Monday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
The authors of Genesis pieced together legends from Israelite folklore, in particular in the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. These tales spread orally for 900 years before being written down and another 400 years before taking the form that we can recognize. They are engaging narratives of the dysfunctional family of Abraham.
Today features Patriarch Jacob of “Abraham, Issac, and Jacob.” Jacob can be described as self-serving, wily, brazen, crafty, unscrupulous, duplicitous, dishonest, deceptive, guileful, double-dealing, and cunning.
And that was on a good day.
We meet him fleeing for his life after he has stolen his brother’s birthright. Exhausted, he fell into a deep sleep, dreaming of a ladder to heaven, along with angels ascending and descending. "The Lord stood above it saying, 'I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie, I will give it to you and to your descendants'"
Jacob did not merely have an encounter with God. Something happened that transformed the heart of the man. He arrived with a price on his head, guilty of deceitful tricks. Still God confirms Jacob and will follow through with him nonetheless. Jacob arrived a man with no future. But now he becomes essential to the story of salvation.
It is Jacob whom God renames “Israel,” meaning “those who wrestle with God.”
There are many lessons for us in this folk tale. “God’s ways are not our ways.” “God writes straight with crooked lines.” “God sees the heart.” “God brings good out of bad.” “We cannot know the mind of God.” “God alone sees the big picture.” And on and on.
The bottom line of the story of God’s people (“those who wrestle with God”) is the word “mystery.” That applies to weak and sinful Jacob from whom Christ himself will descend.
Aren’t we sometimes as conniving as Jacob? Yet none of us ought to be defined by the worst thing that we’ve ever done. For Jacob that was plural to the extreme. Yet God is never limited by our assessments, our vision, our expectations. God is never limited by our weakness, our deficiencies, our sinfulness. God is not limited by our failure to love, as God is love.
God is god and we are not and that is a good thing. “O Lord show us your mercy as you did your servant Jacob!”
This mysterious thing called salvation is wondrous indeed!
—Timothy J. Cronin