How should we understand the story that scripture tells of Isaac, the long-awaited,

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Lilian Ward
5 years ago
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1 Genesis 24:62-67 At Last Love How should we understand the story that scripture tells of Isaac, the long-awaited, son- twenty-five years they hoped for him- the son of promise, the heir who will sire descendants for God s favorite one, Abraham? He is born, and then we are told he grew, and a feast was given to celebrate his weaning. And the next thing we read about him, Abraham is taking him up the mountain as a sacrifice. Then, after this account in our scripture today, he participates in three or four other stories: he sows and reaps a great harvest and becomes very wealthy; he builds an altar to the Lord; he blesses his sons, Esau and Jacob; but in every other story, he is the passive actor in events; things happen to him, but not because of him. He is one of only three patriarchs, but he is really just a placeholder. Almost anyone could have done his job. He never attains to his father s greatness; Jacob, his son, advances far beyond him in accomplishments and influence. It is strange, eleven chapters are devoted to Abraham and his relationship with God and his dealings with his neighbors. Jacob s story takes up more than eight chapters. But Isaac s deeds are limited to one complete chapter- and two of the stories there seem to be mere retellings of Abraham s same encounters with King Abimelech; and parts of

2 four other chapters, in which he is the one acted upon- rather than the actor, and sometimes tricked and confused and afraid. And then, we have him in this passage, perhaps twenty years after the horrifying scene atop Mt. Moriah. But chapter 24 has belonged to Rebekah and this servant she addresses in verse 65, the servant of Abraham, who was commissioned to journey back to Abraham s home and find a bride for Isaac. In the first 61 verses, others have acted on Isaac s behalf, but here at last he displays passion- one of only two times in the scriptures, by my reading; here, as he meets Rebekah and marries, he is for now, at least, the co-star in the story of his life. Many have called Isaac a mama s boy. It s a reasonable thought, suggested by the final verse in our passage. At Sarah s death Isaac was not a preteen suddenly bereft of a mother s care or a young man just finding his way in the world. No, when Sarah died at age 127, Isaac was 37- and old enough you would think, for constructive labor and independent thought and outside interests and friends and girlfriends- and old enough not to mope for those three years, until this day when the caravan arrived with beautiful Rebekah. Mama s Boy, maybe, but I think there is more to the story. I m not a psychologist, but a sensitive child born to ancient parents will probably have a difficult time; and let s remember that

3 his mother hated his older brother and finally sent him away. We may not be trained in the study of human behavior, but we know what rejection feels like, don t we? And Isaac had suffered an extreme form of it. If Isaac was a mama s boy, where was he three years earlier when she died? I ve seen big, tough men bawling, inconsolable over their departed mothers, but Isaac is nowhere in that story. Genesis 23 recounts Sarah s death and Abraham s purchase of a plot of land as a burial site, and Sarah s interment in a cave there. But Isaac isn t there- he is already long gone. Isaac hasn t been seen since chapter 22, when his father held a knife over him, seconds from slicing his throat, to bleed him and sacrifice him to Yahweh. The last verses of that episode have Abraham descending from the mountain, to the servants waiting below, and then returning to Sarah and to his tents at the well and village called Beersheba. But Isaac, where was he, where did he go? Perhaps he went to a place far to the south, another watering spot, Beerlahairoi, named in verse 62. A place also named in one of the biblical stories about brother Ishmael. Is it possible that Isaac had lived with or near his brother all this time? Estranged from his mother and father for twenty years or more? If he was with Ishmael, it has deep political implications today for

4 all the inhabitants of that tortured region- as do the reconciliation of Esau and Jacob, later on, and the agreement between Abraham and Ephron in chapter 23. I can imagine Isaac feeling betrayed and living with a sense of hurt and bitterness. And if that is even partially correct, we can truly appreciate the way this passage is written. Isaac has come from Beerlahairoi- out of self-imposed exile, if you will- which signifies perhaps that he is beginning to heal, and coming out at exactly the right time to find his true love. Picture the romantic scene, the sun setting, and shadows stretching out across the cooling earth; use your sympathetic mind s eye to see the lonely man meditating, our scripture says, still pondering his place in the world; and the nervous young woman, or girl, far from home for the first time, traveling to meet a husband. And at the same instant, they lift up their eyes and see one another. It is no accident the scripture is composed in this manner. Lifting up one s eyes in the Bible is always more than just seeing something- it is seeing something profound; it is perceiving God at work or realizing God s purposes; it is seeing one s destiny. Here, I believe, is the point of this story, and the point in history, that God s promise has transferred from Abraham to Isaac. Isaac has met this ideal woman- read through the previous verses of the chapter of the description of Rebekah, and the emphatic belief that the

5 search for the bride was directed by God: here they meet and Isaac sees the perfect wife and the perfect mother to carry on the lineage of God s people in the world. And this, look at the servant s answer to Rebekah in verse 65, Who is this man? she asks. It is my master. The devoted servant who time and again has called Abraham Master, now here, his master is Isaac. The story belongs now to Isaac and Rebekah, and their children, and their children s children, and even to all of us. I think we are right to see this as the passing of the torch, the affirmation of Isaac and the justification of God s choice of Abraham and his family, and the continuation of God s plan to create a righteous people. But in this scripture it comes with a lovely personal note, and sweetly sentimental. Look how Isaac takes Rebekah, and she becomes his wife, and he loves her. Consider the long loneliness of his life, growing out of that day on the mountain, the suffering that changed his life as a result of God s call upon his father. But now the call is his, and he at last experiences love. Maybe that s the way to understand the call of God: that our lives are pain and loss and trouble, but all along, God is calling us to hear and to believe, and in that, to know love; that all along, God is at work to bring us to the place of loving. Let us lift up our eyes and see where love is, and see how we best can share it.

6 In this moment that our sermon text describes, and maybe only in this single moment of his life, can we call Isaac a great man, a true patriarch and man of God, God s man in the right place and time. So shouldn t we understand God s grace at work in this, that God brings even this limited man to the right place at the right time to receive God s promise; to be blessed- and to be a blessing, to be emotionally comforted, and to know love at last? And isn t this a blessing to us, that the purposes of God have come to passfor our benefit- through the life of Isaac; but also to realize how God can take even this man and make his life meaningful for a family and for a nation and for all the world, throughout countless generations? And if that is so, that God may also create a relationship with us and show us the way of loving; that God can take even our little lives and make them meaningful for others- for our church and for our friends, for whole groups of people, or for just one person at a time. Isn t that good news? Perhaps it begins when we lift up our eyes, to see and believe that God is among us even now: to see what we have been given and to give thanks, and to see the need in others and to be brave and strong that we may help and love.

those all too human traits: pride, fear, jealousy, ambition; along with the kinds of

Genesis 24:12-21 Leading Lady In the tales of the great men we call patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, we find those all too human traits: pride, fear, jealousy, ambition; along with the kinds of characteristics