Our Worship is Our Wrestling

Like clergy across the nation, I made a bigger-than-usual pot of coffee this morning & I just got off the phone (for the second time) with our valiant & wise worship co-ordinator.  What needs to change in tomorrow's service to adequately reflect and address the up-ended-ness of the past 24 hours?  And what needs to stay the same to remind us that we have not been set adrift from our anchor? To demonstrate that we are, in fact, held in place no matter the waves?

This morning I turned to an unusual source for comfort.  Well, it's in the Bible, so it's not that crazy-out-of-the-box. My thoughts turned to one of my favorite stories in the Old Testament, Genesis 32:22-32

Jacob the trickster has turned his life around and is returning home to his brother.  Mind you, the brother whose life he ruined many years ago before fleeing to the far country and doing very well for himself.  On the night before their reunion, Jacob -- the title in my Bible tells me -- "wrestled with God."

"But Jacob replied, 'I will not let you go unless you bless me.'
The man asked him, 'What is your name?'
'Jacob,' he answered.
Then the man said, 'Your name will no longer be Jacob but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with human beings and have overcome."

The people of God from that day forward were identified by Jacob's new name -- Israel.  It is a name that means "struggles with God."  To be the people of God is to wrestle with God.  To be the people of God is to walk with a limp received in the struggle.

When we gather together on Sunday mornings -- especially the Sundays when the struggle is most intense -- we are doing the work of being God's people.

Our worship is our wrestling.  

God forbid that our worship fails

To acknowledge the difficulty of human faith.  

God forbid that our worship fails 

To acknowledge the relentless tenderness of God's presence.

Our worship is our wrestling.