Readings: Psalm 45:10-17, Genesis 24:34-67, Romans 7:15-25, Matthew 11 16-30
Preached at Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, NY, July 9, 2023
The last couple of weeks we have been looking at passages from the Book of Genesis. Today we learn about Abraham’s search for a wife for his son Isaac. If I could choose just one word to describe the whole account, it would be ‘Providential.’
It’s a refreshing passage. As churches we are constantly challenged to embrace new ways of doing things. It can feel a bit like we are trying to redesign the bicycle while continuing to ride on it. You have doubts about this and that and “What now? and “How come?” questions arise.
This very human process of reorganizing and coming up with different strategies can sometimes make you question where God is within the process. Nobody likes to change and churches... in particular... would like everything to stay as it was, or at least be given direct instructions and an actual map of the way ahead!
Which brings us to Isaac and Rebekah. The story of Abraham’s search for a wife for his son Isaac is one of the longest narratives in the Old Testament. Abraham had been promised that he would be the father of a great nation. Against the odds, his barren wife, Sarah bore him a son. Then Abraham’s faith was tested, almost beyond limit, when on Mount Moriah his loyalty to God and attachment to Isaac was questioned. But both he, and more importantly Isaac, live to tell the tale.
Somebody asked me on the way out of church, how do you think Isaac felt about that? We’ll never know, but it seems he is now all grown up and none the worse for the experience. But there is a problem. Time has moved on. Abraham’s wife and Isaac’s mother Sarah has died. Isaac remains unmarried. As was the way in the culture at the time, a wife for Isaac must be found.
We met a number of characters in the story.
• Firstly, there was a faithful servant, whose name we are never told, entrusted by Abraham to find Isaac a wife.
• Then there was Rebekah, the daughter of a wealthy family living in the homelands.
• We met Rebekah’s brother Laban who serves as a go-between on behalf of Abraham’s servant and the rest of Rebekah’s family.
• Finally, we of course get to hear of Isaac himself.
As the drama unfolds there is an air of uncertainty and numerous crossroads where events could take unexpected courses. These pivotal moments cause the reader to ask, “What if?”
What if Abraham, despite all his wisdom and wealth, is now forcing the issue? He had made some telling errors of judgments in his past, particularly when it came to the women in his life. He had twice passed off his own wife as his sister to save his own skin. He was so unsure of God’s promises that he had fathered a child through his slave girl Hagar before Sarah had become pregnant. Was sending a servant laden with gifts and promises of blessing truly the best way to find a wife for a son of God’s choosing?
And what if the servant proved not up to the task? Sure, the servant prayed, but we’ve all prayed to God and not seen the specific thing we sought actually take place! So, Rebekah turns up at the well whilst the servant is praying. Hey... coincidences happen all the time. It could be a trick of fate. It sounds just too good to be true.
And what if Rebekah doesn’t want to be betrothed to some family that had left town for new lands? What if her family doesn’t approve? What if they interpret the gifts as either being too little or too much? What if Laban turns out to be the overprotective brother and does everything in his power to keep his sister near home?
And what if after all that has taken place, Abraham sending, the servant searching, Rebekah arriving, Laban negotiating, what if Isaac took one look at Rebekah and said, “Come on Dad, she’s not my type. I think I can do better for myself!”
Despite the “What if?” questions, the providence of God takes precedence over the pitfalls in the plan!
• Abraham is shown to be faithful and insightful;
• His servant is shown to be completely trustworthy.
• Rebekah proves to be a most suitable bride and to be at a stage of life where she is ready to move on.
• Laban is the most diplomatic and practical brother who sees in the events something more than just a marriage.
• And Isaac… well Isaac is bowled over when the beautiful Rebekah comes into his life!
And they all live happily ever after. Well kind of… but not really…as you'll learn if you read the chapters ahead.
The Providence of God is the theme that lies at the back of the story. Everything that happens, happens because behind it all God is working out God’s purposes. And even as I say that... I know that very statement... is raising questions in my mind. What if people hadn’t co-operated? Would God’s plans have been negated? Is God dependent on us doing God’s will to make things happen? Or are we just puppets in some cosmic drama who really have no say and no role to play?
These are just the kind of questions that float in and out of this story of Abraham finding Isaac a wife. The cynic may wish to take God out of the story all together. The cynic may say that Abraham was simply shrewd enough and rich enough to manipulate events in such a way as he could die happy.
They cynical may point to Rebekah being a savvy girl who recognized a good deal when it came her way. They may suggest that Laban's actions had more to do with self-interest than any notion of God’s goodness. The cynic may suggest that Isaac had to marry somebody and the fact that it turned out to be a pretty, well connected girl from the homelands was just good luck! Eliminate God from the picture and it’s just one of those tales whose only moral is “Well… that’s life, sometimes you get the good breaks, and sometimes you crash and burn.”
A question I am occasionally asked, in whatever church I have been ministering in, is “So, how did you end up here?” I’ll save all the details for another time, but I truly never sat down in my youth and thought, “Hey, What shall I do with my life? Oh, I know. I’ll become a Presbyterian minister and end up in Bridgehampton on Long Island in the USA”. I hate to disappoint anyone, but that was never on my bucket list.
My life feels more like it has been one door opening, another closing and then I’ve gone and walked through a totally different one that I hadn’t noticed before. A song by the British group ‘The Clash’ has often played in my head, “What I really want to know, Is should I stay or should I go!” And there’s been a lot and lot of praying. “Lord, this way, Lord, that way?”
Yet always there’s been a sense of guiding hand of grace beyond it all and within it all. A sense that, if I just hang on in there and keep trusting and keep watching and keep praying, it is going to work out. Probably not as I expected, or not as I anticipated, but it’s going to be all right!
This is the mystery of God’s providence. There are times when we look back, and… well at the time we thought we were calling the shots… but in retrospect… if it hadn’t been for the work of God then it would never have worked out. Then there’s those other times, when we were floundering around like a fish out of water, running around like headless chickens, banging our heads against imaginary brick walls… but through it all, a grace greater than our gravity, did something unbelievable.
If I could define how providence works out, based on this story, based on personal life experience, I can best put it like this. At every crossroad of uncertainty there appear events that may not be accidental. I'll repeat that. At every crossroad of uncertainty there appear events that may not be accidental.
Abraham’s servant was uncertain how to proceed. Yet as he prayed, as ‘he spoke in his heart’, along came the ideal partner for his master’s son. Rebekah was sure of many things, but as she helped a stranger water his camels there was a feeling in the air that more was at stake than hospitality. Laban held the best interests of his family close to heart.
Yet there was something more to the events around him than exchanging goods and observing traditional customs. Isaac presumed that there would come a time for him to begin a family. As Rebekah approaches, his heart skips a beat. Something more than coincidence was taking place.
At every crossroad of uncertainty there appear events that may not be accidental. It is easy to look at the church of today and despair. Here at Bridgehampton, we have our fair share of uncertainty about what our future church may look like. We easily become frustrated at our lack of growth and the drift of folk to congregations that offer a different way of doing things or folk just disengaging entirely from their church homes.
We can look back and say, “What if?” We can look at our current circumstances and presume that God is not working in our favor. But you know, and I know, the gospel story is one that's all about letting go and things that die and become resurrected by grace... and about a God that constantly reinvents life in forms that are unfamiliar and strange.
In this account of Abraham finding a wife of Isaac we see demonstrated the peculiar audacity of exercising faith in God to work things out. While there are promises of faith that we are to keep in mind; there are never any guarantees of outcome. We are called to trust in the providence and ability of God to do what God wills to do. As Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, “Not my will, but Thine be done, Father God!”
And as we consider the gospel message; was there ever such a mission surrounded by “What ifs?” as that of Jesus Christ? What if the disciples didn’t believe? What if He were not raised? What if His death were just another pointless and regrettable blip upon the pages of humankind’s gory history?
We meet every week to proclaim the God of providence, who guided a servant to find Isaac a wife, has acted in an unprecedented way through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are here to seek for God to send the Holy Spirit to be in and around our lives that we may know the purposes of God for our own live and our faith communities. We are here to pray, to seek God's way, to abandon our personal agendas and seek the new beginning God desires.
We cannot fathom all the mysteries of God’s purposes, nor explain the contradictions of faith. At every crossroad of uncertainty there appear events that may not be accidental. We commit ourselves to doing our best, trusting that God can take the fragile abilities and yearnings of life that echo in our soul, and do so much more than we dare imagine.
You know, we are all at different places in our lives. I have no way of looking into your soul and seeing exactly what your struggles are or where precisely you are in your spiritual journey right now. I don’t need to do that because God already has that covered. Some are looking back, seeing how they can best invest the things life has already bought them. Others are just starting out and it’s a whole, wide world out there before you. Life is uncertain. We never know.
One of the messages as we travel through these' Patriarchal Ponderings' is that God can take care of us. That those who say, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord,” are guaranteed that God will watch over them, over their families, over their relationships, over their comings and goings, and to and froing. That does not mean everything will go smoothly.
There will always be “What if’s” and those moments of hesitancy. But remember, at every crossroad of uncertainty there can appear events that may not be accidental. Be like that servant tasked with finding a wife for Isaac. Keep on praying. Keep on watching. Keep on praying. Keep on trusting. Keep on praying. Keep on hoping. Keep on speaking in your heart with the God who is at the heart of all good things.
To the God whose providence turns uncertainty to possibility we give all praise! Amen.
The Reverend Adrian J. Pratt B.D.
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