Wrestling Anxiety

There is something about human nature, that loves to watch as a scoundrel is trapped and gets away! Do you remember the Brer Rabbit Uncle Remus stories, of this rabbit being stuck to a tarbaby, but Brer Rabbit was able to evade the trap by also sticking Brer Fox and Brer Bear in their own trap? Recall the Bugs Bunny cartoons, where that whiley wabbit was able to escape Elmer Fudd or Daffy Duck, even to stop gravity, so as to evade falling? Captain Jack Sparrow, who was able to turn reality upside down to get from death to life? While fun and entertaining, what mesmerize us, are two overlapping realities: 1)The hero (like us) is a bit of a scoundrel, a heel grabber, who plays practical jokes and believes that no one can get the better of them. 2)Faced with anxiety, they change reality, the goal is: the hero will prevail, despite the tree being cut from the limb, the airplane crashing toward the earth, the noose being around their neck/ judgment pronounced, they can prevail, by surviving until Porky Pig pronounces “ttttThat's All Folks.” Somehow, watching a waskle of a wabbit evade reality; witnessing a pirate sail to the end of the world then turn his ship around on a dime; a Road Runner, who no matter how much the coyote spends at Acme or what technology the wiley coyote purchases, can always get away, gives the rest of us hope, allowing us at least vicariously through them to manage anxiety and insecurity in changes to reality. All of us function at our best when everything is secure and safe when we are building accomplishment upon accomplishment, but you can tell more about people when we are wrestling with our insecurity. There was a point when our greatest fear was the vocabulary words of a spelling test, or the new math, or did we bring lunch money. But when threatened, when our sense of reality shifts, do we maintain our commitments? Do we function as if nothing has changed, when the ground around us falls out and circumstance change. Do we chuck all of our morals and ethics and values and faith, in order to survive and compete? We can complain about it, we can attempt to avoid it, but the fact of the matter is that we live in a culture of our creation, driven by virtual reality, digital projection, and stock profits. The last several years, as we have celebrated the passing of what was described as “The Greatest Generation.” We have listened as family have described “My mother could cook anything! She could knit and sew and we took for granted that everyone could.” “My father was of that generation who could fix anything, who could build, wire and plumb a house, and manage a business.” But what I perceive as the actual reality shift, is that our grandparents worked on subsistence farms, where all they hoped for: was to put food on the table. Our children have inherited a world driven by creation of apps and virtual realities. Are we really any better off, by having an app on our phones that you can call strangers to use their cars as if a Taxi, when they are not licensed or monitored? All of this tied to stocks and profit margins, which are not directly about any product being created, but about the acquisition of immediate fortunes, when the stock market once was about investing for the future. We have all the many stories of Jacob's life, far more than anyone prior, yet in the midst of all these stories, are two life-changing events: Jacob Running Away, had a vision of the Stairway to Heaven; and here having gotten the better of his Father, Brother, Uncle Laban, in the dark Jacob wrestles with insecurity. In both occasions, Jacob was in trouble. Life-altering decisions do not come when choosing between two successes, but in times of trouble. In running away from Home, from his father and brother, Jacob recognizes in a dream, he cannot run away from God, for God is in this place. Like Skakespeare's Hamlet in the To Be or Not to Be soliloquy, the hero realizes he can control his actions, suffer people's perceptions, but we cannot control our dreams. Dreams are where Carl Jung described we shovel all the refuse of our lives, until that shadow, that dark-side overwhelms us. I think it is important to not name this a Ladder, because many of us try to climb and master one rung after another, but faith and reality are not about success or accomplishment but instead about the relationship, the connection between us and God. What strikes me as odd about “the Stairway to Heaven,” is something that I find is not described in any commentary. There are only three visions of a tower or ladder or stairway in literature between heaven and earth. The first in Led Zepplin's song “Stairway to Heaven” there is description of Rebecca, Jacob's Mother “There's a Woman whose sure all that glitters is gold and she's buying a stairway to heaven! Then twice in the book of Genesis: at the Tower of Babel and here. At Babel the people were “settling,” trying to make themselves in control, here Jacob recognizes he cannot settle because there is a God in this world. In this second occurrence we do not know whom Jacob wrestles, Laban? Esau? Himself or God? What we do know is that Jacob cannot win and cannot get away. Jacob had come up with elaborate ways of trying to seduce himself back into good graces. He sent his herds of camels as a gift, then his herds of sheep; then his herds of goats, then his slaves, etc. Next he divided his family in half, hoping that if one half were destroyed, at least he had the other. So for the second time in his life, Jacob sacrificed his family, in order to escape. But here, once Jacob has sent ahead everyone and everything, there in the dark, is when he actually wrestles for his life. In the dark of night, recognizing he cannot win, and he is going to be wounded, permanently changed, he makes a choice to cling to God, to pursue the truth, whatever the cost. The first thing that happens, when in an encounter with God is that you wrestle with yourself and the one who made you. In the dark, in a strangle hold, Jacob hears God's question of Who are you? And responds, I am Jacob, up until this Jacob had been an ankle grabber, a deceiver, thief, con man, a manipulator. God answers, No More, You are now Israel who wrestles with God, and with whom God prevails. Prevail is a strange word, I checked and every English translation comes back to Prevail. In Hebrew the word is “Gabar” it means to win together, or along side of, but also carries the meaning: to persuade, induce, coax, convince, to get, urge, pressure or coerce, which actually is only a subtle difference from who Jacob thought he was as Jacob. What changes in Jacob's Wrestling, is that instead of anticipating his brother Esau is coming with 400 men to get even, Jacob comes to recognize his brother is coming to welcome the prodigal home. Reading the Bible, we need to interpret Scripture with Scripture. When you hear a story of a father with Two Sons, and on the father's deathbed the younger runs away, you need to hear as Jesus' listeners would have that this is about Isaac, Esau and Jacob. The attitude of the Scripture was that the prodigal coming home should have been greeted by the brother. Wrestling with insecurity, we have this powerful reading from Matthew. The feeding of 5000 comes in all four Gospels, it is in fact the only miracle which does! To understand the insecurity, unique to this passage, we need to know that King Herod had given himself a Birthday party. Herod had abandoned his wife, because he had fallen in love with his brother's wife Herodias. John the Baptist had criticized them for this relationship, for which Herod had thrown him in prison. At this lavish party, Herod's new love has her daughter dance for him, and so taken with lust for a younger version of her and himself, like a fairytale, Herod offers the girl what ever she desires... which becomes John the Baptist's head on a platter. In grief and loss, Jesus tries to go to a lonely place but is pursued. After teaching and healing, Jesus invites the disciples to feed the crowds, which the Disciples are insecure about because who could feed 5000 men plus their women and children? But the point of the Miracle is not how to feed 5000. The repeated identity throughout the Gospel of Matthew is Jesus is GOD with Us. The point of the miracle is: Even in the midst of grief and loss at death, Jesus has compassion on the people. Further, Jesus convinces the disciples to Give all you have and it will be enough. There is NO explanation for how. How does not matter. Changing the orientation of the disciples from following their own thinking, to responding to Jesus and acting in compassion, is all there is.