Sermon given by Revd Sue McCoan 20th July 2025
Readings
Genesis 18:1-10a
Luke 10:38-42
Hospitality
There is a long tradition of hospitality in the Middle East and as far as I know it’s still the case. If a stranger turned up at your door, it was normal to invite them in and feed them. A couple of weeks ago, we were thinking about Jesus sending out his followers with instructions to stay with whoever welcomed them and eat whatever they were given – it was taken for granted that find that welcome.
In fact, hospitality was such a normal part of life that when we get details of a meal or a sharing, we know that there is something significant going on. Think of Elijah, asking for food from a starving widow; the beginning of a miracle.
In our readings today, we have two accounts of hospitality where there was deep significance for those involved: Abraham, welcoming three strangers, and Martha and Mary welcoming Jesus.
Let’s start with Abraham. Abraham is sitting at the entrance of his tent when three visitors approach. He welcomes them as guests and offers them a meal. But we know, because it says it in the first verse, that these are not any old visitors; this is the Lord.
The interesting question is: why is God coming as a human presence?
All through the story so far, God has been having one-to-one conversations with Abraham – calling him to leave his home, making covenant promises, and answering Abraham’s questions. Why do something different now?
The answer, I suggest, lies not with Abraham, but with Sarah.
Up to now, anything Sarah has been told about God’s plan has come through Abraham. She has, to her great credit, gone along with everything he has suggested, including the moves, including pretending to be his sister, not his wife when they were in Egypt. She knows God’s promise, that Abraham would be the father of a great nation, and she knows to her sadness that she can’t have children. It is Sarah who comes up with the scheme for Abraham to have a child with her servant Hagar – that kind of surrogacy wasn’t an unusual practice at the time. And it is Sarah who then finds she can’t bear the pain of seeing Hagar blooming in her pregnancy as if to mock her own barrenness.
Sarah has been incredibly loyal to Abraham and done the best she could in the light of what he has told her. But this has cost her great sorrow.
She has watched Hagar’s son, Ishmael, grow up in their household. And now, at the time of today’s reading, Ishmael is 13 – about to become an adult, ready to be formally recognised as Abraham’s heir.
But God has other plans.
This time, instead of speaking directly to Abraham, God comes as three strangers. That means they need hospitality: they need rest, they need water to wash their feet; they need food. All this takes time. And Sarah is involved in the preparations. She does the baking. Those of you who bake know that it’s a very hands-on process, especially with bread, when you’re kneading dough. She is part of this event. And when the three guests are eating she is in the tent watching them, within hearing distance. For the first time in this whole story, Sarah hears the word of God herself. She hears one of the guests say that she will have a son. It will be through her, impossible as it seems, through her that God’s promise to Abraham will be fulfilled.
It sounds a ridiculous thing to say. How can she have a child now? No wonder Sarah laughs. But I think she laughs partly because otherwise she would cry because this is the most wonderful, precious, thing she could ever have been told. This is all she ever wanted and thought she could never have.
Abraham offers hospitality to strangers; but through it, God speaks directly to Sarah – and now Sarah knows that God cares about her, too.
Hold that thought, while we move on to Mary and Martha.
This is the first time we meet them in the gospels. It may well be the first time Jesus has met them, too. The phrase ‘A woman named Martha’ suggests that she is someone as yet unknown. From the gospel of John, we know that Martha and Mary live in Bethany, which is near Jerusalem. Luke has told us that Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, and he’s told us what Jesus can expect when he gets there – opposition, violence and death. Jesus is making this journey with some trepidation. How lovely, then, that he calls at a house in Bethany and he is welcomed by two women, one who shows her hospitality by preparing food, and one who shows it by sitting with him and listening to him.
But Martha has a grievance. She’s doing all the work. She wants Jesus to make it fair. Tell my sister to help me. Jesus has more than enough to worry about, without being asked to referee in a family argument. And he has a better idea. Martha, Martha, you’re overdoing it. Just now, I need friends more than I need a big meal. Why don’t you come and sit with us awhile?
Martha, like Abraham, offers hospitality to a stranger as a matter of course. But in doing so, she, like Sarah, hears God speaking directly to her, calling her into a new kind of relationship. There is a depth of friendship and trust formed between these two women and Jesus that night.
I like to think that it’s this depth that leads Martha and Mary to call on Jesus when their brother Lazarus is ill; that in turn leads Mary to pour out her precious perfume and anoint Jesus.
Two stories, then, of people welcoming strangers, who find that they are encountering God.
This would be the moment to deliver a sermon on hospitality. But as I reflected on this, I realise I am in no position to preach to anybody about offering hospitality. It’s not my gift and I don’t do it easily or well.
Instead, I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your hospitality, as the congregation of this church, in calling me as your minister. You may not have thought of it as being hospitable, but you have welcomed me, and Jamie and Lola the dog; you have given us a home among you – and I don’t just mean the manse. Though the manse is lovely and has been a wonderful place to live.
You have trusted me with your worship, your study groups, your meetings, your life events. You have challenged me; you have put me straight when I have been wrong; you have reminded me when I have been forgetful; and you have inspired me, all of you, by your faith and your example. I don’t know how it’s been for you, but I have met God in this church – and at Wembley Park – in ways I never expected. It has been such a privilege to walk with you through these last 9 years
So thank you for all you have shared. Thank you for your gift of hospitality, which you will now share with new people, in new ways.
And may God bless you richly in all that you do and share in future.
Amen.
