The Old Testament

I'm really reading ahead of my class as they all announced to me last week, but I can't help it. This stuff inspires me. I especially like the way that God talks to people. God and Abraham have these direct very intense conversations. In fact God not only speaks to Abraham he appears to him physically, Genesis 18:01, "The Lord appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre."
God appears here in physical form accompanied by two angels. All three are in human form as they reveal themselves to Abraham. In fact Abraham runs to feed them preparing curds and milk and calf meat. And believe it or not, but God and his two angels actually sit and eat with Abraham.

It feels to me like these OT humans are being followed by God as if the earth is somehow God's own stage for the human soap opera. He tunes in everyday, lets his presence be known, lets people know if they've please him or displeased them and exercises a reward or punishment as he sees fit.

I've also noticed a change in the way God communicates with man. He speaks directly with Abraham and his son Isaac yet Isaac's son Jacob talks to God only in dreams. This is an example of God moving from direct communication with man, to communication with man in a dream state.

I think it's also, significant that God speak to woman as easily as he does man. However,
in the Abraham story he does not speak directly, he does not speak through a dream but he uses and angel to speak to Hagar about the son she will have, the son fathered by Abraham. Genesis 16:11. In this instance, God uses angels to facilitate communicate with woman making woman and man equal in the eyes of God and both worthy of some form of communication.

This made me think that maybe God was trying to find the best way to communicate with his creations and maybe he figured that direct communication was not a good idea so he moved on to dreams.

There is however one very odd scene in Genesis 32:22 where Jacob actually physically wrestles with God and comes out of it with damage to his hip socket. I have not come across any incident where God takes on a physical form and interacts with a human unless you consider the pregnancy of Mary as instance where God interacts on a physical level.

Is the case with Jacob an example of God testing his communication methods with man? If so it was terribly unsuccessful and painful for man. I do not believe this type of communication is ever attempted again until the pregnancy of Mary.

So so far in the OT God is a very pro active communicator who does not let sex dictate who he communicates with. God talks to man as equally as he talks to woman. So where did we get this idea that the male figure in religious organizations somehow gets the upper hand in communication with God?