Proper
9A 2014
Father Adam Trambley
July 6, 2014 St.John’s Sharon
This morning’s first reading is about how Isaac and his wife
Rebekah end up together. The process is
different than what it was for Abraham or Jacob, or, for that matter, most of
you here this morning. Isaac’s mother
Sarah has recently died, his father Abraham is old, and Abraham wants him
married. Isaac has to find a wife if he
is be the vehicle to fulfill God’s promise to make Abraham a great nation. We heard two weeks ago how Isaac, and not
Ishmael, was to be God’s instrument. So
we need to find the boy the right girl.
The build up to this passage is interesting. Abraham sends his servant to go to Abraham’s
people to find a wife. He doesn’t want a
local wife from the Canaanites, presumably because of their idols, but he
doesn’t say. Then he tells the servant
not to let Isaac go with him. Abraham
traveled all over the place, and found a wife and a couple of concubines. Later Isaac’s son Jacob will go back to his
uncle Laban’s and come back with two wives and two concubines, and Jacob also
travels rather extensively. But for
whatever reason, Isaac isn’t trusted either to travel or to find his own wife.
Abraham commissions the servant and the the servant trusts
God to lead him to the right young lady.
He also brings lots of jewelry and gifts to persuade that right young lady
when God identifies her. He gets to the
city of Nahor, where Abraham’s family lives, and he stops at the local well,
which is where a lot of Biblical romance occurs. He prays that the right woman would come and
draw water for him and his camels.
Rebekah comes. Abraham’s servant asks for a drink and she gives him
water and takes care of his ten camels, which is just a little bit like pumping
gas for the guy in the Rolls Royce when he asks you to. While the camels are drinking the servant
prays for guidance, and decides that God has indeed sent this young woman. So he gives her some bracelets and a nose
ring. (I don’t know about you, but back
in my courtin’ days, you give a girl a nose ring and she was swoonin’.) Rebekah runs home to tell her mother about
the situation, and to show him her presents.
Rebekah’s brother Laban comes out, meets with Abraham’s servant, and
negotiates the marriage. In the morning,
Rebekah decides to leave immediately with Abraham’s servant.
When they get back to the area where Abraham is from,
Rebekah sees Isaac wandering around in the evening, quite possibly on his way
back from the ancient Israelite outhouse equivalent. Rebekah gets off her camel, put on her veil,
and goes and meets him. Then scripture
tell us two things, both a little bit odd.
Isaac takes her into his dead mother’s tent and marries her there. He loves her and is comforted after his
mother’s death. Probably not exactly how
you want to start life with your new husband – making him feel better about
losing his mother while you take over her tent.
But he loves you and you have his nose ring, so everything should be
OK.
Here at St. John’s, we are back in the midst of wedding
season, again. I’m working with two
couples right now, and am hopeful for a few others in the near future. Last year, we had eight weddings, which is
far and away the most I’ve ever officiated in one year. Most of my more interesting stories from
being a priest have occurred as part of weddings, especially before I knew
enough to say, “That sounds like a nice idea, but it really isn’t going to
work.” I say that partially in jest, but
in all honesty, I’m not sure I’ve ever been involved in a perfect wedding,
where everything from beginning to end happened exactly the way it was all
planned. In most cases, the hiccups
didn’t matter, and probably nobody even noticed, with the possible exception of
the time in Warren when the ceiling fans blew strongly on the wax candles that
were lit down the center aisle, one of which was dripping all over the best
man’s shoulder. But regardless of a
detail here or there, everybody could focus on the important things in the
moment, which was a joyful celebration of God knitting together two people who
were now married. In the end, what God
was doing at that moment was much more important than build-up, the planning, or
whatever other details and expectations may have seemed so crucial in the
abstract.
We see the same things in the marriage of Isaac and
Rebekah. Walt Disney Productions is
probably not animating their story as a musical about “true love”. But God was fulfilling his promise and
moving his grand plan of salvation history forward through the arrangement and
consummation of this marriage, which, by the way, doesn’t involve a priest or a
church or even a wedding cake. Either
Isaac or Rebekah, or we hearing the story today, might think that something
else needs to happen for everything to be right, or to be romantic, or to
really count, or to be truly worthy of the marriage of one of Israel’s
patriarchs. But God doesn’t need or demand
any of that. God’s not bound by our
expectations or our sense of the way things have to be. He’ll work with whatever we give him, and
given the kind of shape we are usually in, we should be grateful that he keeps
his promises, even in what may seem like less than ideal circumstances.
Jesus said, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are
carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for
I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is
light.” We might be surprised to hear
that Jesus is inviting us to take on a lighter burden, when we are also told to
take up our cross and to live into a perfect love for God and neighbor. But Jesus is really inviting us precisely
into a life of love that makes our loads lighter than we can imagine. Jesus only wants us to carry the burden of
being the people we were made to be, rather than trying to live up to all the
“should” and “oughts” and expectations and false facades that make up so much
of our lives.
When we are truly honest, we add so much to our own burdens,
as well as the burdens of other people.
Instead of allowing life to happen and looking for how God is working in
the midst of it, we decide that things have to be a certain way, and decide
that we can’t work with them if they aren’t.
When we look for what God is doing, we can find him more than capable of
working in even the messiest situation.
If we decide to be about what God is about, then even when everything
seems to be going wrong, we can seek God and cooperate with what he is up
to. Our burden there is light, because
all we are responsible for is to work alongside of God. If we take up Jesus’ yoke, and turn over
control of our lives to him, then none of the things that aren’t supposed to
have control over us can become heavy burdens to us.
But if we refuse Jesus’ yoke, our burdens get very heavy,
because we take on yokes that are both impossible and unhealthy for us to
carry. We worry about how things appear
and how they look, rather than just worrying about making things the best they
can be. We worry about what people think
of us and about controlling our image, rather than just being authentic to who
we are, and apologizing when we make a mistake.
We worry about the future and having enough and guaranteeing long-term
success, when all we need to do is seek first the Kingdom of God today and let
God provide us what we need. We scramble
around to manage our fears, when God invites us to love, because when we are
busy loving we find our fears just disappear.
We take on any number of burdens we shouldn’t have, and refuse to take
up the one yoke that strengthens us as we carry it.
We don’t have to be perfect, nor do the situations in our
lives have to be perfect. Isaac and
Rebekah were far from perfect, and their wedding arrangements were problematic
on a bunch of levels, but God worked through them and kept his promises through
them. God will do the same with us. All we have to do is take up Jesus’ yoke and
cooperate with what he is doing in our lives.
He will be doing the important work of love, and that work will lighten
our load as we engage it, while also blessing those around us. Taking up Jesus’ yoke gives us a true “happily
ever after.”
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