Explore & respond

Adult & All Age

Drama: Our reporter in Mamre

Drama sketch (for the oldest children) retelling the story of Abraham's visitors

You will need a newsreader, a reporter, Abraham, servant, and Sarah.

Newsreader
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the …o'clock (insert appropriate time) news. Exciting news is coming from our reporter in Mamre, so let's go over live to (name) .

Reporter
Thank you (name) . You join us here where an extraordinary story is beginning to unfold. It concerns Sarah, the wife of Abraham, but let's hear first from Abraham himself. Abraham, can you tell us exactly what happened?

Abraham
Certainly. I was sitting by my tent in the middle of the day when I suddenly saw three strangers standing there. I ran over to offer them hospitality, some water to wash their feet and something to eat. They accepted, and then I ran to the tent to ask Sarah…

Reporter (interrupting)
Thank you, Abraham. Let's hear from Sarah what happened next.

Sarah
Abraham came rushing in and asked me to make some special cakes for the visitors. I had to go and get the expensive flour out of the store.

Reporter
And then what happened?

Abraham
I ran and found a calf that was ready to be killed and eaten, and gave it to the servant to cook. By the time it was ready, it was getting late!

Servant
Yes, I can vouch for that – I spent a long time preparing it.

Reporter
So, let's talk now about the visitors. After you had eaten – I understand they revealed some very strange information.

Abraham
Yes, they told Sarah that in a few months she would have a baby.

Reporter
And what was Sarah's reaction? After all, she's a bit old to be having a baby now.

Abraham
She laughed.

Reporter
So there you have it (name of newsreader) . Sarah has been told she will be pregnant soon; perhaps we will return to this strange story in a few months' time. This is (name of reporter) reporting live from Mamre.

Respond to the Word

Activities for adult and all-age groups

You might like to have a bring-and-share meal as part of your worship today. Make sure it’s clearly within the worship, not an optional ‘add-on’. This means letting folk know beforehand that they’ll be eating together and asking them to bring some food.

If you’ve laid out your worship space in café style (see Prepare the space), give people a few moments to enjoy the ‘goodies’ whilst sharing their concerns and joys and talking about their week.

How do you welcome strangers? Are you showing them a face that will attract them? Using a flipchart or OHP, brainstorm how you could improve the welcome you give to new worshippers. Bear in mind that every church sees itself as ‘friendly’. A church visitor tried to stay for coffee after the service, but was told that it was only for the regulars. Does your church have an equivalent blind spot? Have a look at some of the friendly and not-so-friendly welcomes the mystery worshippers from the Ship of Fools website receive (see Further resources ).

Try using a prayer style that is different from your usual format: perhaps some candles and Taizé-type reflective music, offering worshippers space to ‘tune in’ to God’s Spirit and reflecting the informal, relaxed feel of Abraham’s meal with the strangers. Even scarier, how about silence for five minutes? You will need to help people into the silence. Suggest they look at the thoughts that crop up and then imagine bundling them up and giving them to God.

Respond to the Word

Activities for adult and all-age groups

Do you have a set of identical twins in the worshipping community (or a couple of children who look alike from a distance)? If so, ask them to come to church with one in their best clothes and the other dirty, unkempt and in tatty clothes. You’ll need a blanket or cloak that they can hide behind.

Invite the twins out to the front of the church. Put the smart one behind the tatty one, and pretend that you’re doing magic. As everyone says ‘abracadabra’ swap the twins over — rags to riches! Make a big thing about how clever this magic is, with your tongue firmly in your cheek! God turns our rags into riches — ‘just like that’.

Compile a book of children’s sayings — the ones that are unique to children and that make you smile. Or prepare a booklet of children’s prayers and take it to a local nursing home for the residents to read.

Has your church got a ‘rent a granny’ scheme? All the grandparents whose grandchildren live miles away sign up to be foster grandparents for just one child in the congregation. Families ‘rent’ their ‘grandparent’ (CRB clearance required). This way children and grandparents acquire new friends, and great cross-generation relationships are struck up.

Ask older members of the congregation to write a series of articles chronicling the history of the church, through their eyes — not the big historic events, but the parties, the trips, the outings. Include them in your newsletter or magazine, or compile them into an album with photographs.

Does your church have a surprising tale to tell, when something exciting and creative grew out of a seemingly barren situation? Invite people to reflect on this in small groups, perhaps thinking about surprises in their personal lives as well as in their shared life. Come back together and see if there are some surprises to be celebrated!

Drama: Domestic bliss

An imaginary conversation between Mary and Martha after Jesus' visit

Mary
Snap out of it, Martha! Jesus said I did the right thing.

Martha
And I didn't? Since when has it been wrong to see to a guest's comfort? Isn't that what hospitality is all about? Isn't that what we're commanded to do? Isn't that what we, as good Jewish women, were brought up to do?

Mary
Don't go on about it, Martha! I had to be with him, nothing was more important at that moment.

Martha
At that moment? It wasn't just a moment! It was a good hour or more, while I sweated over a hot oven and tried to tidy the place up!

Mary
But you know Jesus, Martha. He's not fussy about fancy food or the state of the house. He came to see us, not to inspect how we live. He wanted our attention.

Martha
I was giving him my attention!

Mary
No, you weren't.

Martha
I was cooking for him, and seeing that he had everything he needed …

Mary
He didn't want that kind of attention. He wanted you to sit down and listen to him. He had things to say to us.

Martha
He could have said them over dinner! That would have been the polite thing to do!

Mary
Martha, you really can't expect Jesus to behave like a normal guest.

Martha
You don't have to tell me he's not a normal guest! Why do you think I was in such a state? Why do you think I was going to such trouble? I was so honoured to have him in our home!

Mary
Well, then, you should have listened to what he was saying.

Martha
It's impossible to get you to see sense, Mary. We may as well finish this conversation right now, because we're going round in circles.

Mary
No, Martha, you were the one going round in circles! The Son of God was sitting in our front room, teaching us wonderful things, and you were flying around with a cloth in one hand and a pot in the other!

Martha
But did he have to show me up so badly? Did he have to draw attention to me?

Mary
You drew attention to yourself, Martha. You complained about me to him, trying to get me into trouble!

Martha
So how come you knew what he wanted us to do? How come you got it right?

Mary
Jesus doesn't think like other people, Martha. He wants us to think differently, too. We have to get past what society and tradition expect of us. Those who follow him must hear his teaching. It's more important than anything else. That's why he was pleased with me.

Martha
It's hard to break the habits of a lifetime, Mary.

Mary
That's why he spoke to you gently, Martha. Did you notice how he said your name twice, so fondly?

Martha
I'm sorry, Mary.

Mary
It's alright. He takes a bit of getting used to. He's not like other men!

Martha
That's quite refreshing, really!

Children & Young People

Respond to the Word

Activities for children and young people

For children

Welcome

Decorate biscuits or cakes using icing pens or, if you have time, making the icing themselves. Alternatively, the children could make jam sandwiches cut into different shapes using biscuit cutters. (Younger children may need help with this.) Talk about the kind of food that we offer to people who visit us. At the end of the session, some of the sandwiches, cakes or biscuits could be shared by the children, offered to the congregation, or taken home for family or neighbours.

God’s here

Give each child a sheet of paper, and ask them to draw a picture of someone else in the room. Try to ensure that everyone is drawn. The name of the person they are drawing must be kept secret! (You may find this is hard for very young children; if possible, let them whisper the name to you, and then help them with their drawing.) Display the finished pictures so that everyone can see them. Invite the children to work together to show how God is present with everyone. This could be by drawing a large circle around the pictures, a large pair of hands cupped around the images or by adding labels saying ‘God is with me’ to each image.

Welcoming God

As a group, plan a celebration for the start of the summer holidays or end of the school year. Whom would they invite? What kind of food would they want to prepare? Where would they hold the celebrations? How would they entertain their guests? How would they recognise God in their celebrations? Write their ideas on a large sheet of paper, and display. Ask some children to write and/or decorate menus, and others to write invitations or make decorations. (The younger children could make paper chains, for example.) Add everyone’s contributions to the display. If possible, use the ideas for a real celebration during the summer.

A grand day too

Look at the list of things the children came up with in A grand day in Gathering activities . Did they include everything in their Welcoming God preparation? Ask them to reflect on what they might have left out. Can they include anything now to make sure people feel welcome, just as Abraham did in the story?

Seeing God

Ask the children individually to design a football strip for a church or neighbourhood football team. Talk about the need for individual designs so that teams can be recognised and supporters can recognise each other. You could give the children templates of a plain shirt to fill in or let them draw their own. The children can write the name of the team at the bottom. Add the following: ‘Shirts help us to recognise our football team; people help us to recognise God.’

For young people

Never!

Using a toy or mobile phone, invite members of the group to act out the most surprising and unexpected thing someone could tell them over the phone. What one phrase, if they heard it when they answered their mobile, would change their entire lives?

So important

Invite one person to pretend to be a VIP. Ask the others to come up and, one by one, mime how they would greet this VIP. Give out prizes for the most over-the-top and unexpected greeting they produce!

Imagine

Provide art materials and paper. Give the young people time and space to reflect on the first verses of this passage and produce some art in response to what they read and how they imagine the scene.

Model meal part two

Invite the group to plan a menu for a meal for very special guests. The meal should be balanced and provide for those with different requirements. Challenge the group to plan an appropriate menu that might show someone is truly welcome. Once the menu is planned, explain that they will then need to plan the process of preparing the meal, what should be done, when. You could take this to the end point and invite a guest or guests to join your group on a future occasion and the group should prepare the planned meal. If you have access to cooking facilities this could be a hot meal. If not, it should be something that could be served cold or brought hot in heated trays or flasks.

Talk about

Discussion ideas for children and young people

For children

for younger children

Ask the children how they would recognise a police officer, a firefighter or a footballer.

How do they recognise their parents? Stress that we don’t recognise people simply by what they look like — we use sounds and touch too. It’s much harder to recognise God whom we can’t see, but we can sense that there is something God wants us to do or that we are being called to something.

Abraham didn’t know who his visitors were, but he recognised that they had come from God and that they were special. How can we recognise something as being from God?

for older children

Prepare a list of surprising statements to read to the children. Examples might include:

Your teacher is going to be an astronaut!
You are going to find a million pounds in your dustbin!
(Name and name’s father) are going to play for England in the European Cup!

Ask the children how they felt when they heard these statements.

Why did they laugh? Sarah laughed but it did come true — she did have a baby.

Sometimes the things that God does are very mysterious. Abraham recognised that his visitors had been sent by God. He showed them the respect that they deserved. How can we show respect to others?

For young people

Before the session, download and print out some images of Jesus from around the world (see Further resources ). Make sure you include traditional and more unusual and unexpected versions of what Jesus may have looked like. Abraham instinctively knew there was something special about his visitors — ask the young people to describe why they chose their particular picture of Jesus.

Abraham honoured his guests by preparing them a lavish meal and making them comfortable in his home — a customary honour for a guest. Ask the young people to think about how they might honour someone special. If a celebrity turned up unexpectedly at their front door, how would they treat them?

Where do we see God in the world? Abraham knew straightaway that his visitors were, in some way, God, and he treated them accordingly. Whilst we might not see God in the same way as Abraham did, we can often see evidence of God in the world around us and in the people around us and the way they behave. Discuss with the group ideas about places and people that have shown them God in the world.

Today’s passage shows Abraham going all-out to welcome these three men — despite the suddenness of their appearance. Ask the young people to think about whether they let God into their lives with such complete abandon — does everything come second to making sure that God and his wishes come first? What things compete for their attention?

Abraham knew the importance of taking a break and of feeling refreshed, even in the heat of the midday sun! Invite the young people to talk about the things they do to refresh themselves when life is difficult or stressful. How do they take a break? Do they make time to rest and reflect, away from the business of their lives?