Sermon for October 19, 2025
Pentecost 19 C
Genesis 32:22-31
Rev. Karl-John N. Stone
On one of the hikes during my pilgrimage to Ireland, the trail took us down a country road built right through a salt march. The marsh grass stood as tall as me, as it waved in the winds blowing off the bay nearby. It almost looked like you could take a short cut and just walk through them to the other side. But if you did, you’d soon be up to your knees in water. A marsh is one of those ambiguous landscapes because it’s not exactly land, but it’s not exactly a body of water, either.
After a mile or so, we came to a crossroads and made a turn towards the bay, and as we walked the marsh gave way to more solid land. But before we got to the end of that road, and before we reached the sandy beach by the bay, we passed a burial ground—a couple acres surrounded by stone walls and filled with tombstones and Celtic crosses. Why did they put a cemetery on this prime piece of real estate? It’s because we were entering another kind of ambiguous landscape. It wasn’t quite the beach, even though the soil was sandy. But it wasn’t the fertile soil that you’d find farther inland. The ambiguity of different landscapes blending into each other, forming their own unique places—that’s why it was a good place for a burial ground. In the Celtic way of seeing the world, this represented a “thin place”—a place where the “normal” rules of reality or experience kind of bend as heaven and earth meet. Laying their loved ones to rest there symbolized how, yes, they are dead, and yet they live in the risen Christ.
But really, any place might become a “thin place”. It’s wherever you have that mysterious sense of God’s presence; of heaven and earth being exceptionally close.
What if “thin places” don’t have to be places at all? Maybe a thin place can also be an experience. Instead of grass and water, or sand and soil, coming together to form an ambiguous but unique landscape, maybe it’s an experience that doesn’t quite fit into a neat category. Like when it’s not good, it’s not bad—it’s both good and bad at the same time. That ambiguity gives the experience it’s power—because that is where God makes transformation happen.
That’s what we see happening in our Old Testament reading today, from Genesis 32—the famous story of “Jacob wrestling the angel”. In this story, the river Jabbok becomes his thin place; the wrestling match is the ambiguous good/bad experience that brings transformation because God’s presence has come so close.
The wrestling match happens in the first place because Jacob, after living with his father-in-law’s family for many years, is heading home. Jacob’s got a “beef”, an argument, with his father-in-law, so he can’t stay there. But as he heads home, he’s got an even older “beef” with his brother Esau. Esau is the same brother whom Jacob cheated out of his birthright, blessing, and inheritance. So even as Jacob feels he has no choice but to head home, he’s also afraid that Esau might kill him.
So Jacob comes up with a plan—he’ll split up his family, and all his flocks, herds, and livestock into two groups. This is everything he holds dear in life. If one of the groups meets Esau they can present all these possessions as a peace offering. But if Esau decides he wants revenge instead, then maybe one of the groups will be able to escape and keep half the family alive. So Jacob gives them instructions, sends them all off across the river, while he stays behind and waits to see what happens. And that—when he is all alone and has let go of everything and everyone he cherishes—is when Jacob discovers his thin place.
A man appears and begins wrestling with him. They wrestle all night long. Neither of them will give up. Who is this man? He never identifies himself. Is it a man? An angel? Even God? He’s mysterious, powerful, ambiguous, and anonymous. But finally this mysterious wrestler realizes that he will not prevail, even as he gains the upper hand by striking Jacob on the hip socket, and putting Jacob’s hip out of joint. At this point, the easiest thing for Jacob to do would be give up and walk away. But this would mean no blessing, no transformation. “I will not let you go unless you bless me” Jacob insists to the wrestler. And the wrestler agrees and asks “What is your name?”. “Jacob”.
Now, in the ancient world a name was not simply given to you because your parents liked the way it sounds. A name really meant something. It told everyone you met about who you are as a person. The name “Jacob” meant “usurper; cheater”. So the wrestler gives him a new name and a blessing, saying: “You shall no longer be called Jacob (the cheater), but Israel meaning ‘the one who wrestles with God’”. That’s a much more noble way to present yourself to the world! Jacob still really wants to know this man’s name but he refuses. And that’s how—in hindsight—Jacob knows that in some mysterious, ambiguous way that this wrestler was none other than God. And Jacob called the place “Peniel” which means “face of God”, because he said, “I have seen God face to face and lived”.
As it was for Jacob, our encounters with God are often mysterious and ambiguous, seen only in hindsight, understood only after a blessing is wrestled from God in the encounter. God doesn’t let us see things too clearly, because it would be too much for us to handle. But God does want us to wrestle, to not give up, to be persistent, to pray and not lose heart. Especially when we’re not sure what’s going to happen, or how we’re going to find a way to move forward.
And it goes to show: even when you feel all alone, like Jacob wrestling with some mysterious—is it a Man? Angel? Divine being? Even God?—all alone by the river, even then the mysterious presence of God is somehow with you. God is grabbing hold of you, challenging you to hold on and wrestle and pray, no matter how long it takes, until you receive God’s blessing.
Like Jacob learned, you too may find that God’s presence is not always a comfort. God does comfort you, to be sure, when the time is right. But other times God’s presence is there to challenge you, to wrestle you, to grab hold of you so that you will grab hold of God, until God offers you a blessing, moving you through the difficulty you’re facing. But you’ve got to move through it, instead of running away from it, in order to get the blessing. Only by holding on and wrestling can God bring you to new life and transformation on the other side.
We see a similar thing in the parable Jesus told in Luke 18 (the gospel reading for today). The widow keeps coming back to the judge and bothering him and bothering him and bothering him until she gets justice. That was her “wrestling match”, that’s where she found her “thin place”: where the good and the bad combined, and heaven and earth bended so close to each other that God’s blessing became felt.
Jesus himself is the ultimate symbol of the “thin places” of the world, and the thin places of experience. In him the good and the bad are mysteriously woven together for a blessing. That’s because Jesus turned the cross—the instrument of shame and death—into the means of salvation and forgiveness for the whole world. And because Jesus went to the cross, and rose again, he promises to always meet you in your own thin places and offer God’s blessing. Amen.