Saturday, July 1, 2023
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
We have guests
Some stories in the bible lend themselves to the Ignatian way of meditation, which is to use your imagination to live within the story, sort as yourself, sort of as a bible character, just playing it by ear, or rather by your imagination.
The Lord appeared to Abraham as he sat in the entrance of his tent, while the day was growing hot.
This is easier to imagine in Austin, where temperatures have been approaching the level of King Neb’s fire. The day is hot, Abraham is sweating, and sitting beside him, I pull off my black compression socks and let what breeze there is blow through my toes.
Looking up, we saw three men standing nearby. Abraham ran to greet them and bowed to the ground. “Please do not walk past your servant’s house. Let some water be brought so you may bathe your feet, and then rest yourselves under the tree. Let me bring a little food to refresh yourselves, then you may go on your way.”
Abraham and I had not been talking much, just breathing, having a drink of water now and then, nodding off a bit in the afternoon. But now he has become a whirling host full of words and gifts. I hardly know this man. We have not had company in a coon’s age. This is a special day. So I stood up too, and walked toward the men. My sandals filled with sand. I felt the desert sun on my head, like the visitors.
The men replied, “Very well, let it be done unto us as you have said.” And Abraham quick recruited Sarah to make fine floured rolls. A servant butchered a tender steer. Abraham milked the cow and retrieved cheese curds, and set all this feast before them. He waited on them under the tree while they ate.
I have heard of Abraham being generous, but now I have seen him. His heart is as big as his fortune. He hangs on every word these visitors speak. I sit quietly beside him, not quite under the tree. He pays no attention to me. He is so happy to be right here, right now, with these men who just don’t seem like strangers.
One of them said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah will then have a son.”
Abraham is 99 years old. Just doesn’t matter, I guess. His eyes are as round as saucers. He does not speak. He must decide how to receive these strange words spoken with such assurance.
Sarah heard and laughed but still hoping: I am so withered and my husband is so old. Am I still to have sexual pleasure?
Abraham did not hear, but the Lord heard.
Why did she laugh? Is anything too marvelous for the Lord to do? I tell you truly, about this time next year, at the appointed time, I will return to you, and Sarah will have a son.
I looked at Sarah then, and imagined her pregnant, and I could not. We were all so old, she and Abraham and me. We were set in our ways. But the Lord was breaking into our rhythms and routine, and finally fulfilling the promise he made decades before to Abraham. How could he be father of all nations if he had no son?
God’s perspective was so long, so deep, so wide. But even God had to start somewhere, with a single cell growing into a baby, into a man. Especially God. He made the rules. And although he didn’t give Abraham a timetable, he did have an appointed time in mind. And it would be in about nine months.
Many will come from the east and the west, and will recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the banquet in the Kingdom of heaven.
(Genesis 18, Luke 1, Matthew 8)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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