Text: Genesis 18:1-18; John 13:5
Speaker: Joel Miller
If you watched The Odyssey, you likely noticed multiple references to something called Zeus’s Law. Hopefully you noticed this because it was a big part of the movie. Zeus’s Law is a simple idea. You should always be hospitable to strangers because they could be a god in disguise. If they need food or clothing or shelter, you give it, even before knowing who they are. In turn, the guest is to be respectful and not overstay their welcome. Break Zeus’s Law, and you risk angering the gods, which is a very bad idea.
If you’ve read The Odyssey….my first time, this summer, a mere 13 hour audiobook, very doable…you would catch the same theme, although not quite as front and center. The story culminates in Odysseus finally returning home to Ithaca, but disguised as a beggar. A few of his kinsmen, not knowing who he is, welcome him. The leading men who, in his absence, have been vying for his throne, and vying for his wife, Penelope, treat him poorly. Odysseus eventually reveals his identity and gets his vengeance in a very non-Mennonite, non-nonviolent way. And if that’s a spoiler, my apologies, but you did have like, almost 3000 years to read it.
Where Christopher Nolan’s film differs from Homer’s epic poem, among other ways, is that he turns Zeus’s Law back onto Odysseus. Rather than leaving us with the triumphant hero who reclaims his throne, thus restoring justice and order, Odysseus is racked with guilt throughout the film. Because he himself had not just broken, but shattered Zeus’s Law. As a military commander he had devised a brilliant trick to get his army through the impenetrable walls of Troy. He had his men build a massive, hollow, wooden horse. This was left outside the city as a supposed peace offering to the Trojans. The Trojans received it as a gift. They opened their gates and brought it into the center of their city, like an honored guest.
But Odysseus and his best fighting men had hidden inside the horse. The guest, from inside the house, broke out from hiding and destroyed the house – the city and the people of Troy. Bloody, brilliant, heroic, triumphant.
The Odysseus of the 21st century film, or at least the script writer, has had almost 3000 years to ponder the unintended consequences of the Trojan Horse. This newest Odysseus does not feel triumphant. He dreads that in violating Zeus’s Law in this way, he has broken the very bonds that hold civilization together – The trust and respect between host and guest – shattered. Without giving away the very ending of the movie, I will say that the viewer is left with this question of global, civilizational importance. Can we ever mend something of this magnitude that has been so fundamentally broken?
The singular verse in the Bible that most closely mirrors Zeus’s law is Hebrews chapter 13, verse 2. “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” Or as the King James Version put it: “for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”
If you’re looking for a story in the Bible with this theme, you can’t do much better than Genesis 18. Abraham and Sarah had already become the strangers. They had left the home of their ancestors in Ur of the Chaldeans and migrated to the land of Canaan. There they settled, with their extended family, their servants, and their livestock. One day, years later, in Canaan, Abraham is sitting at the entrance of his tent, catching some shade, in the hottest part of the day. He looks up and sees three men, three strangers, approaching. Abraham, the migrant, the stranger, is now in the position of host. Or, at least potential host. Because at this point, Abraham is faced with a choice.
When a group of people you’ve never met, even just three, come into your encampment unannounced, it’s not a sure fire bet you’re going to make new friends that day. Why are they here? What do they want? Are they weary travelers, just passing through, perhaps a little overheated and in need of a reststop? Are they raiders? Do they have swords under their robes, ready to strike the patriarch and make off with some of his wealth?
We as the audience already know something Abraham doesn’t. The story begins: “The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day.” But Abraham is, for now, unawares. All he sees is three men. And he has a choice to make. And he doesn’t have much time to make it. To simplify what was likely a not-so-simple situation, Abraham has the choice of responding with hostility or hospitality. Is it best to assume the worst and respond with hostility to protect his family? Or is Abraham willing to risk hospitality – and it is a risk – not knowing the identity or motivations of these visitors?
Well, Yes, he does. Abraham makes a wager on hospitality rather than hostility, in a rather vigorous way. As the story goes, he runs out to meet these visitors. He bows down and insists they stay – to drink water, to wash their feet, to rest in the shade, to have, as Abraham says, “a little bread, that you may refresh yourselves.”
When they agree, Abraham “hastens” to Sarah and asks her to mix together six gallons of their best flour for bread. He then runs out to the herd and asks a servant to slaughter and prepare a “tender and good calf.” He then gathers some curds and milk, and when it’s all ready, Abraham serves a feast fit for a king to these strangers, these guests, under the cool shade of a tree.
It’s some very aggressive and urgent hospitality. And it wasn’t necessarily a selfless act. In some situations there’s a fine line between hospitality and diplomacy – building trust where there was no grounds for trust before, through extravagant generosity, for the benefit of the other and one’s own people. Abraham has chosen hospitality over hostility, but he isn’t naïve. This could double as a strategy to enhance security, to gain a favorable reputation, to build solidarity with men and women and gods and angels and whoever else might be in the neighborhood.
Like The Odyssey, this story can be read as a founding myth. It is in Genesis, which means “Beginnings,” so there’s that. But it goes further in really wanting us to know that this is a foundational story, a vital action from Abraham and Sarah that creates something, that ripples through history. Because at this point, Abraham and Sarah don’t yet have a child between them. Without an heir, the lineage, and the story, stops there.
After these guests have had their fill under that tree, they ask about Sarah, and they promise Abraham that they will come back soon, and when they do, Sarah will have a son. Sarah is eavesdropping on this conversation, old Sarah. It’s such a ridiculous proposition that she laughs. But the promise holds true. She does have a child. And she names him Isaac, which means “laughter.” And from Isaac, from laughter, from the extravagant hospitality offered to these strangers who turn out to be some undefined mix of human and Divine, a whole people, a whole civilization is born.
We are the spiritual descendants of that people. We are a people founded on choosing hospitality over hostility. Taking the risk of hospitality. Hospitality as a strategy toward solidarity. Watching the unexpected gifts that follow, with Jesus as a model host and guest, washing his disciples’ feet, breaking bread for the multitudes, entrusting himself as a guest in the homes of those considered ‘sinners.’
As a spiritual practice, hospitality invites us into this wager. And it doesn’t just have to be with people. We can also show hospitality to ideas and possibilities that come to us as strangers, unfamiliar, not fitting into our world. We offer hospitality to new and unfamiliar stages of life that come our way like strange, unknown travelers.
And sometimes we are the guest, like our delegation to our sister church in Colombia. Next we’re going to hear more about how they were welcomed and treated as honored guests.
It’s part of our response to the story of scripture, and it’s part of our response to that open question Christopher Nolan wants us 21st century humans to be considering. How can we rebuild the bonds of trust that hold us together? It starts with this most ancient and foundational relationship. It might even be a law, unwritten, but always in effect. And sometimes we are the host. And sometimes we are the guest.