Jacob, limping out of Peniel, Pt. 1

Genesis 32:24-25

So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. 25 When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man.

Esau will likely kill me. He comes with 400 men. What reason is there to come with such a group except to kill, to destroy me? If he came in peace, he would come with a few, sending messengers ahead to greet me. If he came tentatively, unsure of my response but desiring an end to conflict, he would come with a small band. No, he comes for war, to kill me and mine, a godless man in his power.

I limp.

O Lord, Esau is my brother, my brother. What can we make of your ways? He came first from the womb, our mother's long-dead womb, closed and then opened at the prayers of our father. We were a gift to her and a sign to our him, brought forth from another barren woman. Sarah, our grandmother (dead before our birth), had also spent years longing for a child. See and note the significance of this pattern, hear from God and discern in his works his purpose, his word, his message. We must consider these things so that we may think of God rightly, know him for what he is and what he does. My God, the God of my fathers, he has done this, chosen this way, and he alone is to be known in our birth. We are the ones that God brought forth from our mother. I am the son of a promise, the son of God's power, and the son of his choosing.

The son of his choice. I am the younger, born grasping the heels of my brother, a deceiver by my name but even then known, penetrated, for my mother received the words, not of promise exactly, but of prophecy, of seeing and explaining what is to come. Even then, O Lord, your eyes were upon me, your eyes saw me and knew me, the words breathed into my mother as she sought the Lord (for we jostled in her belly, shadowing out in her the pattern of our quarrel to come): 'the older will serve the younger.' These are words of choosing, of taking, that between two one would alone would belong to God, one would triumph over another, one would be stronger. Before birth, before my first action, before the thoughts and choices of my life I was thought upon and chosen, selected by God. The weaker, the younger, the unexpected.

My grandfather would say it was the way of God. He was a man who was familiar with God's ways. I remember when we spoke to him, the fear and nervousness beforehand, taken before the man ancient in his years, old before even our father was born. He sat in his tent with Keturah, his last wife, and before him I felt a deep serenity. His demeanor, his face, his soft words to me calmed me in a way I did not expect. I was a young man then, no more than 13 or 14 when I met him that final time, but in his presence I felt the peace of a man known to himself, a man waiting. The story he told was a rehearsed one, I could tell, and familiar as well, so familiar in fact that the when the promises were repeated I could repeat them with him, my lips moving with his lips, "blessing...nation...great...curse...blessed through you." I thrilled to the words then, though I had never quite experienced them in that way, but somehow in the stillness of his voice I heart them anew, some secret beauty in them emerging, and I glanced at Esau, our long emnity suddenly dead in my heart. But his eyes were unfocused, his thoughts elsewhere.

Then grandfather spoke of the other day, the day when God had asked him for his son. This story I had heard as well, also from my father, but it was different now. I saw the confusion in my grandfather's heart as he listened to God's mysterious instructions, the pain and distress at what was asked. Isaac was the son of long-expectation, the son of barrenness, a life from death, and again as my grandfather spoke I saw the beauty of his words. Life from death, the dead-womb, and my dead father brought back according to the power of God. These were his thoughts as he reasoned that night, the patterns of God in his actions, showing to us his power and strength, bringing out what cannot be brought out. It was in this way that Esau and I were brought from another dead womb, and I was spoken and chosen, I, Jacob, the deceiver (this is my name), the schemer. This is God's way.

Certainly it was not my father's expectation. Esau from youth was a direct man, a man of grace and strength, powerful in his operations, physically impressive. He was a natural hunter, a natural man of the wild, for something in him heard and responded to the wild. He was forthright and honest, impossibly honest really, the honesty of emotion and desire, the honesty of a man to whom lies are impossible to maintain. He felt and acted and did, yes, he did, if that is the way to put it. He was a man of action, and to this my father responded, the delight in the clear favor Esau gave as my father would laugh with him, hunt with him, wrestle with him, myself present of course, for my father was a tender man to me, but never a part, never called forth, included generally but not particularly, always on the tails of Esau, grasping at the favor of my father as I had grasped at Esau's heel the day we were born.

Lord, who am I, to be favored?

Lord, you must have seen me then, for you see all things and know all things, and so you knew me then, before then, choosing against the days of my youth, when I hid from you and my father and my brother. Hiddenness.

To hide. Deceiver.

Lord, if Esau was a man forthright in his honesty, I was a deceiver, weak and fearful in my dishonesty. Deception is a learned trait, a second-son trait, the trait of weakness in competition with strength. Deception is a revelation to a weak man, coming upon him suddenly, taken cautiously at first, but in each success bolder, until a world is built up and a man lives in his lies. The world is a controlled world, though this is a commonplace, that to lie is about control. Lying is about several things, about safety, about strength, about control certainly, but at heart deception is about the new creation, taking, securing myself for myself. Lying creates as a story does. Lying is a statue of a man, a pyramid, a mausoleum.

I was adept in lying, in the half-lies of the great deceivers, the lies of the serpent when he said did God really say? This is not a lie, precisely, and I could be as precise as I needed, hiding more and more behind words, behind the world I had created, living in it and breathing it into me, believing it to some extent, until I could summon also the emotions I needed, hatred of my brother, resentment towards my father, living even uneasily with my mother, afraid of her, careful with her, performing my affection towards her as she desired, but never revealing.

Lord, when I see those days, there is a contempt in my heart that also is a lie, for I know that though you have by your grace transformed me so deeply, there is remaining a heart of deceit to overthrow me if it would. My God, have mercy.

Lord, when I see those days, I mourn the lostness of them, the crumbling inadequacy of my world, for I was known, known as deceivers are known, not in my moments but as a whole. Esau must have known it and been repulsed by it, my nature so naturally opposed to his. My father knew it too, and was disappointed. My mother, well, it is still mysterious to me what she thought, but she clung to me fiercely and blindly, as mothers can, ignoring what what she must have seen.

I remember the inward satisfaction, the assurance that seems so empty now, so mistaken, so temporary. What can I say to see that world, to know it again? There was the sudden terror of discovery, even when it was unfounded, then a slow-fading realization of the essential falseness of my world. It clenches at my heart now, as I remember again some long-held deceptions, carried before my mother, my father, my household. Lying is a gossamer net, swept away quickly, enduring for as long as the strength of men, for it another form of their strength. Like the grass in the field, its years an empty solitude.

Lord, I was lonely in my lies.

Esau, a man of desire, was easily tricked. In fact, it is not fair to call it a trick, although later he considered it so, for though I played upon the weakness of his want, he made his deal with a clear mind, value for value. He received the estimation of what he gave. He stole it! he said, as if he knew the cost of what he had given. I did know the cost of it, even then I valued it according to the memories of my grandfather's words, in my deception there yet shimmered a small sliver of the glory, a shard of grace, seen now only by the refraction of years. But it was present, the gift of my choosing, and it clung there though I did not know it, awaiting the pursuit.

There is the curiosity, the oddness of God's ways, for I do not doubt that behind all this stands God's power. I was a deceiver. Esau a man forthright. The birthright, however, was unveiled to me, I saw its glory. Why should I see it, when Esau did not? Here are the words of your choosing in their power. I pursued, despite myself. My character has changed but in my flesh there is no change, and I see and recognize myself as a liar. I hate these lies, these destructions, these shatterings that for a moment gave safety (like Esau's profaneness, my lies are a response to desire), but in my hands returned in brokenness, hardness, alienation. Esau comes now, for what Lord? For a return upon me of what I have wrought? The seed planted grows eventually.

(My heart hears your favor)

To trick my father was harder, harder in execution and in my heart. The first lie was carefully spoken, "I am Esau your firstborn." This was planned beforehand ('what will be your words?' my mother asked, she working with me in the deceit of her husband), and I was fortified in it by an imagined resentment, the justification for my deceit, for even then I never could face my lies directly, as lies. Some I moved past without thought, others I carried in their half-truth, others justified by anger. The second lie was easy, not a baldfaced lie but a hypothetical. If my first words were true, than my second would be too.

Then my father drew me close to him, drew in a lie, an imagined thing. I looked at his face and saw the age of years, his deep tenderness, I felt what Esau must have felt from him, the affection, the dearness, the unrestrained giving of his heart. I shuddered in my deceit and almost faltered, for my heart was hungry to break it, to give myself to this man in my completeness, to make myself known to him, my own father, to see and experience what I now know I longed for. But then he asked me, 'Are you really my son Esau?' and I knew I was not his desire, not his choice, and my heart was hardened again. I spoke, 'I am,' a lie, and received his blessing.

My lies are heavy upon me. A liar once exposed is never safe again, except in fleeing, though even then his lies may follow him. I had gambled upon the value of making my nature known, for to receive blessing from him was a prize worth all things, but my world had broken apart in a way unexpected. My father was always a hard man for me to understand (possessing both the forthrightness of Esau and the soft humility of his father), and I expected him to be altogether like myself, to react as I would have. I suspected that behind his blessing there was a joy at being rid of me, that it was all a show, a liar like myself (liars always suspect the truth of others), and so I left in bitterness, my defenses stripped away in my exposure, but at heart still a man determined to turn weakness into strength. Then, O Lord, is when your pursuit began.