Brothers and Sisters, isn’t it striking that we should be hearing readings about hospitality this very weekend? I’m thinking of the Tall Ships. Aberdeen is being Abraham to so many people. Aberdeen is being Martha and Mary to people from all over. And doesn’t it do us good? The city smartens itself up, washes its face and cleans its teeth, opens up in welcome.
Hospitality is a great mystery. Hospitality turns hostility into welcome. Hostility comes from the Latin word for enemy, hospitality from the Latin word for guest. Isn’t it often as a potential enemy that we first apprize one another, as a possible threat? A woman may well be on guard meeting a man, or any of us meeting someone larger or more powerful than ourselves, or when we are alone meeting a group. This is our instinct of self-preservation at play. But there’s also something of sin, of the Fall, in it. Why should we want to harm each other? God’s plan is for our reconciliation, for unity, for friendship. And hospitality expresses this.
In the Genesis story, the Lord takes the initiative. He appears to Abraham in the form of three passing travellers. Are they three or are they one? As Christians we sense the Trinity here. And what a wonderful example of hospitality Abraham gives! He’s not having a siesta, he’s awake. He notices them, he runs to meet them, he begs them to stay, not to pass him by. He senses the blessing they bring. He shows them the toilet, actually. He offers them bread. Then he has a delicious meal cooked for them: veal in cream sauce. And he stands and serves while they sit and eat. At this period of his life, Abraham was a nomad, a Bedouin, and in history Bedouins have been renowned for hospitality. In barren desert areas hospitality makes the difference between life and death. But there’s still more going on. Who’s really hosting who? The three strangers tell this old man that his wife will have a son. In the barren desert of their old age, the Lord promises a new life and through Isaac a whole people, Jesus ultimately, Jesus and his brothers and sisters, the family of the Church.
Perhaps the most famous icon in the world is Andrei Rublev’s icon of the Trinity. It’s inspired by this very reading. If you don’t know it, google it! Abraham does not even appear in it. Instead, there are three men portrayed as angels; they are the focus. They are seated round a table on which is a cup with the head of a calf. They are Father, Son and Holy Spirit, contemplating and conversing with each other, yet open to the viewer; the cup suggests the Passion of Christ and the Eucharist. And the empty space in front is an open door for all Abraham’s children, for all those who’ll come from east and west, north and south to find a seat at the banquet of the Kingdom.
Who is hosting who?
And isn’t it the same in today’s Gospel? The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oak trees, and Jesus, we’re told, entered a village. It is the same God coming to us. It’s the same Lord pursuing the same purpose of re-gathering scattered humanity, bringing us together into one house. Martha shows herself as busy a host as Abraham. She does many things. She’s anxious and troubled. She’s all over the place, in fact. It happens easily enough in a kitchen. She’s keen to please. It’s all good, and surely they all ate her meal, Jesus included. But who’s hosting who? Mary sits herself at the feet of the Lord, a disciple, a guest. Mary gets it. She listens to his teaching. She eats and drinks the Lord, we can say. And this meal, this portion, won’t come and go, as our meals do. It won’t be taken away from her. It will last for ever.
Who is hosting who?
We can ask the same about our holy meal, our Eucharist. Here the Lord appears among the “oaks of Mamre”, among us, who are his trees. Here the Lord enters the village, our communities. He doesn’t pass us by. He speaks to us in the Liturgy of the Word. He serves a meal to us in the Liturgy of the Eucharist. He makes himself really, truly, substantially present under bread and wine. He offers himself to the Father through the ministry of priests and to us as our food and drink. He renews the covenant with us. And he brings us eternal life, a future, life as members of his Body, as sons and daughters of the Father, children of Abraham’s faith.
Yes, he hosts us.
Brothers and Sisters, people are getting tired of the aggressively secular, the two-dimensional, of the “woke” and the politically correct. They are turning to faith and the Church. They’re looking for a person, or for three, who will host them in the desert of life, who will welcome and feed them and give them a future. They are looking for God’s house, for his tent, for trees to shelter among, for a mountain where they can meet with God. May we be that for them and one another! A harbour for the tall ships of human souls!
St Mary’s Cathedral, Aberdeen, 20 July 2025
