Eventually everyone has to stop fighting, resisting and wrestling. Eventually we all get to the end of our own road and need to take God’s road.
This is the lesson Jacob learns in today’s reading from Genesis. This younger twin son of Isaac and Rebekah was born forcing his will upon the world. From his battle with his twin brother Esau all the way to that long night of wrestling with God, Jacob had been the ultimate my way or the highway type of guy. But then, with his hip and his selfishness dislocated, Jacob realizes and admits that he needs God, he wants God and he will, finally, receive God.
He got tired enough, scared enough, defeated enough to stop holding on with all his might. He finally LET GO.
Doesn’t that sound familiar? I mean, I don’t know about you, but I know that when push comes to shove, when I am absolutely, positively driven to my knees I tend to be MUCH MORE receptive to God.
Let Go and Let God is a slogan used in 12 step groups. Although some might find it trite, I consider it profound in its simplicity: Let Go and Let God. Let Go of MY WAY and Let God have God’s way.
When we stop wrestling God, when we stop fighting, when we let go, we make room for God to do what God does best, care for and love us beyond all reason.
Yet, time and again we forget that we can’t and God can.
Time and again we forget that what we think is impossible, God knows is possible, that what we can’t see, God can.
We forget that at the end of the day we can only get ourselves so far, that we need God to get us the rest of the way.
This knowledge that we can only get ourselves so far is what fueled most of the healing stories in our Gospels. Many of these stories involve an unlikely character reaching a point of no return…they’ve tried everything, they’ve followed all the rules, they’ve gone to all the experts yet still they’re plagued by disease. Exhausted, out of options, utterly defeated, these people make one last attempt at healing by seeking out Christ, by crying out to him, by pushing past those much more powerful than they to implore Jesus to save their wife, their daughter, their son, their friend or themselves. At the end of all hope these people approach Jesus and are healed. I suppose it’s easy to just say that God, through Jesus, miraculously and magically cures them.
But, Jesus isn’t one for acts of magic is he? He isn’t one to offer impersonal and standard prayers for healing. No, Jesus takes each of these healing opportunities to heart. He looks at them, he engages them and says, “your faith has made you well.”
No miraculous incantations, no magic wand. Rather a relationship, a connection, a faith, that allows the healing light of God, through Christ, to take hold and work.
These people LET GO AND LET GOD. They let go of their fear, of their misery, of their stubbornness. They let go of it all and let God in, they gave God room to move.
They let go and they let God.
The feeding of the five thousand is , like the parables we’ve been hearing the past few weeks, a very familiar story.
Jesus has tried to get some quiet time but the crowd tracks him down—asking for prayers, asking for healing, asking for HIM.
The disciples are tired, too. They start to shoo the pople away, aware that it’s dinner-time and they don’t have enough food to feed themselves, let alone the multitudes.
There won’t be enough they cry….
Send them away, they ask….
We can’t do it…
Out of that position of utter defeat and helplessness and exhaustion, Jesus, as he is known to do, acts in the most outrageous and ridiculous way….he invites them all---5,000 people PLUS …to sit down….he instructs his disciples to gather up the meager food they had ---five loaves of bread and two fish---and proceeds to feed them all… and have left overs.
Yes this was a miracle. But it wasn’t a passive miracle. It wasn’t a divine spectacle, it wasn’t another installment of Jesus and his band of followers do an amazing stunt on the hills of Galilee.
It was people, folks like you and me, letting go and letting God.
It was people, folks like you and me, letting go of a fear that there wouldn’t be enough.
It was people, folks like you and me, reaching into their knapsacks, into their pockets and into their bags and taking out the food and water they had carried with them for their journey and sharing it with others. The miracle wasn’t creating something out of nothing, the miracle was in 5000 people realizing that they could only get so far on their own, that to get where they really wanted to go, they needed more than their own desire, and the force of their own will. They needed to let go of what they were holding onto for dear life and let God.
The miracle is that people let go of their fear of “not enough” and discovered more than enough.
People let go of “what about me” and embraced “we’re all in this together,”
People let go of NOT GOD and held onto Let God.
This is the lesson of Jacob’s wrestling match and of the feeding of the multitudes:
We can fight God or we can embrace God. We can hold on for dear life or let go for dear life.
The miracle of Jesus Christ, the miracle of God, the miracle of the faith we profess to live is that when we stop holding on so tight, we are overwhelmed by the never ending abundance that is God.
The miracle is that when Let Go and Let God we get to a place without worry, a place without fear, a place without scarcity, a place without worry. The miracle is that in letting go, we are filled to overflowing.
Amen.
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