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 VERSE TWENTY
The Three Visitors, Genesis 18:1 - 18:15.

THE FACTS!

The Lord appears unto Abraham in the plains of Mamre.

Abraham sits in the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day.

Abraham sees three men standing near the Lord and rushes out to meet them. They must be more important than God!

Abraham asks the Lord not to leave from his sight.

He asks the three visitors to wash their feet and rest under a tree.

Abraham tells them he will fetch some bread and then they can pass.

The three visitors say, "Do as thou hast said."

Abraham tells Sarah to make three cakes even though he offered the three visitors bread.

Abraham fetches a calf from the herd and gives it to a weird young man.

The young man puts the calf in a dress.

Abraham brings butter and milk and the finely dressed calf to the three men.

Abraham creepily watches them eat.

They ask where Sarah is.

Abraham says, "None of your God Damn business!" No, no, he actually says, "Behold, in the tent."

The Lord says he will return to Abraham according to the time of his life and Sarah shall bear a son.

Sarah was eavesdropping in the tent door and heard this.

Abraham and Sarah are old.

Sarah had ceased menstruating.

Sarah chuckles and says to herself and not to God who apparently eavesdrops too, "Being so old, shall I really have a child, even though my man is too old to get it up?"

God says to Abraham, "Why is your wife laughing and questioning whether she'll have a child? Don't either of you ever take me at my word? I assure you, I shall return to you and she'll have a son."

Sarah lies right to God's face.

God says, "Nay; but thou didst laugh."

STUDY QUESTIONS!
Question God and Religion!

Who are these three guys hanging out with The Lord? Even Abraham who is the Chosen Guy doesn't get to pal around with God and take field trips to Sodom with him. Are they going to a bachelor party?

Did you also think that the three visitors were the Lord when you first began reading this passage? I thought maybe it was some sort of Trinity thing even though I'm trying not to let my rudimentary and negligible knowledge of The Bible affect my reading of the passages as I get to them. Why do you think God doesn't introduce them to Abraham? Is he rude or did he just forget?

Can God forget? What happens if God forgets something? Does it cease to exist? Is that what happened to my father? Daddy, where did you go?

Did you eat tuna in the Seventies? If so, you might have eaten my father, you jerk!

Why does Abraham stand up and rush to meet God and the three men only after he sees the three men with God? Has Abraham begun to take God for granted? The word 'them' in italics makes it seem that way. Were the three men wearing fine Italian suits? Was Abraham afraid what would happen if he didn't proffer the correct hospitality? Did I phrase that correctly? I can never tell if my sentences are correct when using words I don't really understand and since I don't have an editor because I'm printing this for free on the web, I have to ask you, The Reader.

Why does Abraham have Sarah make three cakes which he never serves to the men? Is he just trying to keep her from embarrassing him in front of God? I've seen a few Flintstone episodes where Fred does this with his wife, Alice. Unless that was one of the other shows with the fat husband and cute wife. You know, like any family sitcom that isn't Roseanne? I'm sure it was one of those.

Did you think it was strange that Abraham served these three men butter and milk? That probably would have went well with the cake he never gave them!

I was a little bit uncomfortable with him dressing up a young calf and bringing it to dinner. Isn't that the kind of thing they do in Sodom? Which of the three men found that appealing? Or was that for God? Not that there's anything wrong with it! Unless The Bible says there is later. Maybe it was just a test! God has had Abraham do some pretty weird things. Putting a dress on a calf isn't half as weird as suddenly chopping up the penises of every man in your household or cutting up a bunch of three year old animals and then throwing birds at them.

Why are the three men so interested in Sarah? Why did God bring them here? Are they insurance agents? Gynecologists? Avenging angels?

Since Sarah was behind God when she laughed at him, perhaps she didn't recognize him from the back. Has she met God yet? I forget! She might have just thought he was one of the well-dressed butter-eaters. What does God wear? How can you recognize God from the back? Does the back of his head resemble staring into the sun? I guess it's just normal hair since man is made in God's image.

Come to think of it, how do you recognize God from the front? What if God were one of us? Just a stranger on the bus trying to get a car loan?

How can man be made in God's image when God's image was formed long before light and dark and gravity and food and toilets and every other thing that explains why our physiology is the way it is, what with the eyeballs that translate light into pictures and the digestive system that transforms food into poop and the muscles that deteriorate when taken out of a substantive gravitational force? I guess since it's faith and not science, you can answer that question with any ridiculous thought that comes to your head and, as long as you believe it, it is good enough. Like God just made everything in his own image that would make him most comfortable since he, um, made himself in the image that he was going to make man because the world he was going to create would house man most comfortably.

Did God make himself? Or is God something that has always existed? Even though the faithful scoff at the idea of atoms and other building blocks of the universe always existing. Because that's just ridiculous. Everything has to have a beginning! Except God!

Did all the matter in the universe make itself? Or is it something that has always existed? Even though scientists scoff at the idea of a Creator that has always existed. Because that's just ridiculous. Everything has to have a beginning! Except matter.

Have you heard 'Closer to Fine'? I really like the line that says, "The less I seek my source for some definitive, the closer I am to fine." I also like the line from Deconstruction: "And as for the truth, it seems like we just pick a theory. It's the one that justifies our daily lives and backs us with quiver and arrow."

Why do people have this insatiable need to know the unknowable? Does convincing yourself you have the answers to everything make everything easier? Is it because lies can be beautiful and comforting while truth is often ugly and terrible? Are you reading this and agreeing while thinking I'm discussing the others? Because I'm not. I'm talking about you.

Where was I? I seem to have gotten off track. Who wrote that crap? That wasn't funny at all! I bet it was the cat.

Doesn't Sarah have a right to laugh at the idea of her having a child, even if it is God who says it? The Bible clearly states she hasn't menstruated in forever! And even though I never took the class where all the girls are separated from all the boys and the boys learn about boners while the girls learn about whatever the girls learn about, I'm pretty sure they say something about babies and menstruating being linked somehow. Or maybe she laughed because she was remembering Patton Oswalt's pile of laundry on top of another pile of laundry gag!

Did you also think God sounded like a humorless bastard in his last line of the section? You can tell he's not a Japanese God since he knows nothing about saving face! Sheesh! Just point out her faults right there in front of everyone, jerk! The Stanza said she laughed to herself so it was probably only God who knew she laughed anyway! Let her deny it in front of the others, God! Man, He's like a robot!

Do you think God is really a robot?! Maybe we should watch for clues while reading the rest of The Bible! Perhaps an alien civilization created a robot that either created another world and humans or just kept visiting this world and pretending he was the Creator! I bet my theory is completely valid!

I really wanted to call the young man who dressed the calf the first Furry in history but since he himself didn't dress up like a cow, I can only call him the first Pervert in history.

Now that Abram's name has changed to Abraham, I'll have to figure out another excuse for talking about Lost. I might have to wait until Jacob enters The Bible! And then I can keep it going after he beshits Benjamin!

As a superhero, I'm always going into space to avert disasters that could destroy the entire universe. One time, I ended up on this planet with lots of naked ladies and they all wanted to have sex with me! Super heroes don't kiss and tell, so I won't tell you what happened next! Wink wink!

Kids learn the saying, "Liar, liar, pants on fire, hanging from a telephone wire," by a process known as Collective Elementary School Conscience. Liars were often punished in the Old West by being set aflame and hung from the town's only telegraph wire. The rhyme was updated for stupid elementary school kids who have yet to learn about Morse Code and the failure of The Pony Express.

Did you know I am a super hero? Grunion Guy, master of the seas! I can swim and talk to fish and, well, probably some other cool things. It's been awhile since my powers were actually needed. But that's okay because I love to write more than I love to super hero.

Would you ever use the phrase 'Don't eat the blueberries' as a mysterious warning if somebody who had a chance to have sex with lots and lots of women might think you were trying to tell them not to have sex instead of what you were really warning them about? Stupid Carlotta Everyday and her stupid blueberries.

Sarah didn't really want to have a baby at 91 years old but when God makes a promise, you can bet he's going to keep his promise no matter who gets hurt!

Babies are really annoying and nobody really wants babies for babies' sake. 95% of all babies born are accidents and the other 5% are curses from God.

A. Explain why old people would want to have babies.
B. Explain why young people would want to have babies.
C. Explain why anybody would want to have a stupid baby!

DRAWING TIME!

How would you dress your cow?

WHAT DID CHRISTIAN LITERALISTS LEARN?

Keep your wife in the kitchen when you have important guests over.