July 9, 2017. Delivered at Old First Reformed Church, Brooklyn

Scripture Lessons:

Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67

Song of Solomon 2:8-13

Romans 7:15-25a

Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

Our reading from Genesis continues the story of Abraham’s family. Isaac is an important character in today’s reading, as he was last week. And I am glad our story today is more lighthearted than last week’s. But Isaac, as he was last week, remains quite submissive. This story is about finding a wife for Isaac, but Isaac is not involved in the process at all. Isaac’s wife Rebekah plays a more active role in the process than Isaac himself.

But this story is really about Abraham’s servant and his faith in God. And the faith of Abraham’s servant is different from Abraham’s faith, because God acts differently in this story than God has for Abraham. God has shown incredible signs, a smoking fire pot and torch passing through Abraham’s offerings. God has rained sulfur and fire upon Sodom and Gomorrah. God has spoken directly from heaven to Abraham and to Hagar, the mother of Ishmael. God has appeared at the tent of Abraham and Sarah, and eaten their food. But in this story, God does not appear or speak at all.

But Abraham’s servant has faith. The sign he asks for from God is quite humble, even a little silly. He says, “Lord, when I ask for a drink of water, if a woman gives me water, and offers to water my camels, let her be the woman for Isaac.” Now, any kind person would do as much for a thirsty man and his thirsty animals. If you’re really looking for the will of God, shouldn’t you ask for something more specific or spectacular?

Surely God can do wonders. But God is also living and working for us, and with us, every moment of the day. Even in our mundane conversations, our commutes, our getting a drink of water. Those are also wonders of God, and I invite you, congregation, to have faith like Abraham’s servant, that all these ordinary moments are gifts from God, directing us in the paths that God has prepared for us and our families.

There are other interesting and lovely elements in this story. There is marriage, the joyful coming together of two persons that is echoed in our Canticle; the longing for your beloved, the ecstatic fulfillment of that longing like the coming of Spring, and the journey that love requires of us. Rebekah leaves her home to join her husband, as love, for all its joy, always calls us to leave our comfort for a new and unknown land: “rise up, my love, my beauty, come away.”

Also striking in the story is the significant detail that Abraham is looking for a particular kind of person to be Isaac’s wife. It’s not her character or appearance that Abraham is interested in, but her national origin, her tribe. He says, “you shall not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, in whose land I live; but you shall go to my father’s house, to my kindred, and get a wife for my son.” This is one of the first references to a command and theme that will continue throughout much of the Old Testament-- and into the New Testament-- that God’s people Israel must remain distinct from the Canaanites and Gentiles who live alongside them. This idea, that God would favor one nation or cultural group over another, may be troubling to us. Why couldn’t the Canaanites, and the children of Abraham, both be God’s chosen people?

As we have seen in recent weeks, God’s ongoing relationship and revelation to Abraham was not an easy process. It was a struggle. It was painful. God was calling Abraham out of a world that had no knowledge of God, a world that believed in gods and powers that demanded the sacrifice of children. And Abraham’s process of unlearning this culture, and learning anew a True God, was full of pain, mistakes, and misunderstandings. At stake for both Abraham and God was the continuation of Abraham’s family, the relationship between God and humankind, and blessing of the entire world. As God promised Abraham, “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” For Abraham and the people of Israel, the Canaanites and the entire Gentile world, represented a culture that misunderstood and rejected the truth of God, even into the time of Jesus. So Abraham and his children protected their relationship with God at all costs.

~~

Our world continues to painfully divided, no longer between Israelites and Canaanites, but in countless other ways. And the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans, describes the human being also as hopelessly divided against itself. We often credit Freud, the psychoanalyst, with discovering the unknowability of the self-- the reality that we have desires secret even to ourselves, memories and longings that we keep locked away out of sight and consciousness, but which nevertheless affect our behavior and experiences.

The Apostle Paul had a similar insight nearly two millennia earlier. “I do not understand my own actions.” Paul recognizes that we are not truly in control of our selves. He says, “I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells in me.” Even when I have the will to do something, there is always another part of me working, pulling me in the other direction, away from the thing I want.

And Paul uses a lot of different words to describe this constant battle for power within himself. The sin that dwells within me, in my flesh, in my members, this body of death. On the other hand, he says, I can will what is right, I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, the law of my mind. It would be simple to understand a duality here: my mind is good, my body is bad. But I am hesitant to do that. Of course there are times when I want to do something that I know is good, and my body gets in the way. It happens every morning when I try to get up for a run. But in my experience, more often it is my mind pulling me away from what is right: when I make a biased judgment about somebody, when I take for granted the precious people in my life, when I fail to act or speak in fear of embarrassment before the judgment of others.

What does it matter whether my body or my mind leads me on the path to death, if I end up in death either way? The sin that dwells within me is not a single part of me that can be cut out. Perhaps sin is rather the conflict and division between all my parts-- instead of working together for a good purpose, each of my parts pursues its own path, at the expense of my entire body, and sometimes at the expense of other people. The body of sin is a body of chaos.

The Apostle Paul received a vision of the Lord Jesus on the road to Damascus, and he became one of the most devoted Saints in history. He spent the rest of his life working for the sake of the Gospel and the salvation of the world. But even this did not mean that he lived without sin and struggle. Quite the opposite. Many scholars believe Romans to be the last letter Paul wrote. And yet, even here, near the end of his life, Paul still struggles with the chaos, confusion, and sin that is human life. He describes his body at war with itself. He is imprisoned in his own self.

But still, he has hope. He does not look for a savior in himself. He looks to Jesus.

Turning to the Gospel lesson, we see that Jesus also laments the chaos and self-destruction in human beings. Jesus, however, is not describing the chaos within the individual human being, but rather the chaos within human communities:. How does he describe his generation? “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance. We wailed, and you did not mourn.” Jesus found, in his generation, a community that failed to respond to each other’s joy and grief. Instead of joining together to celebrate and support each other, they actively resisted coming together. They always found a reason to reject the stranger coming to them. John they rejected because he fasted, he was too different. Jesus they rejected because he celebrated, he was too like the sinners. The reason is irrelevant: either way, they rejected the call of a stranger-- which is truly the call of God-- and they remained trapped in the captivity of the self, the same captivity that Paul describes.

When Jesus talks to God, his Father, we see what a true relationship, a true community looks like! There is no self between Jesus and his Father. They are all relationship. “My Father has handed over all things to me!” God kept nothing for himself. He gave it all to his child. And no one knows the child except the parent. And no one knows the parent except the child. The parent doesn’t know herself. And the child doesn’t know herself. But they know each other.

I know that I have a tendency sometimes to imagine salvation as a freedom from other people! Freedom from responsibilities that others have asked of me. Freedom from having to give to others and understand others. Freedom to be myself and not be bothered by anyone else.

When I feel that way, Jesus is probably laughing at me. Actually, Jesus says, salvation is like a yoke. A yoke is a wooden beam that fastens together two animals, so they can pull together in the same direction, on the same load. Jesus invites us into his yoke, to be next to him, and to go with him to the place he is going. He invites us to work with him. And he promises us that being joined together is a blessing of healing and rest for our souls.

We are not meant to walk alone.