A sermon preached at Journey United Church of Christ on Sunday, August 14, 2011
READINGS FOR THE DAY:
Genesis 32:22-32; 33:1-4 (Contemporary English Version)
Jacob got up in the middle of the night and took his wives, his eleven children, and everything he owned across to the other side of the Jabbok River for safety. Afterwards, Jacob went back and spent the rest of the night alone. A man came and fought with Jacob until just before daybreak.
When the man saw that he could not win, he struck Jacob on the hip and threw it out of joint. They kept on wrestling until the man said, "Let go of me! It's almost daylight." "You can't go until you bless me," Jacob replied. Then the man asked, "What is your name?" "Jacob," he answered. The man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob. You have wrestled with God and with men, and you have won. That's why your name will be Israel."
Jacob said, "Now tell me your name." "Don't you know who I am?" he asked. And he blessed Jacob. Jacob said, "I have seen God face to face, and I am still alive." So he named the place Peniel. The sun was coming up as Jacob was leaving Peniel. He was limping because he had been struck on the hip, and the muscle on his hip joint had been injured. That's why even today the people of Israel don't eat the hip muscle of any animal.
Later that day Jacob met Esau coming with his four hundred men. So Jacob had his children walk with their mothers. The two servant women, Zilpah and Bilhah, together with their children went first, followed by Leah and her children, then by Rachel and Joseph. Jacob himself walked in front of them all, bowing to the ground seven times as he came near his brother. But Esau ran toward Jacob and hugged and kissed him. Then the two brothers started crying.
Philippians 4:4-9 (Contemporary English Version)
Always be glad because of the Lord! I will say it again: Be glad.
Always be gentle with others. The Lord will soon be here.
Don't worry about anything, but pray about everything. With thankful hearts offer up your prayers and requests to God.
Then, because you belong to Christ Jesus, God will bless you with peace that no one can completely understand. And this peace will control the way you think and feel.
Finally, my friends, keep your minds on whatever is true, pure, right, holy, friendly, and proper. Don't ever stop thinking about what is truly worthwhile and worthy of praise.
You know the teachings I gave you, and you know what you heard me say and saw me do. So follow my example. And God, who gives peace, will be with you.
Kung Fu Panda: The Quest for Inner Peace
When we find Po in Kung Fu Panda 2, he is living the dream. His dream of training with the Furious Five has come true. He is focusing on perfecting his Kung Fu skills (like reaching a new record for sticking 40 bean rolls in his mouth at one time).
Mr. Ping is still running his restaurant which is adorned with posters and signs alluding to the face that his sons is the long-prophesied Kung Fu Warrior. Part of the whole publicity stunt is based in a desire to capitalize on his son’s new celebrity status, but mostly it seems to stem from a deep fatherly pride.
All is peaceful in the “Valley of Peace”.
Of course, it doesn’t stay that way. That’s not a very engaging plot line. It wouldn’t be a movie without a sinister villain. Enter Lord Shen – the nasty peacock. He has been in hiding for years perfecting a weapon that he hopes will signal the death of Kung Fu and his own rise to power over all of China.
Who would have thought that a peacock could so greatly disturb the peace in the Valley of Peace. He disturbs the peace in the valley. He disturbs Po’s peace.
Soon we discovered that Po was actually orphaned at a young age and adopted by Mr. Ping, the dumpling maker. (yes, it’s fairly obvious since Po is a Panda and Mr. Ping is a goose). And as the saga unfolds we are led through a series of dream sequences in which Po comes face to face the pain of his past.
In order to unlock the strength he needs to not only conquer the evil Shen, he needs to uncover his secret and mysterious origins. There are some inner demons lurking inside him as well.
When we find Jacob in Genesis 32, he too is living the dream! He has spent the last 20 years working with his Uncle Laban. He has completed his hands-on training in tending the flocks and the herds and has not only added numbers to his own herds and flocks, he has multiplied them. The same is true of his family. Not just one wife, but two … and the children just keep multiplying. He is living large.
But his peace is also disturbed. Not by a secret about his past that is hidden from him, but by a dark history that he was very much a part of and in fact was a painful past that he created.
As a young man he had tricked his father and made off with the blessing and inheritance that belonged to his older brother. He escaped to his Uncle Laban’s farm and got a bit of his own medicine when he was tricked into 14 years of labor for not just one of his uncles daughters, but both – the beautiful Rachel and the “not-so-beautiful” Leah. He, in turn, tricks his uncle out of much of his property and now, with his newly acquired wealth, he considers going home. He packs up the family and the goods and the herds and off her goes to face HIS past.
Along the way, Panda Po will be using his Kung Fu fighting skills and Jacob will be called upon to engage his skills as an all-night wrestler. They will be on a quest for peace – peace in their “kingdoms” and that often-illusive sense of inner peace.
Fortunately, Po has a trainer along the way. Meet Master Shifu….
Video Clip 1
Inner Peace
Po doesn’t “get it” right away. As pieces of Po’s origin start to fuzzily come into picture for him, he finds himself distracted and unable to conquer the Kung Fu bad guys before him. He questions whether he was ever loved – by his biological parents and by his adoptive father.
In the midst of his Kung Fu fighting Po reaches a turning point when he discovers that it was because of his parents great love that he was able to survive and because of the great love of Mr. Ping, he was able to thrive. Po wanted peace, and found it by discovering who he was and where he came from, ultimately to rest in peace knowing he WAS loved more than he ever realized.
Jacob’s turning point comes not in the midst of Kung Fu fighting, but in the midst of an all-night wresting match. Maybe you will remember that Jacob didn’t have a strong history of believing in God- remember he had once (when speaking to his father, Isaac) referred to God as “Your God.” Add to that, all the encounters he has had with God up to this point have either been dreams or visions; we have nothing in the text that says Jacob has ever talked with God face to face…
But on his way back home, in the verses prior to what we read this morning, Jacob, maybe in a foxhole of sorts… Jacob, our self serving, self persevering, self sustaining patriarch-to-be; for the first time in his life, admits that he needs help… and he turns to God in prayer. This is no ordinary prayer. In his prayer. He kind of “lays it all out there” and after he’s done, he makes sure everything is in order for the final leg of the journey and then he lays down by himself to sleep and the wresting match begins. As he wrestles with the mysterious wrestler he comes face to face with his demons – his failures, his past hurts and pains
Ever found yourself like Po? Questioning your identity? Doubting your worth? Feeling perhaps that if anybody really knew you, they wouldn’t really love you?
Ever found yourself wresting through the night with a decision or a dilemma? Reliving the past? Looking for the blessing?
The list of "demons" with which we fight can pretty long at times? Our mortality, our "failures," our being subject to treatment that we couldn't avoid, our issues with abuse, with loss of trust, with lack of confidence in self, with losses too numerous to mention. Like Jacob, we may find ourselves struggling with demons of arrogance, with blindness of the way that our life has hurt others, with the splinters of worthless ideologies to which we dedicated ourselves for years. There are so many ways that our past rises up to attack us, even if we have tried to "deal" with it…all so painful that we may feel as injured as Po or as crippled as Jacob …
But the tide turns as day dawns. Jacob says that he will not let go until the man blesses him. Jacob needs a blessing. He is still searching for that sense of inner peace. The blessing comes in the form of a new name … a very real sign that at last his quest is over … the past will be behind and the future will be new and different. He is told that he will have a new name. It will no longer be Jacob (which literally means “trickster” or “deceiver”); he baptized with a new name “Israel” (which means “the one who strives with God”).
Along with the new name, comes a new identity. No longer will he be the deceptive person, the one who feels he has to trick others because he is second in the birth order and wants the "perks" of the firstborn. He will go forth with God … God is not only in his name, God is in his life. And Jacob is changed. Inner peace will do that for a person.
Video Clip 2
Po Finds Inner Peace
Po says to Shen: "You gotta let go of that stuff from the past, because it just doesn't matter."
If we are honest we have all had some bad or ugly or unfair stuff happen to us. The point is that it’s not what happens to us, it how we deal with the mess that matters.
Many of us would like inner peace, but we don't know how to get it. We may work hard to attain it through stuff like Jacobs … maybe even being a little tricky, greedy or deceitful along the way; we may try to attain it by brute force like Po. But it doesn’t work that way. It’s not what you do; it's who you know.
Now I'm not sure it will help us repel cannon balls, but there are plenty of way cool things in store for us when we find peace with God. In fact, it will bring the very thing Po and Shen need most: healing. The past leaves scars; peace can heal those scars, and peace with God will also give us hope for the future. May we find that peace.
Prayer of Response
Merciful God, the story of Jacob shows your willingness to enter into the messiness of our human struggles - into fractured relationships, family differences, unreconciled situations with people we care about – into our doubts and fears, our insecurities and our deepest pain – all the things that would disturb our peace.
In the midst of our wrestling, may we find our identity in you – as your beloved children. May we find the blessings in the assurance that nothing can separate us from your love. Amen.
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