Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
©Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton
Sunday, September 29, 2019
Scripture: Genesis 32:22-30 (NRSV)
Let me catch you up. Abraham and Sarah were called by God to leave their home and travel to a land that God promised to show them. Already advanced in years, they doubted they could ever have a baby, even though God had promised to make them the parents of a great nation. Then, at the age of 100, Sarah conceived and gave birth to a baby boy whom they named Isaac.
There’s plenty to tell about Isaac, but suffice it to say that he grew up and married Rebecca. They had twin sons: Esau and Jacob. Esau was born first; Jacob came next, holding onto Esau’s heel. Esau was big and strapping and loved to hunt with his dad. Jacob preferred to hang out at home with his mother. When the time came for Isaac to confer his blessing on his first born son, Jacob pretended to be Esau and tricked his very near-sighted dad into blessing Jacob instead. (with me so far?)
Aware that stealing the family blessing would not go over well with his big brother, Jacob hightailed it out of town. He settled in another region, got a job with his maternal uncle, and over the course of twenty years accumulated wives, children and cattle (that’s a whole nother story!) until one day God spoke to Jacob and told him it was time to go home.
That’s where we pick up the story. Jacob is on the road, within spitting distance of his hometown, where Esau still lives. Esau has had several years to stew over Jacob’s deception and to work up a fierce resentment. It’s easy to believe that Jacob may have been feeling a bit apprehensive about that reunion.
So when they get to the river, Jacob has his family cross over with his possessions, but he holds back and spends the night alone, “wrestling with a man…” who turns out to be an angel of God, or maybe even God Godself. Although Jacob’s wrestling partner declines to give a name, it seems Jacob knows enough to demand a blessing (again) and then to name the place “Penuel,” which means “Face of God,” “for I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved,” he says.
Face to face. Tell me: What have you wrestled with in the wee hours of the pre-dawn? What worries have you confronted in the dark of night, when the rest of the world is sound asleep? Have you ever argued with God, or the universe, or your self about what you should do when the sun comes up, or railed against something that is being asked of you? Remember, it was God who told Jacob to go home in the first place. This wasn’t really Jacob’s idea. So you can imagine how ambiguous Jacob may have been feeling, on the eve of that fraternal confrontation: how he might have wrestled with fear, resentment, worry, or with the idea that he might have to be the one to make the first move toward reconciliation with his brother.
I’m talking about the kind of wrestling we do when we know we have something hard to do: not physical labor, but heart work – like reaching out to an estranged family member, or admitting that we’ve made a mistake, owning the harm we have caused, or being the first to say “I’m sorry.”
We might know in our heart that forgiveness would be better for everyone, and yet. In the middle of the night, when the rest of the world has gone dark, we come face to face with the forces that hold us back: our own discomfort or self-interest or the mixed motives that show up in bold relief, like a pumped up angel glowing in the full moon and ready to rumble.
I think this is God showing up, not as an adversary, but as a kind of sparring partner, there to help me work something through, to hold the punching bag or go a few rounds to help get the worry out of my system, to beat back those forces that keep me from taking the risks I need to take, to strengthen and open my heart, so that I can be a little more brave when the sun finally rises. These nighttime confrontations are a holy reminder that we can do the hard work, if we just hold on and ask God to bless us on the way…
I’m sure you can think of relationships in your life that need mending. Friendships that have gone off the rails; family dynamics that make you crazy; neighbors with whom you no longer speak because you can’t see eye to eye. Perhaps you can admit, at least to yourself, that you have played a part in the brokenness, by action or inaction. It’s also possible that you are the Esau in this story, that you know the deep hurt of being betrayed by a person or a community that you have loved.
Either way, you already know that the path to healing can be a long one… That repairing hurt and transforming broken relationships requires time and intentionality and not letting go of the possibility that there could be a blessing at the end of the long night. That’s even more true, when the harm that’s been done has been passed down over generations, and concerns not just a personal conflict but damage inflicted on an entire people. Sometimes our wrestling has to do with confronting and coming to terms with our own history.
One afternoon during our mission trip to Black Mesa, Arizona, I was balanced halfway up a ladder, helping one of our youth install siding on a house, when the pastor of our host church arrived. I climbed down and went to greet him, only to be invited inside by the homeowner Al (who, it turns out, is the pastor’s son). He seated the pastor, JR and me on a couch out of the heat of the afternoon sun, handed us each a cold drink, then headed back outside to work with our youth. The pastor and I began to talk. I asked him several questions about life on the reservation, his own work and the challenges of pastoring a church when members are scattered across miles of desert, often without easy transportation.
Then he asked me to tell him about my church. What is it called? Saugatuck Church, I said. “That’s an Indian name,” he observed. He said it casually, with easy familiarity, maybe even with a trace of humor, but not, I think, with any intended irony. And yet, in that moment, I came face to face with a gut-wrenching truth: that the church I serve bears a name borrowed from a people whom our ancestors displaced from this land. We sit on property that was once occupied by tribes I could not name. I couldn’t tell their story. I didn’t know what happened to them, not precisely. I didn’t even know the meaning of the word Saugatuck, or from which native language it originated. Although we moved on to other topics, I could not shake the sense that God had looked me in the eye and told me there was work to do back home.
During our last circle time on the mission trip, we asked ourselves, “What now?” What will we take from this week? What steps can we take, in response to what we have witnessed here? Among my answers was a commitment to learn more about the indigenous history of our corner of CT.
It turns out, this is not easy. Our history idealizes early american colonies and portrays the European settlers as the protagonists in a story that sees the decimation of Native Americans as a regrettable but unavoidable chapter in the noble conquest of a place ‘destined’ to become the land of the free and home of the brave. The pastors who helped found Westport and Fairfield are described as model citizens, as were the Bankside farmers who first purchased land from local tribes (land that those tribes thought of like the air, as something that cannot be permanently possessed by anyone).
I re-read Woody Klein’s history of Westport but found very little detail about the particular tribes that roamed this land. I did learn that “Saugatuck” means something like, “Mouth of the river,” and that many of the tribes in these parts belonged to the Paugusett Nation lived. And I read this: “Bankside Farmers [who first settled the land that would become Fairfield and Westport] were reaping valuable crops … they…owned slaves and had benefit of cheap Indian labor…”
I did a google search to learn more about the Paugussett Nation but found only this: “Due to heavy population losses and aggressive colonial expansion, the Native American tribes of Connecticut were scattered, merged, and assimilated to such a degree that they lost their languages and much of their individual tribal character.”[1]
The challenge with this particular broken relationship is that it’s hard to know where to go to seek reconciliation. Jacob knew that his brother Esau waited for him beyond the river, for better or worse.
But it turns out that many of the tribes who lived in what is now western Connecticut have perished, along with their languages. So it took God in the eyes of a Navajo pastor to call me to account. And it will take a good deal more reflecting on our part, perhaps even a fair bit of wrestling, to consider what it means to make amends. To be clear, we do have Native American neighbors in Connecticut, including two nationally recognized tribes; Mashantucket Pequot Nation and the Mohegan Nation. We might start there…
I also learned, after returning home, that the Historical Society (just renamed the Westport Museum for History and Culture) plans a major exhibit on Native American history in 2020.
In case you’re wondering, here’s what happened the day after Jacob wrestled with the divine. He did meet Esau, and Esau welcomed him home with open arms. Who knows why it worked out that way. Whether Esau had long since done his own wrestling, so that he was free to welcome his brother without bitterness, or whether he sized up his little brother as Jacob approached. Maybe he saw the limp and recognized it for what it was: a new humility, an honest wrestling with his transgressions and a realization that we are ALL in need of forgiveness.
It doesn’t always go down that way; not all relationships can be renewed, but I am struck by the assurance embedded in this story. That when we do our own work, our own wrestling, when we come face to face with the ways we have caused harm, we also come face to face with the God of reunions. And then we may look in the eyes of those whom we have regarded as adversaries, and finally see them as family instead.
Amen.
[1] womenhistoryblog.com/2008/02/native-americans-in-connecticut.html