Proper 24 C Genesis 32:3-8, 22-30 2 Timothy 3:14 - 4:5 Luke 18:1-8a October 17, 2004 The Rev. J. Brian Ponder, Chaplain Church of the Resurrection, Starkville, Mississippi May the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God, our Strength and our Redeemer. Amen. Today, perhaps more so than in many years, icons are making their way back into the devotional life of many Christians and others as they attempt to work on facets of that same life. Maybe you've been online or seen a catalog from different supply houses, or maybe you've even been to an authentic Catholic bookstore or supply house and seen their collection of icons which can be readily purchased. There are thousands of them out there, and they can be found in a good number of secular venues as well. Earlier this year, I even trudged through an exhibit of early and medieval Byzantine icons at the Metropolitan Museum of Art before returning from seminary. Well this week, a catalog arrived in the church office full of icons - icons depicting various saintly personages, which if used as intended, might become windows outside of ourselves and into meditation and prayer and experience of the other. Now this catalog is chocked full of folks I've heard of and studied in seminary. In it I found Benedict and Thomas Aquinas. I saw several icons of Francis and others - some a little more obscure. Some had been newly written, but most were mass-produced replicas. Each, though, in its own way testifies to a "truth" or perception of the one depicted and points to that "Truth" (with a capital "T") beyond even the subject matter. The idea is that that truth of depiction might act as an entryway into deeper understanding. Well there were quite a few depicting the Blessed Mother, the Incarnation, and a good number of Christ … as teacher, king, lifegiver. But the ones I didn't see were Christ the personal trainer, or Christ the motivational speaker, or Christ the cheerleader. Something tells me that these just might be closer to the Jesus portrayed in our reading of the gospel today. The intent of today's parable is so important, that the Lucan editor has decided to reiterate the gist of the story before it's even iterated! If you weren't listening right from the get-go, you may have even missed it! "Jesus told his disciples a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart." Enter Jesus, the coach, yet another icon that didn't make the cut in the catalog. For me, the lesson is much more confusing without thinking of Jesus in this context. We meet an unjust judge, concerned more with his own placation than of true justice for the widow. The judge simply wants to be rid of the woman who keeps pestering, pushing, stretching him. In fact we are told that he was at the point of being "worn down" by the persistence of this woman. He ends up doing the right thing for all the wrong reasons. Persistence, endurance, steadfastness … these are the themes that permeate our lessons today. They act as an under-girding for the weaving of story and the opening of the window of truth for us. The truth, if we are open to it, is that we are never left alone. Jacob was someone who knew something about being alone. Though he surrounded himself with wives and his household numbered greatly, Jacob knew solitude. He was running and had been running from the bridge he burned for some twenty years when he came to the Jabbok and sent his family across. Though it was not until here that Jacob was literally alone, Jacob knew separation. He knew avoidance. He knew what it meant to be running, and it all caught up with him this particular night. We are told that he worried what the ramifications of his past were. He worried for the safety of those whose lives were in his care. He worried for everything that he had gathered to himself, because of having stolen Esau's birthright so long before. Out of fear, after years of utter and internal turmoil, Jacob wrestles the demon - quite figuratively and literally. And what he finds is that he is not alone after all. The inner demon is no demon at all, but in fact an angel--indeed even GOD fleshed in truth. This portion of the Jacob cycle is one of my favorites, because a depiction of this scene is captured in a stained glass window neatly tucked away in the corner of the sacristy at General Seminary. Attached to the Chapel, the sacristy is a lively place of preparation and planning. Daily, teams assemble to make ready the Chapel for the some twenty worship services held there throughout the week. The sacristy is a place where I spent a lot of time, so I had plenty of opportunities to think on Jacob. Seminary for me, as I'm sure college was or is for many of you, had high and low points - some of it all filled with moments of questioning, further discerning, struggling, wrestling - with call, vocation, certain doctrines or lines of theology, with things that affected the community, or individuals within it. Seminary and college experiences are not unique in this respect. Any number of other scenarios could apply in your own life. But I say this, because that window in particular, often pointed to a larger truth through its subject matter - acting as an icon of truth that meant just that much more in such a place and at such a time in my life. It offered a vision for point of contact with God, for engagement with the other even in the midst of "battle" so to speak, and it spoke of presence, of not being alone. The figures were hugged together more than anything else, arms locked around torsos and quite literally joined at the hip. Now I'm not trying to paint for you a picture of seminary as having been a "dark night of the soul" kind of place for me, because it wasn't. It did, however, have its moments. Don't we all have those moments? What are the places in our own lives and in our own day where we feel alone, or disengaged, or disjointed, disillusioned or disconnected? What is it about those places that confuses us, or frightens us? What is it about those places, or about what we might find there, that shies us away, or sets up a wall, or simply confounds and confines us? What might we find there? I think more than an invitation to such places, these are the places in our lives we can oftentimes deal with a whole lot better by being kicked, thrust, bottoming out, or falling there. But these places, I'm convinced, are better lived through or crossed into rather than avoided, however painful. They're places that must be visited if, as Red says in the movie The Shawshank Redemption, we're gonna "Get to livin'", rather than, "Get to dyin'." We all have the choice to make, and it's a choice that never has to be made alone. [Pause] Luke says: "Jesus told his disciples a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart." [Pause] Can you imagine what it must have been like to follow Jesus around all the time? There were plenty of happy times filled with awe and amazement, but certainly many more filled with sorrow. Do you remember the taunts and trials? Do you remember the temptation? The jeers … the triumphal entry that quickly turned to shouts for death and murder? Our God is a God that remembers our sorrows, and shortcomings and failings and anything else that would compromise our full humanity, because our God has entered into that same sorrow, that place of death and darkness, and our God has done that for us - on our behalf and for our salvation. And we know this sorrow, because we know Jesus and his passion. We know of that place of the dead, and degradation and sorrow and woundedness - indeed brokenness. And Jesus comes to us and says: "Do not lose heart." "I've been there myself." Not, "I can relate." Rather: "I know. I understand." Jacob knew pain and suffering. His wholeness towards a new reality - his being named Israel - could only come through the brokenness, the pain of facing his inner demons. He understood an abandonment and a wounded-ness much greater than being struck on the hip socket. Yet that mark, that limp, that gift, was his salvation. Jacob fought the good fight. He engaged with the other. He saw God. Wasn't this surely the same persistence that empowered Martin Luther King and so many others to work for the end of segregation and to obtain civil rights? Wasn't this the active waging of respect for life and the dignity of all for which Teresa strove in Calcutta? Isn't this surely the same persistence we can invite through prayer and devotion and study and listening hearts into our own lives thus turning those dark places brighter for ourselves and others? Our Good News is this: We are the people of covenant. We are heirs of the resurrection light. And in this hope, we know ourselves to be a people who are never forgotten … never alone … never abandoned. And Jesus comes to us and says: "Keep the faith." "Grow in me as I in you." "I am with you always." "Do not lose heart." Glory to God whose power working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. Glory to God from generation to generation through Christ Jesus and in the Church. Amen.