I don’t know about you, but for me the story of Abraham and Isaac takes on a much gentler tone in what we have this morning; the servant of Abraham goes gently to find Isaac a wife. Sarah has died and Isaac mourns the death of his mother for a number of years. The servant reports that for this reason he has gone to find a wife for his master’s son. Abraham has been greatly blessed and all his wealth falls to Isaac his only heir. He has come to see if there is a suitable young woman to be given in marriage to Isaac. Abraham’s servant clearly has a faith and a trust in the Yahweh, the LORD. He asks the LORD that a young woman would be provided in a manner of his choosing, it talks about him speaking this in his heart asking the LORD and Rebekah fulfilling his request. His prayer is answered in the coming out and hospitality of Rebekah. The scripture recounts the blessing promised Rebekah and the consent of Rebekah to go. She was asked if she would leave her household and become the wife of Isaac and she consented.
The scripture then recounts the seeming melancholy of Isaac walking in the field on his own in the evening. Then seeing one another, there is the acceptance of Isaac of Rebekah as his wife, and the taking of Rebekah into his mother’s tent. Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death. Rebekah was a comfort to him. Genesis 2 states that the way of men should be, a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.
Sarah never got to see, as we’ve noted before, the fulfilment of the promise in her son Isaac. Hagar did. Ishmael fulfilled the requirements of the law in terms of taking a wife and prospered. Isaac prospered to repeat the sins of his father Abraham and Rebekah, the folly of Sarah. Read on!
Isaac seems to be a detached individual, walking in the field on his own in the evening. But maybe that’s just me. My heart says that having survived the trauma of his father trying to kill him, he was profoundly affected and maudlin. But who knows? There is much to trouble us in our separation by history from this story and it is hard to see its value to us now as scripture. We must take from it what we can and trust the truth in it that God is good and accommodates Isaac’s folly as we search for Christ in its telling. Many have seen Isaac as a type for Christ and note that he remains in the land, prospers and is the longest lived of the Patriarchs. God also does not change his name.
And then the psalm equally distant from us in history and in some ways troubling but a psalm we might interpret for the Church, the Church being the daughter here, “O daughter, consider and incline your ear. Forget your people and your father’s house. “
As the church, we’ve been called; called from sin into forgiveness, the old has passed away and we live in the newness of grace; we have left our father’s house and cling to the King. We are the Church because of our repentance, our turning away from our old lives. The king sees this and desires our beauty.
“O daughter of Tyre seek your favour with gifts; the riches of the people with all kinds of wealth,” speaks to us I think of the inclusion of the Gentiles into the church. Also the psalm speaks to us of the hiddenness of the glory of the church in that the princess is decked in her chamber with gold woven robes. Her glory is for the king; it’s a concealed beauty. And then it says,”… in the place of ancestors you o king shall have sons. You will make them princes in all the earth.”
This is the promise, the provision, the increase that will be the Church. And we know that the Church will be celebrated in all generations, its purpose, to bring praise and glory to God. Maybe this interpretation is a stretch but, in our time, and in our place what are we to make of it as scripture? We are to search the scriptures and find Christ, to find testimonies of Christ, his incarnation, life death and resurrection (John 5:39“You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf.” Jesus says. And in his resurrection, Jesus taught, Luke 24:25-26… ‘Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiahshould suffer these things and then enter into his glory?’)
In Romans, I see a rhetorical exploration of the human condition, the human struggle. It talks to us of our conscience, talks to us of the word of God speaking within us, talks to us of the light within each and every person that guides and directs us, holds us to account. It talks to us about the law, how the law is good.
And then it talks to us about the counter to the law within us, saying how the desire to do the good lies close at hand but not the ability. Having started off saying, I do not understand my own actions it ends up saying, wretched person that I am, talks about the inmost self, delighting in the law; talks about another law being at war with the law of my mind; of knowing the truth and yet not being able to act according to the truth. It talks about the struggle, the struggle of humanity to do good and the examination of the law that causes us to know guilt and shame. All this human effort is not good news, it is good but leaves the individual bereft, lost, confused by the contradictions in themselves, the very contradictions we find in Genesis. The contradictions we find in today’s stories of forced adoptions of single parent children up to the 1970s in the UK where evil was done by some in the name of good, yet not all acted for evil intent, but the outcomes were the same. In this case we choose not to allow for the distance of history we have decided that it never was right.
The good news is that we’re delivered from the inner turmoil through Jesus Christ who brings peace and makes sense of all the mess, by naming the power of sin and taking it to the cross, defeating death. The answer for each of us is gained through keeping a short account in Christ, listening to our hearts, not in our ability to name our sins and reform ourselves through penance. Any solution we as people think we have come up with becomes a tyranny, a lie and kills us; death reigns again. The LORD speaks directly into our hearts, you are a new creation in Christ.
In Christ we are rescued and perfected, saved from our own self-improvement, our own atoning despair. And the peace we come to know by giving up self-help is the peace of Christ who says to us, “Come to me. All you who are weary and are carrying a heavy burden, 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.”
The yoke being the discipline of trusting in the work of God alone, the way of Christ, and the burden being the truth of Christ that we live and find to be a place of still waters and green pastures. It’s freedom. It’s freedom from the oppression of the law, it’s grace.
What leads up to this saying of Jesus are sayings that tell us that it’s hard to accept this good news especially if we are invested in the old ways and not the message of grace. We don’t really know what we want when we allow the ways of the world to cloud our judgement. We have to undo our knowing and rest in God the perfector of our souls, walking in gentleness and humility as he did and loving one another as he loved us. We need to listen and trust even to our own loss.
The passage says, “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance. We wailed and you did not mourn.” Jesus contrasts his teachings with John the Baptist’s way of austerity and highlights the criticism he’s received for being a drunkard; he speaks to me of the hiddenness of this message of grace, the hiddenness that we saw in the psalm, which is the actual beauty of the Church. This beauty can only be seen from within, and recognised by those who walk the same path.
The work is a hidden one, made visible in the life we lead but not always apparent and a source of much trouble. It is a cause for us to delight and is to be enjoyed despite this, knowing that we are saved from strife. Our saviour is humble and our saviour is gentle. The tyranny of the law has been overcome in him and we are called into the abundance of grace, freed from slavery to sin. Through turning to Jesus, every part of our lives is redeemed, piece by piece. Our gospel is good news; in our stumbling we grow, in our taking up of the cross and in hardship our character develops as we endure, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
Grace and peace brothers and sisters.
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