In Genesis chapter 18, Abraham has an encounter with Yahweh, the maker of heaven and earth. Not so strange, by this point he’s had multiple across his life and as readers we’re expecting God to deal with Abraham as a friend. Except, this time, the Lord most high comes for tea.
It sounds like the premise of a children’s story, and then it gets weirder.
We’re told that Yahweh appeared to Abraham by the Oaks of Mamre—fulfilling the pattern we’ve already seen in Genesis where God meets people by trees—while he is sat by his tent. That’s the first sentence. Then, second sentence, Abraham looks up and three men are standing in front of him.
He offers the men hospitality, to do otherwise would be the gravest of cultural insults, feeding them bread cobs, some milk, and a bit of veal. The strange thing is that Yahweh continues to speak, not the men, as though Yahweh is the men.
This gives us an interesting conundrum, who exactly are these men. There are, I think, three viable conclusions. Some suggest they are angels and the Lord’s voice booms around them, which fits with the way they disappear after Abraham walks to Sodom with them. However, the text does seem to equate the men and Yahweh, so I think we need a closer connection. That leaves us with either the three men being the three persons of the Trinity (as in Rublev’s famous icon) or one of them being Christ with him being accompanied by angels.
I like the suggestion that they’re the Trinity, but I think it leaves us with some thorny metaphysical questions if one of the men is the Father and the other the Spirit. The Father and Spirit have never become incarnate, so are they just appearing to be men? Why would that be?
I think it’s more likely we’re looking at Christ since his appearances in the Old Testament—as, for example, Joshua’s Captain of Yahweh’s Host (Joshua 5)—are an established pattern. As I’ve argued before, bouncing off Robert Jenson’s work on Ezekiel, these may not be the ‘pre-incarnate’ Christ either. It says a man so maybe this is God as a man post-resurrection here to foretell his forefather Isaac’s birth. Time is a strange thing.
Whichever option you prefer we’re left with this stark reality: God comes to dinner.
So, Abraham does what any self-respecting desert nomad would; he offers them a small morsel of bread while instructing Sarah to bake the equivalent of around 23 ordinary loaves of bread and killing a valuable calf.
What would you serve God if he came for dinner? That’s one of those questions that probably tells you more about yourself than anything else, but I’m initially stumped. What could be appropriate?
Bread. Milk. Beef.
Everyday foods but in quantities to delight a passerby with the generosity of the host. If God visits, serve burgers.
This is not the first time that God’s presence is associated with food, we see that in the garden of Eden (Genesis 2). I think it is the first time that God sits to eats with man—across a table in our modern parlance, though there is likely no table under the oak tree.
God continues this practice. Much of the Levitical system is concerned with food, but not food offered to God to eat like a pagan deity. The ascension offering isn’t eaten, it’s consumed whole by flames to produce a smoke on which the offerer ascends to the heavens, but the Tabernacle and then the Temple are laid with bread that the priests eat. Wine and Beer are poured on the ground along with blood.
The Table is laid with bread for priests to eat, ‘face bread’ or ‘the bread of the presence.’ God comes to eat with them, we presume.
Then of course in the new covenant he lays a table every week with bread and wine—his own body and blood—and sits down ‘across it’ from us. We are a kingdom of priests, so all eat the bread. To the everyday bread we have added wine, the drink of kings that gladdens the heart. Now instead of pouring it with the blood we drink it, the blood of Christ, because he is now given to us as the time is fulfilled.
Which is all to say that the strangeness of Yahweh coming to tea with Abraham is exactly the drama that we act every Sunday. God comes to dinner, and he lays the table with himself. In charismatic circles we might speak of ‘hosting God’s presence’ in our worship services. There’s something there, but I always think the language is backwards. The biggest change between us and Abraham is not what we eat, significant though that is, but that we aren’t the host.
We don’t turn up at church and scrabble up ‘food’ for God in our worship—though we would do well to act as Abraham did for fellow pilgrims we meet on a Sunday—instead God has laid a table for us. Three seahs of flour have been spent to make a lavish quantity of bread, it’s of the very highest quality. The finest wine has been poured for us, out of the very veins of God, we are not offered a ‘morsel of bread’ but the finest meal anyone has ever eaten. Sit. Breathe. Feast.
Those who lead churches should try and communicate this in the ritual of what we do. Perhaps a small morsel of bread or wafer isn’t the way to go. Maybe make sure the bread is fresh and tastes good. Maybe get some good wine (Argentinian Malbec for my palette, but that’s not why we pick things). Maybe take your time and don’t rush it. Maybe speak like God’s present, and act like he laid the table. Maybe it’ll be easier to believe if we do, because it just happens to be true.
Photo by amirali mirhashemian on Unsplash
To subscribe and receive email notifications for future posts, scroll all the way to the bottom of the page.
Would you like to support my work? The best thing you can do is share this post with your friends. Why not consider also joining my Patreon to keep my writing free for everyone. You can see other ways to support me here.
nuakh 