I noticed that last Sunday's lectionary text was that bit where Jacob wrestles a stranger

Jacob wrestles a stranger and it turns out to be God. We might say, that it'd better turn out to be God. "What did you do last night?'" "I wrestled God." "Wow, no wonder you didn't call for help."
As opposed to:
"What did you do last night?" "I wrestled some stranger." "Good grief, why didn't you yell? We were right across the stream."
The text doesn't say that it was God, just that Jacob wrestled a man, who wouldn't tell him his name in that enigmatic 'can't you tell I must be God' kind of way. When Jacob asks, "So what's your name." The guy's response is, "do you really have to ask?" And in the next section, when we're told that Jacob is no longer Jacob but is now Israel, the saga-singer says that God had renamed Jacob Israel. I suppose that the text repeats this assertion, just in case we, the reader, the hearer, is as dense as Jacob was that night.
This story always reminds me of Joseph Conrad's story The Secret Sharer. A sea captain takes in a stranger during the night and keeps him in his cabin, unknown to the crew, finally letting the stranger go, helping him reach land, by sailing too close to the shore and its reefs, endangering his ship for the sake of a stranger.
The story's sense is that until that moment, the captain was not himself - that the stranger prompted an existential crisis where the captain was taken out of himself and could see himself in light of ignoring mortality for a human purpose.
And here Jacob is alone. The text reads in hebrew: "left Jacob alone" - there he is, between left and alone. His family is close, but on the other side of a stream. Jacob is separated in the night, by the night. He has put himself in this position on purpose.
Did he hope for another vision, like the one he had on leaving home, where a ladder reached up to heaven and God spoke to him. Perhaps he'd begun to settle down, to prepare himself, to center himself. He waited for the heavenly vision.
He is accosted. It's not a dream. It's not a vision; it's real. Real hands grasp Jacob about the waist and lift him off the ground. His hands claw back around the shoulders of an unknown nocturnal assailant. It's world championship wrestling until dawn. He breathes heavy with exertion and desperation. Who is this indefatigable guy? Why won't he quit? Jacob knows that he can't quit. He can't relax. He can't call it off. He'd die. He doesn't know who this is.
Finally his assailant says, "enough of this," and puts Jacob's hip out of joint. "Damn, why didn't I think of that," Jacob thought, and then, "I'm screwed." But he held on for dear life. Perhaps he threw the rules of fair play aside and dug his teeth in.
"Let me go!" wrested his assailant.
"Bless me, M****F*****r," Jacob held.
And then Jacob is told that he's successfully striven with men (that would be his brother in law Laban, as well as his father, Isaac [Oedipus anyone], as well as his brother, Esau [until tomorrow that is]) and successfully striven with God. Now he'll be called Israel, or God Strives. Jacob, the supplanter, is now the God striver. It's like a defense attorney becoming a judge: the first name connotes playing the angles with a view toward winning and the second name connotes actively seeking out justice with a view toward equality.
What a conversion story.
We don't often think that we're converted to strive with God. We easily get the turning away from being the supplanter.
But to strive with God - in American Protestant circles it seems blasphemous, indelicate at best. I remember Dr. Brueggemann describing how the Church doesn't get this quality of the Old Testament: believing that we're called to behave, keep quiet, and endure calamity as "God's will." That to complain or argue back would be a sin.
What a relief though to read the Old Testament (and if you will, the Newer one) with the gloves off. Jesus won't break, and neither will Yahweh. Witness Psalm 88 for the epitome of pissed off Israel: no "sorry Lord, didn't mean to be angry or complain." Instead "where the hell are you? My friends are in darkness, I'm surrounded by waters, I suffer your terrors," and earlier, "Why are you absent from me? Is your love declared in the grave?" This lament doesn't conclude with the "I will yet praise you for you are faithful," section most laments have.
This is hard stuff, grim, echoing Jacob's response to Pharaoh that his life had been short and bitter - not like his ancestor's lives.
So it is that Jacob has contended with humans and with God and prevailed. Jacob has gotten what he wanted, but at a cost. He's always looking over his shoulder, wondering who's catching up with him, and now he's pulled up lame. He's injured, but he's invited to a new kind of relationship. God says, "contend with me."
Contend with God, but realize that this requires being contended back at. God takes the theodicy problem and says, "in the beginning you wanted to be like me - well, then be like me." And then God asks, "where's justice? Where's feeding the hungry? Where's hospitality for the stranger? Love for the neighbor?" He says, "What kind of God would create a world like this? [in a sarcastic sneer, a Truman Capote whine] What kind of human being lets another lie cold on the streets, hungry? What kind of human being steals from another? What kind of human being amasses a pile of money for himself?"
Contend with me- God says. Show me what you've got. If you've got anything. God doesn't leave us room for passivity. We have to defend ourselves. Love our neighbor as ourselves, even if we must limp to do so - or die trying.