Brad and Debbie Ellgen

Now there’s this story in the Bible about a man named Jacob who wrestles an angel. Now the scriptures aren’t exactly clear who he’s struggling with, whether it’s actually an angel or whether it’s a man or some sort of divine messenger, but they struggle hour after hour by the side of a river, and at daybreak the man says to Jacob, “Let me go.” And Jacob says, “I will not let you go until you bless me.” And the man says, “Well what is your name?” Now this question has a bit of history to it. When we meet Jacob much earlier in the story, he’s trying to deceive his father into thinking that he’s actually his older brother, Esau. Because in that culture, at that time, the father would give the older son a blessing. And now their father is blind, and so he’s disguised himself as his older brother, and their father, Isaac, he senses something is not right, and so he asks, “Who are you?” And Jacob says, “I am Esau.” When we first meet Jacob in the story, he’s trying to be someone else. Now his older brother Esau finds out what he has done, and he’s furious and he threatens to kill him. And so Jacob leaves and he’s on the run. Now, in the ancient Near East, your name was more than just words. Your name was identity. Your name was reflective of your character, of your substance. I mean the very fiber that made you, you. Your name told who you are. So when this man asks Jacob, “What is your name?” The real question he’s asking him is, “Who are you?” I mean how much of our pain comes from not knowing how to answer that question? Soon after His resurrection, Jesus is having a meal with His disciples, and He’s talking to one of them, Peter, about Peter’s responsibility to lead Jesus’ followers after He’s gone, and Jesus says to Peter, He says, “Peter, feed my sheep.” Which is a way of saying, “Take care of my church”. Jesus gives Peter this calling, this task, a vocation, something to do with his life, and then Jesus says to him, “Peter, follow me.” And what’s Peter’s response to this sacred, holy moment, between the two of them? Peter looks at one of the other disciples and says, “Well what about him?” And Jesus replies, “What is that to you? You follow me.” We can all relate to Peter can’t we? We all have this unique path, a calling, a life God has given us, and Jesus invites us to be our true selves, and yet we are sidetracked, we get distracted, we get hung up on how we’re different from her, or we aren’t like him, and we end up asking the wrong questions. We end up asking, “What about him? What about her? What about them?” You and I have pasts, families we come from, things we’ve done, mistakes we’ve made. And where we’ve been and what we’ve done has shaped us into who we are today. And so we have to embrace our story, our history. You don’t have to be proud of it, but you must claim it because it’s yours. Only when we can own our own history for what it is, the good, the bad, everything in between, can we ever begin to answer the question, “What is your name?” I mean, do you wish you were someone else or something else? From that family, instead of your own? With those abilities instead of the ones you have been given? With that body instead of the one that’s yours? What is that to you? She has her path. He has his path. They have their path. And you have your path. You and I, we have limits. There are all sorts of things we aren’t. There are all kinds of people that we aren’t. Maybe this is why Jesus says to love your neighbor as yourself. How could I ever love and embrace someone else when I’ve never come to terms with who I am and then who I’m not? I mean, some people live their whole lives according to the expectations of others, whether it’s authority figures or family members. It’s as if there’s this script that has already been written by someone else, and all they’re essentially doing is just acting it out. Or others, they give their lives to the hopes and dreams and plans of someone else. And so in the process, their identity, their life gets lost. Or others are just crippled by guilt and shame. They believe that they’ve failed or that they’ve blown it and that these mistakes and failures apparently define them, and so they live with this sense that it’s never going to be any better than this. If you need spiritual direction, if you need counseling, if you need a fresh perspective, if you need the wisdom of a mentor or the words of trusted friends, get it. Ask for it. Because there is nothing more important.