Genesis 32: 26

"Then the man said, 'Let me go, for the day is breaking.'  But Jacob said, 'I will not let you go, unless you bless me.'"

Reflection by Donna Schaper

We overuse the word "problem." There is the problem of the debt ceiling, the problem of hunger, the problem of global warming.  The cure we need is from the problem of calling things problems.  Some of the cliché captains have changed the language of problem to the language of challenge, which is a much more Jacob way—and  Easter way—of talking.  Jacob wrestled with God for a future.  He wrestled all night long, not in the way children wrestle for fun but in the way grown-ups wrestle.  We wrestle to get on top of what is bothering us.   If one more person tells me not to "panic," I swear I just will.  Wrestling is the opposite of panic.  It is fighting off the demon of panic by action.
 
Spiritual wrestling of a problem is to wrestle it to its blessing.  Spiritual wrestling names the place where we turn the corner, where the "problem" releases us from its grip and we get a "hold" on it.

Wrestling is not just physical. It can also be mental.  Sometimes a changed point of view yields the blessing of the challenge.  Some of us fear losing the past.  What was so good about the past for the poor?  As we watch increased "gender bending," where people love seeing men cry and women trust their own judgment, we might also glimpse even more queer ways of being.  Worlds may open where genders bent are genders wrestled for their blessings.

A man in Norway killed a lot of people this summer because he wanted to resist the Islamicization of Europe, as though that was a problem.  He couldn't bear not solving this problem and getting things back to the way he thought they used to be.  Many Europeans saw the pre-Fascism of his approach.  Lost order that must be restored, even if it uses violence, is a scary intellectual muscle.  We go into mini-fascisms when we say we have to restore problems to get things back to the way they used to be.  God pulls us through, by the hip if necessary, into a new name, a new future, a new way.  When God comes to us, we see the blessing in the problem and are not afraid of a really changed future, one more Godly and more full of assets for more people.  Never forget Colin Powell's quip about the "accusation" that the President might be a Muslim.  "So what if he is?"  That is mental wrestling.  A blessing results.

Prayer

Free us for a future, one not free of problems but also not dominated by them.  Help us to open the doors that we think are closed.  Let us start to tell new stories about the future of Israel.  Amen

About the Author Donna Schaper is the Senior Minister of Judson Memorial Church in New York City. Her latest work is 20 Ways to Keep Sabbath, from The Pilgrim Press. Check out her work at www.judson.org.

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