’s what really captured my imagination. Near the end of the conversation Tippet asked her, “If you have given up the need to change someone’s mind about an issue that you care so deeply about, then why do you enter into these hard conversations?” She said that she enters these hard conversations for the possibility of being changed herself.

So, to create the space for doubt is to create the space for learning and growth. To enter into a hard conversation with someone different that me is to create the space for learning and growth. To enter into a conversation from the place of absolute certitude is to be dead to the possibility of growing.

I happened to be listening to this program in the last few days of the partial government shutdown. I thought of so many of our politicians who have staked their claim and they are right.

I think that dogmatism and ideology are anathema to real conversation and the possibility of real growth.  I wish there was space for conversation and for the possibility of learning and growing!

As a culture, we have stacked the deck against real conversation and being open to growth.  We are taught to take a position and stand there come hell or high water. How many presidential candidates have had their hopes dashed because they changed their mind on some issue? We are taught that there are winners and losers, and you’d better not be a loser. We are taught to affiliate only with people with whom we agree.

I don’t think these are the values of the kingdom. I think the values of the kingdom invite us to listen, to relate, and to create the space for learning and growth. So, if that isn’t happening in the culture, where can it happen?

I’m hoping the church can be a place for that? Can we create space for conversation about meaningful things and talk about those things even when we disagree?

I’m challenging each of you to find someone and have that conversation. Find a friend, a neighbor, an acquaintance and an issue you disagree about. Invite them into a conversation. The invitation might go something like this: You know, Bob, we disagree about _______________. But I’d like to have a conversation about that. Here are the ground rules: I won’t try to change your mind and you won’t try to change mine. I just want to understand your point of view and how you got there and why you believe it so strongly. And I hope you will do the same for me.  See how it goes. I bet if all of us could practice such conversations, the world just might be a better place.

I’m going to try it myself. I’ll let you know how it goes.

I had the amazing honor of preaching today at the Chapel of the Resurrection at Valparaiso University.  I got to help kick off year two of The Walter Wangerin, Jr. Celebration Preaching Series, a preaching series to honor Walt’s ministry and legacy of preaching. Thanks to the entire chapel staff, but especially Brian Johnson, Lorraine Brugh, Char Cox, and Jim Wetzstein for the invitation and the gracious hospitality. I preached on both the First Lesson and the Gospel, Genesis 32 and Luke 18 respectively. Here is the text of the sermon I preached. It just so happened to be Family Weekend at Valpo, so there were lots of parents in the room.

Our 25 year old son has been living at home the past 6 months while on an unpaid internship in Chicago. I do not say this to frighten you parents. I do not say this to frighten you students. It’s good. He will only be here until December when he returns to school in North Carolina. Apparently, Tim has begun the task of organizing his stuff in preparation for leaving. Earlier this week, he came down to the kitchen with a couple of items in his hand and asked, “Anyone want any of these? If not, I’m going to throw them away.”  One of them was this little tube of an over the counter medication called Mederma.  “What’s that for?” I ask. “It’s a cream that removes scars.” “Sure, I’ll take that,” I said, thinking you can never have too much scar remover.

Later I grabbed the tube to take upstairs to the bathroom to store away in the medicine cabinet, and only then did it strike me as a little odd. Really? You can remove scars? Who knew? But really, does it work?  Do the marks of our struggles ever really go away?  I’m getting ahead of myself.

Jacob and a wrestling match. It’s not like this guy had never been in a fight before. In fact, as he was born, he was grabbing the heel of his twin brother. He and Esau must have been a  handful for their mother; Esau the burlier, stronger one would grow up to be a man’s man; Jacob was the smaller, scrappier, smart like a fox little brother. After the boys had become young men, the sibling rivalry got ugly when Jacob stole the inheritance out from under Esau with a cunning plan to trick old Isaac. Jacob fled for his life to live with his mother’s brother, Uncle Laban.

Laban was a schemer in his own right, tricking Jacob into marrying the older daughter before he could take the one he loved. But Jacob showed him a thing or two. For years, Jacob bred Laban’s flocks in such a way that he, Jacob, grew quite wealthy at his father-in-law’s expense. Now, after 22 years, two wives, a horde of servants and livestock, Jacob leaves to go back home.

But what will he find? Despite the old cliche that time heals all wounds, Jacob is not so sure. As he approaches home, he is worried, nervous, anxious, and downright afraid Has Esau has held the grudge for all these years? He gets word that his brother is coming out to meet him — with an army of 400. So, the scrappy, smart like a fox little brother divides his party into two groups to minimize the potential losses. Then he sends a gift of livestock ahead to meet his brother, even dividing the gift into several groups with time and space between them.

But you can only delay so long. He sends the entire entourage over the River Jabbok for the reunion.  But Jacob himself stays on the far side, one more night, all by himself. I’d love to know why. Wants to rehearse the speech where he asks his bro for mercy? He’s still afraid? An act of cowardice that will give him one last chance to escape if things get ugly?  We’ll never know.

What we do know is that a mysterious visitor comes to Jacob by night. The scrappy, smart like a fox little brother, now a middle aged man, wrestles all night. This marathon match does not take place in the daylight realm of plain sight, but in the dark. While the identity of Jacob’s fellow combatant is shrouded in mystery, there are enough clues in the text to know that it’s God that Jacob is really struggling with. And wrestling is the right image. For his entire life, Jacob has been conniving and tricking and scheming and winning. But you don’t trick God. You don’t scheme with God. And you don’t hit God with a right hook that knocks God to the mat. The best you can hope for is to wrestle.  And in wrestling with God, Jacob will not let go. He persists; in fact, all night long he grapples and will not let go until God gives a blessing. Whatever else you might want to say Jacob was persistent in the struggle.  But it left a mark. He got up the next morning with a permanent limp. And no amount of Mederma would bring relief.

In the gospel lesson we have another story, a parable, to be precise.  Luke even gives us an introduction so that we know what to look for. It’s about the need to pray and to not lose heart. A judge who was foolish and contemptibly obnoxious. A widow who was relentless. The judge had no regard for God nor respect for people. The widow didn’t care. She was bound and determined to get justice. She would not take “no” for an answer, and so she kept hounding, harassing, and haranguing the judge until he finally gave in. Not because he had even a shred of decency, but because she simply wore him down. One more character on a Sunday morning who is persistent in the struggle. So, Jesus says, will not God — who is not at all like that judge — bring justice, and bring it quickly?

Except, it seems like God doesn’t. While we all have our stories of prayers answered, it just plain doesn’t happen all the time. The great preacher Fleming Rutledge tells the story of a friend who suffered for years from a host of chronic and degenerative maladies. They prayed for her constantly, but to no avail.  Finally, the woman’s husband spoke the unbearable truth. “Every time we pray she gets worse.”

So right here and right now, we hear an ancient story of an ancient conniver who struggled with God. We listen to a story about a woman who struggled to get justice.  And we discover that in the hearing of the story, we have joined the crowd. Our own questions and doubts and struggles come flooding to the surface in the space between these words. Front and center now are the histories of our own struggles with who God is and what God is doing and where God might be in our own moments of anxiety or abandonment. We are wrestling: here on this campus wrestling with the reality of death, of too soon death, of too soon death that touches just a little too close for comfort; here on Parents’ weekend we realize that relationships change, and maybe there is grief for what is gone and uncertainty for what lies ahead; we yearn for clarity about decisions that affect our future; but how do you make decisions when there there seems to be so little to count; we yearn to be in relationship and we discover that they are hard, they end, and they are sometimes stifling; we are angered when we encounter institutions and bureaucracies and systems that care more about the bottom line or ideology than the people they are intended to serve. Yes, we struggle. Yes, we wrestle. And yes, they leave a mark. They always leave a mark.

But the mark of the struggle is never the last word. There was another who wrestled with God. The story was not read this morning, but the story is always at the center when Christians gather for worship. Hunched over a stone in a garden he prayed, “Father let this cup pass from me, but your will, not mine.”  And later, hanging from a cross, he cried out in the anguish of abandonment, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.” The anguish left a mark. On the third day when he rose, he was scarred on his hands and feet and side, and he was fullly alive. He became the exclamation that God will not let struggle and death and despair have the final word. God brings life. There is wrestling, and there is blessing.

When Jacob woke up the next morning he still had to get up and cross that river and walk into the unknown, still uncertain of how his brother would receive him. From that perspective nothing had changed since yesterday. But he changed. Or should we say that he had been changed? In that encounter with God he had been blessed. So he walked into an uncertain future confident of God’s presence and confident that the universe was not some random collection of random events where he was simply a pawn in some cosmic chaos. For Jacob, God’s blessing brought a new name, a new identity, and a new beginning.

When we were baptized, we were blessed, given a new name, a new identity, and a new beginning. We were also given a mark, the sign of the cross on our foreheads, the mark of Jesus’ crucifixion. “You, child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.” You bear on your forehead the scar of the crucified one, and with him, your old self has died, and you have been given fullness of life.

It’s my experience that the wrestling never goes away. Neither do the questions, the doubts, and the staring into a foggy future. It’s also my experience that justice rarely comes quickly enough; in fact to appearances it is not coming at all.

Yet I stand before you this morning to proclaim good news. We are blessed. God has come. We have been made new. We have been graced; we have been mercied. We have been promised what we need to flourish even in the midst of doubts and questions and disappointments and drifting, knowing that we do not struggle alone. And indubitably, just as it happened with Jacob, such struggling and wrestling with God turns out to be transformative. We are changed. Though God is a strong combatant in our struggles, and though we sometimes walk away with a limp, God transforms us with a touch.