a word for today
Turning Points
July was a month of anniversaries for me. Twenty-five years since I was ordained in Southwell Minster followed swiftly, and sadly, by the same number of years since the day my mother died. Then, more happily, in the middle of July, Kathy and I celebrated our thirtieth wedding anniversary.
We can look back at significant years in our lives, but sometimes it goes a little deeper and we can identify specific turning points. It may be a marriage or the start of a new job, but it could also be a particular decision, encounter, or experience which changed everything. Whatever it was, life was different after that.
Any good story will have such turning points in order to develop a character or move the plot forward. In world history we can see the same in the year 1914, 11th September 2001, and the Brexit vote of 2016. I’m sure you can see where this is going… yes, what about 2020? How will history look back at the times we’re living through right now?
Every week, part of my job involves opening the Bible and reflecting on part of it in the light of our lives together in the present day. So since the beginning of lockdown Scripture has been speaking into our new reality, as I’m sure you’ve picked up if you’ve been reading these newsletters. As some of us have gathered together for worship in recent weeks we’ve been trying to make sense of the times we’re living through with the Bible open on our knees.
In one of this Sunday’s readings, we come across one of the earliest turning points in the Bible. After twenty years, Jacob is returning to his birth place to re-unite himself with his brother Esau, who he deceived. Jacob is a rich man, and sends his wives, children, concubines and possessions on ahead so he can have some time to himself for just one night. Except a stranger appears and wrestles him to the ground. (Read it for yourself in Genesis 32.22-31.)
I think people love this story because it’s so mysterious. Who is the stranger? Is this some kind of spiritual battle? Is the wrestler meant to be Esau in disguise, or God himself?
What’s going on? Isn’t that a question we’ve been asking these recent months? Not just in terms of understanding the spread of a virus, but going deeper to ask some important questions about how the pandemic may be changing the whole world.
If God is in Jacob’s story – and he certainly seems to be – then it may not be quite the God Jacob thought he knew. Who is God for you? Your security? Your port in the storm of life? Well, ok. But what happens when God shows up for a wrestling match and seems to be more like the storm than the safe harbour?
For a moment, it looks like Jacob is going to come out on top, but right at the last, the stranger touches Jacob’s thigh and he’s left crippled and helpless. What’s the lesson for us there? Something about defeat not being the end of the story? That sometimes it’s only in our weakness, in our brokenness, that we can find healing?
I’ve probably been saying a similar thing for some weeks now, and you’re sure to be hearing something like it again, but isn’t the question for all of us at this turning point of 2020: do we only want to go back to what we had before, or are we ready for something new?
The sun is coming up as Jacob and his adversary fall in the dust for the last time. Before he’s ready to finish, Jacob says, ‘I will not let you go, unless you bless me.’ He’s wounded, weary, and hanging on for dear life, and what does he request? Yes, a blessing. As Debie Thomas writes, ‘Sometimes the whole of Christianity comes down to saying, “There’s so much I can’t wrap my head around, but I know that there’s a blessing in this mess somewhere. I will hang on until I find it.”’
So, take heart if this long and tedious lockdown is leaving you worn out and fed up and confused. If the lack of your Sunday routine has left you questioning God, then maybe this is your wrestling match.
As Jacob dusted himself down and limped across the river he was on his way to his own new normal. In 2020 the brave ones are ready to embrace this turning point in the story of our world, our churches, and our communities. The name Jacob gives to the place of his wounding is Peniel, saying, ‘I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.’ In darkness and defeat, it looks like he has discovered some kind of mystery and blessing and salvation. In 2020, we’re not expected to have all the answers. Maybe, as always, all we need is to know that we stand on holy ground.
Reverend Keith Griffin
July was a month of anniversaries for me. Twenty-five years since I was ordained in Southwell Minster followed swiftly, and sadly, by the same number of years since the day my mother died. Then, more happily, in the middle of July, Kathy and I celebrated our thirtieth wedding anniversary.
We can look back at significant years in our lives, but sometimes it goes a little deeper and we can identify specific turning points. It may be a marriage or the start of a new job, but it could also be a particular decision, encounter, or experience which changed everything. Whatever it was, life was different after that.
Any good story will have such turning points in order to develop a character or move the plot forward. In world history we can see the same in the year 1914, 11th September 2001, and the Brexit vote of 2016. I’m sure you can see where this is going… yes, what about 2020? How will history look back at the times we’re living through right now?
Every week, part of my job involves opening the Bible and reflecting on part of it in the light of our lives together in the present day. So since the beginning of lockdown Scripture has been speaking into our new reality, as I’m sure you’ve picked up if you’ve been reading these newsletters. As some of us have gathered together for worship in recent weeks we’ve been trying to make sense of the times we’re living through with the Bible open on our knees.
In one of this Sunday’s readings, we come across one of the earliest turning points in the Bible. After twenty years, Jacob is returning to his birth place to re-unite himself with his brother Esau, who he deceived. Jacob is a rich man, and sends his wives, children, concubines and possessions on ahead so he can have some time to himself for just one night. Except a stranger appears and wrestles him to the ground. (Read it for yourself in Genesis 32.22-31.)
I think people love this story because it’s so mysterious. Who is the stranger? Is this some kind of spiritual battle? Is the wrestler meant to be Esau in disguise, or God himself?
What’s going on? Isn’t that a question we’ve been asking these recent months? Not just in terms of understanding the spread of a virus, but going deeper to ask some important questions about how the pandemic may be changing the whole world.
If God is in Jacob’s story – and he certainly seems to be – then it may not be quite the God Jacob thought he knew. Who is God for you? Your security? Your port in the storm of life? Well, ok. But what happens when God shows up for a wrestling match and seems to be more like the storm than the safe harbour?
For a moment, it looks like Jacob is going to come out on top, but right at the last, the stranger touches Jacob’s thigh and he’s left crippled and helpless. What’s the lesson for us there? Something about defeat not being the end of the story? That sometimes it’s only in our weakness, in our brokenness, that we can find healing?
I’ve probably been saying a similar thing for some weeks now, and you’re sure to be hearing something like it again, but isn’t the question for all of us at this turning point of 2020: do we only want to go back to what we had before, or are we ready for something new?
The sun is coming up as Jacob and his adversary fall in the dust for the last time. Before he’s ready to finish, Jacob says, ‘I will not let you go, unless you bless me.’ He’s wounded, weary, and hanging on for dear life, and what does he request? Yes, a blessing. As Debie Thomas writes, ‘Sometimes the whole of Christianity comes down to saying, “There’s so much I can’t wrap my head around, but I know that there’s a blessing in this mess somewhere. I will hang on until I find it.”’
So, take heart if this long and tedious lockdown is leaving you worn out and fed up and confused. If the lack of your Sunday routine has left you questioning God, then maybe this is your wrestling match.
As Jacob dusted himself down and limped across the river he was on his way to his own new normal. In 2020 the brave ones are ready to embrace this turning point in the story of our world, our churches, and our communities. The name Jacob gives to the place of his wounding is Peniel, saying, ‘I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.’ In darkness and defeat, it looks like he has discovered some kind of mystery and blessing and salvation. In 2020, we’re not expected to have all the answers. Maybe, as always, all we need is to know that we stand on holy ground.
Reverend Keith Griffin
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