Genesis 18:1-15
Once my mother forgot that she invited a guest for dinner. We were midway through our meal at the kitchen table when the doorbell rang. There he was, all dressed up and smiling, prepared to be a dinner guest.
My mother was acutely embarrassed, as well as panicked. But she reacted quickly. She immediately gathered us all together to go out to a nearby restaurant with our guest, as though she had planned it that way all along. For the first and only time in my life I was encouraged to eat a second dinner – a special treat. My mother was a delightful hostess all through the meal, and all was well. I always found it remarkable that she was able to recover so well and turn a near crisis into a very enjoyable evening.
This was an unusual experience, but actually, hospitality was an ordinary everyday thing for my mother. My mother was a generous host. She didn’t have much, but she was open-handed with what she had. One of the ways particularly memorable for me was through her work with young immigrant women. She opened our home to them as if they were family. She made sure they always felt loved and wanted and cared for in a strange land.
She always cared about her guests’ comfort, no matter who they were. She was positively scandalized if I ever forgot to offer a guest something to eat and drink. And she wouldn’t offer just anything – she paid attention to what her guests liked, and she would go out of her way to make sure they had it. It gave her pleasure to do so. She managed to treat her guests like royalty without ever making them feel self-conscious.
This was a kind of old-fashioned hospitality, maybe. Perhaps even Abrahamic hospitality.
The New Testament book of Hebrews encourages us to show hospitality to strangers because, in doing so, some have entertained angels. We have always understood that verse as a reference to this story of Abraham and Sarah.
In the first sentence of this story, we are told the Lord appeared to Abraham. The second sentence says there were three men. Then in the fourth sentence, Abraham addressed the three men as “my lord,” but in this case the term is simply one of respect. It certainly doesn’t seem as though Abraham knew he was standing in front of messengers of God. He just greeted them as travelers deserving of whatever he could offer them.
The moment he saw them, he immediately sprang into action and began over-functioning. He told Sarah how to make bread, as if she needed him to do that. He personally selected a calf from the herd and instructed the servant to prepare it. They all moved as quickly as possible, because a simple snack was not going to cut it for Abraham. His guests deserved the best.
At last, they were enjoying the meal prepared for them, and Abraham was standing close by to be sure that his guests should want for nothing. Then we get our first glimpse of who they are and why they are there.
They say, “Where is your wife Sarah?” How do they know Sarah’s name?
They say, “In due time, Sarah will have a son.” In due time? How do they know that Sarah will have a child – a son even?
Sarah, standing at some distance behind the tent wall, laughed into her hand – quietly, politely, surely not wanting to offend these guests, but really – a child? Honestly.
The guests say, “Why did she laugh?” How do they know that Sarah laughed?
These strange travelers seem to know everything, which is a little jarring to me. But Abraham and Sarah don’t appear to be fazed by it. Perhaps they are not unaccustomed to meeting angels on the road – or perhaps it is just that the outrageous announcement they made has taken all the oxygen out of the room. 90-year-old Sarah is going to have a baby.
Of course, she laughed. In the previous chapter, Abraham fell on his face laughing at the suggestion his old wife Sarah should become pregnant. It’s just hard to believe – for both Abraham and Sarah. But the visitors say, “Is anything too wonderful, or too hard, for God?”
Is anything too hard for God?
That’s an interesting question, isn’t it? How do you want to answer that? Maybe you want to say that the correct answer is no, there is nothing too hard for God. And yet there are certain times and circumstances when it is very hard for you to believe it – that there are some things that really do seem too hard for God.
Neither Abraham nor Sarah found it easy to believe that God could give them a son at this stage of their lives. They had long ago stopped believing this was in the realm of possibility. Yet, neither one of them had an answer to these messengers’ very provocative announcement, and question: can anything be too hard for God?
In a little while, they would come to know the truth of it. Sarah would give birth to her son Isaac – whose name means laughter, by the way. He would be the long-delayed but finally delivered promise God made to Abraham. And he would give Sarah immense joy in her old age. Would any of this have happened if Abraham had failed to welcome these three strangers?
What if Abraham had ignored them and let them continue on their journey without any rest or refreshment? What if Abraham had shown no curiosity or care for who they were and what they needed? What if he had turned his back on them because they were not friend or family? How different would things be?
Science has shown us that something as minute as the flapping of a butterfly’s wings can lead to dramatic changes in weather patterns in a far time and place. How much might our small actions impact the world we live in? How can a small act of hospitality change the world?
When you think of hospitality, maybe you think of ladies in aprons with trays, but it’s so much more than that. To practice true hospitality is to open yourself to receiving someone just for who they are. And when you do this, you open yourself to receiving something you need. And this is why hospitality is an act of creativity: because you find yourself playing a part in the ongoing creative work of the world, you find yourself getting involved in God’s business of making a way out of no way. And when you do you will always be surprised.
Maybe not as surprised as Abraham and Sarah were, but surprised.
We will never know, of course, if Abraham’s hospitality that day made a difference in the plans God had for their lives. It may very well be that this visit had nothing to do with the birth of Isaac. But it is interesting to take note of what happens at the end of this visit – in the next verses. Abraham walks out with the travelers as they resume their journey, kind of the way you might walk your guests out to their car, and here is where God chooses to confide in him certain plans for the city of Sodom.
Sodom had become a wicked place and God tells Abraham there is a plan to destroy it. Just wipe it off the face of the earth. Then Abraham does an extraordinary thing, something we might not have thought possible, except that it is written in the pages of the scriptures. Abraham persuades God to change God’s plan. He negotiates a different outcome.
And so it’s like this: Abraham opened his home, opened his heart, to three wayfaring strangers and he was given an opportunity to change the world.
If we are open to receiving, God will give us what we need. If we are open to taking part in it, God will make us partners in the ongoing creation of this world.
What do you have to give, and what, in return, do you need? Are you willing to give it? And are you open to receiving it?
