Village Shepherd

Tom and Ben couldn't stand each other. They'd known each other for a very long time since they had been at school together years ago and had lived in the same village ever since. But they'd never hit it off. Unfortunately, being a village there was only one church, and Tom and Ben were both churchgoers.

The atmosphere in church can only be described as tense. Both Tom and Ben were quite powerful figures and both were on the PCC. But everyone knew that if Tom came up with an idea, Ben would rubbish it and vice versa. This tended to split the church into two camps, the Tom camp and the Ben camp. A number of people couldn't stand it, so left and went to the church down the road.

The vicar got in touch with both Tom and Ben and asked them to meet with him to try to resolve the situation. Ben agreed, but Tom refused so the plan came to nothing. The church struggled on, feeling pulled in opposite directions by the grip of these two powerful figures and so never achieving very much.

One eventful day, Tom died. It was one of those horrific, sudden deaths. He was perfectly well, his wife went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea and when she returned he was dead in the chair. The congregation was shocked, but there was also an air of palpable relief and not a little excitement. After the conventional expressions of sorrow, everyone presumed that Ben would be delighted that his old adversary had finally gone and that Ben would now really come into his own. Perhaps the church as a whole would be able to accomplish something at last.

But Ben wasn't delighted. To everyone's astonishment and concern, he seemed to wither. Overnight he became a frail old man. All his power and creativity disappeared and although he lived for a few more years, he was never the same after Tom's death. It was as though when Tom died, Ben died with him. "Almost as though they were joined at the hip," murmured the congregation.

Churches often tend to be bland places because we Christians are so afraid of conflict. But sometimes we need conflict. There are times when we need to struggle and to wrestle because the very act of struggling produces a power which we can then use for good or evil.

The power which was generated through Tom and Ben's struggle was not used for good, but it could have been. If they had been able to listen to each other, to spark off each other and to forget themselves in the service of God, the church might have been full of energy and spirit. But all that energy was dissipated because both Tom and Ben hugged their power to themselves and were unable to forget themselves sufficiently to learn to rely on God.

Possibly sometime around 1600 BC when he wrestled with an unknown assailant at the ford of Jabbok, Jacob discovered the power and energy produced through struggle. Jacob was running away along with all his household, his wives, his children, his servants and his livestock. He was fleeing from his twin brother Esau, whom he had badly wronged. Jacob, with the help and acquiescence of his mother Rebekah, had stolen Esau's inheritance. Now Esau was on the warpath, vowing vengeance and threatening murder. Terrified Jacob was putting as much distance as he could between himself and his brother, prior to cajoling him and calming him with appropriate gifts.

Terror is a paralysing emotion, as anyone who has been threatened by terrorist activity knows and as terrorists know and use for their own purposes. When we act out of fear, we have very little power and all the power we do have is used for flight. There is nothing constructive about fear, which wears us down and prevents us from becoming the wonderful people we were always meant to be.

Jacob's fear was stopped in its tracks by God. All the rest of the household had already crossed the river. Only Jacob remained on the far bank, about to cross. Perhaps he stopped for a breather. Perhaps he lay down for a while to rest before gathering his strength for his own crossing. At any event it seems he fell asleep, for he was soon in the throes of a nightmare.

Dreams, especially nightmares, often have a relationship to some deep-seated problem which we're unable to consciously face or resolve. It's as though all those hidden fears wait until the depths of night to leap up and strike us and we wake in an agony of horror and drenched in sweat.

Perhaps in his dream Jacob was wrestling with his terror of his brother and with his guilty conscience. But somewhere in that nightmare, God was present. Somehow Jacob became aware that God hadn't abandoned him because of his sin, but was actually helping him to move on. Towards the end of the dream Jacob asked the stranger with whom he was wrestling, to bless him. The stranger asked Jacob's name, because in the ancient world there was immense power in names, the sort of power we invoke today when we pray in the name of Jesus Christ.

"From now on you will be called Isra-el," pronounced the stranger, from the word 'sarita' (you have contended) and 'El', meaning God. And then Jacob knew without a doubt that he had met with God in his nightmare.

For Jacob, after the sin came the fear and the pain of wrestling with God, or wrestling with his conscience. But that wasn't the end. Next came God's forgiveness, followed by God's grace in enabling Jacob to move on. Eventually Jacob became the father of twelve sons who became the founders of the twelve tribes of Israel, so Jacob went on to great things and fulfilled God's plan for him.

God is everywhere, even in the stuff of nightmares if we take them seriously and try to analyse what they might be telling us. God forgives and his forgiveness is there for us no matter how sinful we think we might have been. God sends his grace to help us move on and is always there for us. And God enables us to achieve great things. We may have to struggle with God, but through the struggle energy is released and God can use that energy for good.

All we need to do is like Jacob, to learn to rely utterly upon God.