Genesis 24; Matthew 11:28-30
Today let’s start with the ending.
We must make Christianity Christ-like again. That’s not a human mandate, that God’s instruction for the church, for individuals. Be like him. Be the ones saying, “Come, you who are weary, burdened under so much pressure. There’s gentleness and humility here. There is rest for your souls. We don’t have it all figured out, but we are on this path together. We’ll carry our burdens together. We’ll keep the Light on for you.
Our scripture lessons are from the first book of the Hebrew scriptures and the first book of the New Testament, the first Gospel. Origin stories.
Genesis 24 continues the origin story of Abraham and his descendants. Many readers hear this as a little story about Abraham sending his servant to fetch a bride for his beloved son, Isaac. Children’s storybook pictures paint this as the “love story” of Isaac and Rebekah. I mean he was forty years old when they married and I shudder to imagine the age gap that likely existed. Nevertheless, it does have a fairytale aspect of the handsome prince whose servant finds him the perfect princess. Rebekah is a strong and savvy young woman. If you’ve seen the Disney/Pixar movie, Brave, Rebekah gives me “Merida” vibes. (She’ll take charge of her own fate, thank you very much.) Rather than the traditional naming of this story, “A Wife for Isaac,” I prefer a re-frame: The call of Rebekah.
What sets this origin story in motion are the very last words we hear from Abraham – the instructions he gives to his faithful servant. Abraham directs him to go back to the land of his relatives to find a mate for Isaac. There is a sense that Abraham is nearing the end of his life and “the torch must be passed to a new generation.”[1] The servant departs on a four-hundred mile journey with ten camels loaded down by treasure worthy of the one who will marry Abraham’s heir.
The servant finally arrives and leads his team of parched camels to the well in the town where Abraham’s brother, Nahor, lives. Their thirst may be real, but it’s not the servant’s motivation for hitting up the well first. Wells, in ancient villages, served as a kind of singles’ bar (one male scholar wrote)– a good place to find a prospective bride, it’s been said.[2]
Abraham’s servant asks God for a sign, essentially, so he’ll know he is on the right track. He doesn’t want to make a mistake in identifying the person God has chosen for Isaac. He is looking for the woman who obliges when he asks for a drink and then offers to water the camels as well, THEN he’ll know she is the ONE. Well, well, well… That’s exactly the way the story unfolds when Rebekah comes to draw water. Camels often go as many as five days without water. When they come to a water source, then they will drink as many as 30 gallons of water, each! That’s a LOT of water to pull up from the well and pour into a trough for ten thirsty camels. Rebekah continued to refill the trough until they had their fill.[3]
Rebekah was one strong and capable young woman. She must have appeared to be an excellent prospect to the servant. She’s the one, he must have thought when he gave her the expensive jewelry before he asked who her people were. He put the cart before the camel so to speak. Once he heard that Rebekah was indeed Abraham’s relative, he thanked God (whew!) for leading him to the right person.
What transpires after this is the marital arrangement brokered between Abraham’s servant and Rebekah’s brother, Laban and her father, Bethuel.
While it is true that daughters in these times were nothing more than chattel, and that Rebekah was only allowed to go with the servant IF her male relatives agreed to it; the writer of this story centered Rebekah’s consent and her choice to say yes three times in this narrative.
Did Laban and Bethuel ask Rebekah if she wanted to go with the servant? When they saw the expensive jewelry, the fine camels and possessions of Abraham’s servant, did it matter? Did Rebekah possess the agency to make her own decision? Was she old enough to make a decision of this magnitude? Or was her only choice whether or not to leave immediately? It is all debatable and scholars certainly have. This is the complicated reality of women who live on the margins of a society, where— Kat Armas says —they have much to teach us about wisdom, persistence and strength. “They exist in an in-between space where everyday life is lived – where [they] both resist and participate in systems of oppression” because their number one priority is to survive. Survival makes a person do things they never thought they would do.[4] Like marry a man twice her age; leave her family; believe a servant that this will be a good arrangement for her. Rebekah, in this story, is a symbol for women- all over this world- who exist at the pleasure of the men who surround them — AND!! as a person called by God to participate in God’s unfolding plan. That’s Rebekah’s complicated reality. Though she is woven into the Abrahamic blessing, she will be unrecognized as a protagonist in her own story. Generations will refer to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Though she joins Sarah as a matriarch in our faith family system, she will be called shrewd and manipulative as the heroine of Jacob’s story, or worse, Jacob will be seen as the hero of hers[5] .
I want to believe that it was Rebekah’s choice to leave her home and go – to declare her independence and freedom to pursue happiness. She was called just like Abraham, to leave her homeland and her family in order to join in God’s plan and promise. This origin story is a theological study in God’s providence. God’s on-going, benevolent intervention in the universe.
The way God invites human beings to partner in his re-creation and redemption of the world… Merida, the Scottish princess in Brave called it her fate. Fate. Destiny. Purpose. George Washington at the time of the revolutionary war was said to have believed not so much in Christianity’s God, but a guiding force, Providence. He believed that Providence was in his favor, that he was on the right side of the war. Laban believed the same when the servant of Abraham chose Rebekah. And while he acknowledges Abraham’s faith in God, we can’t be certain that he or his family are worshipers. And yet, this origin story’s truth is that God is at work in ways we cannot see, often in the lives of people who don’t even realize it. God is a covenant maker, a partnership broker, co-creator and call sustainer. And Rebekah becomes a co-creator with God when she joins in the Abrahamic blessing/covenant.
Emma Lazarus was a Sephardic Jew, who volunteered with immigrants streaming through Ellis Island in the late 1800s.[6] She was also a successful writer and poet. When France gifted the great Statue of Liberty to the United States for its Centennial celebration, the US had to construct the pedestal on which the colossal sculpture would stand. Emma Lazarus was asked to write a poem to help raise funds for the pedestal. Her poem, The New Colossus, was inspired by the larger than life goddess of liberty who held a torch of light in one hand and a symbol of the declaration of independence in the other and who crushed the chains of slavery under her foot. Lazarus found a way through 14 lines of text to share empathy for the refugees she saw coming to Ellis Island and to cast a vision to the nation. Her words, later inscribed in bronze on the pedestal, turned one of the country’s most recognizable monuments into a symbol of world-wide welcome.[7]
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. // From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
This is one of our American origin stories that seems to have God’s providence all over it. Emma Lazarus’ words are there to remind this nation who we’ve been and the one we could become. This American origin story wants us to remember the Rebekahs. It wants us to reclaim Christianity from the Nationalists who have hijacked it. It wants us to make Christianity Christ-like again. Because when Christianity is subject to the bidding of the nation’s government, you know who pays the price? History is clear. It is the children, the mothers, the women, the foreigners, the outsiders, the marginalized. The Sarahs, Hagars, Rebekahs, Rachels and Leahs. [8]
God is at work in ways we cannot see, often in the lives of people who don’t even realize it. God is still a covenant maker, a partnership broker, co-creator and call sustainer.
Is it providence, or do we make our own fate? Yes… to both.
Weatherly, let’s keep on being the people making Christianity Christ like again – co-creating with God to offer children, mothers, women, immigrants, outcasts the same things Jesus offers us: gentleness, humility, a light burden, and rest for our souls.
[1] Huey, Katherine Matthews, UCC Sermon Seeds
[2] ibid.
[3] https://worshipingwithchildren.blogspot.com/2014/06/year-proper-9-14th-sunday-in-ordinary.html
[4] Armas, Kat, Abuelita Faith: What Women on the Margins Teach Us about Wisdom, Persistence, and Strength
[5] Armas
[6] https://faith250.org/the-new-colossus
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Lazarus
[8] Rothaus, Kyndall Rae, Sojourners Magazine, Living the Word June 2026