PERSISTENTLY WRESTLING; PERSISTENTLY TURNING...
TOWARD GOD AND TOWARD GRACE

Twentieth Sunday After Pentecost (A/Proper 24) Genesis 32:22-31; Luke 18:1-8

Many years ago, the TV movie "Julia" premiered. It was based on a story in Lillian Hellman's collection of short stories called Pentimento. The movie starred Jane Fonda and began with this voice-over: "Old paint on canvas, as it ages, sometimes becomes transparent. When that happens it is possible, in some pictures, to see the original lines: a tree will show through a woman's dress, a child makes way for a dog, a large boat is no longer on open sea. That is called pentimento because the painter "repented," changed his mind. Perhaps it would be as well to say that the old conception, replaced by a later choice, is a way of seeing and then seeing again."

I was reminded of this quote some weeks ago. Out of curiosity, I looked to see what the Gospel lesson was for today -- my first official Sunday as your pastor. God has such a sense of humor, and I see it exercised time and time again in the way certain texts show up in the lectionary for certain days. Interestingly, this Gospel text was the very same Gospel text on which I preached my first sermon in a teaching parish to which I was assigned as a seminary student in Alexandria, Virginia in 1983. Back then, I remember preparing that sermon by manically reading everything I could get my hands on about prayer. I found some of those pamphlets when I was going through some of my files this past week. "Prayer in Life; Life in Prayer," "The Adventure of Christian Prayer," "The Positive Role of Distraction in Prayer." Back then, in seminary, we didn't learn much about prayer. Our training was pretty much from the "neck up." I felt pretty insecure about my prayer life. How in the world was I supposed to preach about prayer? What in the world could I say? Maybe if I read enough about prayer I could wrestle something out. And I did -- of course -- I had to. Though I don't have the courage to look back at what I actually did say.

But the point of all this is Lillian Hellman's point in her story about Julia, or her book, Pentimento. For me, my sermons can sometimes be like the aging oil paint on the canvas. The Gospel text itself -- from the Bible -- is like the canvas. Over the years, the text may be the same, but the sermon is very different. That's because, like the artist, I too have repented many times over in my life --changed my mind. In the current political climate, some may call that a "flip-flop." You heard me call it a "switchback" last June when I was here. For me, that change of mind and heart has almost always been the direct result of my own wrestling with God. Wrestling with God much like Jacob does in our first lesson today.

And so what I have to say today, in 2004, on our first Sunday in our mutual journey in ministry together, is very different from what I would have said some 20 years ago. Today, I don't have pat answers. Today, I haven't spent any time reading about prayer so I can give you the heady, text-book version of how to pray and not lose heart. Today I share my experience. And that experience is not a neat and tidy description of a proper prayer life, or even of a proper Christian life. If you were around for my temper tantrum on Friday (referred to earlier in the service) you know what I mean -- hardly the behavior of a good Christian woman, let alone a pastor. My spiritual life is like a pretty messy wrestling match. I guess maybe not much different from what that struggle was like for Jacob. But, like the widow, it's also been persistent. What has been most persistent is that whatever situation I'm in and whatever feelings and thoughts might show up on my radar screen, I have persistently tried to turn toward God and toward grace. Most importantly, I think, I have persistently tried to be honest.

If there's anything to say about prayer and our life together that begins today, in the context of this story of the persistent widow and the unjust judge, and the story of Jacob wrestling with God, it is that we're invited to imagine ourselves -- Holy Cross Lutheran Church -- both as Jacob and as the persistent widow who constantly struggles with God. You see, that is the nature of the church in the world. The church is a pilgrim people on a journey. Remember that the New Testament calls the Church the "Bride of Christ." We constantly long for the final day of God's reign and of ultimate union with Christ, our husband. Now can you imagine a marriage that could work if one spouse or the other was persistently pretending to be someone else? As Christ's church at prayer God wants us to be persistently ourselves.

One of the things I did to prepare myself to come here these past six weeks was to work through the book The Purpose Driven Life as many of you have done. I found myself disagreeing with the author, Rick Warren, several times for several reasons (mostly theological). But I was heartened when he validated my compulsion to be relentlessly authentic and honest when it comes to my relationship with God. "It's encouraging to know," he says, " that all of God's closest friends -- Moses, David, Abraham, Job, and others -- had bouts with doubt. But instead of masking their misgivings with pious clichés, they candidly voiced them openly and publicly. Expressing doubt is sometimes the first step toward the next level of intimacy with God" (PDL, p. 95). Rick Warren refers to our first lesson today when he talks about "Jacob's passion for God's blessing on his life. [This passion was] so intense that he wrestled in the dirt all night with God, saying, 'I will not let you go unless you bless me.'" Talk about persistence! "The amazing part of the story", says Warren, "is that God, who is all-powerful, let Jacob win! God isn't offended", Warren says, "when we 'wrestle' with him, because wrestling requires personal contact and brings us close to him! It is also a passionate activity, and God loves it when we are passionate with him." (PDL, p. 97)

Talk about wrestling with God. In our Gospel lesson, the unjust judge, who symbolizes God, finally gives in to the persistent widow "lest she keep coming and finally wear [him] out." One of the New Testament scholars I trust the most translates that phrase, "lest by coming she in the end give me a black eye!" (Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Anchor Bible, Gospel According to Luke X-XXIV, p. 11789) So here we are today, getting permission, in our prayer, to give God a black eye!

When we are honest and authentic -- when we bring our questions, our feelings, our doubts, even our anger to our prayer, we are still moving toward God rather than away from God. One of the reasons I pray in the car is that I can yell at God and no one will hear me! How many people, when they are angry with God, stop praying? That's the opposite of what God wants. God wants to be in relationship with us! One of my spiritual mentors, Eugene Peterson, says we mistakenly want to put on our "Sunday best" in our prayers. But prayer is not about being our best before God, or presenting ourselves before God so that God will be pleased with us. Rather, like the psalmists, "We must pray who we actually are, not who we think we should be." (Living The Message, p. 282)

I'm asking you today to do this not only in your prayer life but also in our life together as a family of faith. Let's be who we actually are. And when -- not if -- you have a question or a problem or a doubt about something I say or do, please promise to bring it to me directly. Don't talk to someone else about it first. And I promise to do the same with you.

In his book, "Life Together," Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor and teacher who was executed for plotting to assassinate Hitler, says something that has stuck with me when it comes to leadership and life together in a congregation. And I want to be sure and say it today as we begin this journey of mutual ministry. "When you love your vision for the community more than the community itself," he says, "you destroy the community." I have been part of too many communities where this happened. Pastors or lay leaders loved their visions for the community more than they loved one another. And it was not pretty. I pledge to you today that I will wrestle persistently with God and with you, but I will try my best not to love what I want for you more than I love you.

One of the things that is causing me so much anxiety about beginning this call is my fear of your expectations for me. When I brought my Friday outburst to God in prayer, what came to me was that behind it all was my fear -- my fear of disappointing you. If I couldn't get settled into my office immediately and find a place for all my STUFF, I might not be able to do the other things you expect me to do. I think maybe what I should really fear are my own expectations of what I think are your expectations of me! And maybe we could both focus less on trying to please each other and more on trying not to disappoint God. In that spirit, I'm asking you that you not love your visions or expectations for me as your pastor more than you love me. I can only bring you who I actually am. And together, we can rest in the merciful arms of our gracious and loving God -- the God who wants us to persistently bring all of ourselves to our relationship with Him.

I know that through our mutual ministry -- yours to me as well as mine to you, and ours with the world -- God will give all of us the opportunity for "pentimento" -- the gift of seeing and then seeing again. That growth will come as we open ourselves to the grace that gives us permission to wrestle -- with God and with each other, persistently turning toward God and toward grace. Insisting, like Jacob, on that blessing.

I want to close this sermon with a song. I'll sing the first stanza, then I'd like you to stand and join me insinging the rest of the stanzas together. I'd like to think of it as the theme for our mutual ministry that we begin together this week. I count it a privilege to be among you and to serve with you. And I thank you in advance for accepting me and loving me more than you love your expectations for me.

The Servant Song
(Richard Gillard)

Will you let me be your servant, let me be as Christ to you?
Pray that I may have the grace to let you be my servant too.

We are pilgrims on a journey, we are trav'lers on the road;
We are here to help each other walk the mile and bear the load.

I will hold the Christ-light for you in the night-time of your fear;
I will hold my hand out to you, speak the peace you long to hear.

I will weep when you are weeping; when you laugh I'll laugh with you.
I will share your joy and sorrow ?til we've seen this journey through.

When we sing to God in heaven we shall find such harmony,
Born of all we've known together of Christ's love and agony.

Will you let me be your servant, let me be as Christ to you?
Pray that I may have the grace to let you be my servant too.

Pastor Dana Runestad
Holy Cross Lutheran Church
Livonia, Michigan
17 October, 2004

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