The outcome is certain
Commentary
Although they come at it from very different perspectives, the texts for this Sunday all speak to the most common human issue -- the struggle between good and evil. Whether it is conflict in the family of Isaac and Rebekah, flesh and spirit wrestling for dominance in Paul's heart, or good seed struggling to find root in hostile soil, the idea is the same. From birth to death, in every heart and in every place, the battle goes on.
The culture of the West makes it a challenge to get this point across to our audience. Given our predisposition to believe that things can only get better if we work at them hard enough, there is a tendency to overlook or deny the reality of evil. It is hard for us to accept the idea that there may be some things beyond our control, things that defy understanding and cannot be conquered by our brightest leaders or their best efforts.
But there also is the temptation to fall into a trap on the other side of this issue. Those who accept the reality of evil struggle with despair, inclined to resign themselves to what they believe to be the inevitable, tempted to give up. These texts also guard against that faulty view of life.
The difference is that God is involved in the conflict. No matter how much freedom we have been given to control the destiny of our world, no matter how awesome the powers of evil that seem at times to be in control, the Christian declaration of faith asserts that God remains deeply involved in the conflict and will see to it that the Gospel will not fail. The Suffering God enters the human story and makes it more than a human story. It is the story of "God with us," God in Christ struggling on our behalf, God on our side. If we can come to terms with the reality of both good and evil and then add to it our firm conviction that God has not abandoned us to struggle alone, we will have taken the first and most important step in dealing with whatever personal or societal issue we may be involved with at any given moment.
A veteran missionary, working in what many would have called an impossible situation, kept a placard on his wall which read, "This, too, will pass." It was not his way of escape from the difficulty of the issue at hand. Nor was it his thought that all things will work out for good if one does nothing. It was his reminder that no matter how dark the day, God would work for good, and God had called him to that place in that time.
All of this means that if we handle these texts well, there will not be a person in the congregation who will not find something applicable to his or her own experience. Those who deny the reality of evil need to hear that the most subtle of the powers of darkness are the ones of which we are least aware. And those who feel overwhelmed by evil will need to hear words of reassurance, promises that God has not abandoned them. Only two things can keep them from hearing a word from God -- our failure to communicate or their failure to listen.
Grist For The Mill
Genesis 25:19-34
Last week we described the beauty of the marriage of Isaac and Rebekah, a couple who loved each other deeply and lived in fidelity. Today's text reminds us that even in a good marriage conflict will inevitably come. It should come as no surprise that children out of the same genetic pool, even twins, can be very different. Neither should it surprise us that parents sometimes favor one child over another, or that one parent favors one and the other parent another. We see it in many families. For this reason, we should be careful not to get hung up on questions the Bible does not answer: Why are the interests of two children of the same parents so different? Or why does one child believe while another rejects the faith? We simply do not know. There are no answers in this text.
What the text does tell us is that God works for good in the most difficult circumstances. After years of barrenness, with fecund women casting judgmental looks at her and whispering behind her back about what she may have done to reap God's displeasure, Rebekah deserves to know only sheer joy when she becomes pregnant. Instead, there is struggle in the womb even before her sons are born. And that is followed by constant conflict between her boys and disagreement with her husband over how to rear them. Rebekah must have had moments when she longed for barrenness again. She and Isaac are living "east of Eden." The effects of the fall are with them.
But just as pregnancy for a barren woman is seen as an act of God's intervention, so the ascendancy and dominance of the younger son over the older son is also seen as God's way of getting involved in the affairs of the human family. The choice of Jacob ran contrary to the deeply embedded tradition of preferential treatment for the older son. But God made an exception. As difficult as it is for us to deal with the notion, it seems that Jacob is predestined to be the dominant son. Though we need to be careful not to paint an entirely negative picture of Esau, Jacob is the one best equipped to carry forward the promise to Abraham that this people is "blessed to be a blessing."
Luther sums up the thoughts of many regarding this text when he says that "even the saints do not understand what they are asking for ... those judgments and ways of God are unsearchable for us" (Luther's Works, Vol. 4, p. 371). We do not know why Jacob rather than Esau. But how many of us can explain why God called us to our ministry? Or why God calls others to places of particular responsibility? Often the answer defies all convention. It makes no sense. If we search for the reason in our ability, or intelligence, or personality, we search in vain. Certainly God uses whatever gifts we may have. And many of those gifts reflect what we have inherited from our biological roots. But in the end it remains a mystery. God chooses for God's reasons. Our calling is to be faithful for whatever we have been set apart to do.
Lesslie Newbigin's recollection of the mystery of his call is one most of us can identify with:
There was a tent set aside for prayer. On an afternoon near the end of the week I went into it to pray. No one else was there. While I was praying something happened which I find it hard to describe. I suddenly knew that I had been told that I must offer for ordination. I had not been thinking about this. But I knew that I had been ordered and that it was settled and that I could not escape. (Lesslie Newbigin, Unfinished Business; Geneva: WCC, 1985, pp. 15-16.)
Romans 8:1-11
If it is a mystery why some are chosen for a particular task, then it is an even greater mystery that we should be chosen at all to be the children of God! But now we are dealing with more than a single family and its struggle. Now it is the entire human family. In last week's text Paul wrote of his own struggle, not understanding why he did what he did or failed to do what he knew he should. Now he speaks to all believers. Whether they know it or not, they are engaged in the same battle, here described as conflict between flesh and Spirit. He has established in chapter 3 that "no one is righteous, not even one" and that "all have turned aside." In chapter 5 he says that the only thing that can free us from this bondage to sin is the justifying grace of God which we embrace by faith.
Now in chapter 8, for the first time, Paul introduces a thought that will dominate this part of his letter -- that we have the help of the Holy Spirit in our wrestling with the power of sin, or, as he speaks of it here, "the flesh." To live by the flesh is to "set one's mind" (v. 5) against God, to stubbornly insist on a way of life that does not include God. In fact, it goes beyond ignoring God. To be in the flesh is to be "hostile to God" (v. 7). This "mind-set" has its consequences. They are enumerated in the Letter to the Galatians as "works of the flesh": fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, "and things like these" (Galatians 5:19-20). And the end of it all "results in death" (v. 6).
In contrast to all this, believers who have been joined to Christ by baptism into his death and resurrection (6:3-4) have a power that overcomes all the forces of "the flesh." It is the gift of the Holy Spirit. For them, the "body" is dead. Paul does not have in mind the physical body, thus driving a wedge between body and spirit. He carefully avoids any implication that the physical body is evil and the human mind or spirit is good. Here "body" is the self, the human self that is centered in its own agenda. Those who have the Spirit of God have another agenda.
This text is an enormous word of encouragement for those who feel overwhelmed by their struggles with "the flesh." The bondage need not be in the form of those described in Galatians 5. In fact, most who come to worship will not see themselves in any of these categories. They probably think of themselves as living above that level of "the flesh." But does this mean that they are free from the struggle of good and evil? No, of course not. They struggle. But it may be in other areas -- anger, resentment, family dissension, honesty in the workplace, an addiction of some kind. We may do well not even to guess what their particular issue may be. Simply ask, "Do you find yourself struggling with good and evil in your life? Can you name it?" And then we can move on to share with them the good news that they do not struggle alone.
We ought to be a bit embarrassed that it took an organization like Alcoholics Anonymous to convince some folks that they need to admit that they are powerless and resign their lives completely to "a Higher Power." Without taking away from the effectiveness of that and other similar groups and the good they have done for so many, we in the Christian church should remember that we can be very specific. It is not any general, amorphous power that we speak of. Our Gospel is centered in the One who is revealed in Jesus Christ and our power is from the One he promised to send -- the Advocate, the Holy Spirit.
This text opens the door for us to make a very forthright and bold challenge to every listener to claim the gift they have been given by their baptism into Christ, the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
Though there may be good reason for doing so, the omission of verses 10-17 from the Gospel for this day is unfortunate. That part of the chapter explains the context for the parable. Until this point in his ministry there has been growing interest in the word of the prophet from Galilee. But now there is growing opposition. The refusal of some to believe and follow -- the point of verses 10-17 -- is the reason for the parable. Jesus is making it clear that a faithful sower and good seed do not guarantee a good crop. The soil must be receptive to the hard work of the sower and the potential of the seed. The sower works as diligently and is as generous in sowing seed on the rocky, shallow, and thorny ground as on the good ground. Good seed is not reserved for good soil.
The link between the three texts now becomes clear. Though given the gift of the Spirit, the parable of the sower, the soils, and the seeds reminds every believer that the fight to maintain that gift of faith will not be easy. The foes, within and without, are formidable. Over and over again in the parables Jesus calls for response to his invitation. "He who has ears, let him hear" is his repeated plea to believe and to continue in the kingdom. Paul's letters are full of passionate pleas to the believers to hold to the faith. He grieves over those who drift away, telling the Galatians that he is "astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ and turning to another gospel" (Galatians 1:6). The letters to the churches in the first chapters of Revelation are full of John's heartaches over churches that have either forsaken Christ or grown lukewarm about the faith.
But there is a second and equally important message in this parable. And it is a word of encouragement not only to the believer in the pew but also to the preacher in the pulpit. For all its enemies, the Gospel does grow and multiply. At any given moment we may find a bushel of reasons to be discouraged. Just because we live in a "Christian culture," the work is not easy. In fact, it is more difficult. We can go for weeks and months without any apparent "results" for our efforts. But when we come back to our senses, we recall that the miracle of growth is an act of God and that it goes on in the congregation and in the world, quietly but surely bearing fruit.
And is there not also something to be said about the order in which the soils are described? Is it not by design that Jesus places the good soil last in the parable? Early efforts seldom show promising results. More often than not, it is only after we have tasted the bitterness of failed harvests that we come to know the sweetness of a good crop. Mission history is replete with stories of missionaries who planted faithfully, but saw little or no harvest. Only later, usually long after their death, did the result of their work come to fruition. Pastors go about their work, often wondering if anything of worth is happening in the congregation. Then, often at an unexpected moment, someone expresses gratitude for a sermon or a visit you thought had no good purpose -- and may no longer even recall. But something happened. A seed took root. Why? Because God has promised: "So shall be my word that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I propose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it" (Isaiah 55:11).
Handfuls upon handfuls of seeds may never grow to maturity. But if even one handful falls in good ground it makes it all worthwhile.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By James A. Nestingen
Genesis 25:19-34
Rebekah won't escape the patriarchal bindings which hold her. The relations by which she is identified are all male: her father, Bethuel; her brother, Lot; her husband, Isaac; her sons, Esau and Jacob. But even bound, at least by currently dominant standards, there is enough in the story to meet a very strong woman, ready to put her shoulder to the wheel.
For one thing, she was barren. Such women are among the very most important in Scripture. Denied what semi-nomadic, agrarian people value most in a woman's vocation, they assumed dominant places in the narratives of the community: Sarah most of all, but also Hannah, the mother of Samuel, and Elizabeth, who gave birth to John the Baptist. They are some of the strongest people in Scripture. Given the way she later dealt with Esau and Jacob, Rebekah apparently had been toughened by the appropriation. She knew how to prevail, against the odds.
For another thing, when after many years Rebekah and Isaac were finally expecting, Rebekah had a difficult pregnancy. There must have been some real ecstasy in the earliest days. They both took her hardening breasts and morning nausea as evidence of God's grace -- an answer to their prayers. But grace can be harder to handle than the law, especially when day after day the body contends with itself.
A woman who bore twins prematurely was told by her doctor that had they gone to term, both children would have been over eight pounds. Consequently, the doctor also said, the last months of the pregnancy and the birth itself would have been hellish. Rebekah didn't get the early out. With two rambunctious sons kicking her and one another, she might have remembered barrenness with some nostalgia.
Still another of Rebekah's characteristics emerges from the story: originally denied children, now finding her womb a wrestling ring, she cries out to God for relief. Never mind that God was implicated in her troubles: she knew where to turn, and how. She was a woman of faith, bearing up under her menfolk and depending on God to help her.
Rebekah gets upstaged at the end of the story. Her twins, miracle enough in itself, arrive in their own dimensions, Esau wild and ruddy, Jacob already hitching a ride, a firm grasp on the red heel. But Rebekah won't bow out, the little woman quietly resigned to anonymity. There's something about Jacob, even second born, that she can't resist. And she won't rest until she's got him squared up as recipient of his father's and his grandfather's blessing. In man's world, Rebekah held her own. So she is remembered, behind Sarah, with Leah and Rachel and the rest as one of the mothers of the faithful.
The culture of the West makes it a challenge to get this point across to our audience. Given our predisposition to believe that things can only get better if we work at them hard enough, there is a tendency to overlook or deny the reality of evil. It is hard for us to accept the idea that there may be some things beyond our control, things that defy understanding and cannot be conquered by our brightest leaders or their best efforts.
But there also is the temptation to fall into a trap on the other side of this issue. Those who accept the reality of evil struggle with despair, inclined to resign themselves to what they believe to be the inevitable, tempted to give up. These texts also guard against that faulty view of life.
The difference is that God is involved in the conflict. No matter how much freedom we have been given to control the destiny of our world, no matter how awesome the powers of evil that seem at times to be in control, the Christian declaration of faith asserts that God remains deeply involved in the conflict and will see to it that the Gospel will not fail. The Suffering God enters the human story and makes it more than a human story. It is the story of "God with us," God in Christ struggling on our behalf, God on our side. If we can come to terms with the reality of both good and evil and then add to it our firm conviction that God has not abandoned us to struggle alone, we will have taken the first and most important step in dealing with whatever personal or societal issue we may be involved with at any given moment.
A veteran missionary, working in what many would have called an impossible situation, kept a placard on his wall which read, "This, too, will pass." It was not his way of escape from the difficulty of the issue at hand. Nor was it his thought that all things will work out for good if one does nothing. It was his reminder that no matter how dark the day, God would work for good, and God had called him to that place in that time.
All of this means that if we handle these texts well, there will not be a person in the congregation who will not find something applicable to his or her own experience. Those who deny the reality of evil need to hear that the most subtle of the powers of darkness are the ones of which we are least aware. And those who feel overwhelmed by evil will need to hear words of reassurance, promises that God has not abandoned them. Only two things can keep them from hearing a word from God -- our failure to communicate or their failure to listen.
Grist For The Mill
Genesis 25:19-34
Last week we described the beauty of the marriage of Isaac and Rebekah, a couple who loved each other deeply and lived in fidelity. Today's text reminds us that even in a good marriage conflict will inevitably come. It should come as no surprise that children out of the same genetic pool, even twins, can be very different. Neither should it surprise us that parents sometimes favor one child over another, or that one parent favors one and the other parent another. We see it in many families. For this reason, we should be careful not to get hung up on questions the Bible does not answer: Why are the interests of two children of the same parents so different? Or why does one child believe while another rejects the faith? We simply do not know. There are no answers in this text.
What the text does tell us is that God works for good in the most difficult circumstances. After years of barrenness, with fecund women casting judgmental looks at her and whispering behind her back about what she may have done to reap God's displeasure, Rebekah deserves to know only sheer joy when she becomes pregnant. Instead, there is struggle in the womb even before her sons are born. And that is followed by constant conflict between her boys and disagreement with her husband over how to rear them. Rebekah must have had moments when she longed for barrenness again. She and Isaac are living "east of Eden." The effects of the fall are with them.
But just as pregnancy for a barren woman is seen as an act of God's intervention, so the ascendancy and dominance of the younger son over the older son is also seen as God's way of getting involved in the affairs of the human family. The choice of Jacob ran contrary to the deeply embedded tradition of preferential treatment for the older son. But God made an exception. As difficult as it is for us to deal with the notion, it seems that Jacob is predestined to be the dominant son. Though we need to be careful not to paint an entirely negative picture of Esau, Jacob is the one best equipped to carry forward the promise to Abraham that this people is "blessed to be a blessing."
Luther sums up the thoughts of many regarding this text when he says that "even the saints do not understand what they are asking for ... those judgments and ways of God are unsearchable for us" (Luther's Works, Vol. 4, p. 371). We do not know why Jacob rather than Esau. But how many of us can explain why God called us to our ministry? Or why God calls others to places of particular responsibility? Often the answer defies all convention. It makes no sense. If we search for the reason in our ability, or intelligence, or personality, we search in vain. Certainly God uses whatever gifts we may have. And many of those gifts reflect what we have inherited from our biological roots. But in the end it remains a mystery. God chooses for God's reasons. Our calling is to be faithful for whatever we have been set apart to do.
Lesslie Newbigin's recollection of the mystery of his call is one most of us can identify with:
There was a tent set aside for prayer. On an afternoon near the end of the week I went into it to pray. No one else was there. While I was praying something happened which I find it hard to describe. I suddenly knew that I had been told that I must offer for ordination. I had not been thinking about this. But I knew that I had been ordered and that it was settled and that I could not escape. (Lesslie Newbigin, Unfinished Business; Geneva: WCC, 1985, pp. 15-16.)
Romans 8:1-11
If it is a mystery why some are chosen for a particular task, then it is an even greater mystery that we should be chosen at all to be the children of God! But now we are dealing with more than a single family and its struggle. Now it is the entire human family. In last week's text Paul wrote of his own struggle, not understanding why he did what he did or failed to do what he knew he should. Now he speaks to all believers. Whether they know it or not, they are engaged in the same battle, here described as conflict between flesh and Spirit. He has established in chapter 3 that "no one is righteous, not even one" and that "all have turned aside." In chapter 5 he says that the only thing that can free us from this bondage to sin is the justifying grace of God which we embrace by faith.
Now in chapter 8, for the first time, Paul introduces a thought that will dominate this part of his letter -- that we have the help of the Holy Spirit in our wrestling with the power of sin, or, as he speaks of it here, "the flesh." To live by the flesh is to "set one's mind" (v. 5) against God, to stubbornly insist on a way of life that does not include God. In fact, it goes beyond ignoring God. To be in the flesh is to be "hostile to God" (v. 7). This "mind-set" has its consequences. They are enumerated in the Letter to the Galatians as "works of the flesh": fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, "and things like these" (Galatians 5:19-20). And the end of it all "results in death" (v. 6).
In contrast to all this, believers who have been joined to Christ by baptism into his death and resurrection (6:3-4) have a power that overcomes all the forces of "the flesh." It is the gift of the Holy Spirit. For them, the "body" is dead. Paul does not have in mind the physical body, thus driving a wedge between body and spirit. He carefully avoids any implication that the physical body is evil and the human mind or spirit is good. Here "body" is the self, the human self that is centered in its own agenda. Those who have the Spirit of God have another agenda.
This text is an enormous word of encouragement for those who feel overwhelmed by their struggles with "the flesh." The bondage need not be in the form of those described in Galatians 5. In fact, most who come to worship will not see themselves in any of these categories. They probably think of themselves as living above that level of "the flesh." But does this mean that they are free from the struggle of good and evil? No, of course not. They struggle. But it may be in other areas -- anger, resentment, family dissension, honesty in the workplace, an addiction of some kind. We may do well not even to guess what their particular issue may be. Simply ask, "Do you find yourself struggling with good and evil in your life? Can you name it?" And then we can move on to share with them the good news that they do not struggle alone.
We ought to be a bit embarrassed that it took an organization like Alcoholics Anonymous to convince some folks that they need to admit that they are powerless and resign their lives completely to "a Higher Power." Without taking away from the effectiveness of that and other similar groups and the good they have done for so many, we in the Christian church should remember that we can be very specific. It is not any general, amorphous power that we speak of. Our Gospel is centered in the One who is revealed in Jesus Christ and our power is from the One he promised to send -- the Advocate, the Holy Spirit.
This text opens the door for us to make a very forthright and bold challenge to every listener to claim the gift they have been given by their baptism into Christ, the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
Though there may be good reason for doing so, the omission of verses 10-17 from the Gospel for this day is unfortunate. That part of the chapter explains the context for the parable. Until this point in his ministry there has been growing interest in the word of the prophet from Galilee. But now there is growing opposition. The refusal of some to believe and follow -- the point of verses 10-17 -- is the reason for the parable. Jesus is making it clear that a faithful sower and good seed do not guarantee a good crop. The soil must be receptive to the hard work of the sower and the potential of the seed. The sower works as diligently and is as generous in sowing seed on the rocky, shallow, and thorny ground as on the good ground. Good seed is not reserved for good soil.
The link between the three texts now becomes clear. Though given the gift of the Spirit, the parable of the sower, the soils, and the seeds reminds every believer that the fight to maintain that gift of faith will not be easy. The foes, within and without, are formidable. Over and over again in the parables Jesus calls for response to his invitation. "He who has ears, let him hear" is his repeated plea to believe and to continue in the kingdom. Paul's letters are full of passionate pleas to the believers to hold to the faith. He grieves over those who drift away, telling the Galatians that he is "astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ and turning to another gospel" (Galatians 1:6). The letters to the churches in the first chapters of Revelation are full of John's heartaches over churches that have either forsaken Christ or grown lukewarm about the faith.
But there is a second and equally important message in this parable. And it is a word of encouragement not only to the believer in the pew but also to the preacher in the pulpit. For all its enemies, the Gospel does grow and multiply. At any given moment we may find a bushel of reasons to be discouraged. Just because we live in a "Christian culture," the work is not easy. In fact, it is more difficult. We can go for weeks and months without any apparent "results" for our efforts. But when we come back to our senses, we recall that the miracle of growth is an act of God and that it goes on in the congregation and in the world, quietly but surely bearing fruit.
And is there not also something to be said about the order in which the soils are described? Is it not by design that Jesus places the good soil last in the parable? Early efforts seldom show promising results. More often than not, it is only after we have tasted the bitterness of failed harvests that we come to know the sweetness of a good crop. Mission history is replete with stories of missionaries who planted faithfully, but saw little or no harvest. Only later, usually long after their death, did the result of their work come to fruition. Pastors go about their work, often wondering if anything of worth is happening in the congregation. Then, often at an unexpected moment, someone expresses gratitude for a sermon or a visit you thought had no good purpose -- and may no longer even recall. But something happened. A seed took root. Why? Because God has promised: "So shall be my word that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I propose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it" (Isaiah 55:11).
Handfuls upon handfuls of seeds may never grow to maturity. But if even one handful falls in good ground it makes it all worthwhile.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By James A. Nestingen
Genesis 25:19-34
Rebekah won't escape the patriarchal bindings which hold her. The relations by which she is identified are all male: her father, Bethuel; her brother, Lot; her husband, Isaac; her sons, Esau and Jacob. But even bound, at least by currently dominant standards, there is enough in the story to meet a very strong woman, ready to put her shoulder to the wheel.
For one thing, she was barren. Such women are among the very most important in Scripture. Denied what semi-nomadic, agrarian people value most in a woman's vocation, they assumed dominant places in the narratives of the community: Sarah most of all, but also Hannah, the mother of Samuel, and Elizabeth, who gave birth to John the Baptist. They are some of the strongest people in Scripture. Given the way she later dealt with Esau and Jacob, Rebekah apparently had been toughened by the appropriation. She knew how to prevail, against the odds.
For another thing, when after many years Rebekah and Isaac were finally expecting, Rebekah had a difficult pregnancy. There must have been some real ecstasy in the earliest days. They both took her hardening breasts and morning nausea as evidence of God's grace -- an answer to their prayers. But grace can be harder to handle than the law, especially when day after day the body contends with itself.
A woman who bore twins prematurely was told by her doctor that had they gone to term, both children would have been over eight pounds. Consequently, the doctor also said, the last months of the pregnancy and the birth itself would have been hellish. Rebekah didn't get the early out. With two rambunctious sons kicking her and one another, she might have remembered barrenness with some nostalgia.
Still another of Rebekah's characteristics emerges from the story: originally denied children, now finding her womb a wrestling ring, she cries out to God for relief. Never mind that God was implicated in her troubles: she knew where to turn, and how. She was a woman of faith, bearing up under her menfolk and depending on God to help her.
Rebekah gets upstaged at the end of the story. Her twins, miracle enough in itself, arrive in their own dimensions, Esau wild and ruddy, Jacob already hitching a ride, a firm grasp on the red heel. But Rebekah won't bow out, the little woman quietly resigned to anonymity. There's something about Jacob, even second born, that she can't resist. And she won't rest until she's got him squared up as recipient of his father's and his grandfather's blessing. In man's world, Rebekah held her own. So she is remembered, behind Sarah, with Leah and Rachel and the rest as one of the mothers of the faithful.
