This Sunday's Sermon
July 14, 2024
ABRAHAM AND SARAH: JUSTICE AND JUDGMENT
Genesis 18:16-33
I didn’t realize that the city of Seattle had a nickname until our family explored the Emerald City almost three weeks ago. So how about a little quiz? I’ll offer up other American city nicknames; and you name the city. Ready?... The Windy City (Chicago)… Beantown (Boston)… The Big Easy (New Orleans)… The Mile High City (Denver)… Shaky Town (San Francisco, vulnerable to earthquakes)… Bluff City (Memphis, built on bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River)… and, finally, Sin City. It’s been said that "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas”; but it’s reputation is known far and wide. When, however, it comes to a reputation for wickedness, the ancient city of Sodom is second to none; yet Abraham – the father of Jewish faith and, by extension, OUR faith, is found arguing with God toward the saving of Sodom. But let’s not go there just yet.
If you know the Bible story, you probably think that you know about Sodom’s sin based on culture war preaching that would name it as homosexual behavior. Here’s the relevant scripture, from Genesis, chapter 19… Two angels came to the entrance of the city of Sodom. [Abraham’s nephew, Lot,] was sitting there, and when Lot saw them, he stood up to meet them. Then he welcomed them and bowed with his face to the ground. "My lords,” he said, "come to my home… and be my guests for the night.” Then, skipping ahead a sentence or two… "Before [God’s messengers] retired for the night, all the men of Sodom, young and old, came from all over the city and surrounded the house. They shouted to Lot, "Where are the men who came to spend the night with you? Bring them out to us so we can have sex with them”(Verses 1-2, 4-5, NEW LIVING TRANSLATION). Honestly, the offense in this instance seems to me a case study in rape; and it begs the question – would that attempt at felony assault have somehow been less wicked had God’s Messengers been women?
Then, too, when one reads ALL of scripture, the sins of Sodom are spelled out like this, in the Book of Ezekiel, chapter 16, verses 48 and 49, where God’s prophet contrasts Sodom’s sins Jerusalem: "Sodom… was never as wicked as you… [And] this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy (16:48-49, NEW REVISED STANDARD VERSION). Truth is that the sin of Sodom is self-centeredness and inhospitableness in its every form. (And what, after all, could be more inhospitable than rape?) There are, in fact, old Jewish legends telling of how Sodom’s rulers passed laws making it illegal to help strangers in need. If a poor man happened to pass through Sodom, they’d give him a coin but refuse to sell him any provisions; and when, inevitably, the poor soul died from hunger, thirst, or sickness the coin would be retrieved, along with anything else that could be stripped from off the corpse. It’s only a folk-tale, but it – along with the Bible story – tell us what Sodom came to represent in the Jewish faith community. Sodom is a symbol of any society where there’s no justice or mercy, no caring, kindness, or sharing, no bread of human compassion or humble service rendered to God and neighbor.
When you read further into Genesis 19, you hear God’s Messengers warning Lot’s family to escape the disaster that was coming down on Sodom. Read on, and you learn that Sodom and her sister city, Gomorrah, were destroyed by what the Bible calls a rain of fire and burning sulfur. Could it have been a volcano or a meteor airburst as some have conjectured? Who knows? The Bible writers were seldom concerned with the "how” of things but, rather, with the question of "why?”
And why was Sodom judged so harshly to the point of destruction? Because life together in Sodom was characterized, without exception, by fear of others and self-absorption, by pride of culture and violence against humanity, by injustice, dishonesty, and unfettered, all-consuming hungers and pleasures. And such things as these, declare the Bible prophets, will always come to a bad end. "Those who plant injustice,” says the Book of Proverbs, "will harvest disaster (22:8).” And likewise from Proverbs; "Pride goes before destruction; [arrogance and self-importance] before a great fall (16: 18). And what did Jesus of Nazareth say to his followers? – "Those who use the sword will die by the sword (Matthew 26:52).” On another occasion he said "When you do something for someone else, don't call attention to yourself. You've seen [those types] in action… They get applause, true, but that's all they get” (Matthew 6:2, THE MESSAGE) – meaning that praise from God is WAY better than praise from the crowd. Saint Paul also sounds a warning, in the Book of Romans: says "[People] traded the glory of God who holds the whole world in his hands for cheap figurines you can buy at any roadside stand. So God said, in effect, ‘If that's what you want, that's what you get.’ It wasn't long before they were living in a pigpen” (1:23-24, THE MESSAGE). These scriptures, amongst others, communicate the clear message about God’s judgement: namely, that the consequences for spurning God and God’s Way is having to live exclusively with the dark side of human nature and it’s self-destructive consequences. And that’s tragic, because God’s deepest and highest desire for men, women, and young people is that they know God’s gift of joy. So much does the LORD want us to know heaven’s joy, that God is fierce in doing battle against those things and those behaviors that keep us at a distance from Divine joy.
But what about natural disasters such as hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanos, and tsunamis (not to mention sickness and economic recessions)? Are they God’s punishment for sin, as some preachers would have us believe? My opinion? – NO! God’s Creation, as I see it, has been put together using processes that govern it’s working. Such processes usually work for our good, insofar as those natural laws can be known and predicted. We can know, for instance, that the end of November is not the time, in Maryland, to be planting lettuce or sweet corn. At other times, those known processes of nature work in ways that can bring down harm. When cooler air collides with warmer air, for example, we have conditions for damaging weather. And all of that happens in spite of a society’s moral fiber. What did Jesus say? – "God gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and God sends rain on the just and the unjust alike” (Matthew 5:45).
But my answer to the question about natural disaster-as-punishment-from God is a double no because of the Good News that’s found in the story of Abraham and Sodom. We find in Genesis, chapter 18 – you’ve already heard it – the incredible story of faithful Abraham bargaining with God for the well-being of Sin City. Abraham, it seems, takes seriously his calling as someone through whom God’s blessings will cover the earth. It’s a sign, too, that God doesn’t give up on hope. It’s a marker that faithful believers, though few in number, may – by the Grace of God – help liberate the many who are lost and self-absorbed. Are fifty faithful souls in a city of thousands enough to save a community from itself? According to the story, the answer is yes! Even ten are enough to make a difference. Even YOU are enough to do the transforming work of God; even YOU are enough to make a difference on behalf of God’s judgment and justice. For as long as there are a hand-full of God’s people at work in the city, then hope for positive change lives on! That’s the message of the morning scripture lesson.
That’s the message, too, in the story of Therese. Therese is – or was, some years ago – a Roman Catholic nun who worked as guidance counselor of a high school in the Eternal City – that is, Rome, Italy. Carmen was one of her favorite students; and it was often that Carmen would show up at school sporting terrible bruises and welts. The girl finally confided to Therese that her stepfather was hurting her. Therese spoke to the mother, who exploded in anger, calling Carmen a dirty, rotten, filthy liar. The stepfather, it seems, had the reputation of being terribly wealthy and with friends in high places – "high places” that Therese suspected as organized crime organizations. It finally happened that Carmen ran away from home – and from school. Therese tried in vain to find her. Word eventually spread that Carmen had been seen in the company of a drug-dealer called "The Wolf,” and, later, that she was seen at a place famous in Rome as a hub where "ladies of the street” peddled their services. Even there did Therese go in search of Carmen; but without success.
Days before leaving her assignment in Rome for her home in the United States, Therese received a call from another nun – a nurse. Carmen was one of her patients at a local Catholic hospital. In an instant, Therese was there and with her nurse friend who told her that Carmen was going to die. "There’s no place left in her veins to put a needle,” she said. And, indeed, the girl was covered with scars from having shot up heroin. When Carmen opened her eyes and saw Therese standing by her bed, she turned her face to the wall. "You shouldn’t have come,” she said; "I’m evil. How can you bear to look at me?” Therese wrapped her arms around Carmen. "No,” she protested; "Don’t say that. You’re precious to God and beautiful. I’ll always love you.” Shortly thereafter, Terese returned to the United States, grieving the inevitable death of her young friend.
Decades passed and Therese received from out of the blue an email from an address she didn’t recognize. It was from Carmen, who had miraculously recovered, moved to New York City (the Big Apple!), and studied to become a psychiatrist. She was working in the city doing Christian ministry to troubled girls. She’d tracked down Therese's e-mail address; and here’s how she concluded her message to the good nun: "Sister, I have always longed to tell you: it was your love that saved me. Because of you, I could somehow trust God's love. Now I'm trying to pass on the love of God.” And that, my dear friends, is how the Grace of God works – it works one person at a time and spreads exponentiallly. And believe me when I tell you that there IS Christian ministry happening in Vegas and that the Life-transforming Grace of God will NEVER stay in Vegas or in any other one place on this earth!
Because Abraham was faithful to God who’d blessed him and Sarah, a plea went up from Abraham to God that even a handful of God’s people in Sodom be given a chance to save the whole city. That there wasn’t even a single such soul in Sodom is beside the point. The point I’m trying to make is that some of God’s people are in Cavetown; that some of God’s people are in every city, town, and county in America; that some of God’s people are in every nation and on every continent. They may be few in number, in many places, but that doesn’t matter. They – and WE – have work from God to be doing. We’re the ones who hold in our hearts and in our hands the promise given by God to Abraham; that the whole world should be blessed – not cursed, but blessed.
The promise of God’s blessing upon all humanity has, finally, been supremely revealed by a faithful Son of Abraham who – like Abraham – makes a plea to God on behalf of sinful humanity. "Father, forgive them,” said Jesus of Nazareth in his dying breath, "Because they don’t know what they’re doing.” – Which brings to mind a good news/bad news line from Saint Paul: "For everyone has sinned” he says. "We all fall short of the glory of God.” That’s the bad news; yet it’s quickly followed by the Good News. It seems a crazy, upside-down way of doing justice, but for those who listen and trust, it comes as blessing from on High! Here it is, as paraphrased in THE MESSAGE, from Romans 3: 24… "Out of sheer generosity God put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we're in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ.” Let all of God’s people, in Christ Jesus, say AMEN.