Fr.Mark Patrick Hederman:The first reading we heard this morning is one of the great stories of the Bible. It recounts the first time in our JudeoChristian tradition that the Lord our God chose to meet up with a human being in the form of three persons. The text says specifically: ‘The Lord appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre.’ So it was ‘the Lord’ who appeared. But then Holy Scripture goes on to say: ‘Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby.’ In other words, what Abraham saw when he looked up and what had appeared in the theophany were not quite the same; he saw three men but it was actually ‘the Lord’ who was present to him. The text continues: ‘When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed down low to the ground.’
Did you ever have the experience of hearing the doorbell ring, of taking a peek out the window, seeing three people hanging around outside, and then closing the curtain and hiding under the bed in case they might find out that you are there. You wait silently, your heart thumping, hoping against hope that they will just go away. Well, I suppose it’s more difficult to do that if you are living in a tent. Whatever his motivation, Abraham did the opposite. He rushed out to meet them and invited them to dinner.
What is also difficult to figure out is why such readings are paralleled with the Gospels on Sundays, and why this particular reading was twinned with the story of Jesus visiting Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, another trinity, in their home at Bethany.
I think we can find a clue, not so much in the text itself but in the bit that was left out at the end of the first reading. You may remember that one of the visitors said he would be back the following year and that Abraham’s wife, Sarah, would give birth to a child.
Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, and she happened to be 90 years old at the time we are told. So she laughed to herself. Then the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh?’ Is anything too hard for the Lord? And Sarah was afraid, so she lied and she said, “I did not laugh.” But the visitor said, “Oh Yes, you did laugh.”
The child that Sarah gave birth to a year later was called Isaac. Isaac in Hebrew means ‘laughter.’
Coming back to the scene that was twinned with this in the Gospel reading. Jesus is at Bethany with Martha and Mary. All my sympathies in this passage are with Mary who is doing the cooking and who sees her sister sitting wide-eyed and star-struck at the feet of their guest. It’s a wonder that Martha didn’t tell them to cut the cackle and get their own food for themselves.
I think the answer to the whole problem is in the line which Jesus spoke, not just to Martha, but to every one of us: ‘you worry and are preoccupied by many things – few things are needed— indeed only one.’ All that matters is what we are being promised. If you listen to the Lord and do what you are told you will be free. No matter how old or decrepit we are, there is new life in the old creature yet, and nothing is impossible to God. Whatever is preventing you from being fully alive, from being really yourself: whether it be drink or drugs, lethargy or laziness, bingeing or being bullied, you can free yourself and give birth to the laughter in your life.
For God’s sake stop sniggering at the back of the tent; come out into the open and believe in the power of angels to allow us to live the glory of God. For what is the glory of God? It is each and every one of us fully alive.
So, let Isaac be a code word for today.