Wrestling at the River: Week 2 Anger

Wrestling at the River: Week 2 - Anger

Genesis 32:22-31

In the course of the night, Jacob arose, took the entire caravan, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok River. After Jacob had crossed with all his possessions, he returned to the camp, and he was completely alone. And there, someone wrestled with Jacob until the first light of dawn. Seeing that Jacob could not be overpowered, the other struck Jacob at the socket of the hip, and the hip was dislocated as they wrestled. Then Jacob’s contender said, “Let me go, for day is breaking.” Jacob answered, “I will not let you go until you bless me.”  “What is your name?” the other asked. “Jacob,” he answered. The other said, “Your name will no longer be called ‘Jacob,’ or ‘Heel-Grabber,’ but ‘Israel’—‘Strives with God’—because you have wrestled with both God and mortals, and you have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked “Now tell me your name, I beg you.” The other said, “Why do you ask me my name?”—and blessed Jacob there. Jacob named the place Peniel—”Face of God”—”because I have seen God face to face, yet my life was spared.” At sunrise, Jacob left Penuel, limping along from the injured hip.

As usual, the English translation of the text seems to let the intensity of the scene drain out.  One might almost miss the reality that this is a fight scene. It is violent and intense and should be scary. Israel nee Jacob is fighting for his life! He is fighting to give up the old life and name and claim a new life and name. But that it is a fight sometimes gets almost lost. He walks away forever wounded from it.

Many of us walk around with the wounds from our life’s struggles, too. Too many of us know firsthand that life isn’t fair, that the world is unpredictable, and that too many times it seems that God fights dirty. The Christian PR departments love to paint pictures of Jesus sitting with quiet, clean children sitting serenely on his lap. Or Jesus leading the obedient sheep. Or scenes of the first line of the 23^rd Psalm, carefully editing out all the “Valley of the Shadow of Death” part.

Being attentive to the Spirit, following God, or giving your life to Jesus do not guarantee that life will be pleasant, or that your business will be successful, or that your marriage will last 57 years. In fact, one of the bottom lines truths about life on earth is that there are no guarantees. And sometimes, to use the appropriate theological word, that sucks. And to be absolutely human, it likely makes us angry.

I was told once that anger is a response to pain. And like many people I was taught in one way or another that getting angry is sinful. And if the pain of life provokes an existential anger, what does it mean to be angry with God?

I know a lot of people who are angry with God: angry that their father died when they were 13, angry that their spouse has cancer, angry that their life just turned out different from the way they thought it should. Even those of us who have adopted a theology that says God does not micro-manage the events of our lives sometimes experience a hot flash of anger at God, because if we can’t blame someone on earth for our pain who else is there? Moses got angry with God, and so did Job, and Jacob fought tooth and nail and knee-to-the-groin with God. I wonder if reading a little anger into Jesus’ gethsemane prayer doesn’t make sound a little more human.

So, can we get angry with God? Is it all right to do so? My initial reaction is, “Yes, of course, God can take it!” It is better to get angry and express that anger rather than to stuff those emotions and injure our psyches and bodies by repression. On the other hand, I’ve had a couple of recent conversations with people who have said that they experienced the very physical consequences of getting angry with God. So I realize that the question is not an open and shut one.

One of the pieces I want to use this Sunday is a clip from the West Wing where President Jeb Bartlett is alone in National Cathedral confronting God about the death of his long-time secretary, friend, and conscience Mrs. Landingham. In his rant, Bartlett calls God a “feckless thug.” In his anger and despair, Bartlett almost decides to give up the hope of a second term as president.  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYcMk3AJKLk) I will edit the language to make it appropriate, but even planning on that I know this is a challenging clip.

So as we think about what we may experience in worship, what in life makes us angry? What makes us angry at God? What makes us mad enough to fight? To pummel at our parents even as they try to hug us and love us?

Maybe the symbol for this Sunday is a bruise: a recognition that life has bruised us.  Like Jacob or Israel, we walk away limping. Few of us get through our process of grieving without at least a lay0over at anger. Maybe we have to throw our anger out there into the universe in spite of the consequences because to carry it with us wounds us further.