Sixth Sunday after Pentecost
July 9, 2023

On the Threshold

Lucy Forster-Smith
Senior Associate Pastor

Psalm 145:8–14
Genesis 24:34–38, 42–49, 58–67

On the Threshold
July 9, 2023

Lucy Forster-Smith, Senior Associate Pastor
Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 145:8–14
Genesis 24:34–38, 42–49, 58–67

So often in the Bible there is the text, the context, and the subtext of the story. It is hard sometimes to know whether we should pay attention to what seems to be just the story or if there is something rumbling in the background or a message under the message we need to get but it is not very clear.

The chunks of this particular story — the story of Abraham and Sarah’s miracle baby Isaac finding a wife — seem so straightforward. Dad, Abraham, is coming to the end of his long life. His story began with a response to a word from God for him to “Go” from his homeland of Haran to the land of the Canaanites. He and Sarah have had the astonishing promise fulfilled that they would have a child in their old age. Isaac, who arrives with a wink and a smile and great laughter from his mama, has gone through many dangers and toils, not the least of which was him coming within a hair’s breadth of being sacrificed by his father on the mountain.

But that is all past, and at this moment his mother, Sarah, has died. Abraham is in grief and sees that it is time to deliver his vast wealth to his son and to ensure his future by finding Isaac a wife. So with sights set on the calling from God that took him on a circuitous and grand adventure and on the future that has yet to be fulfilled, Abraham calls the chief servant of the house. He confides in him that he wants Isaac to have a wife from his home country. The servant, who must have a very close relationship with Abraham, wonders out loud if this might be an unrealistic proposition. “What if I find the right woman but she won’t come here? I might need to take Isaac back to the old country.” “Nope,” says Abraham. “If she won’t come you are off the hook.” So the servant takes gifts, camels, and a whole lot of uncertainty.

This is the launch of the text — the story. And behind the story is the context: the continuous narrative arc of a near panic in the early blessed ones, who listen to God’s call; hear the promise; face uncertainty; come to the precipice; and out of deep faith trust the sustaining presence of God. It is the cultural overlay that says that in order to live into the promise of children as many as the stars, a wife must be found. And in this case, that person is miles away, and there is immense uncertainty whether (a) the servant will be able to know who the right one is, and (b) if the chosen one is evident, if she will cooperate. So much cultural overlay here: marrying in the clan assumes that if a culture faces exile or diaspora, the strength of the bonds will sustain and be unbreakable. And the overarching context is one of sheer blessing of God.

It is fascinating that in this story, this very romantic, gentle, serene story, God’s part is inscrutable, hidden. There is no earthquake, no fire on the mountain or burning a bush. The workings of God here are not spectacular, magical, or odd. It arises from the profound gratitude of the actors — the servant, Rebekah, Laban, her brother and their father — when the gifts of life and love and deep respect are bestowed.

And then there are the various subtexts, some of which I have named, like call and blessing and faithful response. But there is also something of a comic edge to this story. Imagine what it is like when a visitor from a far country comes to town bearing gifts for someone who maybe, possibly, might walk out of the tent right at the perfect moment and randomly offer the multiple camels a drink as a sign? Really? It sort of sounds like a fictitious spoof. But on the other hand, the natural sequence of affairs holds more than meets the eye.

Looking at this story in the context of our daily life right now, I can certainly say one thing for sure: you never know what is coming. Did Rebekah have a clue the day that the servant sent from her first cousin once removed, Abraham, arrived would be a day when her entire life would be changed? Did that servant, when he thought to himself or prayed to God or chatted it up with the camels, have a clue that the right one would show up at the well and if she even sort of implied that she would give the camels a drink, even in so many words, that she would be the one? Did he think it would happen just as he thought? Hmmm! And what about Isaac, who was likely sitting Shiva with the passing of his mum. We don’t know if he is clued in by his papa about the activity in the Old Country, Ur. But it all kicks into gear and with a ready trust and a leaning into the blessings of God; the sequence of events has more, much more, than meets the eye.

The story that begins with a need to fulfill the promise God made to Abraham and the faithful stepping out of Abraham and Sarah to go with God has relevance for us as well. It is a love story with many dimensions. It is the vast and reaching love between God and Abraham, giving him an upending charge to go from his homeland and then blessing him and Sarah with a promise of a child in their barrenness. Such love. Such eon-rattling joy. Simply unbelievable.

And there’s the love that emerges between Abraham and Isaac when a ram in a thicket saves the day —saves the very future on which God’s promise was pinned. And today’s love story, arising from a risky plot that completely depended on the consent of a young woman who ventured out to a well and her life changed in a nano-second. This led to the tender and moving conclusion of Rebekah packing up, journeying into an unknown future, scanning the horizon for the one she was to marry, and into her mother-in-law’s tent she goes to launch a future that leads to this very day, this very place, grounded in an uncanny plot — God’s story of faithful and persistent love. And it won’t stop. That sweeping love of the world that came with God’s gift of Jesus is here today. You never know where it will show up.

I think in our own lives we have encountered many unexpected “you never know what is coming” times. With so much social unrest, heartbreaking disappointment in our own lives, so many situations that jerk us around the “you never know” reality, that we may feel like we are in an endless state of trauma. Take racial unrest across every sector of this country, including the dismantling of affirmative action. Take war and political alignments that are shaking the foundations of any predictability. Take the aftermath of COVID. Or the deep harm being done to our LGBTQIA+ siblings. Indeed, much of what is showing up is unsettling and unwelcome. I often look for signposts when I feel overwhelmed — a GPS for the soul. And so when a blog from my friend Diana Butler-Bass, a social commentator, came in my email this week, I opened it to discover a remarkably helpful perspective.

Looking at the world as it takes shape today, Butler Bass draws on the insight of a Brown University historian, William McLoughlin. Dr. Mcloughlin give a fascinating perspective on the difference between a “cultural revival” and a “cultural awakening.” “Revivals,” says McLoughlin, “are essentially rituals of personal religious renewal that are often emotional and always involve a conversion of some sort.” By contrast, “an awakening is a much larger event. Awakenings are movements of cultural revitalization that ‘eventuate in basic restructuring of our institutions and redefinitions of our social goals. … Revivals and awakenings occur in all cultures’” (Diana Butler Bass, “The Cottage: The End of Religion,” 5 July 2023). They reshape the identity, transform worn-out patterns and system breakdown, and engender social change.

I wonder if we are being led from a sleepy silence in our cultural life to a great awakening in our culture. And even more, I truly believe that congregations like ours may just be the very place where a great awakening is taking shape. Yes, a great awakening of God’s new day, new way, may be underfoot. A deep revitalization could be rumbling under the very ground on which we stand. And the scripture lesson we have encountered today in the story of a trustworthy servant sent on a mission to find a wife for a man who was to be a blessing to past and future is a mighty reminder that you absolutely never know what this day may hold. Even more, you never know when the power of “Yes, I will go” may arise from your lips and you will pack up and step boldly into the future with the quiet smile of God’s blessed joy accompanying you.

Part of what comes to us as the congregation of Fourth Presbyterian Church that arises from the story of Isaac and Rebekah’s marriage is that the new day in our life together is ahead of us. Abraham knew that his legacy necessitated finding a wife for this son. He knew that the blessedness of his life had to be lived out in the next generation. So also, the faith with which we are engaged is not a little spark that is extinguished by the storms of the day, but it is the burning passion of our lives: the trust that God is not done yet! It is akin to what theologian Karl Barth preached in the Basel, Switzerland, prison in 1955 when he said, of the term, “By grace you have been saved,” “to be saved does not just mean to be a little encouraged, a little comforted, a little relieved. It means to be pulled out like a log from a burning fire” (quoted in Serene Jones, Call It Grace, p. 87).

Sometimes the word and work of God startles us, challenges us, sends us into life with an uncanny power. It might come like the word to Abraham to “Go” from his homeland to a land God would show him. And at other times the word and work of God arises on any old day, without much flare or fanfare, like at a well, when someone shows up with a menagerie of camels or a herd of little kids or a carload of teens who need a drink and you are kind, just because that is who you are and the rest is, as they say, history. And sometimes you shock yourself when the call comes to go to a foreign territory across town or across the globe and you find yourself saying, “Yes, I will go,” and you never, ever know what is ahead of you — well, actually, you can trust that the blessed love of God, of Christ Jesus, of the Spirit’s fiery light is right there with you.

And for that we can be grateful beyond measure. Indeed, the best is yet to come! Amen.

Sermon © Fourth Presbyterian Church