The document discusses the biblical story of Jacob wrestling with an unnamed man at the Jabbok river and receiving a blessing. It notes that Jacob demands a blessing from the man before letting him go, and the man changes Jacob's name to Israel, saying he has struggled with God and men and prevailed. The man's identity is left ambiguous. The summary explores some of the key themes and implications of this story, including Jacob's transition from trickster to leader and his new identity in receiving a blessing from God.

2. www.brianmclaren.net
For slides, books, other
resources ...

3. Story, Back-
Story, and
Storytellers as
Peace-Makers

4. Can there be
... uniqueness without
supremacy?
... benevolence without
weakness?
... strength without hostility?

5. It depends on the stories we
tell ...
and the way we tell them.

7. Us.
Them.

8. Us.
Them.
Neighbor?
Enemy?

9. Us.
Them.
Neighbor?
Hostility? Hospitality?
Different? Same?
Enemy?

23. Can there be peace among
passionately faithful people?

24. From the place where we are right
Flowers will never grow
In the spring.
The place where we are right
Is hard and trampled
Like a yard.
But doubts and loves
Dig up the world
Like a mole, a plow.
And a whisper will be heard in the place
Where the ruined
House once stood. Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai

25. From the place where we are right
Flowers will never grow
In the spring.
The place where we are right
Is hard and trampled
Like a yard.
But doubts and loves
Dig up the world
Like a mole, a plow.
And a whisper will be heard in the place
Where the ruined
House once stood. Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai
“The greatest evils perpetrated against
humankind have been committed by
people who were certain they were
right.”

26. "Historically, the amity, or goodwill, within the
group has often depended on enmity, or hatred,
between groups. But when you get to the global
level, that won't work... That cannot be the
dynamic that holds the planet together... But
what would be unprecedented is to have this
kind of solidarity and moral cohesion at a global
level that did not depend on the hatred of other
groups of people."
(Robert Wright, Nonzero: The Logic Of Human
Destiny, quoted in Evolutionaries: Unlocking The
Spiritual And Cultural Potential In Science's
Greatest Idea, by Carter Phipps)

27. Can Christians today build a new
kind of identity ... based on
hospitality and solidarity, not
hostility, to the other?
strong-
benevolent

28. But how?

29. Five Challenges
1. Historical
3. Liturgical
4. Missional
5. Spiritual

30. Five Challenges
1. Historical
2. Doctrinal
3. Liturgical
4. Missional
5. Spiritual

31. Must doctrinal differences
always divide us?

32. Doctrine can mean
“loyalty test”
- our tribal paint, tattoos,
feathers, and accent that
distinguish “safe us” from
“dangerous them.”

33. But doctrine can have another meaning ...
another purpose:
Doctrine can mean
“a healing teaching or story”

34. What might happen if we took a
second look at our core
doctrines - not as hostile
identity markers, but as
healing teachings/stories?

35. healing teachings & stories
intended to bind together what
has been torn and broken
(re-ligion)?

37. Our stealth doctrine:
the shape of the biblical
narrative
(pre-critical)

39. Hell
Salvation
Fallen History
The fallen world
Fall
HeavenEden

40. Hades
Atonement,
purification
Aristotelian
Real
Fall
Into
Aristotelian
Real
Platonic IdealPlatonic Ideal

41. Destruction,
defeat
Civilization,
development,
colonialism
assimilationBarbarian/
pagan world
Rebellion
into
barbarism
Pax RomanaPax Romana

42. Is there an
alternative
understanding?

43. sdrawkcab gnidaer
Rick Warren, Billy Graham, Charles Finney, John Wesley (or Calvin), Luther, Aquinas,
Augustine, Paul, Jesus
reading forwards
Adam, Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, John the Baptist, Jesus

44. Exodus: Liberation & Formation

45. Exodus: Liberation & Formation
Genesis: Creation and Reconciliation

46. Exodus: Liberation & Formation
Genesis: Creation and Reconciliation
Isaiah: Peaceable Kingdom - Justice and
Mercy

47. Exodus: Liberation & Formation
G
en
es
i
s
Isaiah: Peaceable Kingdom - Justice and
Mercy
A 3-D story space ...
in which a million stories can unfold

48. The Story(ies) of Creation

49. We are all connected in
God’s creation.

50. The Story of Original Sin

51. Tree of Life (good) - life as
creatures
Tree of Knowledge (good and
evil) -
life as gods

52. The Story of Election
(or chosen-ness)

53. uniquely blessed
to be a blessing:
us for all of us

54. The Story of Incarnation

55. God joined with human
flesh ...
all humanity taken up into
God in
solidarity

56. Not
“Jesus is like God”
but
“God is like Jesus”

57. The Story of the Holy Spirit

58. Babel ...
Pentecost ...

59. Pentecost Sermon (Paul Nuechterlein)
For me, another clear sign of hope comes through the
irony of God raising up a faithful disciple of Jesus
Christ who was a Hindu and remained a Hindu. I'm
talking about Mahatma Gandhi, who said this, among
many other things, about Jesus:
Jesus expressed, as no other could, the spirit and will
of God. It is in this sense that I see him and recognize
him as the Son of God. And because the life of Jesus
has the significance and the transcendency to which I
have alluded, I believe that he belongs not solely to
Christianity, but to the entire world, to all races and
people...

60. Finally, the greatest sign of hope to me is how Gandhi helped
deepen our understanding of the Spirit of Truth, the Advocate. He
had his own name for it in Sanskrit: Satyagraha, he called it, which
translates as Truth Force. Satyagraha moved him and many millions
of people over the last century to learn Jesus' way to peace through
loving, nonviolent resistance to evil. Like Jesus on the cross, in this
way to peace we risk taking that old way of sin, righteousness, and
judgment on ourselves in order to reveal its futility, its wrongness,
and offering instead God's way of grace and forgiveness. Pentecost
is Satyagraha poured out on us so that we may bring peace to our
lives as family members, co-workers, neighbors, citizens, and, yes,
as both Jesus and Gandhi compelled us to do, as children of God --
all of humanity, children of God. Amen
Rev. Paul J. Nuechterlein
Delivered at Prince of Peace Lutheran, Portage, MI, May 27, 2012

61. The Healing Teaching of
the Trinity

62. diversity without domination
plurality without subordination
Fatherness that honors son-ness in equality (& ends patriarchy)
Son-ness that honors fatherness without rivalry (& ends patricide)
Fatherness and son-ness that uphold Spiritness without
homogeneity (ending absolutism)
A God who generates the next generation of God!

63. The Healing Teaching of
Inspiration of Scripture

64. “Manifold witness”
The plurality of truth
Unity around key questions -
arguments over best answers

65. a fresh vision
of encountering
God
in the other
(genesis 26 ff)

66. Jacob and Esau ...
or

67. 25:21
Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife, because she was
barren; and the Lord granted his prayer, and his wife
Rebekah conceived. 22
The children struggled together within
her; and she said, ‘If it is to be this way, why do I live?’*
So she went to inquire of the Lord. 23
And the Lord said to
her,
‘Two nations are in your womb,
and two peoples born of you shall be divided;
one shall be stronger than the other,
the elder shall serve the younger.’
[If the story stopped here ...]

68. 24
When her time to give birth was at hand, there were twins
in her womb. 25
The first came out red, all his body like a
hairy mantle; so they named him Esau. 26
Afterwards his
brother came out, with his hand gripping Esau’s heel; so he
was named Jacob.*
Isaac was sixty years old when she bore
them.
27 When the boys grew up, Esau was a skilful hunter, a man
of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, living in tents.
28
Isaac loved Esau, because he was fond of game; but
Rebekah loved Jacob.

69. Note:
God upsetting the normal order
God for the younger
God for the woman
God for the “tent boy”
God for the liar, cheat, coward!

70. Note:
God upsetting the normal order
God for the younger
God for the woman
God for the “tent boy”
God for the liar, cheat, coward!
But does God show favoritism?

71. The stolen birthright - The stolen blessing ...
27:18 So he went in to his father, and said, ‘My father’; and he
said, ‘Here I am; who are you, my son?’ 19
Jacob said to his
father, ‘I am Esau your firstborn. I have done as you told me;
now sit up and eat of my game, so that you may bless me.’
20
But Isaac said to his son, ‘How is it that you have found it so
quickly, my son?’ He answered, ‘Because the Lord your God
granted me success.’ 21
Then Isaac said to Jacob, ‘Come near,
that I may feel you, my son, to know whether you are really
my son Esau or not.’ 22
So Jacob went up to his father Isaac, who
felt him and said, ‘The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are
the hands of Esau.’ 23
He did not recognize him, because his
hands were hairy like his brother Esau’s hands; so he blessed
him. 24
He said, ‘Are you really my son Esau?’ He answered, ‘I
am.’ 25
Then he said, ‘Bring it to me, that I may eat of my son’s
game and bless you.’ So he brought it to him, and he ate; and
he brought him wine, and he drank. 26
Then his father Isaac said
to him, ‘Come near and kiss me, my son.’ 27
So he came near
and kissed him; and he smelled the smell of his garments, and
blessed him, and said,

72. ‘Ah, the smell of my son
is like the smell of a field that the Lord has
blessed.
28
May God give you of the dew of heaven,
and of the fatness of the earth,
and plenty of grain and wine.
29
Let peoples serve you,
and nations bow down to you.
Be lord over your brothers,
and may your mother’s sons bow down to you.
Cursed be everyone who curses you,
and blessed be everyone who blesses you!’

73. NOTE:
The blessing ...
Is God like a genii, under the control of a
powerful man?
Recalling Genesis 12:
I will bless you ... I will make you a great
nation ...
All nations will be blessed through you.
Not exclusive blessing, but instrumental blessing.

74. 27:41 Now Esau hated Jacob because of the
blessing with which his father had blessed him, and
Esau said to himself, ‘The days of mourning for my
father are approaching; then I will kill my brother
Jacob.’ 42
But the words of her elder son Esau were
told to Rebekah; so she sent and called her younger
son Jacob and said to him, ‘Your brother Esau is
consoling himself by planning to kill you. 43
Now
therefore, my son, obey my voice; flee at once to
my brother Laban in Haran, 44
and stay with him for a
while, until your brother’s fury turns away— 45
until
your brother’s anger against you turns away, and he
forgets what you have done to him; then I will
send, and bring you back from there. Why should I
lose both of you in one day?’

75. Jacob’s journey ... departure and return
Rachel and Leah (cheater gets cheated, proper
order restored)
Jacob and Laban (No mother around to pull
strings....)
Jacob ready to return home (a man now, facing
final challenge)

76. 32:6 The messengers returned to Jacob, saying, ‘We came to
your brother Esau, and he is coming to meet you, and four
hundred men are with him.’ 7
Then Jacob was greatly afraid and
distressed; and he divided the people that were with him, and
the flocks and herds and camels, into two companies,
8
thinking, ‘If Esau comes to one company and destroys it, then
the company that is left will escape.’
9 And Jacob said, ‘O God of my father Abraham and God of my
father Isaac, O Lord who said to me, “Return to your country
and to your kindred, and I will do you good”, 10
I am not worthy
of the least of all the steadfast love and all the faithfulness
that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff I
crossed this Jordan; and now I have become two companies.
11
Deliver me, please, from the hand of my brother, from the
hand of Esau, for I am afraid of him; he may come and kill us
all, the mothers with the children. 12
Yet you have said, “I will
surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of
the sea, which cannot be counted because of their number.” ’

77. 13 So he spent that night there, and from what he had with
him he took a present for his brother Esau, 14
two hundred
female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and
twenty rams, 15
thirty milch camels and their colts, forty cows
and ten bulls, twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys.
16
These he delivered into the hand of his servants, each drove
by itself, and said to his servants, ‘Pass on ahead of me, and
put a space between drove and drove.’ 17
He instructed the
foremost, ‘When Esau my brother meets you, and asks you,
“To whom do you belong? Where are you going? And whose
are these ahead of you?” 18
then you shall say, “They belong to
your servant Jacob; they are a present sent to my lord Esau;
and moreover he is behind us.” ’ 19
He likewise instructed the
second and the third and all who followed the droves, ‘You
shall say the same thing to Esau when you meet him, 20
and you
shall say, “Moreover your servant Jacob is behind us.” ’ For he
thought, ‘I may appease him with the present that goes ahead
of me, and afterwards I shall see his face; perhaps he will
accept me.’ 21
So the present passed on ahead of him; and he
himself spent that night in the camp.

78. What’s most important to Jacob now?

79. 32:22 The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two
maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.
23
He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise
everything that he had. 24
Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled
with him until daybreak. 25
When the man saw that he did not
prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s
hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 26
Then he said, ‘Let
me go, for the day is breaking.’ But Jacob said, ‘I will not let you
go, unless you bless me.’ 27
So he said to him, ‘What is your name?’
And he said, ‘Jacob.’ 28
Then the man*
said, ‘You shall no longer be
called Jacob, but Israel,*
for you have striven with God and with
humans,*
and have prevailed.’ 29
Then Jacob asked him, ‘Please tell
me your name.’ But he said, ‘Why is it that you ask my name?’ And
there he blessed him. 30
So Jacob called the place Peniel,*
saying,
‘For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.’
31
The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of
his hip. 32
Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the thigh
muscle that is on the hip socket, because he struck Jacob on the
hip socket at the thigh muscle.

80. 33
Now Jacob looked up and saw Esau coming, and four hundred
men with him. So he divided the children among Leah and
Rachel and the two maids. 2
He put the maids with their
children in front, then Leah with her children, and Rachel and
Joseph last of all. 3
He himself went on ahead of them, bowing
himself to the ground seven times, until he came near his
brother.
4 But Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his
neck and kissed him, and they wept. 5
When Esau looked up
and saw the women and children, he said, ‘Who are these with
you?’ Jacob said, ‘The children whom God has graciously given
your servant.’ 6
Then the maids drew near, they and their
children, and bowed down; 7
Leah likewise and her children
drew near and bowed down; and finally Joseph and Rachel
drew near, and they bowed down. 8
Esau said, ‘What do you
mean by all this company that I met?’ Jacob answered, ‘To find
favour with my lord.’ 9
But Esau said, ‘I have enough, my
brother; keep what you have for yourself.’ 10
Jacob said,

82. ‘No, please; if I find favour with you,
then accept my present from my
hand; for truly to see your face is like
seeing the face of God—since you
have received me with such favour.
11
Please accept my gift that is brought
to you, because God has dealt
graciously with me, and because I
have everything I want.’ So he urged
him, and he took it.

83. Where do you find God revealed in
this story?
Only where God is overtly named?

84. Where do you find God revealed in
this story?
Only where God is overtly named?
Or in the human development
and the human encounter?

87. 7 Basic Plots (Christopher Booker)
1. Overcoming the monster
2. Rags to riches
3. Quest
4. Voyage and Return
5. Comedy
6. Tragedy
7. Rebirth

88. Expanding the Dialogue
Differences within and among
Incommensurability
Complementarity
Point-Counterpoint
Scholars & Mystics

89. Five Challenges
1. Historical
2. Doctrinal
3. Liturgical
4. Missional
5. Spiritual

90. 90

91. Story, Back-
Story, and
Storytellers as
Peace-Makers