“And the twins clashed together within her, and she said, ‘If this is to be, then why am I here?’ And she took her question straight to God.” –Genesis 25:22 Today I want to tell you about Rebekah. And I want to show you two things that Rebekah shows us. One thing comes from a careful study of the character of Rebekah: A profile of one woman who finds her ways of being powerful in a culture designed to disempower women. (Sound familiar?) My hope in looking at Rebekah in this way is that the women who are reading this might find themselves in good company, and see echoes of their own power in the story of Rebekah. The second thing that Rebekah shows us comes from a more universal, mythic look at who she is in the Genesis 25 reading above, where we learn that she becomes pregnant with the clash of twins. My hope here is that we can see in Rebekah what it is to be fully human in pursuit of the divine—experiencing inner conflict, even as we insist on being whole and complete. I’m eager to look at that mythic mirror for our inner lives, and to consider what we can glean about being fully human regardless of our gender or positionality. And we will look at that, in a little bit. But to do that, first, we have to look closer at the woman, Rebekah, in her full subjectivity and personhood. Because we live in a culture—one built on a continuous string of cultures—that suppresses the agency and personhood of women. One that minimizes the labor and livelihood of women. And all the more so for women of color—women with black and brown skin, especially in my western context. But across cultures in our world today, and throughout much of recorded history, it is the norm for men to dominate the women in their lives. Sometimes they do this directly—with actions and words that demean, ridicule, or belittle their wives and girlfriends and sisters and mothers. And it often shows up in seemingly small interactions. Last week, on the ferry ride home to Maine from a visit in Nova Scotia, as we were lining up to return to our vehicles, I overheard one man as he looked around confused, he said, “Well where’d she go? I lost my wife.” Another man nearby called out, “If you’re lucky, you won’t find her.” And they both had a chuckle. And I know that that second guy was trying to be funny, because I too have been in situations where I’ve resorted to lazy humor out of an effort to be clever. But cleverness is always hiding something. And those small barbs of attempted humor take a toll. And I was there carrying my daughter in my arms with my wife at my side—and I am an articulate and charismatic person—but I kept silent. I didn’t say anything to challenge that microaggression of misogyny. Sometimes we do it directly. But sometimes we do it indirectly. Like I did. Not with actions and words, but with silence. Or by privileging the work and voices of men, by centering men’s histories, by giving more benefit of the doubt to sons than we do to daughters. By using the ideas of women without acknowledging the source of those ideas. So this is a good place to acknowledge, here, that I couldn’t do the work I do in the world, let alone write this reflection, without the partnership of my wife, Emma. She and I talked about Rebekah being pregnant with the clash of twins for much of our drive home after that ferry ride, and she shared with me her experience as a woman, and as a mother, of feeling her personhood consistently subsumed into the roles she plays rather than the whole and complete person she is. And I know she’s not alone. Paying attention to her experience, and to my own mother’s, and my sister’s, and my nieces’, and more and more anticipating the culture that my daughter will continue to face in this world as she grows—I am indebted to the illumination inherent to the lived experiences of the powerful women in my life. A woman in her power is a powerful thing indeed. And perhaps just as powerful in its correlation is a community that sees and calls forth the strength, creativity, beauty and full personhood of women. This doesn’t mean that every woman is a paragon of perfect love and power well-used. But it does say something about how important it is in a culture that selectively uses and oppresses women—to counter that culture by heeding the experiences of women as a deep source of wisdom that points us all closer to what it means to be fully human. That’s wisdom that is worth heeding—and a practice worth practicing—regardless of your gender. So we turn to the story of Rebekah with our eyes open to who she is—not just reduced to whose mother or wife she becomes, but who she is in her individuality, as a divine subject. We first encounter Rebekah on her own, at a well, collecting water for her household. The bible tells us that she is beautiful. And shows us in the storytelling action that she is powerful, spirited, and energetic. We meet her because Abraham has sent the chief steward of his household—a man named Eliezer—on a journey to Abraham’s homeland to find a wife for his son Isaac. Eliezer gathers supplies and companions for the journey, including a bunch of camels, to help them cross a long stretch of desert. So they all land in Rebekah’s backyard thirsty. Eliezer asks God to show him who he should pursue to complete his mission of finding a bride for Isaac. He makes a plan: “O Lord, God of my master Abraham, if you are going to grant success to the journey on which I come, here, I am poised by the spring of water, and let it be that the young woman who comes out to draw water to whom I say, ‘Let me drink a bit of water from your jug,’ and she says to me, ‘Drink, and for your camels, too, I shall draw water,’ she is the wife that the Lord has marked for my master’s son.’” And that’s what happens when Rebekah arrives on the scene. She makes that offer to Eliezer. And the story kind of glosses over this part if you read it in Genesis 24, but with one jug she fills a trough for ten thirsty camels. One thirsty camel can drink 30-50 gallons of water. If you do the math, even conservatively, Rebekah is hauling over a ton of water from that spring one jugful at a time. Like, over an actual ton. Hercules, move over. We are meant to walk away from this encounter with our jaws dropped open, noting the incredible energy, strength, power, and perseverance of this young woman. Eliezer notices, and gives Rebekah gifts, and tells her why he’s here. And he asks her who her father is, and when she responds she tells him who her grandmother is. And then she runs to her mother’s household to tell her family about Eliezer’s proposal. Rebekah tracks her lineage and makes her home according to the women who precede here, which is a contrast to the ways of Abraham’s household, though this matrilineal tracking by Rebekah plants a seed of precedent that carries through in key moments in the bible, where the power and ingenuity of women will break through the dull throb of patriarchy that dominates so much of the biblical narrative. When they hear about Eliezer’s proposal, Rebekah’s brother and mother agree that it’s a great match, but before sending her away to become a wife and a mother, they ask Rebekah if she wants to go. Which is not insignificant. She says yes, she is willing. And her mother’s household blesses her directly: “Our sister, become hence myriads teeming…” And so blessed, she heads out. As she nears the land of her betrothed she sees a man in the distance sauntering in a field and asks Eliezer: “Who is that man?” The cinematography of this scene comes right out of a dramatic romance. Isaac sees her in the distance too, and they meet in the field, and something seems to spark between them. The bible tells us that Isaac loved Rebekah, and the word used here for love—ahev—this is the first time that this word for love is used between a husband and his wife in the bible. It is not a word for the duties of marriage, but a term of endearment and affection. Rebekah is beautiful, powerful, willful, and beloved. She’s also wily. Later in the story, after the birth of her twins, driven by what-exactly-we-do-not-know—fear or bitterness, her own or the storyteller’s prejudice—she ostracizes one of her sons and privileges another, training him to employ his heel-grabbing cleverness for personal gain. At the end of all the tellings—and there are plenty more—Rebekah is one of the most active women in the bible. A woman who even in the predominately patriarchal context of the bible, consistently uses her voice and her will to claim her own agency and vision. She is not alone. She is among women who break through against the odds to show themselves not as objects to be used but as whole and complete subjects who curate the divine within, choosing to then offer what is within them as a gift to the world. She is not alone. Rebekah brings to mind another woman who is often seen as a mere vessel for God, but whose agency was a vital part of her power as the mother of the Christian messiah. Mary, the mother of Jesus, is traditionally called theotokos, or God-bearer. Before Jesus was born, Mary said yes to growing God in her own being. Jesus’ subjectivity was ultimately dependent on Mary’s. She was a woman, like Rebekah, who contained God in herself. The way I see it, we are all called to be God-bearers, to bring forth the divine in our labors of love. But before doing that we have to learn what it is to grow God in ourselves. Which brings us to the mythic question: “And the twins clashed together within her, and she said, ‘If this is to be, then why am I here?’ And she took her question straight to God.” –Genesis 25:22 Here we step away from the particularities of the legend of Rebekah the matriarch, and we cross into the realm of myth. With mythic consciousness we can see Rebekah’s experience as a mirror
