Our Old Testament lesson dropped us in the middle of the story of Jacob. He is heading south to Canaan, the land of this birth. He has sent his family and possessions across “the ford of the Jabbok,” and he remains on the north side of the river. There, he has a mysterious confrontation with a man. They wrestle until daybreak.
 
It is a moment of tension, heightened by the narrative’s terse sentences. We should remember that Jacob had reasons to be afraid that night. 

He was leaving the house of his uncle Laban, who had cheated him and whom he had cheated. He was drawing near to where his twin brother, Esau, held sway – Esau, with whom he had been in conflict since their birth, Esau, who had promised to kill him, Esau, whose birthright and blessing Jacob had usurped through trickery.

It was not a good moment for a lonely encounter with an unknown assailant -- in the dark, by a river. Jacob could have chosen not to return home. He could have gone another direction: east toward the land of the Chaldeans, from where his grandfather Abraham had gone; north into parts unknown, even west, skirting the coast of Canaan, or taking a ship. 

But his birthright, his inheritance, and the places where he had previously encountered the living God all lay south. So south he went. 

And at the ford of the Jabbok, he wrestled until daybreak. He endured the strain of the battle. He must have cried out as his bones were put out of joint by the blows of his enemy – who, it turns out, was not his enemy, but a mysterious manifestation of God. 

Jacob said to him, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” God did bless him, and renamed him: “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.” Jacob went away, limping, as the sun rose, and the place was named Peniel or Penuel, which means “face of God.” 

Like the parable in our Gospel reading, Jacob’s encounter reveals to us the nature of life here on earth, the life that is lived by faith. It is a life in which we do not understand everything that happens to us. It is a life in which the future remains open: we do not know what it is coming next. It is a life amid uncertainty, where we may continually encounter God, sometimes finding him in those places where we are struggling the most, unsure, alone, burdened by the past. 

We are not left without agency. God knows the future, and we do not. But we may strive still, strive with God and humanity, and come to prevail, come to receive the blessing and a name. We may enter those good times that the Lord has prepared for those who love him. 

It takes persistence – persistence, like the widow in the parable of Jesus. She is confronted by the injustice of her opponent, and challenged by a judge who does not care to uphold the law. This judge operates without regard for anyone, and for a while “he refuses” the widow’s case. But he is worn down by her pleas, her irritating and bothersome complaints. 

The life of faith takes persistence and sometimes urgency and determination to knock on the doors that lie ahead of us, to push through them, to remain steadfast in the tasks to which God has called us. Think of St Paul’s exhortation to Timothy, which grounds Timothy’s life in the word of God and in the ministry of the Gospel.  Paul says to him – and to us: 

In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I solemnly urge you: proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching.   

That apostolic mission remains for us today: Persistence, patience, passionate proclamation of the good news. We have a divine calling to fulfill, and whatever our past or present struggles, the Lord is pushing us forward, responding to our prayers and our actions in his name. 

Today marks the beginning of our Annual Giving Campaign. I won’t say a lot about it now. Bruce is going to speak during the announcements, and registered members are receiving materials in the mail. (If you are new, you may pick up envelopes here.) 

But what I have tried to evoke this morning is a sense of the open future, and of the importance of wrestling and struggling to reach our goal, persisting in the life of faith. I saw a sign recently that said, “My ancestors fought for my future; now I fight for that of others.” It was written in Spanish: Mis papás lucharon, using that same word at the root of luchador, like a Mexican wrestler. As we consider our future together, will we fight for it, wrestle for it, strive with God and with humans to achieve it?

What is giving in the Church but an act of faith and a commitment to the future, and one that requires effort? We give of ourselves – times, talents, treasures – trusting that our actions are placed in the greater context of God’s merciful plan for the world. 

I pray that God will bless us as we consider these things, as we stand like Jacob on the banks of the river, looking forward to what is next, and seeking always to meet the living God. 

On the way out of the Great Hall, there are two large pamphlet racks. You may have noticed them. When I first arrived, I thought about throwing them away. They were dirty and mostly empty. But I thought, “Why don’t I try filling them with new pamphlets, and see what people read?”

Here are my observations. The losers: No one seems to want pamphlets about money and stewardship. Only one or two people have taken the pamphlets about Holy Orders. And the God pamphlet – there’s not been much curiosity about our Lord. I’m not sure how to interpret that one. 

Here are the big winners so far: in sixth place, Welcome to the Episcopal Church (no surprise there, we have had a lot of visitors), fifth, Children and Holy Communion (parents seem to be curious), fourth, the Book of Common Prayer (people have questions about the red volume in the pews), and then there are the big three: the Eucharist, Prayer, and Faith. I have refilled the Eucharist, Prayer, and Faith more than once in the past couple months. 

I have a certain amount of pride that these three pamphlets are being read…because I helped write them, and I created the series of pamphlets that they are in, which is called Anglicans Believe. But more seriously, it is good to see people looking at certain bedrock issues or practices. 

We are here for the Eucharist to give thanks and to receive Christ’s body and blood; we are here for prayer; we are here as people of faith and to bring others into the life of faith. We want people to believe.

But what does it mean to believe? I won’t repeat what the pamphlet says, because you can pick one up on the way out. Instead, let’s consider our readings today, which speak of faith in different ways. Faith comes up as something that guards and keeps us. Faith is an attribute that we see in others, and which can inspire our gratitude. Faith can be troubled; alternatively, faith can be increased. Faith comes up as an attitude, an act of trust, a way of life that confronts the violence, destruction, injustice, unfairness, and confusion of the times. So it has ever been.

The prophet Habakkuk, writing 27 centuries ago, spoke of both difficulty and resolve. He questions God, ‘Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise.” 

The prophet speaks in a way we might when we are being honest, when we look deep within our hearts, when we admit that there are seeds of doubt buried within, waiting like weeds for the opportunity to spring up. We look around at the world, and we cannot understand why God doesn’t do more. “The wicked surround the righteous,” the law itself is distorted, judgment is perverted, justice “never prevails,” or so we think.

Habakkuk gives voice to this deeply rooted frustration; he also reminds us of something important. Faith often requires a simple resolve: to wait. It requires the exercise of patience. Faith is the choice to remain rooted, trusting God, despite what we see. It is like remaining in the same place, not flitting about. “I will stand at my watchpost,” Habakkuk says, “and station myself on the rampart. I will keep watch to see what God will say to me, and what he will answer concerning my complaint.” And then, lo and behold, God answers, assuring Habakkuk that there is a vision, a plan, an end to the dilemma. “If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay.” 

“The righteous live by their faith,” God says.

Faith is not about believing “six impossible things before breakfast,” like the White Queen in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. We can boil it down to a few hard things. Faith is about trusting that God is, and is who he claims to be, trusting that God is good and just, trusting that God is at work, and leaving aside your fretting about the wicked, the evildoers, even if you’ve just seen them before breakfast, on the TV or on social media or in the paper. 

We shouldn’t minimize just how hard it is to believe this, to believe that God is and that God is just and good. Humanly speaking, most people have believed in higher powers of some kind, but to believe in the God of the Bible -- the God of love, the God revealed in Jesus, the God in whom mercy and justice both find their origin and their completion – that is a harder task. We may sympathize with the apostles in our Gospel reading, as they cry out to Jesus their Lord: “Increase our faith!” 

It reminds me of another moment, too. In Mark 9, a desperate father brings his sick son to Jesus. He’s struggling, his son is ill, the apostles have not been able to do anything. The man is unsure if Jesus can help. 

Jesus seems a little put off by this. He says, “All things are possible to the one who believes.” It’s kind of a backhand slap: you come to me for help, and you’re not even sure I can do anything. 

The man is not discouraged. He cries out, “I believe, Lord. Help my unbelief.” 

Help my unbelief. 

This is honesty. I trust you, God, but there are parts of me that don’t trust. There are parts of me that think there is no plan, there is no hidden hand at work in the events of history, there is a part of me that fears it all means nothing, a part of me that fears that I am not adequate or strong enough to believe steadfastly, with enough conviction for it to make a difference. 

I believe, but Lord, “help my unbelief.” Increase my faith.

Increase my faith in your love. Increase my faith in your plan. Give me a little bit, a tiny bit more faith, faith the size of a mustard seed, a faith that may be small but it can move mountains. 

Give me the faith that your prophets had. Let me be like Habakkuk, standing tall upon the rampart and watching out for the Lord’s appearing. Give me faith like the Psalmist, that I may “be still” before you, and “wait patiently” for your salvation. Give me faith like St Paul, who relied “on the power of God” and “was not ashamed to suffer” and be put in chains for the sake of the Gospel. 

Give me that faith that lived in St Timothy, that lived first in his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice, that faith which was stirred up by the prayers of the apostles, by the fellowship of the Church, that faith which rested upon the Scriptures, that faith that comes from the Spirit’s gift, the spirit “of power and of love and of self-discipline.” 
​
Lord, increase our faith, and guard those treasures we entrust to you. Watch over our loved ones, guide the course of this wayward world, lead us to the future that you alone can see with clarity. 

Help us – and help “the whole world [to] see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, even Jesus Christ our Lord” (BCP, p. 515). 

We believe, Lord. Help our unbelief. “Increase our faith.