details from that fateful night when Lot took the two heavenly visitors into his

Transcription

1 Genesis 19:17-25 Small Town You will have noticed that the scripture lesson doesn t include many of the familiar details from that fateful night when Lot took the two heavenly visitors into his home; and that s just because it is such a familiar story. What we see here is the deliverance of these few people: Lot and his family- sorry to say, though, his wife didn t make it. (We know that part of the story.) So, three people saved, and saved perhaps because Lot at the beginning offers hospitality to the two men, just as Abraham had done in chapter 18. But the city folk do not- not at all! You know how that part goes: the mob crowds around Lot s front door, saying, Bring them out, so that we may know them. To know is a verb that also signifies sexual knowledge, so that the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah has often been thought to be homosexuality. But the context, the whole story, tells us it s more than that. Maybe we should see in this story, instead of the kind of sex, an indication of the kind of people living here- they get their sex by violence- the wickedness they display in chapter 19 is mob rape. Thus we understand that their wickedness is cruelty and pain and degradation; and more than carnal lust is their desire to possess and control others. Is this then one explanation for their wickedness, in their addiction to the thrill of violence, a hatred of strangers, and a puerile need to

2 demonstrate their power over others? And the scripture provides perhaps one more reason: simply that they live in the city. Lot insists, in verse 20, why can t I go to that little town- look, it s a little one! If I say small town what do you think of? The home town where you grew up? Our own community- that for a long time grew slowly and changed very little? Many of you can recall the original occupants and businesses in these buildings that surround us. Our own church is part of that heritage. The idea of the small town gives us a sense of belonging, of continuity, of intimacy and comfortableness. Maybe small town causes you to think of Mayberry, where everybody knew everybody else, and they liked one another- or at least, had learned the etiquette of getting along; they were small enough to walk to church; and where the sheriff-without-a-gun asked questions first and might not shoot at all. In Mayberry, the wicked city was Raleigh: not really evil, but just too big. And there, Mayberry fits into a part of our American consciousness: of ancestors leaving crowded and dirty and wicked cities in Europe for freedom in the New World, freedom of religion, economic freedom; and then western expansion into open spaces beyond the so-quickly-corrupted cities of the New Republic. It is the same myth Israel created for itself as it conquered the Promised Land: as we read

3 about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, think of the biblical writers describing the walls of Jericho tumbling down, and the overthrow of Canaanite civilization. Scripture claims God s judgment upon all wicked cities as symbols of idolatry and suffering. So if Sodom and Gomorrah are being destroyed, the little town must be the safe place. There may be crime in Zoar, as well, law suits, disagreements, but probably not wickedness - wouldn t that be found only in cities divided into neighborhoods that are distrustful of one another; where city leaders and judges take bribes; where organized crime and drug lords and crooked bankers operate adult entertainment venues and ghetto housing? Nothing like that in small towns, right? In the musical Oklahoma, when Curley, the cowboy, comes home after several days riding in the rodeo in Kansas City, after seeing new and alarming things in the big city, he sings, they ve gone about as far as they could go. (Indeed, Kansas City is famous for its Wild West atmosphere- saloons and brothels, gambling- a corruptible atmosphere that existed well into the twentieth century.) I can t count the times my cousin said to me, when I would come home for a visit from Dallas, when are you ever going to leave that place and move

4 back here? The city, in our consciousness- or in our subconscious, is a bad and destructive place. But is it really? I never made it back to Cleburne, but I moved here. And yes, there are about four million fewer people- that s a good thing- but even in small towns, cops and city officials still play favorites; and if anyone is looking for trouble or illicit pleasure, he can find it. So what would make Dallas or Raleigh or Kansas City wicked, and Belton or Mayberry, not? Why do we say the city is wicked? It might just be a sentimental longing for the proverbial simpler timewhich is really a lie we tell ourselves: it wasn t simpler or better or more comfortable for some people; or it may be a prejudice against something or somebody- xenophobia- and anger at groups of strange people that seem to reside in the big places. Haven t the big cities of our country become symbols of coldheartedness and greed and change? Have you noticed the glee some commentators express over the trouble in Detroit- it justifies their preconceptions about race and labor and government and entitlements, and the failings of public education. But these are the problems of every city, large and small, and they do not make a city or a people wicked. The wicked are those who exploit these problems for their own gain. It s business leaders and government leaders and investors, who set up

5 phony shell corporations to hide profits, and rob the retirement accounts of their workers. It happened in Detroit, and in so many other states and cities; it happened out of the governor s mansion in Austin. And it is wicked. The rich get richer on the backs of the people. Certainly, everybody does wrong, we all make mistakes, we sin, but wickedness is the province of the powerful- it is their common practice in holding onto power. And the problems of cities are more complex than the easy answers of austerity, cutting wages and blaming the work force. The solution is rather to root out wickedness- this excessive sense of privilege the powerful possess. And so may we yet save our cities from destruction. There isn t much we know about Sodom and Gomorrah. No one has ever found the ruins of those cities. Some writers think their disappearance was the natural phenomenon of a meteor exploding over their heads that rained down burning rock; or a volcano that shot brimstone- sulfur- into the air, which fell back down onto all who lived there; or an earthquake that swallowed up the cities. Some say that 4,000 years ago, Sodom and Gomorrah sat in a valley of farms and pasture land and industry and trade; until perhaps this event, and the landscape shifted, and the Dead Sea overran its banks and flowed into that shallow southern valley, covering all signs of habitation.

6 But three people survived. And in the midst of that divine punishment, and its horror and the death and suffering of all things that lived there, verse 29 gives us this hopeful word: that God remembered Abraham ; remembered and acted on this promise of mercy he had spoken in chapter 18. And though none righteous were found in the cities, God sent Lot out, saved him from the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah. In the midst of wickedness, in big and small places, amid the devastation of joblessness and injustice and bankruptcy and fear and hurt, let us trust in God who works to overthrow wickedness; let us be on God s side, who works to save the innocent; let us be righteous- and not wicked- as we show compassion for one another. When we read this story, we likely recognize first God s condemnation of wickedness. And it s easy to think they deserved what they got. But a better response to suffering, better than anger or smugness, is sorrow. So many people died in that place, and so many die around us every day: our humanity cannot permit us to think they all deserve a sentence of death. Think of Abraham, praying God to save the city; think of Jesus crying out on the cross, Father, forgive them ; or weeping over Jerusalem and the destruction he saw coming soon upon it.

7 And think of this passage in Hosea (chapter 11), where God speaks of the punishment he will mete out to Israel for its worship of idols. And yet, God will not. Let us possess this same spirit of compassion as the Lord who said, How can I do this, how can I give you up! How can I make you like (Admah and Zeboiim, neighbors to Sodom and Gomorrah) these destroyed cities! My heart recoils within me (that word recoils is the same word overthrows in verses 21 and 25 in our passage); my heart overthrows this divine desire to punish, and my compassion grows warm and tender, and I will not again destroy. For I am God and not a human, the holy one who is among you. That s all we ask- God with us- so that we may grow hearts that recoil at wickedness; and so that we may find the strength to overthrow wickedness, and learn the kindness that helps and loves and builds up.