About fighting

Year C - Pentecost, Proper 24
Readings: Genesis 32:3-8,22-302 Timothy 3:14-4:5 Luke 18:1-8a Psalm 121


A common theme in today's texts is that of persistence in struggle and difficulty - hanging in there. Fighting and prevailing.
In struggling with the man he believes to be God, Jacob literally hangs on until he receives a blessing. In the epistle, Timothy is urged to "continue in what you have learned and firmly believed" and to "be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable..." And in the gospel, Jesus tells a parable "about the need to pray always and not lose heart." The widow in his story "kept coming" and asking for justice, and eventually the unjust judge decided to grant it "so that she will not wear me out by continually coming."
Another aspect of this theme of struggle and persistence seems to be the presence of opposition. In the Gospel, the widow seeks justice against an unnamed opponent - we don't know the problem there - but then she has a further struggle with the judge, who doesn't really care about justice and so in that sense forms some more opposition.
In the OT reading, the opponent seems to be God. The text just says 'a man,' but Jacob clearly believes afterward that he has seen God and even fought with him, and he's amazed God didn't kill him. Jacob wrestles with the man, and the man dislocates his hip, but Jacob still won't let him go without a blessing, so the man gives Jacob a new name. "You shall no longer be called Jacob but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed." The word translated as 'prevail' doesn't necessarily mean that he conquered his opponent - that he beat God; it can also mean that he showed endurance, strength and courage in the fight. I think that's very important to notice - you don't have to beat your opponent to prevail.
I think struggle and fighting are things most of us can relate to. We fight with people, with circumstances, with God, with ourselves. What does it mean to prevail in these?
When we fight with people, it's just as often, if not more often, that we fight with people we love. In this situation, beating your opponent is not really a good way to 'win.' In a fight with family or friends, this kind of winning isn't very satisfactory.
When we fight circumstances, whether it's a health issue, a job situation, a policy or a law, people usually get drawn into it, too - even if you know what's to blame, it's hard to fight something you can't see or touch.
Sometimes, we fight God, and a similar thing can happen there - think Cain and Abel. But really, if anybody can handle our fight, it's God. Writers of the Psalms often got really angry with God; so did Job, and so did Jonah, and so did countless other people in the Scriptures. God's big enough to take it, and if God's the one you're mad at, God's the one to take it up with. I think it's also true that when you fight with God, you know God better.
Then there's fighting within ourselves: fighting our fears, our demons, and all the gunk we internalize from the problems and dysfunction in our lives. In the book The Imitation of Christ, I ran across this: "Who has a greater struggle than those who labor to overcome themselves?" Anyone who's faced addiction or even observed someone in that struggle can agree this is true.
In all of these struggles, what does it look like to prevail? I think part of the answer relates to peace. Sometimes, just to endure is to prevail - if you've made it this far, regardless of how much damage you've sustained - the fact that you're here is prevailing. Your scars show what you've been through - like Jacob limping as he walked away from wrestling with God. But you've lived to tell about it - you struggled with God and the world and yourself, and you've prevailed.
What if you lose? It depends on what you think losing is. I think to make peace with an opponent is to prevail, even if they win. For example, to face death and make peace with that opponent, whether you then live or die - is to prevail in that struggle - to show courage and endurance. I heard a saying once: 'Courage is fear that has said its prayers.' I like that, and I think it's true.
When I was facing a medical procedure to repair a brain aneurysm a couple of years ago, I also had to face the fear of dying. There came a point, after six months of delays, when all my distractions were gone, and there was no avoiding it anymore.
I wouldn't say I won that battle; I didn't beat the fear. I tried every argument I could think of to reason myself into peace, and I couldn't. Fear is more primal than reason. So finally, I prayed and asked God to give me peace about death, and it came.
It was so simple, I didn't believe it could be true at first and tried to make myself afraid again, but I couldn't. So I prevailed, but it wasn't because I defeated the fear; it was because God fought for me when I couldn't fight anymore.
Another thing about fighting is that it reveals a lot about the character of the contenders. When you fight someone, you know them. This idea was expressed in the sequel to the Matrix, when Neo is summoned to a meeting, and as soon as he walks in the door, the doorkeeper immediately engages him in a ferocious battle. Afterwards, the guy says he had to fight Neo in order to know for sure who he was.
I've started arguments with people before for no apparent reason, I suppose to see how they would respond, to flush them out into the open, I guess, to figure them out. And I've had people do that to me, too - to see how far they could push me before I pushed back.
There's something about competition that brings out things you don't see in casual interaction. People are more raw when they're fighting or competing. If you play any sport, or ever have, you know this. I played soccer from the time I was four until just a few years ago, and now I fence. In either place, I've found I learn a lot about people by facing them in competition. I learn their strength, their speed, their stamina, their habits and their style, how rough or skillful they are, whether they play clean or dirty.
The other side to this is, I learn a lot about myself, too. Some of it's good - some not.
When I played soccer, I learned that I'm persistent and I'm tough, but I'm not always realistic about the laws of physics. I frequently got knocked down trying to challenge people much bigger than me, but I'd get up and keep going. When I played goalkeeper, I wasn't afraid to dive or charge a forward one-on-one.
I also learned, though, that when I played forward, I had a tendency under pressure to sabotage my own plays and then make excuses about why I lost the ball, even though I had enough skill, technically, to keep it. If I had a fullback bearing down on me, for example, sometimes I'd cross the ball early from the wing just to get rid of it. But the center forwards weren't in place yet, so all that work to get the ball up was wasted.
The thing is, probably nobody would blame me. Except that I knew I was doing it. And actually, you can't have that many 'unlucky' breaks without someone seeing a pattern. When I played on my cousin's team, he commented 'Good Lord, I've never seen a more skittish forward!'
He had me sorted. I didn't have myself sorted, though. I didn't know WHY I was doing it. But at that point, I decided I better figure it out and try to fix it.
I think the same concept is true in many types of competition: the quest for grades, the desire to climb a ladder or achieve some status, even political debates.
The reason this is useful - what we see in the microcosm of a game or a debate or an argument, we can work on in that context and in other areas. And more broadly, what we see when fighting under any circumstances, can be an indicator of strengths or weaknesses.
In spite of our desire for peace, we do a fair amount of fighting. I think it's somewhat a part of the way we are as people. Maybe this is why God fights with Jacob and doesn't kill him - because God knows Jacob and knows that's the way he is.
Some people just come out swinging, and Jacob's whole life was like that - Jacob wasn't the ideal man like Abraham - calmly accepting all kinds of difficulties and waiting patiently for their seemingly impossible fulfillment. No, Jacob was going to grab what he could - he was grabbing his brother's heel when he was born - and since that moment was always fighting or scheming with somebody.
One of the most notable examples was when he tricked his brother Esau out of a blessing, and it was after this that he fled his home, afraid of the revenge his brother would taken when he discovered this.
Sometimes, people just kind of have to fight, I think. We wish for peace and harmony and unity with no divisions, but the reality is far from these ideals. In our culture, we don't have a lot of acceptable circumstances for fighting, but I think in some sense, people need to contend with something. Sports are one example, but also things like Survivor and a lot of those reality TV shows, where all kinds of normal activities, like dating, doing a job interview, and designing clothes are turned into competition events. Yesterday, I was watching Iron Chef America - they were having 'Battle Eggplant'...Now you tell me we don't have a need for competition!
The movie Fight Club is a very clear example - these young guys started a club just to fight each other - hand to hand, no gloves, no weapons, and very few rules. The story is somewhat more complicated than this, but essentially, the appeal seemed to be that by fighting, and sustaining injury, they were doing something that felt real - more real than pushing papers in an office. This movie was really popular, which means people respond to it for some reason. I think there's something to notice there.
If you're fighting, especially one-on-one, your goal is clearly defined by beating your opponent. But if you're a small part of a big goal, and especially if you don't know what that goal is, your part can feel pointless. This is somewhat our situation as members of the Church - we're each small parts of a larger body, involved in doing a work that we don't see the end of because it's so much bigger than any of us.
I think part of the implication of the letter to Timothy is - Hang in there. Don't lose sight of the goal you're part of. Know what that goal is. Learn what your part is and do it. And don't let other people's impatience or lack of interest make you forget what you're about.
AND - Fight the good fight.

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Given to St. John's, Silsbee
Oct. 21, 2007