youth, of the movie Sodom and Gomorrah. I say first viewing, when actually there was only one viewing- once was plenty for a movie that the Hollywood

Transcription

1 Genesis 19:1-16 Saving One There are, I think, only three things I remember clearly from my first viewing, as a youth, of the movie Sodom and Gomorrah. I say first viewing, when actually there was only one viewing- once was plenty for a movie that the Hollywood reviewer Halliwell calls dreary, a muddle, and tedious in the extreme outside of a few hilariously misguided moments. But it was colorful and widescreen, and I was 11 or 12. Two of the three things I remember are connected: I recall watching the exotic dancers at the court of the evil king and thinking how wrong the sensuality of it all was, so much that I turned to my friend and whispered that even people who had never heard of the Bible would know that kind of stuff wasn t in there. I guess I should have read the story a little more closely at the beginning and read all the way to the end. If we read carefully, scripture will always surprise us; it never flinches from the most troubling situations. So even though this account describes with straightforward candor the great social taboo, incest, and seems to point to the desire of the men of the city to have sexual relations with these new men in town who have come under the protection of Lot, those points are almost incidental to the main focus of the story.

2 What so many interpreters have gathered from this old story is that God hates and will punish homosexuals, though the text doesn t really support this idea: here is not a sexual sin but rather a crime of violence, the attempted gang rape of God s messengers. It is a dramatic scene, and such a dramatic contrast to the hospitality of Lot, who at first invites the men and then urges them strongly to come to his home; prepares a feast for them and bakes bread- an interesting detail, because bread would have been a lot of extra effort, it was made in the morning, and now in the evening the fires were out and the ovens were cold. The reason for Sodom and Gomorrah s destruction was the malevolence force of wicked, selfish hearts, and we begin to get the idea when we see the attitude of the citizens toward the visitors. They hate and want to cause pain and take something from Lot s guests, to take their dignity, to control them. And maybe we can understand by looking at the words of one of the angels, when he says to Lot, the outcry against the city has risen to the Lord. So, what is this outcry against the city? It is probably foolish to try to develop a sound theology based upon epic films made from the biblical stories. But in this case, even from a dreary and tedious movie, one scene is helpful, though I never realized it in all these years, until the past few days trying to

3 remember the movie as I prepared the sermon. It is the third thing I remember about that day at the Esquire theater in Cleburne. There is a scene of the torture of an enemy of Sodom as he is bound and turned on a spit, slowly roasted over an open fire. Such cruelty, this kind of enhanced interrogation, should lead us to a more realistic understanding of this outcry that reached God s ears. This word and this kind of language in scripture should make us recall the cries of the children of Israel lifted up to God when they were slaves in Egypt; and the words of the prophets condemning the religious leaders and the rich and the comfortable as they victimized the poor and the oppressed; should make us remember the hurts and the tears so movingly written about in the Psalms as God s people call out for a divine answer to injustice and cruelty. The Bible is full of disturbing images and often perplexing theology. God runs Adam and Eve out of the Garden for eating a piece of fruit; God seems arbitrarily to choose Abel over Cain; God decides to end the human race with a great flood; and here, God destroys cities and an entire region and all the people. It is hard for us to reconcile this kind of rage and violence with the compassion we believe in and hope for from the merciful God we worship. Yes, these are harsh and challenging stories for us to deal with. But we must read to the end, we cannot

4 separate the conclusion of the story from the spectacular part that the movies want to show, or that certain kinds of religion want to emphasize. We should ask, what does faith recognize and confess in all these stories? Not only that God punishes evil, but also that God is merciful: God provides for Adam and Eve even after they rebel against God s rule; God protects Cain even after the jealous murder of his brother; God delivers one family out of the deluge that overwhelmed the earth, and makes a vow always to keep the world safe from such destruction; and here, God saves one man- seemingly the only good person in the city. As we read about these terrible events, as we face the terrible struggles and inequities of life, the word of scripture comes to us as the promise of God to be merciful to those who trust him, a promise to all of us, that whatever troubles may come, God will never leave us to face them alone. And so, we must consider the most important verse in this story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, verse 29, that God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow. And we realize that, more than an exciting adventure with villains and a hero, with sex and blood and special effects, and more than a tale of God s vengeance against wickedness, it is a story of salvation. We are old enough to know that fear and hurt and death and loss all

5 come to us, and ruthless people take advantage of others, but in the middle of all that happens, God delivers, saving us all one at a time. God remembered Abraham refers back to Genesis 18 where the Lord tells Abraham what he was about to do to Sodom and Gomorrah, and Abraham asks wouldn t God spare the city if there could be found 50 righteous people. And God agrees to do so. But Abraham knows human nature, and so he begins to revise the count: Lord, what about 40 good people? God would spare everyone for the sake of 40. Would you save them for 20? For 10? Yes, God would save Sodom and Gomorrah if just 10 good persons could be found. But chapter 18 ends there, and in chapter 19, we see the wicked heart of the people, and know the city cannot be saved. But there is one, after all, and so, God did not just stand far off and rain destruction out of heaven upon the cities, but sent angels to bring out this one man, and his daughters, to save him, saving just one, from death. It reminds me of the story of the boy on the beach one morning after a storm, bending over and throwing something into the ocean. A man watched the boy and walked closer and saw that he was picking up and tossing sand dollars back into the sea. And so he asked, why he was doing that, and the boy said, I m saving sand dollars. The man replied, What, one at a time! What good is that! Look at

6 them, thousands of them, you can t save them all. What difference will it make? And the boy picked up another, and threw it into the water, and looked at the man and said, It makes a big difference to that one. Perhaps as we come to the Lord s Table, we can see ourselves as sand dollars on the beach- or as human beings in this world- saved one at a time, saved by a patient, loving God, and we have come together to give him thanks. As I worked on this sermon, trying to understand the mindset of people who read these stories and somehow find self-justification in them, I kept thinking about the twin towers of the World Trade Center. I thought about the terrorists who believed they were executing God s vengeance, and about those Christian leaders who the next day claimed it was God s wrath upon this wicked nation. I thought about Hurricane Katrina and the destruction of so much, and the suffering of New Orleans, and of those who said it was God s punishment upon an evil city. And I wondered if the greatest evil is rather the arrogance of those who think they have God figured out, which somehow permits them to hate rather than to love, who think they are saved from the horrors of life by their own goodness instead of God s mercy.

7 I thought about the recent flooding along the Mississippi, the tornadoes that have ravaged the South and the Midwest. And those we know around us, who hurt and feel alone. And I wondered, what is our response to their pain? Are they just getting what they deserve? Maybe Abraham should be our example, the righteous man who thought of others, the man who had heard and spoke to God, yet that privilege did not lead him to condemn or to delight in God s anger. But he prayed to God to spare even the wicked. And so, it should be with us, as well; it may be that our faithfulness, our prayers and kindnesses, will save another person. Let us never grow hard hearts full of self-righteousness, but hearts that seek to give God s love to others.