Your new name shall be
I will change your name
You shall no longer be called
Wounded, outcast / Lonely or afraid.
I will change your name
Your new name shall be
Confidence, joyfulness
Overcoming one
Faithfulness, friend of God
One who seeks my face.
Jacob at Peniel, meeting God, besting God at wrestling, and God changing his name from יַעֲקֹ֖ב Ya-a-qob to יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל Yisra-El. Strives with God, persists, perseveres, Contends with God.
S’RA - EL combines the name Sarah and the word God, as Abram’s wife Sarai contended with a quarter century of God’s promises before Isaac was born. Meeting YOU, God may change YOUR name, change YOU, change how other people see you, even change how you perceive yourself and your destiny, your calling in life, as did God meeting Jacob face to face.
Our other Bible story also is about meeting God, in all four gospels, Mark, Matthew, Luke and John, the crowd encountering the love of God, as Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand. But there are differences.
In the three synoptic gospels, Mark, Matthew and Luke, Jesus does this as a chance act of love. Meeting hungry people, Jesus is filled with compassion and satisfies their hunger - - Jesus the Son of God has power and authority to do the creative and re-creative works of God: the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk; the dead are raised, the storm at sea is silenced. Five thousand people are fed with little or nothing, just as the universe exploded into Being from a tiny dot.
In the synoptic gospels, as well as Jesus’ act of compassion, this is also a Eucharistic event: Jesus’ four Eucharistic actions: TAKE and BLESS and BREAK and GIVE the bread. In the synoptics, every time Jesus feeds people - - on the mountain with the multitude; and feeding his disciples at the Last Supper; and supper with two disciples the evening of Easter Day on the road to Emmaus, Jesus TAKES and BLESSES and BREAKS and GIVES the bread.
We ourselves recall his four Eucharistic Actions when we celebrate Holy Communion:
“On the night he was handed over to suffering and death, our Lord Jesus Christ TOOK bread, and when he had GIVEN THANKS he BROKE it and GAVE it to his disciples.” And as well as Saying (those liturgical "words of institution', we reenact the event: Taking the offertory of Bread and Wine, Blessing them through the Eucharistic Prayer, Braking the Bread after the prayerful blessing, and Giving them to the people who come to be fed.
So, the synoptics!
But the Fourth Gospel is different. In the Gospel according to John, when Jesus feeds people, including this feeding of the Five Thousand, they are not Eucharistic events, but specifically signs, Greek, σημεῖα, Jesus performing SIGNS to show who he, Jesus, is: God the Son is the long awaited One whom Moses prophesied. Jesus’ first such sign is turning water into wine at a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and this feeding of the Five Thousand is the second or third SIGN.* The Fourth Gospel is different from the first three.
But the lesson, the thing to SEE in this gospel is the love of God. When Jesus feeds people, he feeds EVERYONE. Jesus never says “Those who are baptized are invited to come be fed”. Nor does Jesus ever say “Those who are members of my club, this church, may come to be fed”. For the church to erect a fence, a closed gate, whether it’s Baptism or Membership, as a barrier, a qualifying prerequisite to who can come to God’s table, would blaspheme the Body and Blood of the Lord. Jesus feeds all who are hungry, feeds all who come, NO RULES, Jesus feeds everyone.
When our bishop celebrates the Eucharist he says, in his invitation to the congregation, this is not our table, not our bread, this is the Lord’s table, the Lord’s bread, all who are hungry, COME! And Father Steve says this when we celebrate Eucharist here at Holy Nativity: all are invited, EVERYONE is welcome. The love of God. That’s what the gospel is all about.
The gifts of God for the people of God. Take them in remembrance that God loves you.
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- art "Jacob Wrestling with God", by Ruelson Bruce Lee
- praise song "I will change your name", Eden's Bridge
- art "Jesus Multiplies the Loaves" art of the Mafa people