The Blessings of Hospitality—Lectionary Reflection for Pentecost 3A (Proper 6) (Genesis 18)

 

Abraham and the Three Angels, by Giovanni Andrea de' Ferrari (1660s),

Genesis 18:1-15 New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

18 The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. ² He looked up and saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them and bowed down to the ground. ³ He said, “My lord, if I find favor with you, do not pass by your servant. ⁴ Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. ⁵ Let me bring a little bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on—since you have come to your servant.” So they said, “Do as you have said.” ⁶ And Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah and said, “Make ready quickly three measures of choice flour, knead it, and make cakes.” ⁷ Abraham ran to the herd and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, who hastened to prepare it. ⁸ Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared and set it before them, and he stood by them under the tree while they ate.

⁹ They said to him, “Where is your wife Sarah?” And he said, “There, in the tent.” ¹⁰ Then one said, “I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son.” And Sarah was listening at the tent entrance behind him. ¹¹ Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. ¹² So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I be fruitful?” ¹³ The Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’ ¹⁴ Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? At the set time I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah shall have a son.” ¹⁵ But Sarah denied, saying, “I did not laugh,” for she was afraid. He said, “Yes, you did laugh.”

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                During this season after Pentecost, we have two choices when it comes to the First Reading (normally the Old Testament). We can go with the paired readings that are linked to the Gospel reading or a semi-continuous reading. The latter, which I’ve chosen to pursue, will take us through a series of readings from Genesis. We have already reflected on two readings from Genesis, beginning with creation (Genesis 1-2) and the call of Abram (Genesis 12). With this third reading we continue our journey with Abram and Sarai, who carry with them a promise that through their, as yet non-existent, descendants, God will bless the nations. I should put a caveat here. If we go back to Genesis 16, we will witness the birth of Ishmael, the son of Abram with Hagar. So, Abram has an heir, just not the heir that fulfills the promise made earlier. As we discover here in Genesis 18, God still wants to include Sarai in the promise. That promise is reiterated in our reading for the week.

                In our reading we find Abraham camping out by the oaks of Mamre. While located there, he encounters three strangers, who will reinforce the promise of a child who will be the key to the blessings promised earlier, and that it will be through Sarah that this promise will be carried out. The story is one of blessings that is rooted in an act of hospitality. This word about hospitality is an important one because the hospitality here is extended not to neighbors or friends one knows, but to the stranger. In our day, when xenophobia and fear of the stranger are quite present in our midst, this is an important word. It is worth remembering the counsel of the author of Hebrews who wrote: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it” (Heb. 13:2). Among those who showed hospitality to strangers unaware at the time that they were entertaining angels, are Abraham and Sarah.

                Now it’s worth pondering what is meant by hospitality. It’s easy to think in terms of dinner parties or other similar activities, but hospitality is much more than that. It requires a vulnerability to others that can be difficult to extend. Lonni Collins Pratt and Fr. Daniel Holman, OSB, provide us with a helpful definition of what hospitality entails in their book on Radical Hospitality:

Hospitality requires not grand gestures, but open hearts. When I let a stranger into my heart, I let a new possibility approach me. When I reach past my own ideas, I begin to stretch myself open to the world, and this opening of my heart could change everything. That’s pretty frightening stuff. You can’t ever be the same if you start doing that kind of thing.  [Radical Hospitality (Kindle Locations 732-734). Paraclete Press. Kindle Edition.]

It is this kind of openness to others that we see taking place when the three strangers approach the oaks of Mamre where Abraham and Sarah have set up their tent. It’s worth noting that when Abraham, who is sitting at the entrance to his tent, notices the three strangers approaching, he doesn’t wait for them to come to him. Instead, he runs to meet them and bows before them, opening himself up to folks he’s never encountered. As a result, Abraham and Sarah would receive the blessing they had been promised but weren’t sure would ever come their way. With that in mind, we come to the story of the visit of the three strangers to Abraham and Sarah. They open their hearts and their home and receive a blessing as a result.

                There is a further dimension to this story, a counter-story of sorts. When the three strangers leave Abraham and Sarah, they continue on from the Oaks of Mamre to Sodom and Gomorrah, which is where Lot had taken up residence (Gen. 19). We know how that works out! When the strangers to Sodom, they’ll be welcomed by Lot and his family, but the rest of the residents will treat them very differently.  Thus, Sodom represents the opposite of hospitality, and ultimately, they face divine justice because of their inhospitality to strangers. Then there is Jesus’s word to his disciples that those who fail to show them hospitality when they head out on their missionary trip should shake the dust off their feet as an act of judgment, for “I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town” (Mt. 10:5-15).

                Here in Genesis 18, the visit by the three strangers is to be understood as some form of divine visitation. Whether or not this is to be understood as a visit by the triune God as envisioned by Andrei Rublev’s famous icon is a matter of interpretation, but at the very least this is understood to involve an angelic visitation. The point made here is that when we entertain strangers we may be welcoming the divine into our lives. Abraham seems to have no problem opening his home (a tent) to strangers, perhaps understanding that this could involve entertaining angels unawares. So, how might we open ourselves and even our homes to the other? In our culture, which places a premium on the sanctity of private space, we tend not to open our homes to just anyone. So, maybe we can start with a broader conversation about openness to others. Perhaps the reading from Genesis can help us re-imagine the conversation about immigration and refugees.

                Acknowledging that government policy and church policy might be different, that church and state are separate entities, it is also true that many who serve in government claim Christian faith. So, how does one’s faith influence one’s openness to refugees fleeing from violence in a place like Honduras, Venezuela, Syria, Afghanistan, Sudan, or Ukraine, just to name a few places? Why is it that a nation that is majority Christian, and according to some is a Christian nation, unable to come up with an equitable solution to immigration and asylum? Why can’t we finally provide a path to citizenship for those known as Dreamers, young adults brought to the United States as young children?  

                What is happening today is not unique. Anti-immigrant sentiment and actions have been part of the American ethos from the very beginning. This nation composed largely of immigrants or their descendants find it hard to open the nation to others who arrived later on. Consider the story of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution who were turned away and returned to Europe where they faced extermination. 

                The message here in Genesis 18 is in part one of welcoming strangers, such that in doing so one is welcoming the divine. In this story, Abraham and Sarah offer their guests their very best, not table scraps. Abraham waits to eat until his guests have their fill. The strangers respond to this act of hospitality by sharing a promise from God. Sarah will bear a son despite her great age. That is, Sarah was now past the normal age of childbearing, which makes this promise rather laughable. Sarah does laugh when she hears this. Despite her laughter, the strangers insisted that she will bear the promised heir through whom the covenant of blessings will be carried out. Now Abraham could have rebutted their message, letting them know that he and Sarah had already solved the problem of descendants. In fact, Sarah had given Abraham her slave Hagar as a surrogate, and the much younger woman had provided Abraham an heir in Ishmael  (Genesis 16).  So, despite a few misgivings on Sarah’s part, the problem of an heir had been solved. Nevertheless, the angels insist that it will be through Sarah that God’s promise will be fulfilled. God would take care of Hagar, but it is Sarah who is to be the mother of nations (Gen. 17:15-19). In the end, Sarah will produce a son as promised, and they will name him Isaac (Gen. 21:1-7). It is through Isaac that God’s promise of blessings will be carried out as promised in Genesis 12.  

                We need to pause for a moment so we can take into account Sarah’s feelings about all of this. She kept hearing about a promise, but she also knew her body. It’s not as if she and Abraham hadn’t tried to produce a child. It’s just that she couldn’t seem to get pregnant. In this culture to be barren was seen as a sign of being cursed by God. Though it was appropriate to offer Hagar to Abraham as a surrogate, that didn’t seem to help the situation. She was clearly frustrated with her lot in life when she heard the angels suggest that Sarah would get pregnant. So, when she heard this, she laughed. The only other response was to cry. So, now, as Carolynne Hitter Brown reminds us, “after years of waiting, a disastrous affair, and menopause, Sarah found it funny that God would now show interest” [Preaching God’s Transforming Justice, Year A, p. 280]. Yet, the promise was still there, and in time it will be fulfilled.    

                Abraham and Sarah received confirmation that God’s promise, though delayed, was still on the Table as a result of their act of hospitality. The question that faces us concerns what hospitality means for us. More specifically, what does it mean to show hospitality to strangers, as in the case of Abraham and Sarah, and in response to the message of Hebrews 13 concerning entertaining angels unawares? Might we begin by thinking in sacramental terms? Might we think of how the Lord’s Table functions in the church? Is it a table set only for those who are family members or is it open to others, especially strangers? Consider this word from Lonni Pratt and Daniel Holman:

Food is basic to human existence, but it is more than it seems to be; it represents the More. In the Christian tradition, bread and wine are sacramental, carrying to us the presence of God. The use of a table, utensils, bread, and wine as the means by which Christians receive God is a family symbol. We receive Christ through simple foods, simple utensils, from a guy in a dress (at least in the more liturgical forms of Christianity) who cleans up and puts away the dishes when he’s done. [Radical Hospitality (Kindle Locations 1714-1717).]

As we ponder this question we might start with Jesus’ own acts of Table Fellowship, acts that often drew criticism due to the company he kept. So, perhaps we would be well-served to think about the Table in much the same way that Abraham and Sarah, as well as Jesus, saw it. That would be seeing the Table as a locus of true hospitality. Then, if we think of the Lord’s Table as the starting place for welcoming the stranger, perhaps we might be able to move outward from the Table so that we can embrace God’s covenant of blessings that are to be shared with the nations.