a word

it's been two weeks since i've come back from thailand and i slowly feel my old memory losing bits and pieces from the trip. details of the trip are becoming hazy in this old memory. getting back into the life here in seattle keeps demands on my time that makes it hard for me to remember, but i continue to find ways to hold on to the dear people of burma and thailand.

today at quest the service was dedicated to the team that went to thailand to share testimonies of what we'd experienced, heard and seen. one of our team members, rich, put together a short film of the trip. as we were watching the video there were scenes of our time in the refugee camps and immediately my heart felt joy, sadness, peace and goodness and i began to weep out of thanksgiving to be a part of such a blessed thing.

in our travels to different places people would ask the pastors to share, to teach and to preach. i was asked to preach for a church in sangkla buri (on the southern end of thailand/ burma border). immediately i asked myself: who am i to speak into a world i know nothing about? and it is truly only by the grace of god that he gave me the words to speak and teach. the next portion is an excerpt from the teaching. i share it with you in hopes that it'll encourage you, my dear brothers and sisters. i hope that it'll challenge all of us, as we continue to pursue god. i pray that we see unity with all our brothers and sisters of this world: even those we'll never meet or see.
blessings!
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Genesis 32:22-32

Thank you so much for having us today. It is our pleasure to come and to commune with you this Sunday morning. I also want to share that your music, your songs have been a great blessing and have ministered to us during our visit. Your people sing such beautiful songs and we carry those songs close to our hearts. We are humbled to be among you today, as we believe that it is not most imporant that we come teach you, but that it is more important for us to learn in your presence. In fact, this is very much a learning experience for our team. We want to learn more about your stories. We want to hear more about your lives. We want to be challenged more by hearing about your faithfulness to God so that we can learn to trust more deeply in our personal relationships with our Father. Time and time again we have seen God's love in you through your graciousness and hospitality to each of us from Seattle.
We come from a small church in Seattle. We have traveled all along the border to come visit you. I am a pastor at that church. When I was asked to speak and to teach today I wondered what it is I might share. I asked myself how do I speak into your lives when I know so little about what your lives look like each day. I struggled because I knew that as much as I have to teach I have much more to learn. So I am humbled by this opportunity to stand before you today. I don't know what your daily challenges are and it woud be foolish of my to say I know or understand what you face-- what trials you deal with, what struggles you wrestle through, what challenges that meet you each day. It would be dishonest of me to say that I understand your oppression and the persecution you face or the losses you endure, because I do not. I come from a very different context from the western world, but I am assured of two thing. The first is that you and I are brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ our Lord. Because of his grace and mercy he has afforded us through His life, death and resurrection we have an opportunity to be a part of the family of God. And it his love that binds us together. Because of that love and kinship we have a responsibility to each other. We have the responsiblity to care for one another, to love one another and to spur each other on to spiritual growth and maturity. You my friends have the responsibility to teach us and to share with us your faith, your trust, your belief in our maker. And we (from Seattle) have the responsibilty to you to advocate for the freedom and release of your people. We have the responsibility to care for you in your struggle through prayer and by telling our church, our family, our friends in Seattle the struggles that you face. We do not take that responsibility lightly. We will stand with you and join you in your fight for the rights of your people. We will tell our church to join you in prayer, in encouragement and in admonishing each other to the face of Christ.
Secondly, I am reminded that although I do not know all of your struggles what I do know is that both you and I are human. And in the truth of our humanity we share certain commonalities of the human condition. As humans we share in similar feelings, desires and temptations. We all desire to be loved and cared for. We desire to belong and to be known and to be connected to something bigger than ourselves. We desire to have security and a hope of a future. And on the other side of the coin we experience similar feelings of temptation, disobedience and distrust. Sometimes when we face hardships it is very easy for us to lose faith in God. It is easy for us to grow bitter and angry and resentful and in those feelings turn our face from God. Yet, God in His goodness and love continues to extend himself to us even when we are reluctant to give our lives fully over to Him.
Today we will be reading from Genesis 32:22-32. I think there is much to be learned from Jacob and the relationship he establishes with God. In this particular part of the story we see that Jacob has his first physical encounter with God. Up until this point God is more a deity of his family line, of his tradition and it is at this stand off where God meets Jacob. When you look at the story of Jacob you realize that this guy is pretty messed up. In fact, the family blessing and birth right that he has received has been obtained through deceit and lies. He first gives his brother some soup in exhange for his birth right and then later in life with the help of his mother he tricks his father in order to obtain the family blessing. From there he flees his home out of fear for his life. And we see that it is in this encounter that God really chooses Jacob to be the leader of the Israelite people. His leadership and blessing really has nothing to do with his prior obtainment of these traditions (although they do tell us a lot about the cultural implications) but more have to do with this physical encounter of God. This is the first physical encounter with God of this type. When I think of a good leader I think of someone who is honest, strong and wise. When I think of Jacob those characteristics do not come to mind, especially in the first part of this story because he is deceitful in obtaining these rights, he is fearful and flees for his life (as opposed to repenting for his sin) and he is unwise in his dealing with his relationships. Yet, God sees much more in Jacob than you and I see. And the truth is it is a reminder to us that it is through God's strength and power that Israel is led not by Jacob or Abraham or Isaac, but through the divine nature of God.
Also we see that not only is this the moment that God chooses Jacob, but it is the moment that Jacob chooses God. As stated earlier, the worship, belief and adoption of God was very much part of the tradition of the Israelite people and the family line of Abraham. For Jacob's family line God was a very important part of their history, their story, their faith, their survival. So this is a very important part of the story because what we see here is Jacob making God his own-- not only out of tradition and part of his heritage, but out of the desire to know God from a personal persepective.
You see Jacob could have just received God as part of his heritage or tradition, but he chooses to make God his own by not letting go until he was blessed by God. This was probably the most honest act of Jacob. I've found through my work with people that in order for us to get our way we find ways to manipulate those around us or we try to manipulate God to do what we want-- we don't very often speak out directly or honestly about what we want or need or desire. In this account we see Jacob honestly and boldly tell God that he will not let him go until he is blessed. This is a very tense moment in the story because we know that God could have broke Jacob in two. Who was this dishonest, fearful guy telling God what to do? But God honors him by staying. And because God stayed, wrestled and in the end blessed Jacob it is an indication that God not only desires to be our God through tradition and through our histories but he desires to be our God through a personal relationship and encounter with Him.
God desires intimacy with His people. He desires each one of us to come to him not out of obligation, but out of the desire to want to make God our own. I was raised in a Christian home. It was always such an odd thing trying to figure out my faith because in so many ways my faith seemed like it was just an extension of my parents' faith and I have had to learn and acknowledge the fact that God wants my obedience to him because I personally love him-- not just simply because it comes out of the model of my parents (although that is important, too). He met Jacob and honored Jacob's boldness because it was a step in the direction of stating with His actions 'I want you to be my father. In addition to being the God of my father and forefather I want you to be my God and today I make you mine through this struggle of wills-- bless me!' Interestingly enough, God wrestles, He stays, He blesses him and he renames Jacob. God also gives Jacob evidence of this encounter by wrenching his hip. It is evidence that God does meet with us.
Today I encourage you brothers and sisters to wrestle God. I encourage your to struggle with him through your trials and questioning. Do not disengage! It is easy out of our pain and our hardships to move farther from God in isolation, but God wants us to come to him in our hard times. It would be easy to say well our parents, our church, our pastors tell us we must obey, we must trust God so we must adopt this simply out of duty to our faith histories, but God will honor our requests on a personal level (that does not necessarily mean he gives always gives us what we want, but it means that he shows up when we ask him). There is no better time than in our struggles to draw near to God, because as we have seen with Jacob, God will draw near to us. God is a personal, intimate God who longs to not only know us as part of a larger community of believers or family, but he wants to know us and acknowledge us as individuals made in his divine image.
We as brothers and sisters have the responsibility to spur each other on towards the face of Christ. Your brothers and sisters from Seattle do not take that lightly. We will join in your struggle. We will tell our church and our families of your struggle. And we will pray for you through this oppression. Thank you for allowing us to be a part of your service today. We have learned so much about trust and grace through your generosity and hospitality towards each of us.
Let us pray.