A Sermon for Those Who Feel Overwhelmed
The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
October 19, 2025
The Rev. Josh Evans
St. John’s Lutheran Church
Albany, NY
It’s perhaps one of the most relatable memes
that I’ve ever come across –
a simple felt letterboard with the message:
ADULTHOOD
IS SAYING
“BUT AFTER THIS
WEEK THINGS WILL
SLOW DOWN A BIT”
OVER & OVER
UNTIL YOU DIE.
So maybe it’s a bit of an exaggeration,
if not a little morbid,
but maybe you know the feeling –
the feeling of being so overwhelmed,
where it seems that everything is converging all at once,
and how are you ever going to get it all done?
That’s where I was this past week –
between polishing up a massive two-month, sixteen-page newsletter,
prepping for a council meeting with a packed agenda,
putting the finishing touches on a wedding celebration for one of our own,
an unrelenting email inbox that just kept piling up
with new unread messages faster than I could respond to them,
and of course all the regular Sunday preparations,
and what felt like a million other things in between –
all of which left precious little time to breathe –
and oh, did I mention I’m moving in eleven days
and haven’t packed a single box yet?
Maybe you’ve been there too:
when the demands of life
are just too much.
For many of us,
we’ve been taught to believe that such moments –
moments of being exhausted
and worn out
and just plain done –
are inherently un-faithful.
A slump to “snap out of.”
A problem to be “fixed.”
A battle to “overcome.”
“Just pray harder”
or “have a little faith,”
the voices tell us.
As if it were really that easy.
We certainly don’t feel like we have permission
to doubt and question and wrestle.
And yet, today,
we encounter the story of Jacob,
who wrestles.
“I don’t know if I’d still be a Christian
if this week’s Old Testament story –
the story of Jacob’s epic wrestling match near the river Jabbok –
wasn’t in the Bible,”
writes Debie Thomas.
“More than any other story in Scripture,
Jacob’s story has helped me to hang on as a Christian.
It has given me permission
to bring my whole turbulent self before God.”
By the end of the story, Jacob,
who becomes “Israel,” the patriarch of the twelve tribes of a great nation,
hardly seems to be the pinnacle model of faithfulness
here by the side of Jabbok River.
Jacob, whose birth name means “heel-grabber,”
once schemed with his mother to steal his older brother’s birthright,
and then fled out of fear of retribution.
And now, after many years of estrangement,
Jacob is, understandably, deathly afraid
of what Esau – and his army of 400 men –
will do to him.
He sends gifts and even his own family ahead of him
in an attempt to soften and appease Esau –
and that’s where we find him at the start of this bizarre story.
Alone,
afraid,
anxious…
when out of nowhere, an unnamed assailant
appears who wrestles with him.
The identity of Jacob’s wrestling partner remains a mystery.
Is it God, as we often assume
(even though the text never actually says that)?
Is it one of Esau’s men, spying on enemy camp?
Is it Jacob’s conscience,
his own inner “demons” catching up with him?
Or maybe, the obscurity is intentional,
inviting us to put ourselves in Jacob’s place,
we who wrestle with so many things –
with grief and loss,
with uncertainty and fear,
with doubts and questions.
Today, Jacob’s story gives us
permission to wrestle –
with our faith,
with our vocations,
with all that overwhelms and wearies us,
with what it means to be the church
and to continue to show up
to bear the message of God’s love and mercy
in a society that is becoming increasingly hostile
to the very idea of mercy.
Today, Jacob’s story reminds us
that the people of God know
what it means to wrestle.
Our very identity as church
is the product of a history of wrestling –
of asking questions,
of pushing back against the status quo,
of stirring things up in the pursuit of what is just and right,
of always being made new.
We are, after all, the church of the reformation.
We are a wrestling people.
And, at our best,
we are a persistent people,
wrestling against injustice,
speaking out,
protesting –
demanding justice,
even when it seems to fall on deaf ears,
insisting on mercy,
even when mercy seems in short supply.
***
On the bank of the Jabbok River,
Jacob sat alone, afraid, anxious.
He didn’t have all the answers.
He’s certainly not someone who always got it right.
That is, after all, how he wound up in this situation.
Jacob was alone…
until he wasn’t.
Jacob wrestles,
and the mysterious stranger with whom he wrestles
blesses him because of it.
There is a blessing
in the wrestling.
And notice:
That blessing doesn’t equal perfection,
but results in a physical limp –
a reminder of Jacob’s imperfection.
Both blessed and bruised,
very good and imperfect,
saint and sinner.
Jacob’s wrestling was surely far from over,
but in the blessing, he also knew, somehow,
God was not done with him yet.
With Jacob, we are invited and called to wrestle
with who we are
and where God is calling us.
We are invited to wrestle
and claim the blessing that is ours
in the waters of baptism
and to receive the blessing that God gives for us
in this meal of bread and wine.
There is a blessing in our wrestling,
reminding us that we are not alone –
no matter how overwhelming things feel,
no matter how insurmountable the present moment seems.
For you who feel overwhelmed,
or exhausted,
or anxious,
or afraid,
or at your wit’s end,
you are in good company
with our biblical ancestors,
with Jacob,
with the “persistent widow,”
with countless others.
God has a knack for working through wrestling people, after all,
and God’s blessing refuses to let us go.
As a friend and fellow pastor is fond of repeating:
There’s nothing you can do to make God love you any more,
and there’s nothing you can do to make God love you any less.
No matter how long our to-do list,
or how heavy the demands of life get,
it is not, at the end of the day, our doing anything that saves us.
That’s God’s job,
and surely, God’s love will never fail us.
