Sermon: Those
Angels Within
Text: Genesis
32: 22-32
Date:
By: Kendall
Brown
There are few other persons in the entire Bible whose
whole lives are laid out before us with all the gory details quite like
Jacob. No efforts are made to hide
Jacob’s sins of omission, no cover up is made for his weaknesses, there is no
glossing over or making excuses for his weaknesses. Few of us would ever want to be as publicly
exposed as Jacob is to many of us.
He had issues with his father and his brother, he had
problems with his in-laws and his children behaved miserably. Eleven of his sons sold their younger
brother, Joseph, into slavery. He had problems
where he worked. We should have no
problem identifying with Jacob.
In spite of all of Jacob’s earthliness and humanness,
his biography is peppered with an unusual number of encounters with heavenly
beings - messengers from God. Jacob had
the dream at
We all wrestle with angels, our own inner demons, that
we must conquer. Each of us have them -
it is a part of our earthiness and humanity even if we are not as transparent
about it as the Scriptures make Jacob.
Those angels might be our lack of forgiveness or our unwillingness to
accept forgiveness. They might be our
anger, our guilt, or our envy. The
angels might be our fear of something terrible happening, or our fear of others
or even our fear of our own selves.
Whatever those angels are, whatever “those powers and principalities”
(as Paul called them) are (Romans
Sometimes we do not know what the angel is, but we do
know that we are wrestling with it. We
don’t know what the angel is but we do know that all is not right with
ourselves, that the blessing has not been received, that we are still
thoroughly situated in the far country a long way from the promised land, and
that the ground under our feet is far from holy. We know that we are in the far country. All the landmarks are there. We continue to be frustrated and disappointed
by the situation; our anger and hopelessness keeps coming back in a vicious cycle. We know we are in the far country and we want
to go home even as Jacob did, but so much held him back.
The first step to moving homeward is simply
identifying the angel, talking about it with a friend; simply naming the source
of defensiveness, or cause of being up-tight and on guard, or naming the fear
or the threat. This psychological truth
about inner, spiritual growth is very much a part of the story of Jacob. Jacob never really found out who the angel
was. For the rest of his life he walked
with a limp. For the rest of his life he
was handicapped in his relationships.
Esau offered forgiveness and grace.
But Jacob never came to experience and really know what had been offered
him because he never came face to face with his angel within - his guilt. Physically he re-entered the promised land,
spiritually he lingered in the far country.
Let us go back into the story of Jacob and see some of
these things at work there. Jacob was
returning home after many years of being away.
The last time he saw his brother was when he deceitfully stole the
birthright from Esau. Now Esau was one
of those big-hearted people who can be wronged by no wrong. Long ago, he had forgiven Jacob. When Esau heard that his brother was
returning, his heart was overwhelmed with joy and happiness. “My brother is coming home,” he
declared. He gathered together a large
group of friends and relatives and went charging across the countryside with
open arms to welcome Jacob and to have one hoopla of a party celebrating Jacob’s
return. Jesus may have had his image of
the good father of the prodigal son shaped by the story of Jacob.
Jacob however, was approaching everything in a totally
different frame of mind. He sent his
scouts ahead to sniff out what might be awaiting him. The scouts came back and reported to Jacob a
simple fact. “Esau has learned of your
return and is coming to greet you with 400 men.” When Jacob heard this he said, “O, my
Lord!” All he could envision was an
armed camp on the move - ready to swoop down on him and do him in. Jacob was still limping in life. He was still handicapped in his perception of
what was out there. Because he hadn’t
come fact to face with his own angel within, his own need for forgiveness, he
couldn’t believe that forgiveness was possible.
So he was threatened. Whenever we
feel threatened, that feeling is a landmark that we are still in a far
country. To get home, to know the
fullness of the blessing, we need to conquer some inner angel. More often than not, when we feel threatened
by someone else, whether it be our husband or our wives, our children or some
relative, other parishioners or by a minister, the real source of threat is not
out there but in here.
Jacob responded to all this like any threatened
person. He figured he had outwitted his
father, father-in-law, his brother once before - he could do it again. He devised a game plan, a scheme. But Jacob remained the person who was outwitted
by himself. He divided his possessions,
his servants and family, into a number of smaller groups. He sent them ahead one by one. As each group met Esau, a servant was to tell
Esau that all this was a gift from Jacob.
Jacob figured that Esau, after receiving wave upon wave of gifts before
finally meeting him, could be buttered up.
Jacob saw the solution in changing Esau.
So often when dealing with problems, we externalize the solution. We see the solution lying out there in
somebody else. Things will be resolved
by the other person changing, acting differently or shaping up. We stay in the far country because we have
externalized the answer instead of internalizing the answer and reaching in for
what ways I can change, act and respond differently. What angel in me should I overcome, before
entering the promised land and becoming a part of the solution instead of
continuing to be a part of the problem.
When the brothers finally met, Esau gave Jacob every
indication of forgiveness.. There is an unfinished sadness in the story of
Jacob. Jacob was offered forgiveness but
wasn’t able to receive it. After being
together a few days, it came time for the brothers to break camp and go their
separate ways. At this point the two
brothers had a big to-do about who would leave camp first and who would stay
behind and clean up the mess. It was
like two persons arriving at a door at once and both trying to open it and say
to the other, “You go first.” Esau’s offer was out of love and a gracious
concern to make Jacob feel at home, having no other thought on his mind than to
be a gracious host by simply offering to be the one to clean up the mess. But poor Jacob had something else on his
mind. He insisted that he stay behind
because he was sure that if he went first, Esau would come from behind and stab
him in the back. Jacob had entered the
promised land, but he had yet to make the ground upon which he walked holy
ground. He was still threatened. Feeling threatened is always a sign that we
are still in the far country. Crossing
the threshold involves wrestling and conquering whatever angel it is within -
not out there - that keeps us from the promised land, from being the whole
person, the God intended us to be, from seeing in the faces of our brothers and
sister the face of God.
Jacob’s life time limp is a sign of his lack of inner
wholeness. Jesus said, “It is not what
goes into a person that defiles, but what come out that defiles.” All around Jacob was holiness and sacred
wholeness, most especially in his brother’s generous heart and extraordinary
forgiveness. Jacob didn’t receive it
because his fight with his own inner angels continued on long after his
struggle with the angel from God. Is the
ground holy under your feet? Are you in
the promised land spiritually or the far country? These are the simple challenges of the heart
placed before us in the story of Esau and Jacob.