Sermon for August 2, 2026: I Will Not Let You Go based upon Genesis 32:22-31

8/4/2026

Genesis 32:22-31 Jacob Wrestles at Peniel (New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition)
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. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. 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.

Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 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.”

hen Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him.

So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, yet my life is preserved.” The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.

Tasha and I spent a week in Montreal and every day I walked to get a croissant for breakfast, usually pan au chocolat. It was glorious. I was usually greeted by one of two styles of kind people: someone who heard my accent and offered to switch to English or someone who slowed down their French to help me understand. This is not the first time I have traveled to a place where I am not fluent in the most common language, but it is always good to be reminded that there are many ways to encourage communication and welcome people who speak a different language than you. I also know that I was a tourist in a touristy area of a province where there is long and on-going tension around language, cultural heritage, and political sovereignty. Decisions about when and if to speak English are more complex than having an impulse to simply and kindly help someone buy food from you. When I read about Jacob’s wrestling in our scripture for today, I think about Montreal, and the wrestling I was a part of in my brief visit there.

I won’t pretend that I’ve become an expert on Montreal or Quebec after spending a week there. There are people in this church with family histories in Quebec who know far more than I do from their own lived experience. But, I saw some things in the city that I thought were interesting, especially knowing that in our own country, we are in the midst of significant tension about how to tell the history of a place and whose stories get told. Montreal is known as a city with a vibrant art scene and beautiful public art. In 2017, during the Montreal’s 375th anniversary celebration, the city unveiled a project called Cité Mémoire. It is a series of interactive projections around the city. If you have the app with the map on your phone, you can walk to the areas where the projections have been installed and use your phone to start the video which is displayed on a wall of a building. They projections are huge and hard to miss.

I didn’t learn about the project until late in our trip after seeing a projection near where we stayed in Old Montreal. We rounded the corner while taking our dog Mikey on his last walk for night and saw a haunting image on the wall ahead of us. White figures with shadowed faces, including a child, are hovering over and pointing accusatorily at a terrified looking adult Black woman. As the white figures fade and flames begin to lick up the walls, the woman begins to run for her life. As she runs, the image shifts and becomes a Black man, a baseball player, running hard between bases.

A bit of internet searching helped me to learn who these people were. The woman is Marie-Josèphe Angélique, an enslaved woman tried and convicted in 1734 after being accused of setting a fire that burned a hospital and 45 homes. She maintained her innocence through her conviction until authorities began the torture prescribed as punishment. She, like many people, confessed in the midst of unspeakable pain. She was hanged and her remains burned, ashes scattered as a warning.

I read in one article that, originally, her story was the only story in this part of the project and the film had more about her trial. However, at some point, by 2021, the artists had shortened it and added a connection to the ballplayer, Jackie Robinson to the visual narrative. Robinson played for the Montreal Royals, a farm team of the Brooklyn Dodgers. His first game was April 18th, 1946. The Dodgers sent him to the Royals to prepare for eventually playing in Brooklyn. Robinson, who would go on to be the first Black player in the major leagues, and his wife Rachel spoke of his time in Montreal largely positively from what I’ve read.

Robinson faced persistent, hateful racism, especially from opposing fans in away games. But, Montreal largely embraced him as a player, and his family found a safe apartment to rent and good neighbors who supported them as they had their first child. The Montreal fans were excited to see how good Robinson was, and Black fans from other cities came to watch him play. When Robinson wasn’t allowed to stay in the team hotel in three games of a championship series that took place in Jim Crow Kentucky, Montreal fans were angry about how poorly he was treated. Eventually, Mrs. Robinson would describe their year in Montreal as “almost blissful.” Though 15 of the 16 baseball clubs in Major League Baseball voted to prevent him from joining the Dodgers, the commissioner over-rode the vote. Robinson was allowed to begin playing with the Dodgers three days shy of a year from his debut in Montreal.

I can understand the impulse to pair one pretty horrifying story from Montreal’s past with one far more celebratory. Of course, we’d want to see the progression of the ethos of the city, moving from an unfair trial of a captive Black woman to a protective celebration of a Black man over the course of 190 years. And, I also wonder, given that the original projection is right in the middle of bars and restaurants full of revelers nearly every night of the summer, maybe some people thought that the terror of the original piece was “bringing down the vibe” of a joyous part of the city. This is the challenge of the public memorial.

How does one tell the hardest truths of a place while also speaking about that which is gracious and good? I think about this when I talk about the American Missionary Association. Our own Rev. Thurston co-founded it. I graduated from a wonderful school founded by AMA. They also ran terrible, violent residential schools and misappropriated funds raised by the Fisk University Jubilee Singers. This is part of my history that I wrestle with. It’s probably not the reason why my hip hurts sometimes, but it does weigh on me.

I know from experience that telling a more complex story about a place, a person, an organization is challenging. We shouldn’t discount the fact that we may be changed by choosing to tell the story differently. Jacob was changed with his wrestling. His persistence garnered him a new name and an injury that changed how he moved through the world. He was so affected by what had happened to him, by the effort and effect of the wrestling, that he even gave the site of the wrestling a name, Penuel, “For I have seen God face to face, yet my life is preserved." I don’t know exactly what you are wrestling with right now, but I also know that there’s no shortage of things to be sorted out at this moment. Maybe this art that I’ve shared can serve as one example of what I think is a useful and good struggle. May you have the resilience you need to find your way to blessing on the other side. And, may you hang on as long as you need to to get the name that will carry you forth with God.

Resources consulted to write the sermon:
about Marie-Josèphe Angélique:

Jackie Robinson: https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/jackie-robinson-and-the-montreal-royals
Cité Mémoire:

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Winthrop Congregational Church, United Church of Christ