Sermon preached at the Sung Eucharist on the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity 2025

Last weekend, 16,000 people laced up their trainers, stuck a number to their front, and set off to race the 13.1 miles of the London Royal Parks half-marathon. Every marathon or half-marathon event contains amazing and inspirational stories: people recovering from significant illness or injury, running in memory of a loved one, setting extraordinary records (including this year, the fastest half-marathon run whilst hula-hooping!), but the stories that have always stuck with me have never been of the fastest, but of the slowest. The slowest person to ever complete the London Marathon was Lloyd Scott in 2002, who finished after five days, eight hours, 29 minutes and 46 seconds, wearing an antique diving suit. That is exceptional, but somebody has to be last every year. In the 2024 London Marathon, that was 74-year-old Fred Tomlinson, running to support the Rainbow Trust, a charity that supports children with a life-threatening or terminal illness, in memory of his daughter, who died when she was only fifteen. He took over thirteen hours and finished the race just after midnight. After the race, Fred said: ‘Running 26 miles is absolutely nothing compared to what these children go through. They don't have a choice, so it was never an option for me to quit.’1 Every long-distance sportsperson will tell you it’s a matter of psychology as much as of physical prowess. You have to hit the wall where you think you cannot continue, and then keep going.  For Fred, where he came in the race didn’t matter; all that mattered was finishing it. 

For Jacob, at the ford of the Jabbok, the psychological pressure must have been intense. This is not some easy journey that he is on. Jacob has been fleeing from Laban, and they eventually agreed not to fight as long as Jacob never comes back. He has left behind his home of twenty years, with multiple people and livestock depending on him, including his two wives and his eleven children. He cannot go back. He is also not sure whether he will receive a warm reception where he is going. Jacob ended up with Laban in the first place because he was fleeing his brother Esau. Just before the passage that we heard, Jacob dispatched a present for Esau to hopefully appease him, but he is by no means sure that they will be welcomed. There is danger behind, there is potential danger in front. He can only go forward into an uncertain future, and as he waits for that uncertain future at the ford of the river, he wrestles with a man all night.  That wrestling leaves him wounded, but still, he will not let go; he will not let go until the man blesses him.  

The whole of this passage takes place in a fog of uncertainty. It does not say where the man comes from or who starts the wrestling. We do not know how it is that Jacob recognises who this is: That this is his God that he is wrestling with. But Jacob perseveres, and in persevering, understands who it is he is facing. He asks for that blessing and is blessed, but not only blessed. God also renames him, giving him a new identity as “Israel.” The name is derived from the Hebrew word “Sara”, Meaning “struggle”, because Jacob has struggled with God and with humans, and has prevailed. In his perseverance, Jacob–Israel not only has an encounter with God, but also discovers who he is. 

This theme of perseverance is also very present in our Gospel reading, known as the story of the unjust judge. An unjust judge eventually grants a woman justice, not because it’s the right thing to do, but because she persisted, and it’s beginning to wear him down. When we listen to such parables, we are used to reading the authority figure as God: Think of the king who invites people to his banquet, or the landowner who pays everyone the same wage. Here, however, Jesus flips it on its head. In this parable, the authority figure is not what God is like. The unjust judge only grants the widow’s request because she annoys him. Our perseverance in prayer does not annoy God; he will quickly grant justice to those who cry out to him. We should pray always and not lose heart.  This can be difficult to hear. I am sure we have all had times where we feel we have cried out to God, and our prayers have not been answered. That our words are going into some cosmic black hole, not into the ears of a God who loves us and wants to help us. Times when we have hit that psychological wall where we feel we just cannot keep going, cannot keep faithful. But this is where we return to Jacob, to Israel, and his encounter at the ford of the Jabbok. 

Jacob, in his wrestling, does not discover anything really new about God. Indeed, he asks God his name, and God refuses to tell him. What Jacob does is recognise God in the midst of his exhaustion, and his fear, and his pain, and ask for his blessing. What Jacob discovers in his perseverance is something about himself and his relationship to his God. When we are called to be faithful, we are not talking about the beginning of the race. When we are warmed up, hydrated, and feel ready to face anything, we are called to be faithful when we are exhausted, afraid, in pain – when we have hit the wall. Because when we are, we can discover something about ourselves, and about our relationship with God. 

In the London marathon, there is a group of people who volunteer to help those who are at the back of the pack, who stay with them, make sure they are safe and know which way to go.  They are called tailwalkers. In the race that is our life of faith, there is no gold, silver or bronze. Indeed, Jesus said the first shall be last and the last shall be first! We are not competing against each other to be the most faithful, to get to “the end” before everyone else. We simply have to get to the end. To be welcomed to our everlasting home, safe in the arms of the God who grants us justice, and who calls us by name and makes us his own. It doesn’t matter how long it takes, how many stops we have to make along the way, even if we go backwards sometimes, because when we persevere, we learn that we have a God who stays with us, who makes sure we are safe, and who tells us which way to go. So that, as our collect says: “forsaking what lies behind and reaching out to that which is before, we may run the way of your commandments and win the crown of everlasting joy”