A Genesis Love Story

I love a good love story. Do you?

Whether I’m watching a romantic comedy or hearing a real-life story about persistent love that saw a couple through rough times, I just get caught up in the loveliness of it all. In 2015, when same sex marriage became legal in all 50 states, I did a lot of weddings that summer. And each time I’d post a photo on Facebook of the couple with me and write, “I love love.”

As a hospice chaplain, one of my favorite questions to ask when doing legacy work was, “How did you meet your spouse?” And I heard some amazing stories about how people met years earlier and love blossomed. Just last week I asked one of our members during a visit, “How did you meet your wife? And his face lit up, smiling from ear to ear, “Haven’t I ever told you that story? It’s one of my best stories!” And it was. Boy notices girl from across the room. Boy says something awkward and funny to get her attention. They go on a first date, and because of one simple action she did during the conversation, he knew immediately she was the one.

Wow! If only it were that easy for all of us!

We heard a love story this morning in the reading from Genesis. It’s not as romantic as one might find in the movies or hear in conversation with a friend, but it is the beginning of a love story between Isaac and Rebeka. Their love story has a few twists and turns that we don’t experience in modern love stories.

Remember Isaac from last week? Or how about his parents, Abraham and Sarah, from the weeks before? Quick recap of the Genesis stories we’re reading this summer:

Abraham and Sarah are without a child, so Sarah gives him her servant Hagar to bear a child on her behalf. Hagar’s son is named Ishmael.
Abraham and Sarah are told they’ll conceive. Because she is so old, she laughs at the messenger. Sarah does indeed become pregnant, and their son is named Isaac.
Sarah commands Abraham to get rid of Hagar and Ishmael, and they are sent into the desert to die. But God hears the boy’s cries and provides a wellspring bursting with water.
Abraham is told to sacrifice his son, Isaac. But just before he attempts to do it, a ram for the sacrifice appears in the bushes.

Now, back to today’s portion of the story that occurs several years later. Isaac is grown up, his mother Sarah has just died, and Abraham asks his servant to find a suitable wife for his son. Imagine if I asked Isaac, “How did you meet your wife?”

Well it's complicated.
My father sent one of our servants back to the land where he’s originally from so that he could find a wife for me. He wanted to make sure that I was with someone from our own kin, so the servant went to the land of Aram-Naharaim.
When he arrived, he prayed for God to help him discern the right woman for me. He said, ‘whoever comes here and gives me a drink and offers water to my camels, that will be the one.’ And you know what? Rebekah showed up at the well (it’s where a lot of people meet their future spouse) and not only did she offer him a drink, she offered to water his camels too. That’s a whole lot of water for ten camels who can drink 20-30 gallons each! Not only was she generous and hospitable, she was strong too...water is heavy.
Later that day, when they were at Rebekah’s home, arrangements were made for her to be my wife. She told me that they asked her first, which never happens. Usually just the men make the decisions. But they asked her, and she said “yes!” She said yes, before she even met me or my father. She said yes, and made the long journey back to my home, our home. I loved her from the moment I saw her, and I just knew she was the one.

Now that’s quite a love story! But why is it in the Bible? This is the longest chapter in Genesis and the story is told with so much detail, it must be important. On the surface it seems like a story about arranged marriages, weird practices around marrying in one’s own blood line, and the role of servants carrying out their master’s wishes. But that was all normal then.

One theme that sums up all the stories I re-capped earlier, including this one, is “The Lord will provide.” When Abraham and Sarah needed heirs, God provided sons. When Hagar and Ishmael were dying of thirst, God provided water. When Abraham was about to sacrifice Isaac, God provided a ram instead. When Isaac was ready to marry, God provided a wife.

God will provide. Whatever hardship or difficulty Abraham and his family encounter, the God they worship faithfully keeps promises to them, providing whatever is most necessary and life-giving, And that’s a love story to beat all others! God’s love for creation--all of it--the earth, animals and humans is an enduring love story that goes all the way back to the beginning. The story we read today and so much of the biblical witness shows us that God is faithful and loving throughout all generations.

“God will provide” is not an invitation to fatalism or apathy. Most of the time, the way God provides is through us. God uses ordinary and flawed people, like Rebekah, or you and me, to carry out God’s desires for creation. We are invited, like Rebekah, to say yes and be active participants in God’s love story for the world.

God provided them what they needed to do extraordinary things. God made outrageous promises to them and then kept those promises. God’s love story continues throughout all the generations.

This summer we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the ordination of women in the ELCA. God was faithful and provided what was needed as courageous women and men in the ELCA said yes to God’s plan. Fifty years ago, the ELCA decided to change the constitution from a man shall be ordained to a person shall be ordained. It opened the way for the ordination of women in the ELCA, 10 years later the first woman of color, and in 2009 openly LGBTQ persons. The church, and these faithful leaders, said YES!

Today, we are being called to say yes to Black Lives Matter. Not because all lives don’t matter, but because for too long the lives of black and brown people have been ignored, brutalized, killed because of racism and white supremacy.

What once seemed acceptable or hidden is now publicly questioned and revealed. The ones who are being oppressed call out with a courageous yes to a new way of being in the world. Motivated by God's plan for the entire world, we are all called to say yes to God’s expansive love story. We, like Rebekah, say yes to an unknown future, yes to a new way of being in the world, yes to God’s promises for an abundant life for everyone…

· Black and brown

· Queer and straight

· Housed and those without homes

· People who are married, divorcing, or yearning for their own love story

· Unemployed underemployed

· Educated and those with minimal access to public education

Just like many great love stories in the Bible, this one began with well-springs of water at the baptismal font, when promises were made by God and humans. In those waters we were claimed as God’s beloved, a relationship with the Holy one was born, and God’s faithfulness secured.

We are invited to embrace this never-ending love story and say “Yes!” Yes, to God’s love for us. Yes, to God’s love for the world. Yes, to God’s faithfulness, trusting that God will provide all that we need as we work to love our neighbors as ourselves, trusting that God provides for all generations.