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Pentecost 8 – July 6,  2008
 
Genesis 24:34‑38, 42‑49,  58‑67
Psalm 45:10‑17  or Psalm 72
Romans 7:15‑25a
Matthew 11:16‑19,  25‑30
 
 
The Wedding
 
Isaac and Rebekah are  wed.  The Psalmist sings a wedding  song for the king. 
 Paul complains  of a wedding on the rocks, and Jesus complains of a wedding 
proposal rejected,  but offers it again.  
 
They say that June became the  month to get married in old England because 
May was the month for the annual  bath, marriage being a hard enough venture 
that the least advantage was worth  taking.  Husband and wife seem made  for each 
other.  The ideal is there,  but the reality often seems a bridge too far.
 
Rebekah takes the plunge.  "And they called Rebekah, and said to  her, 'Will 
you go with this man?' She said, 'I will.'"  (Genesis 24:58)  That is the way 
it is supposed to  be.  "Then Isaac brought her into  his mother Sarah's tent. 
He took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved  her. So Isaac was 
comforted after his mother's death."  (Genesis 24:67)  That is the way it was.  
Was his father, Abraham, unable to  comfort him after his mother's death?  
Rebekah had never put a blindfold over Isaac's eyes, never raised a knife  to 
plunge into his heart -- hadn't yet.  King David had many wives, Solomon more.  
The court musicians may have thought of  Psalm 45 as if it were the march from 
Lohengrin, but the church took it to be  another theme, one for a heavenly 
procession.  That heavenly tune didn't always play so  well on earth though.  
"'But to what  will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the 
marketplaces  and calling to one another, "We played the flute for you, and 
you did not dance;  we wailed, and you did not mourn."'"  (Matthew 11:16-17)  It 
 wouldn't even play inside the psyche of a single man.   "I do not understand 
my own  actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I 
hate."  (Romans 7:15)  Is the ideal wedding, then, a bridge too  far?  Jesus says 
it is not.  "Take my yoke upon you, and learn from  me; for I am gentle and 
humble in heart, and you will find rest for your  souls.  For my yoke is easy, 
and my  burden is light."  (Matthew  11:29-30)
 
Let's talk of a wedding, then,  that brings "rest for our souls".  Is this 
not the wedding we seek, the one God seeks?  Comfort when we lose a loved one, 
the  ennobling of our souls like marrying into the royal family, to become one 
flesh,  this flesh and me; is this not what Christ offers, a yoke so light 
that beneath  it I can dance to a heavenly tune?
 
 
May these thoughts strengthen  you.  
An Open Letter to Fellow  Pastors  
>From Roland McGregor, United Methodist  Pastor  
(an e-mail service)  
[See Web Page address below for a Children’s Message  coordinated with these 
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--Copyright 2008, Roland McGregor, all rights  reserved—  
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