Sermon Tone Analysis

Me

I can tell you one thing, I absolutely hated the restaurant life… At times it was literally the worst (and I can’t even begin to imagine how terrible a reality the restaurant life is now days…) But I was really, really good at it.

I don’t know why, I don’t even like people enough to be good at waiting tables… But I was.

I started waiting tables in high school because it was an easy job to score since my mom was one of the managers.

Then after high school I moved from waiting tables in a buffet to full service and for the first few years of our marriage while we were still in Mobile me waiting tables was how we made ends meet.

When we were getting ready to move to New York I knew without a doubt that the most likely job I could land that would allow me the schedule needed for school and my internship with our synagogue and all was logically the restaurant life.

So, before we moved up I sent a bunch of resumes out and had a bunch of interviews lined up when we got there.

The entire five years we lived in New York the restaurant life was how we paid our bills.

And again, I was really good at it.

This is, without a doubt, a gift God has given me to serve others and to be hospitable, and it did me really well for years.

So in 2009 when we moved to Georgia and I was going to be on staff full-time at our synagogue as the associate rabbi I was super-excited to not have work in restaurants anymore.

And I was confident that I would never have to do it again… Then our time in Georgia came to an end and we knew God was calling us to start Mayim Chayim, and this would be a congregation we’d be building from the ground up, so that nice full-time salary I had come to love was going to be no more, but my wife and two kids were going to still want a roof and food from time to time…

So, when we came to Baldwin County I knew I would need to get a job, but it needed to be a job that I could work and still have time for the synagogue.

So, what do you think the logical answer was…?

Yep, that restaurant life.

And for the first five or six years of Mayim Chayim I was working four and sometimes five open to closes a week.

Again I was back in the business I really don’t like, but one in which I am very, very good at.

This became even more obvious when I was working in Orange Beach and every summer had guests come in and ask for me by name to be their server because they got such great service before.

But, when I needed to work again as we were first starting the synagogue up, it only made sense to go back to the marketplace I was most familiar with, the one I knew I was good at, the one I knew I would be able to support my family from.

And it’s always easier to go back to something you’re already familiar with and know will work.

We

Most of you probably know exactly what I am talking about.

Maybe it was signing contract after contract in the military because you knew it well.

Maybe it was moving back to your home town because it was the most comfortable.

Maybe it was moving back in with your parents for a season because you knew it was a safe move.

Whatever it is, we’ve all likely been in this type of situation, where we feel like maybe we’re going backwards a little but at the same time sometimes going backward is the best move to be able to go forward again.

God

This week we read Parasha Toldot, Genesis 25:19-28:9, and continues with the story of the lineage of Abraham and the foundations of B’nei Yisrael, and at times it would appear that Isaac has learned from his father’s mistakes and at others it seems as though he is working hard to repeat them.

We begin in Genesis 25 with yet another of the matriarchs of Israel suffering from fertility issues, and this is one scene in which it appears Isaac learned from Abraham’s mistake with Hagar.

Instead of trying to solve their offspring issues in their own Isaac turns directly to the Lord.

He prays for Rebekah’s womb to be opened and Adonai answers his prayer and Rebekah gets pregnant.

Ultimately she gives birth to twins, Jacob and Esau, but even in the womb these two appeared to be destined to be at each other throats.

When the two boys were born, Esau came out first and Jacob came with a tight grip on Esau’s heel.

We also see that as Jacob and Esau grew up and became their own men they were vastly different in nature, Esau loved the outdoors and Jacob loved was a mild man and mostly stayed indoors.

Closing out Genesis 25 we read of the story of Esau selling his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of lentil stew, which we later recognize was an event that left significant resentment in Esau’s heart—even though he could have cared less about the birthright.

In chapter 26 we see another famine has come across the land and Isaac and his household begin to journey toward Egypt, just like his father Abraham did.

However, he stops in Gerar (Philistine town under the authority of King Avimelech—the same king that Abraham and Sarah have a run in with), presumable for an overnight stay along their journey, and there Adonai speaks to Isaac and tells him not to go down to Egypt, not to leave the Promised Land and He reaffirms the eternal Abrahamic covenant with Isaac.

Then, immediately following the reaffirmation of the divine covenant, Isaac repeats a mistake his father made and tells Rebekah to pretend to be his sister so no one kills him for her.

And, just like Abraham, Isaac’s duplicitous act here is discovered by Avimelech, the same king who was duped in exactly the same way by Abraham and Sarah, so there’s already raw feelings and deep rooted potential strife at play.

Then we read of Isaac being substantial blessed by HaShem and become great and prosperous in Gerar.

Avimelech then runs him out of town because Isaac is becoming too powerful and rich.

So Isaac leaves the city proper and goes out to the surrounding valley.

While in the valley he runs into some problems with the Philistine shepherds there and they have some conflict over the wells Isaac has re-dug and the water he has found.

Following the similar journey path of his father, Abraham, Isaac leaves the valley of Gerar and heads to Be’er Sheva (believed to be about 19 miles away).

Here King Avimelech comes to him and they make a peace treaty that the two would not attack one another no matter what.

Then Isaac settles in Be’er Sheva.

And chapter 26 closes out with Esau marrying two Hittite women which created bitterness in the hearts of Isaac and Rebekah.

In chapter 27 we see, yet again, Jacob pulling one over on Esau.

Isaac is now toward the end of his life and is more bedridden than active and has lost his sight due to old age.

Remember, he was 60 when the boys were born and the close of chapter 26 tells us that the boys were 40, and then 27 appears to be sometime later, so Isaac was over 100 years old at this point.

Isaac asks Esau (his favorite) to go hunt some game and make him a special meal with it and when he does Isaac will give Esau his firstborn blessing, Rebekah overhears all of this and schemes a plan for Jacob (her favorite) to trick Isaac and steal the blessing.

It works, and Jacob gets the firstborn blessing which then causes Esau to explode with anger and threaten to kill Jacob.

And in the beginning of Chapter 28 we see Rebekah scheming again to get Isaac to send Jacob off to Paddan-Aram to find a bride from her family.

Jacob runs away, and Esau marries Ishmael’s daughter in order to wreak even more havoc upon his parents as payback.

But I’d like to focus on one specific aspect of Parasha Toldot today, and in this we learn a tremendous lesson about spiritual renewal and revival from Isaac’s life.

In order to experience spiritual renewal we must return to the wells of our fathers to find the waters of life.

(Repeat)

Let’s dig into the Word together.

So Isaac was blessed by God and made prosperous, the Philistines became jealous and afraid of him.

Then we’re told that the wells that Abraham had dug had been filled in and stopped up, presumably in an effort to wipe out even the memory of Abraham in the area as the Philistines were jealous and afraid of Abraham as well.

So then Avimelech kicks Isaac out of the city and ran him off.

Now, pay close attention here, because anytime we see something brought up twice in the Bible, especially so close together, it is extremely important.

Notice in very 18 it says Isaac began to dig up the wells his father dug—the ones the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham’s death.

In a lot of ways Isaac is retracing his father’s footsteps, he is spiritually learning from what his father experienced.

And like Abraham, Isaac is a righteous man, a man seeking after the heart of God.

Abraham was called to the Promise Land and given an eternal covenant for his generations after him connected with the Promised Land.

Abraham was very careful to make sure Isaac didn’t leave the Canaan, and now even as Isaac was potentially trying to flee to Egypt to get away from the famine like his father did, Adonai confirmed the powerful reality that Isaac—the son of promise—was to stay in the Promised Land.

But, once Abraham, this great man of faith, died the first thing the Philistines attempted to do was wipe his memory off the face of the earth.

They immediately stopped up the wells of living water he had dug.

Imagine how desperate the Philistines must have been to try to get him out of their memory, so much so they stopped up perfectly good wells which could have provided water for them and been a blessing to them.

But, Isaac made a stupid mistake earlier in chapter 26 by trying to follow his dad’s footsteps a little too far and telling Rebekah to say she was his sister.

Now not only do the Philistines have bad feelings toward Abraham, but they have now doubled down on Isaac too.

So Avimelech runs Isaac out of town and Isaac is a little distraught and disappointed… Heck, he’s human and very well could be reacted like you or I might, complaining God asking Him why He could have let this happen, let him get kicked out of a comfortable situation… He’s possibly a little lost… Maybe feeling a little broken… Even though he knows that God is with him, even though he’s already encountered the voice of God, he may feel like he is suddenly distant from God. Funny how sin can do that to us, right?

Funny how sin can suddenly make us feel like God isn’t with us, even though it was our mistakes that caused the problem to begin with.

So Isaac packs up and moves out of the city limits into the valley of Gerar and whats the first thing he does?

He immediately returns to the wells of his father.

He’s looking for water, and we know biblically and spiritually that water is symbol of spiritual renewal.

Isaac is, I believe, looking for a bit of spiritual renewal… He encountered God personally, then almost immediately sinned.

And this wasn’t just a simple sin, no it was a sin cause by a generational curse in that it was the same thing his father did, but also a sin that caused a generational curse that effected Israel all the way through the Davidic dynasty.

And, if we really want to wrestle with the generational implications, the mistakes Isaac makes along the way leave a wake of generational curse that still effects Israel today as the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is, at least in name still linked back to the Philistines as the Arabs who call themselves Palestinians chose that name because it is from the Greek word for Philistines, who they knew to be Israel’s historical enemy…

So because he has sinned and feels distant from God he is now looking for spiritual renewal and has returned to the wells of his father to look for waters of life.

He is starting to understand the spiritual lesson we are talking about today…

In order to experience spiritual renewal we must return to the wells of our fathers to find the waters of life.

So Isaac’s men dig at one of these well sites, and immediately God provides, as the Hebrew in the text words it, Mayim Chayim—living water—which is exactly what Isaac is looking for.

The the Philistine shepherds come around and begin to argue with them and proclaim the water to be theirs, so Isaac names the well Esek (contention or quarrel) because he found waters of life but no peace.

Then he digs another well of his father and what do they find?

Mayim Chayim again!!!

And what happens next?

The Philistine shepherds again fight with him over this well too.

So he names this well Sitnah (hostility or accusation) because again he finds waters of life but no peace.

Remember, before Isaac came around the Philistines wanted nothing to do with these wells of Abraham.

In fact, they wanted so little to do with them they stopped them up and filled them with dirt so no one could be blessed by them.

But now all of the sudden they want it all to themselves.

But Isaac isn’t done looking for his spiritual renewal… And he isn’t letting the Philistine crisis consume him.

He lets them have both of those wells and moves on to another.

The finding of the Mayim Chayim was completely because of Isaac, and more so completely because the Adonai was with him and Avimelech knew it.

Targum Yonatan states that as soon as Isaac moved on to Be’er Sheva the wells that Isaac had dug up and the Philistines took from him stopped up and all of the Philistines fruit trees dried up and that this is why Avimelech later in chapter 26 comes to Isaac to make a peace treaty with him.

So, Isaac is two for two on finding Mayim Chayim in the wells of his father and then losing then because of the Philistines, but he isn’t finished yet, he isn’t ready to throw in the towel.

And see, this is an important reality to spiritual renewal.

Sometimes we take that first step, that second step pressing into the Ruach and the world comes at us like the Philistines wanting to contend with us, wanting to throw accusations at us, wanting to tear us down.