Camel’s Sip
Genesis 24:1-67

July 3, 2005

Camels are distinctive animals, period. They do not translate well in Western European and Western Hemisphere ways of life. But whenever camels crowd too much into the Biblical picture, there are always those know-it-alls who have to tell you how these great “ships of the desert” were the critical link in Near Eastern trade and economy, transportation uniquely suited physiologically to the inhospitable climates and deserts where water itself came in dehydrated form. If we understood camels, then we would know how the Bible cannot really be authentic without camels.

I think we should strike back, and insist that they should all really know about moose, the real Biblical animal. I have seen camels in the zoo, but never a loose camel. A few of you have related the sheer joy of riding a loose camel. I, on the other hand, have seen more than my share of loose moose, in all sorts of places. You never find a moose, a moose finds you relentlessly.

Yes, it is exceedingly hard to get a moose to allow you to ride him or her, so I guess they wouldn’t do well in the desert. But a moose is one of the few animals who has a face worthy of a camel.

It is amazing then that the history of the Israelite people, the continuation of God’s promise to Abraham and his descendants, the eventual development of the Christian Church, and indeed our sitting here in these pews depends upon a sip of water for a camel, or a moose. God moves in mysterious ways.

Stories of divine importance are told more often than not by the most ordinary details. That means to be caught up in a godly happening does not require a lightning bolt or luminous vision with bright lights or a spectacular public setting. It may be found in the story of how your mother and father found each other. How boring can that be? Or, how fundamentally and marvelously revealing of the way God intervenes in the way we live.

After all the violence and jealousy, ruthlessness and cruelty in the Genesis sagas, this episode has been described as “the most charming and pleasant of all the patriarchal stories” (Gerhard Von Rad). Probably the customs of arranging a marriage are no longer acceptable to us, but it is a gentle tale, one of the longest in Genesis, a lot longer than David Calam would have had breath to read.

As with a lot of the longer stories in the Bible, the details are often a little confused because the final editor of the Genesis passage apparently combined several different versions of the story and didn’t tie together all the loose ends. Abraham is certainly at the end of his life and wants to make sure his son Isaac is married so that the Promise continues. Some of the details imply strongly that Abraham dies before the mission is accomplished, others imply that he sees the union of Isaac and his Aramaean wife.

No idle wish, Abraham pulls aside his most trusted servant to give him the weighty task. Isaac needs a proper wife so that the Promise of God to Abraham will be continued. Abraham has devoted the majority of his life to following the Promise, and one must not tamper with the things of God. Not just any wife will do.

She can’t be Canaanite, a local girl is impossible. Nothing new under the sun here in Canada, for many immigrants still prefer or insist that their sons or daughters marry someone from the motherland. For Abraham the issue was weighted religiously. Why invest one’s life in the worship and service of the One God, creator of the universe, and then invite someone to share this journey who does not recognize or respect that the One God exists? So the servant goes back to the mother land of Haran in northern Mesopotamia to find the right woman under God’s guidance. If the right woman, however, does not wish to return with him, the servant is absolved of his obligation. There is no plan B.

Isaac is under no circumstances, you see, to return to Mesopotamia. That would undo the initial step of the adventure of the Promise, to leave Haran and go where God would show him to go. Isaac returning to Haran would risk getting trapped there, and would be an attempt to “fix” God’s direction by oneself. Who is better to fix a broken God than a broken human being?

But for the servant this is not a simple assignment. He travels with an awesome caravan, loaded to the teeth with wealth of every currency known to that society. He wasn’t going to buy a bride, but to offer to the family a gift symbolic of God’s generosity. Yet how to proceed is the rub. He pulls into Haran, the city of Nahor, Abraham’s brother, but actually just on the outside of the city’s walls where the well of the city’s water is located. He did not leap into a plan of action; he sat down and prayed that God might lead him to success. Let’s not forget, a servant whose name we do not learn, not one of the principal and powerful characters, is the one charged with the responsibility of making sure the divine fabric of Israel’s life is assured. To be sure, he is more than a mere slave, a senior vice president in the firm, but there is no urgency to give him a name for historical posterity. Frankly, it is usually you and I in our non-descript moments who bring about the greatest things of God.

But the servant was thinking. This was the traditional time of day when young women came out of the city to the well to draw water for their families. He knew the proper wife should be kind, aware of others’ needs, caring even for animals. So he set up the ground rules for God to follow - a little presumptuous, but apparently God played along. If you can’t care for camels, then how will you ever care for people? Before he finished thinking, along comes Rebekah. With his heart in his throat he asks for a sip of water and she doesn’t hesitate and draws water for the camels.

The servant can barely believe it once he talks with Rebekah and then with her family, in particular her brother Laban who will play an even bigger role for the next generation. Rebekah is not only the right candidate by his standards, she is a relative, and she is beautiful. I guess Lake Wobegon lived even then: “All the men are strong, all the women are good-looking, and all the children are above average.”

Laban and his father Bethuel do not see this arrangement primarily from a financial perspective, though I assume they liked the gifts. “The thing comes from God.” They give their blessing and allow Rebekah to make the final decision, just as Abraham and his servant had always insisted.

Our episode concludes in the way no Hollywood movie has been able to outdo. Isaac goes out to the field at night to pray, probably the sunset looming beautifully before him. He lifts up his eyes and sees the ships of the desert navigating their ways before him. The camera switches to Rebekah who lifts up her eyes, no doubt at the same instant, and she sees Isaac. She immediately gets off the camel and asks the servant who this may be. It is his master Isaac. In the Near Eastern custom she puts on her veil and is received by Isaac. He takes her into his tent and she becomes his wife. And he loved her. Couldn’t be nicer, eh? You may wipe the tears away now.

When you and I are enmeshed in the journey of faith with a God like ours, we expect that nothing really happens randomly. There is no such thing as good luck, a semi-magical spirit that we can manipulate and perhaps corral. It is not that God has everything predestined and all figured out, but that with God things develop and come into being and people change and grow.

There is a lot of false and misleading publicity out there regarding how one journeys with God. People always enjoy hearing about the spectacular experiences, the dramatic rescues and startling revelations visited upon certain people at significant moments in history. Don’t believe all you read: God prefers the quiet ordinary moment in which to change the way your life develops. That’s why we love to hear the details of our parents’ meeting or the long loving steps how Rebekah became Isaac’s partner. God sneaks in between the whispers and the silent glances and turns you into someone different. Laban and Bethuel heard about these whispers and sips of water for the camels and knew that it was God at work among us. Who can stop God now once God is at work in every movement of our bodies and souls?

We have crippled and inhibited our faith when we assume that only events of “Biblical proportions” can indicate you or I have had an authentic experience with God. Burning bushes that do not burn, Red Seas that part in the middle, tumbling down walls of Jerichos, suns standing still, commandments etched in stone on Mount Sinais, three days of a Jonah in the belly of a whale - are the exceptions, not the rule of the way we are called by God.

One other thing: God has a bad habit of using people and things that cannot possibly be considered holy to make you holy. A sip of water for a gaggle of moose or camels to choose a wife for our posterity, an apple or pear or fig to lose our innocence, a manger in a cave stable to give birth to a new world, a donkey to transport our saviour, an inarticulate speaker to shout freedom to the Pharaoh - most churches still insist upon looking smart and beautiful in order to recruit more people; many preachers hold out the possibility of success if you have enough of the right kind of faith; yet God keeps coming back with our less attractive features to make us over into the children of God.

So, what do you do after the story of the matchmaking? Sleep with one eye open, for the thief comes in the middle of the night, you and I do not know when. Be alert, the thing comes from God, perhaps with a whisper, perhaps with a bang. You and I are always able to hear if we have ears.

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan