Greasing the Skids

He replied, “The LORD, before whom I have walked faithfully, will send his angel with you and make your journey a success, so that you can get a wife for my son from my own clan and from my father’s family” [Genesis 24:40, New International Version].

Genesis 24 has 67 verses. That’s too many, of course, for a typical Old Testament lesson for Sunday worship. If we were to read the entire chapter, plus some of the other readings appointed for this week, we’d be late for brunch or lunch. And so, the Lectionary committee decided to hit the highlights of the extended Chapter 24— “Isaac gets a wife” —story by choosing selective verses [Genesis 24:34-38, 42-29, 58-67, the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, RCL, Year A].

Are you familiar with the story? By this point late in his life, Abraham has been blessed abundantly [24:1]. There’s one thing missing: his son, Isaac, has no wife. Moreover, Abraham is living among the Canaanites; one of their fine young ladies won’t do. Hatfields don’t marry McCoys. Abraham summons his most senior servant, “the one in charge of all he had” [24:2] and tells the trusted servant to go back to Abraham’s home country and get Isaac a wife. Abraham explicitly tells the servant not to take Isaac along [24:6]. Instead, Yahweh will send an angel on ahead of the servant to help matters along, i.e., to grease the skids [24:7].

The story offends not a few twenty-first century Christians since—at least at first blush—it seems to smack of patriarchal hegemony. Young women drawing water for men who can easily draw it for themselves [24:18], arranged marriages, dowry payments—some would say that the story is exactly the sort of scriptural narrative that has no relevance for us “modern” folks. They’d be wrong. Consider a “modern” story.

It was September 1986. A 35-year-old father of four, I’d left my home country—Gaston County—to come to Duke Divinity School. Jane and I thought that we’d stay for three years, I’d graduate, and then we’d head back to western North Carolina to serve in some Methodist parish. You know the joke: “How do you make God laugh?”

Soon after arriving for that first Fall semester, I was surprised that my academic advisor was the Rev. Dr. Thomas A. Langford. Those outside the Duke community likely won’t know anything about him. A world-renowned theologian, well-published scholar, and thinker, “Tom,” as he insisted on being called, would later be named University Provost—the highest academic officer at Duke. One of the two wings of the Divinity School would also later be named in his memory. My point: Dr. Langford was far too senior an official at Duke to be assigned a lowly first-year student like me, even if I had some gray in my hair. At the time, I was too theologically naive to understand that as I entered Divinity School, Yahweh had sent an angel before me. Yahweh had already begun to grease the skids.

It must have been our second or third meeting when I finally summoned up the courage to ask Dr. Langford a question that had been plaguing me, “How will Jane and I know that this is the right thing to do? How will we know if we’re on the right track?”

Dr. Langford—that is to say, “Tom”—swiveled in his office chair that day and said, “We’re scheduled to meet in two weeks. Until then, read and reflect upon Genesis 24. If you prayerfully consider that text, I think you’ll find some answers.”

Imagine my surprise then, when upon quickly opening my Bible as I stood in the hallway outside his office, I discovered that Genesis 24 detailed the method utilized by Abraham to get his son, Isaac, a wife. But I already had a wife—the best. We’d been married for 15 years. What could such a text tell me about my future? I hadn’t a clue. But off and on for the next two weeks, I read and reread the chapter.

For those of you who don’t/can’t take the time to read it, Chapter 24 generally follows something like this: The unnamed servant goes to Abraham’s home country. He’s worried that he will fail in his important task of finding a suitable bride for Isaac. He stops at a well and notices that the “daughters of the townspeople are coming out to draw water” [24:13. He asks for a sign, essentially offering what amounts to a prayer:

May it be that when I say to a young woman, “Please let down your jar that I may have a drink,” and she says, “Drink, and I’ll water your camels too”—let her be the one you have chosen for your servant Isaac. By this I will know that you have shown kindness to my master [24:14].

Rebekah, a “very beautiful” girl, comes to the well. Abraham’s servant asks her for a drink. Rebekah supplies it and then offers to draw water for his camels as well. The servant shows Rebekah some expensive jewelry, asks if he might stay at her father’s house, and is told that her father would be honored. Her brother, Laban, sees the expensive stuff that the servant has, notes the number of camels accompanying the stranger, and thinks, “Ka Ching.”

Later, over cocktails, the servant explains his mission to Laban and also to the young girl’s father. The servant also tells them about his prayer that Yahweh would send him a sign and that the sign had been fulfilled in Rebekah. Well, after a few days and some financial discussions, Rebekah accompanies the servant back to Canaan, where Abraham and Isaac live. As Rebekah approaches her future home, she sees Isaac. It’s love at first sight. She and Isaac marry. The groundwork is, therefore, laid for a “happily ever after” ending. All this, of course, begs the question: “What has any of this got to do with Tom and Jane in Durham?”

Greasing the skids—at my next meeting with Tom Langford, the good professor inquired if I had prayerfully contemplated the assigned passage. I told him I had certainly prayed that he’d help me understand it. He chuckled and said, “You probably think the chapter is about finding Isaac a wife, right?”

I said, “Yes.” Retreating to safer ground, I told Dr. Langford that in law school I’d learned all about the English Common Law concepts of “dower” and “curtesy,” that the term “dowry” was derived from “dower,” and that dower referred, in part, to the property paid over to the bride’s family at the time of the wedding. Some called it a “bride price.” I continued that some of that was going on in Chapter 24.

Langford continued, “Knowing your background, I thought you’d likely dig in that familiar field, that you’d likely concentrate on Rebekah and Isaac. And they are, of course, a vital part of the story. But you seem to have spent little time thinking about the unnamed servant. It is in his story that the answers to your questions lie.”

At that point, I said something intelligent like, “Really?”

Langford continued, “You want to know if you and Jane are on the right path. Can you see that the unnamed servant had the identical question? He desperately wanted to serve his lord, Abraham. He wanted to do the right thing. He did not want to fail. In all of that, you are his equal.”

I responded, “But we’re not supposed to ask God for specific signs, are we?”

“No, we are not,” replied Langford. “And if one reads this text to say that all one must do is ask for a sign and that it will then be given, one is missing the point of the text. It wasn’t that the servant asked for a sign. It’s that Abraham had already assured him that Yahweh had sent an angel ahead of him to clear the path, to see to the fulfillment of his mission.”

Sensing that I was still puzzled, Langford continued, “Abraham had already prayed for his servant’s success. That’s important and it’s powerful. Haven’t many people prayed that, through our divinity school here, you and Jane will be equipped to serve and follow Christ and to help others along the way?”

“Yes,” I softly responded.

“Well, there, don’t you think God listens to their prayers?”

I stuck to my ongoing answer, “Yes.”

“So that’s the first part. Your success doesn’t so much depend upon your skills or talents, your strenuous actions, your time and effort. Instead, it depends upon God, to whom countless others are praying on your behalf.”

“The first part?”

“Yes, Tom, that’s the first part. And here’s the second part. There are those who read this story as saying that Rebekah is mere chattel, that she was bought and sold like a bushel of wheat. But they’re wrong. Before the two families went through with the marriage scenario, they needed—and got—her consent. She could have said, ’No.’ Her brother could have said no. Her mother and father could have said no.

And so, Tom, this is really important, understand that the fulfillment of the Isaac-Rebekah story required the affirmation of others. You’re here because you want to be here, because Jane and you want your family here. But you must also listen for the affirmation of those around you. It isn’t that they control your lives, but God will use their speech, as well as their gentle and their not-so-gentle nudges. If you’re on the right path, just like the unnamed servant, you’ll soon know it because you’ll experience the affirmation of those whom you respect and love.”

Greasing the skids—so moved at that point by the wisdom of this learned, gentle, man of God, so sure that God had sent angels before Jane and me, to help us along our path, I said something like, “It’s grace, I suppose. God gives us grace.”

And Tom Langford replied with words that I’ve carried in my heart all these years since. Tom died some years ago, but you can still read his “stuff” and you’ll find this important point sprinkled here and there among his many writings:

Grace is not something that God gives us; rather, it is the way God gives us Himself. Grace is a person—God present to human beings. Grace is not a gift, but rather a Giver. Grace is Jesus Christ.

Amen.