16th Sunday Ordinary Time

Readings: Genesis 18:1-10a, Colossians 1:24-28, Luke 10:38-42

The lesson today is that offering hospitality always brings a gift from God. Perhaps even more important than physical hospitality is simply listening to one another. The reading from the Book of Genesis is one of the wonderful readings from the Jewish Scriptures that reaches back into pre-history and speaks of the relationship of Abraham and Sarah with God. In the Hebrew text there is a lack of clarity about these three who show up. Later this story becomes the basis of the great icon of Rublev as a symbol of the Holy Trinity.

Abraham and Sarah are completely giving of themselves to these three who show up unexpectedly. They are clearly sent from God. They represent God's faithfulness to His promise to Abraham that he and Sarah will have a Son. Abraham has never doubted that God will keep His promise but has thought that perhaps that promise was not he thought it was. Sarah can only laugh when told that when will bear a son. She had hopes when she was young but knows tat humanly it is too late.

Both Abraham and Sarah are hosts of God in this drama. They listen politely, even if Sarah laughs. They offer hospitality without conditions. Contrast this biblical narrative with the Gospel of Luke today. Here Martha is really upset. She is the host and wants her sister, Mary, to do her part. Jesus never says that what Martha is doing has no value. Instead, Jesus simply states that there is a greater value than the physical hospitality: listening to the one who comes in the name of the Lord.

Only when we are able to receive others as those who come in the name of the Lord can we live the mystery spoken of by Saint Paul in the second reading today: Christ in you, the hope for glory. Saint Paul in the Letter to the Colossians puts this mystery at the heart of our Christian life. True hospitality is first of all receiving one another as God's creation, as the presence of Jesus Christ Himself. If we recognize Christ in the other, all the other details of hospitality will take care of themselves. It is when we see only another human being with defects and sins and brokenness that we can treat others poorly and even worse.