Genesis 18:20-32
Then the Lord said, “How great is the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah and how very grave their sin! I must go down and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me, and if not, I will know.”
So the men turned from there and went toward Sodom, while Abraham remained standing before the Lord. Then Abraham came near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will you then sweep away the place and not forgive it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” And the Lord said, “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will forgive the whole place for their sake.” Abraham answered, “Let me take it upon myself to speak to my lord, I who am but dust and ashes. Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?” And he said, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.” Again he spoke to him, “Suppose forty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of forty I will not do it.” Then he said, “Oh, do not let my lord be angry if I speak. Suppose thirty are found there.” He answered, “I will not do it, if I find thirty there.” He said, “Let me take it upon myself to speak to my lord. Suppose twenty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it.” Then he said, “Oh, do not let my lord be angry if I speak just once more. Suppose ten are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.”
What did Sodom and Gomorrah do to make God so angry? It was never homosexuality. To make it be about homosexuality you have to do some very dishonest, openly prejudiced, and intentionally manipulative Biblical interpretation to get there. The sin of Sodom was NEVER about homosexuality. The sin of Sodom was ALWAYS about being pathologically inhospitable. They were unwelcoming and uncaring. They didn’t care for the least, the lost, or the last… and they provided the OPPOSITE of a generous welcome to the foreigner and stranger.
THAT was why God was on that road overlooking the city with Abraham. God had heard the people of Sodom were cruel for cruelty’s sake. I suspect the people of Sodom believed their cruelty… their being inhospitable… their meanness… I suspect they believed those things made them powerful, made them important, made them GREAT. If you want to point to the story of the men of Sodom wanting to gang rape Lot’s heavenly visitors as the reason God was ready to destroy Sodom, the only honest way to do that is as yet one more piece of evidence that the people of Sodom were being horribly, violently, inhospitable… which again… was and is the true sin of Sodom.
So, as God and Abraham stood on the road, overlooking the city of Sodom, Abraham didn’t question God about the sinfulness of Sodom’s being embarrassingly inhospitable and rampantly cruel. On that point, the two seem to be in total agreement from the get go. What Abraham asks of God… what Abraham prays for God to do… is to act, even in this horrific situation, faithfully out of God’s true nature. “You’re still going to be the God you really are, right?” Abraham asks. “Even as you address the horrors happening in this city, you are still going to be the God of steadfast love and faithfulness… right?”
Abraham was hoping and praying, that the God he had come to know would not slay the righteous with the wicked. Would not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Abraham was praying that God would, for the sake of fifty, then forty five, right on down to ten… Abraham was praying that for the sake of ten people… for the sake of a minyan… for the sake of the smallest possible faith community that could possibly exist in the city… if a minyan existed, Abraham was praying that God would not destroy it.
Abraham had come to know God’s character as something best described by the Hebrew word “Hesed.” In the Psalm we had today Hesed was translated, as it often is, as Steadfast Love. Today's Psalm is a prayer of thanksgiving, where the Psalmist is thanking God for doing exactly the same thing Abraham is asking for… the Psalmist is thanking God for acting faithfully out of God’s true character… with Hesed.
Hesed is the way Abraham asks God to deal with Sodom because steadfast love, righteousness, kindness and compassion are what Abraham had come to know as God’s genuine character. Hesed is who God is and Abraham asks God to be true to the Divine self. As the rest of the Biblical narrative unfolds we continue to be shown God’s true character to be one of Steadfast Love and then we are continually called, as God’s people, to emulate God’s character in the world. God calls God’s people to reflect the Divine character of Hesed and does so for two reasons. First, because God knows Steadfast Love is the way for the world to be whole, at peace, full of health and wellbeing, a place of purpose, kindness and hope just as God intended it to be in the beginning… and second, God knows that by living lives of steadfast love, loving kindness, compassion, and mercy we become living witnesses to those around us of God’s true nature.
We live in a time and in a place that is embarrassingly inhospitable and rampantly cruel. We live in a country where compassion is seen as weakness, where empathy is called a sin, where people are snatched off the streets by masked secret police, persecuted, reviled, and hated. Some say those things show the world we are Great! I say… God says… those things show the world we are living in Sodom. The question for us today then is, “How do we do it? How do we live in Sodom?”
The first answer to that question is “in community”. It wasn’t ten random, disconnected, individuals Abraham bargained for. It was a minyan, an intentional, purposeful, regular gathering of the faithful. The first rule of how to live in Sodom is that we can only survive here if we are part of a community. The cruelty will simply consume us if we try to go it alone. Community is essential.
The second rule for living in Sodom is to live each day as an active, intentional witness to the true nature of God. We must keep living differently. We must take on God’s true character of Steadfast Love every day and then share it with the world around us all day long. Living a life of Hesed is the way to live surrounded by cruelty but not be consumed by it.
May we continue to gather in community, partner with other communities gathered by Hesed, care for one another, and welcome others, now more than ever. May we together, continue to reflect God’s light of Steadfast Love into the darkness of this world through those, small yet powerful corners of kindness, and may we pray, as Abraham did, that because we know the God of Steadfast Love, we… and our world… will be changed for good… and soon! Amen
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