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| The Rev. Dr. PJ Craig |
“There will be no wrestling matches here,” said Tatayana Richardson and Jaime Staehle, co-chairs of the 2025 Annual Event. “This will be a space to be both challenged and encouraged, to lean into God’s work in and through us as the one big, slightly quirky, wonderfully gifted community that we are.”
Further reinforcing the event’s hospitable tone, Benjamin “Ben” Brody, chair of the Music Department, professor of Music and director of Church Music Studies at the Presbyterian-affiliated Whitworth University, led the gathering in gently evocative music, a fitting opening for the afternoon’s preacher, the Rev. Dr. Peggy Jean “PJ” Craig.
Craig, an ordained minister in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, is senior pastor at the Cumberland Presbyterian Church of Germantown, Tennessee.
Preaching on the event Scripture, Genesis 32:22–32 — in which Jacob wrestles with God at the Jabbok River — she opened in a confessional mode.
“I know nothing about wrestling,” Craig admitted. “The closest I came was one year in middle school with a girl named Maggie, who was much bigger and much madder than me. It was all super dramatic, but nothing happened. While that was the closest I came to a fight, I know people who fight. This is what you got, so let’s go with it.”
Through the stories of RJ, her skinny, scrappy, rural North Alabama high school classmate — who was arrested for fighting — and Ally, a fight-prone foster child whom she met while running an after-school program in North Philadelphia, Craig related the biblical Jacob’s birth narrative and subsequent history.
“Both [RJ and Ally] were kids who came out swinging like their life depended on it,” she said, “and I wondered if Jacob was like that, too. He came out swinging.”
It started in the womb, she observed, where he and brother Esau used to fight, with Jacob coming into the world holding onto Esau’s heel.
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| The Annual Event of the Association of Partners in Christian Education was held in Memphis, Tenn. (Photo by Emily Enders Odom) |
And yet, one brother couldn’t have been more different than the other. Esau, the firstborn, was strong and muscular. Jacob, the grabber, the fighter, stayed inside and cooked stews.
“Like so many other fighters, I wonder if Jacob was small and scrawny but scrappy and gritty like you have to be if you’re always second, always ignored,” she said. “I wonder what it’s like to never be somebody’s somebody. To be the one without the birthright. Like RJ and Ally, maybe every time they were fighting, they were fighting for somebody, anybody, to know that they existed. Maybe they wanted love, relationship, connection.”
After tricking his father Isaac into bestowing his blessing on him rather than Esau — who wanted to murder his twin — Jacob became estranged from Esau for 20 years.
It was while heading back to meet his brother after their long separation that Jacob found himself alone in the darkness, being attacked by a man and fighting back.
“Was there a minute when he thought, ‘This is my last one; this is the fight of my life?’” Craig said. “Minutes turned into hours, and, at some point, the man realizes that Jacob ain’t gonna give up. ‘I will not let you go until you bless me.’ This man renames Jacob and gives him a clue as to who he has been holding onto all night. Maybe what is at Jacob’s core — no matter what his name is — is not so much about fighting, but holding on. He wasn’t the strongest or the biggest or the best, but he held on.”
Emily Enders Odom, Associate Director of Mission Communications, Interim Unified Agency (Click here to read original PNS story)
Let us join in prayer for:
- Brian Henson, Desktop Support Analyst, Information Technology, Administrative Services Group (A Corp)
- Jessica Hernandez, Electronic Marketing Associate, Presbyterian Publishing Corporation
Let us pray:
Loving God, grant your people strength and energy for faithful witness, generous and open hearts, purpose, and the will to proclaim and live the good news of Jesus Christ. Amen.
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