Rebekkah and the Power of Matriarchy
The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams, Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, July 9th, 2023
Abraham said, 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.’ Genesis 24 : 38
The stories of the Old Testament are rich with drama and intrigue. And there is a tension throughout the biblical narrative between God’s provision and human decision-making. Both are important. God has always chosen to work through human beings to bring about God’s purposes in the world, and that is a messy, uncertain business. This is evident in today’s passage from Genesis, which is sometimes referred to as “the Wooing of Rebekkah”. But we have to go back to an earlier part of Genesis to fully appreciate what today’s story is trying to convey. We return to the moment when God tells Abraham to leave his homeland and travel to a distant land that God would show him. And God promises Abraham that he is to be the “father of many nations” and that his descendants will be “as numerous as the stars’. Now, years later, Abraham is very old and he knows that this promise can only live on through his son Isaac. Abraham must find a faithful wife for Isaac before he dies, not a woman from the Canaanites, who worship other gods, rather someone from their own homeland, their own family, who worships Yahweh . (It wasn’t unusual in that time to marry within a family. Rebekkah was the granddaughter of Abraham’s brother’. ) So, Abraham commissions his most trusted servant , the manager of his household, to return to Abraham’s homeland to arrange a marriage. In the verses that are missing from our lectionary, the servant vows to carry out Abraham’s directive by placing his hand under Abraham’s thigh, since the reproductive organs were considered sacred. And this action highlights what the mission was all about, procreation, finding a wife for Isaac so that the covenant the God made with Abraham would continue to Abraham’’s descendents. And the story that unfolds is one of faithfulness, risk and uncertainty.
The unnamed servant understands that he is on a very important mission and he relies on God at every turn. He asks God to bless his journey before he leaves. He asks God to show him the young woman he is supposed to approach. He thanks God when Rebekkah and her family agree. The servant is a model of faithfulness. He is very resourceful in his efforts but he also asks for God’s guidance and shows a great deal of humility.
His initial meeting with Rebekkah happens beside a well. Wells figure prominently in many biblical stories. Wells are essential for life to continue in a dry, arid, environment and they also serve as symbols of God’s provision. In the Gospel of John, Jesus asks a Samaritan woman for a drink of water and tells her that belief in him is the spring of eternal life. In today’s story, Rebekkah goes to the well with the other women to draw water, as was the custom. She gives the servant a drink and waters the camels as well. She later offers hospitality at her family’s home and provides a place for them to stay.
Rebekkah is the unsung hero of our reading from Genesis, as Olivia DePreter and other feminist scholars have pointed out over the last 20 or so years. In a very unusual aspect of this story, given the patriarchical framework of the culture, Abraham stipulates that the woman, not only her father or brothers, has to consent to the marriage. Rebekkah has agency and she uses it well. The narrative emphasizes her active participation in what is going on. Although she doesn’t have complete autonomy, she doesn’t just let things happen to her. She willingly chooses the path of faithfulness. She makes the risky decision to leave her homeland to go to a foreign land, to an alien culture, to marry a man she has never met, relying solely on God’s promise, just like Abraham had done a generation earlier. God chooses her to become a matriarch of God’s people, just as surely as God chose Abraham to be the father of many nations. Through Rebekkah’s union with Isaac, the covenant that God made with Abraham continues. In our Eucharistic Prayer (at the 10:30 service) we praise God as the “Father of Abraham and Isaac” and we would rightly graft in Abraham’s wife Sarah and Isaac’s wife Rebekkah into that prayer.
Rebekkah demonstrates courage, boldness and faithfulness. And she offers us an example of working within whatever strictures we find ourselves in today to bring about God’s purposes for the world. God gives us all agency and we are called to use it wisely. Rebekkah made a decision that would alter the course of her life and the course of salvation history for both Jews and Christians, but she didn’t know that at the time. When we try to discern what God is calling us to do in any given circumstance, we do so based on trust, not certainty. Thomas Merton perhaps said it best in this prayer in his book, Thoughts In Solitude.
My Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though
I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.