Friday, Jan 7 ~ tammi

Today's reading from the Chronological OT/NT Reading Plan is Genesis 18-19, Matthew 6:1-18.

So today's passages bring the three mysterious visitors to Abraham's place for a visit, Sarah laughing in disbelief at the thought of having a baby in her old age and then denying she'd laughed because she had a healthy respect for God and was a little afraid He'd be greatly displeased with her for not really believing it would ever happen.

I always wonder about these visitors.  Sometimes I think they're the embodiment of the triune God, and yet at least two of them appear to be the same angels that enter Sodom and Gomorrah later in the day. So were there three men/angels AND the presence of the Lord, or was one of the three visitors God incarnate?  Interesting to think about.

So God lets Abraham in on his plans to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah and Abraham has the audacity to remind God that He's a righteous God and that a righteous, just God would not destroy believers along with non-believers.  Unfortunately, not even the minimum amount of believers that Abraham begs mercy for can be found there and God destroys the cities, sparing only Lot's family, though you kinda have to wonder why, since his line of thinking seems almost as degenerate as everyone else's.  From the OT account of his life, there isn't much indication Lot is a man of faith and yet Peter calls him a "righteous man" whose soul was tormented "by the lawless deeds he saw and heard" around him, so maybe his relationship with God was closer than we think, but because he isn't a focal point in Israel's history, we only see him in these few instances where he messed up.

Anyway, the angels sneak Lot, his wife, and their two daughters safely out of the city and within a few hours, the two cities are in smouldering ruins and Lot's wife is a salt statue because she really hadn't wanted to leave her home and her friends, as depraved as they were.

Then we find more evidence of the dysfunction in Lot's family when his daughters get him drunk two nights in a row specifically to sleep with him and hopefully become pregnant.  Both do, and both become mothers of nations God despises and later warns His chosen people to have absolutely NOTHING to do with.  Of course, they don't listen and all manner of trouble comes as a result, and yet, there's one beautiful Moabite woman who finds herself, generations later, a great-grandmother to the greatest king is Israelite history, and a direct ancestor to the King of Kings Himself.  God really does work in mysterious ways.  Doubtlessly, God's plan of salvation and the birth of His Son would have happened regardless, but it's interesting to wonder how it might have happened if Ruth had never entered the picture because Israel obeyed God and never had anything to do with Moab and its citizens.

And then we end today's reading with a portion of the book of Matthew where the King of Kings is teaching believers how they should live.  What I find interesting about these three sections on giving to the poor, praying, and fasting, is that Jesus opens each by saying "WHEN you give; WHEN you pray; WHEN you fast..."  These three acts seem to be a foregone conclusion.  The assumption is believers WILL give to the needy, they WILL pray to their heavenly Father, and they WILL fast.

The first two are taken quite seriously by the Christians everywhere and widely taught, but I don't remember ever hearing fasting preached from the pulpit.  Why is it we seem to feel this spiritual discipline isn't as important as the other two?  In fact, of all the subjects covered in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, fasting is the only one that seems to be completely disregarded.  (This is true of my personal experience anyway.  I know there are denominations, churches, and individuals that teach and observe fasting routinely.)

But what strikes me most about today's readings is not anything I've mentioned here already.  In a way, it's something much less significant and unimportant.  There's no special attention given to it, but it's how Abraham showed hospitality to his guests, who came very unexpectedly one hot, sunny afternoon.

He didn't have a fancy dessert ready in the fridge, there was no fresh bread....  And yet Abraham begs these three visitors not to move on, but to stay, to sit, and relax in the shade of the trees in his front yard.  He brings them some water to wash their dusty, weary feet and maybe even a cloth to wipe their hot, sweaty faces and necks.  Once his guests are settled comfortably, maybe with a cool, refreshing drink in their hands, he runs back into the tent to ask his wife and serving staff to prepare a meal.  This will have taken some time ~ the cow had to be milked; the calf had to be butchered, skinned, cut up, and barbecued; the cheese made.  The biscuits won't have taken quite as long, but the whole meal probably took a couple of hours before it was ready to serve.

I know things were different in that country and in that time, but I would love to have that attitude when guests show up!  That my first concern would be to make them feel welcomed and comfortable, and then that it wouldn't concern me to have to spend time preparing a meal while we visit.  I always want to have everything done so that I won't feel like I have to "work" while they're in my home, and so that we can eat immediately upon their arrival.  But what if I would tell them it didn't matter when they came?  And what if I invited them to work with me, side-by-side, in my kitchen, preparing the meal and enjoying the conversation in the mean time?  What if my focus was making sure my guests felt like an important part of my world, that I wasn't too proud to request their help, and that I wanted to enjoy the entire process with them instead of insisting MY "production" needed to appear effortless?

Hidden here today among all the big stories and sermon topics in these passages, I believe is a beautiful little lesson in humble hospitality.








Tomorrow's passages: Genesis 20-22, Matthew 6:19-34