Welcome Home: Hospitality as Grace (Genesis 18:1-15)

Strangers ringing doorbells

This story we just read seems very foreign to us. For most of us, this isn’t something we would do. Last night, the door bell rang around 7:30 in the evening… kind of late. The first thought is “who’s ringing at this hour?” The young man at the door had a British accent and wanted to sell me a home security package. I had to laugh at the irony. Strangers ringing doorbells selling home security. I didn’t buy what he was selling, but we still had a nice chat about what he’s doing far from home in Deep South Texas.

You know what I didn’t do? Invite him in for some of the Panda Express we were eating. Invite him in for some ice cream and a movie. In fact, as I thought about it later, I didn’t even get his name. Strangers ringing doorbells. What’s going on in this story about Abraham seems like one of those fairy-tale Bible stories, where we’re encouraged to live up to the hospitality ideal. But that’s more about our American and Western culture than it is about the weirdness of this Bible story.

Many years ago I went with a mission team to the other side of the world to an island near Australia. Papua New Guinea is a remarkable place. While we were there, there was another mission group that was making preparations to head into the jungle area of the country. It had been a some time since this group had made this particular trek, but it wasn’t the first. They were looking for opportunities to begin another church plant in an area unreached by the gospel. One of the absolutely fascinating aspects to their plans was their accommodations. They were headed to a place that had no hotel, no camp ground, where they knew no one. But there was no worry about accommodation. On these treks, they would camp wherever they were when the sun went down. At a stranger’s home. Because that’s what they do in Papua New Guinea. If a stranger shows up, you offer your home, your floor, your mat, your accommodations. When you travel, you stay at the homes of people you don’t know. And it’s cool with everybody. It’s part of the culture.

That is strange to us. We’re not comfortable with that kind of hospitality. It is literally foreign to us that we would stay at the home of a stranger in a stranger town. But this is the kind of hospitality that we find in Genesis 18, as we continue our series on hospitality. Last week, we saw from the account of Creation in the opening pages of our Bibles, that hospitality is part of our story from the very beginning. Just as Jesus and mission are everywhere in the Bible, so too is hospitality. God is constantly providing us with a place and space where we have identity and a home.

Hospitality is on full display in our story today. Abraham is visited by three strangers. These three strangers show up at a point in Abraham’s story where there is a very, very real crisis. Decades before the visit, Abraham is told to leave his home and go to a new land, where God promised to make him a great nation. God promised to make Abraham’s name great and give him offspring as numerous as the sand of the seashore. But there was one problem. Abraham has no son. Sarah is barren. She has no child.

As we progress through the chapters of Genesis, year after year goes by… 30-40-50 years after the first promise of the covenant was made to Abraham… what was once a faint whisper, “Sarai is barren” begins to blare like a siren to drown out the story… “Sarai is barren, having no child.” Abraham and Sarah are getting old. And there’s no heir. God has again promised a child, but more time goes by. The Promises hang in the balance.

And then three visitors show up. Seemingly out of nowhere. But not really. We are clued in to who this is showing up at Abraham’s homestead. The preceding chapter 17 tells us that shortly before the visitors show up, God has already had a conversation with Abraham and he gives him this promise… again...

Genesis 17:5-6 “I will make you the father of many nations. I will make you extremely fruitful and will make nations and kings come from you...As for your wife Sarai, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she will produce nations; kings of peoples will come from her.”

Abraham is old… he is 99 years old and here God is saying that he is going to be a father and God is going to make good on that promise. And then Genesis 18 opens with this:

Genesis 18:1 The Lord appeared to Abraham… he looked up, and he saw three men standing near him.

The Lord appeared. We’re told this. While the text doesn’t outright tell us that Abraham knew who was among the three men, the rest of the chapter indicates that Abraham did know who showed up that day. 3 strangers. One of whom is God himself, the 2nd person of the Godhead… the Son, who makes all sorts of appearances throughout the Old Testament.

That brings us to this scene of Abraham playing host to these visitors at his home. Watch what Abraham does here..

See Abraham run

Genesis 18:2 Abraham looked up, and he saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the entrance of the tent to meet them… Abraham hurried (back) into the tent to Sarah.

Abraham runs to meet them. Abraham runs toward the stranger. And then he hurries back to the tent to begin the prep work. When hospitality is in the heart, the feet are moving toward others. Inside of Abraham is already a bent to welcome and make the strangers feel as if they belong and are wanted. Later, we see Abraham hurry. His entire body is in motion in order to make the strangers welcome at his home.

See Abraham wash

Abraham wastes no time greeting. And he wastes no time playing host to the strangers.

Genesis 18:4 “Let a little water be brought, that you may wash your feet and rest yourselves under the tree.”

Home is where you are free to be yourselves. And no matter the culture, that sense of home and safety includes the idea that the body is washed and clean. And this washing of the feet is tied to rest. We wear shoes and socks, but there is a long, long history in all sorts of cultures of feet being washed being part of what it means to be home and at rest, no longer at work.

See Abraham feed

And then we see Abraham completely immersing himself in hospitality. We see his desire to make these visitors feel as though they belong. He feeds them.

Genesis 18:6-8 Abraham ran to the herd and got a tender, choice calf. He gave it to a young man, who hurried to prepare it. Then Abraham took curds and milk, as well as the calf that he had prepared, and set them before the men.

Here we see Abraham making sure that the food is the best. This is as if Abraham were treating royalty. He gives them the best of the best. Fine flour for bread. The best calf, milk… it’s all here.

See Abraham serve

And then we’re told this:

Genesis 18:8 Abraham served them as they ate under the tree.

Abraham served. Abraham does all of this not thinking of himself, but of the visitors. Who gave him the choicest of cattle for the meal? Who gave him the milk, which was also a bit of a luxury? Who gave him all that he possessed? The very God who is being served by Abraham… under the tree. A place of rest.

See God Promise

And it’s under that tree, at that meal, that God again delivers His Promise, again.

Genesis 18:10 The Lord said, “I will certainly come back to you in about a year’s time, and your wife Sarah will have a son!”

Sarah, in spite of her age, is going to have a son. God is going to make good on His Promise. The son who would be the one who brings about nations and kings… and eventually the One who had been Promised to Adam and Eve. This Promise is made at this meal, under this tree, as Abraham is providing God with hospitality.

The picture being painted is one that is absolutely over-the-top. Abraham running and hurrying and washing and providing the best food ever and the trees and rest. This is the garden of Eden in the middle of a desert. Abraham’s service and food is exorbitant and lavish.. and as these three visitors are made welcome, the visitors themselves are providing a Promise that is out of this world.

But here’s the great irony. All of this grand scene, this over-the-top hospitality in which these visitors are being provided with the best that money can buy and being given a rest that is divine… this is pointing to something far greater than Abraham in this moment.

See God’s Hospitality of Grace for us

It is no accident that Jesus uses almost identical language in the story of the prodigal son.

Luke 15:20-24 While the son was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion. He ran, threw his arms around his neck, and kissed him. The father told his servants, ‘Quick! Bring out the best robe and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Then bring the fattened calf and slaughter it, and let’s celebrate with a feast, because this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ So they began to celebrate.

The Father is running. The Father is hurrying to prepare. The Father is providing the best food ever. Jesus is showing just how forgiving and loving and compassionate and gracious the Father is for those of us who are his children. There is over-the-top feasting here and celebration over a son. You have many of the same elements as to the very real event about 1500 years earlier. But as Jesus tells this story, Abraham’s hospitality is painted in a different light. As we read Abraham’s story through the lens that Jesus is providing, we realize that Abraham is actually a picture of God’s hospitality for us in our salvation. This is how God treats us. This is God providing a promise in the midst of his own feast FOR US. God runs, God hurries, God washes, God feeds, God indeed serves us… and then gives us His promise. God gives us grace.

Jesus has flipped Abraham’s story on its head. This is what God does for us in Jesus. Which is the irony of ironies in Abraham’s story. The Son of God who is visiting Abraham in that desert is setting up his own Promise and his own story. Even as Abraham serves God there, Abraham is providing for us a picture of what God does for us in His hospitality.

Yes, Abraham does model for us how we should be thinking about treating strangers. Abraham is the gracious host. But before this, God is using Abraham to show us what God does for us in treating us, the grace that God gives us… those who are strangers to his goodness and love and He welcomes us with the absolute best, the sacrifice of Jesus himself. God gives us everything. He lavishes on us the best… in giving us grace and forgiveness and salvation.

What’s true of the home is especially true of The Table. We are busy about making sure strangers are welcome because this is what Jesus has done for us. We move toward strangers with hospitality and grace because God has given us gracious hospitality in forgiveness. We get grace as strangers. We give grace to strangers. Our home becomes their home because God has first made us part of His home. A home where he washes us, feeds us, and gives us His promise, again and again and again.

Let’s Pray.

The Table

It must have been one of those all-time surreal moments for Abraham. Think about this. He knows that at least one of those visitors is God himself. And God is promising a son, through whom, about 1500 years later, that God is going to become a baby through that Promise being spoken that day under that tree at that meal provided by a gracious host. That Promise came and died and rose for you. And He is here today in this body and in this blood. This is the over-the-top meal. This is Jesus running to you and telling you you are forgiven.

The Benediction

Numbers 6:24-26 May the Lord bless you and protect you; may the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; may the Lord look with favor on you and give you peace.