[Link to this week's Lectionary Readings]

[ASIDE: Can someone tell me what the number in parentheses refers to? I'm guessing it is a count of weeks since Easter, whereas the first number is a count of weeks since Pentecost, but I'm not certain. Thanks in advance for satiating my curiosity.]

An odd thing happens in the Genesis passage, and I’m not referring to post-menopausal pregnancy in in individuals who should be becoming great-grandparents and not parents. Somewhere between verses 10 and 13 it became clear that one of the strangers was God. Look at it. In verse 10 we read:

Then one [of the strangers] said, ‘I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son.“

In verse 11 we are reminded of Abraham and Sarah’s old age, and in verse 12 Sarah blows milk out her nose because she’s laughing so hard at the thought of becoming pregnant. (OK, the milk out the nose is an embellishment, but I can see it happening.) Finally we come to verses 13 and 14:

The LORD said to Abraham, ”Why did Sarah laugh, and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’ 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.“

The language used by the stranger-cum-God is almost identical, so we’re clearly talking about one speaker who repeats himself. Yet, there is nothing in the passage to this point to indicate that the speaker was God. Sure, verse 1 tells us that ”the LORD appeared to Abraham,“ but this sounds like an introduction to the story written retrospectively and not an indication of foreknowledge by Abraham. Later in Genesis we find out that the men were angels in disguise, but that is later. In this passage the visitors are called men - important looking men judging by Abraham’s greeting and the spread he put out for them - but men, strangers.

What happened? How did everything become evident? How was God’s identity revealed?

I think it has something to do with eating, or more specifically eating with strangers. I’m reminded of a story from the New Testament in which an unidentified man sits down to eat with a couple. At some point during the meal the veil of anonymity is pulled back, and the stranger’s true identity is revealed. (I’ll let you read the end for yourself; I don’t want to spoil the surprise.)

What is it about eating with strangers that seems to reveal God among us? How many encounters with God do we miss because we close our table and limit our fellowship to only those we already know?