Genesis 32:3-8,22-30

Today's Old Testament Lesson is part of the Jacob saga. After tricking his twin brother, Esau, out of his birthright, Jacob retreats in fear to east of the Jordan, and labors for 14 years for his mother's brother, Laban, winning two wives, Laban's daughters, Leah and Rachel, as well as numerous flocks and herds and retainers. In the opening verses of our Lesson, he returns to the Promised Land, but he is still fearful of the wrath of his brother. When he is told that Esau is approaching from a distance with 400 men, he separates his retinue into two parts, so as to minimize the chances of losing everything, and then goes on by himself, quite alone.

Jacob is in many ways one of the least admirable of characters. Yet he is one of the founding fathers, and later in this Lesson he is given the new name of Israel, which is the name of God's Chosen People to this day.

What is there about this man which led the Lord to see in him someone who could stand as the progenitor of the people who would be chosen as the bearers of God's plan of salvation for the whole creation?

In spite of his fears and his doubts, and his self-seeking and his "dodginess", Jacob is one who doggedly perseveres and strives against fearful odds all his life, and manages to overcome. The odds always seem to be against him, he seems to be weak yet he is actually strong; he never gives up. So much for the horizontal element of his character. As for the vertical, his relationship to God, his spiritual nature as it were, he is one who shows himself capable of change when confronted by God. In religious terms, we call that change repentance. Given his great gifts, morally dubious through they are, his capacity for change is what makes him someone whom God can use.

In the second half of today's Lesson we have the story of his wrestling with a mysterious figure who accosts him at the brook Jabbok. This is popularly referred to as his wrestling with an angel, but the text never says that. They wrestle all night in a fearful bout, and though Jacob sustains a severe and permanently disabling injury, he refuses to surrender until a demand for blessing from hi opponent is granted. The text itself is ambiguous, yet it is clear that we are meant to understand that in some strange manner Jacob has been striving with God himself - whether actually physically or in a more spiritual sense, is left to the reader to imagine.

"God is a surprise!" a recent song proclaims. Far from resenting it that a mere human would presume to contend with him, Israel's God, we learn here, actually values this trait, and it is the chief reason for his choice then and there of Jacob/Israel to be the one with whose descendants he will later enter into covenant.

Jesus' parable in today's Gospel, about the Unjust Judge and the importunate Widow, is making the same point.

To this day the Jewish people, the Children of Israel, insist on persevering and surviving despite all odds, and they "maintain their own cause" (as the Psalmist challenges God himself to do in Psalm 74:21). Sometimes this is seemingly even as against God himself. paradoxically, they are thereby continuing to be effective witnesses to God's great love, as shown in his humility notwithstanding his overwhelming power.