We continue today with our sermon series on disputing with God. The past two sermons in this series have been on the book of Exodus, and in particular with Moses and the people, as they struggled in the wilderness and tried to remain faithful through that time of unknowing and uncertainty. In some ways, we’re kind of moving backward to Genesis 18, but one of the things I wanted to point out that maybe we don’t often think about is that we open the Bible and there’s Genesis at the beginning.

It starts with the creation story, and we think that’s a very natural beginning narratively. But in terms of the way that the Bible was constructed, Exodus, and the Exodus experience of the people being released from slavery in Egypt and God liberating them, is actually kind of the beginning point of the story of the people of God, the Hebrew and Israel. But the book of Genesis then is kind of the prequel.

So it’s kind of like around Christmas time I’ll remind us that, you know, it wasn’t that the story of Jesus’ birth was written down at the time of Jesus’ birth. It was written years and years later, hundreds of years later, really, once people had kind of understood the importance of Jesus’ life and they said, “Gee, I wonder how he was born. We should figure that out and tell that story.” In the same way, also, the people who are liberated from Egypt say, “Well, gee, how did this all come about?”

And so they go back and they tell the stories that we have in Genesis. Most of the stories in Genesis, of course, revolve around a man named Abraham and his wife Sarah. Just preceding the passage that we are about to read, God has come to them, and this is just to help us kind of orient overall into the big picture. This is after Noah and the Ark and the flood, and then the rainbow, and God has promised never to again destroy the earth.

Then God seeks to begin again with this project that God is trying to carry out through humanity and says, Abraham and his wife, that’s where I’m going to start. I’m going to build a nation through them. And even in their old age, then God comes and visits them with two strangers. Abraham and Sarah open up their home to them, welcome them, feed them, and come to find out that they are messengers from God and that they are God’s chosen people to begin again and that through them, even though they are old, they will have many descendants, as many as the stars in the sky.

And then from there, the two visitors go out and we pick up the story from there in Genesis 18. This translation just calls them the men. Other translations might have visitors or even angels.

Genesis 18: 16-33                                                                                                                                 

Then the men set out from there, and they looked toward Sodom, and Abraham went with them to set them on their way. The Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, seeing that Abraham shall become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? No, for I have chosen him, that he may charge his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.” 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.” And the Lord went his way, when he had finished speaking to Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place.

For the Word of God in scripture,
For the Word of God among us,
For the Word of God within us,
Thanks be to God.

***

Genesis 18, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, is perhaps one of the most misunderstood passages of the entire Bible. The two towns or cities become the focus of God’s anger because of their wickedness. Yet the exact nature of the wickedness is never specifically mentioned.

There’s mention of the way they treat outsiders, how they abuse them and mistreat them. There are certainly accounts of assault and violence. And of course, we all know that this passage has been used over the centuries to shame and exclude and other people of same-sex attraction. People who want to oppose homosexuality from a religious viewpoint point to this passage as their source to affirm homosexuality is a sin.

Now, given the sensitive nature of this topic, I don’t want to feel the need to move down this path, but let me just say this: To equate the actions of any two people in love with that of a violent assault of someone on a stranger does not hold water. It just doesn’t.

So let me relate this to more current events. The New York Knickerbockers—I like to say the whole name, the Knickerbockers—won the NBA championship for the first time in 53 years this past week.

And Knicks fans have lined the city streets in celebration. And as there is any time people drink and celebrate in public, fights have broken out. These fights have nothing to do with being a Knicks fan or a basketball fan and everything to do with being drunk and probably way overstimulated.

We would never say that God is angry with all Knicks fans because of these incidents. The only people who would say that are people who are already not Knicks fans. They will see these incidents as backing their bias. But the bias already existed.

Likewise, nobody reading Genesis 18 would come to the conclusion that God disapproves of same-sex relationships except for those who are already biased against gays and lesbians. It is the violence and assault that deserves God’s anger. Period. That is it.

Those who would use this passage to defend their bigotry or worse, their own physical violence or verbal violence against those with whom they disagree are actually guilty of the very thing that put Sodom and Gomorrah in God’s crosshairs in the first place.

When we widen out and read this story in context, we realize that the real issue at the heart of the passage is hospitality to strangers.

Hospitality to strangers, you see, is a biblical mandate. It could not be more clear. The Bible drives home this point time and time again. You take care of the stranger in your midst, the foreigner or the alien in your country. Why? Again, it goes back to that origin point for the Hebrew people because you were once strangers yourself. You were once foreigners in a foreign land, and you know what it’s like to be mistreated.

Right before the passage we read for today, as I explained in the setup, Abraham and Sarah offer hospitality to strangers. Strangers, who it turns out, were messengers or angels sent from God. And because Abraham and Sarah showed kindness to strangers and welcomed the foreigners into their home and fed and cared for them, God chooses them to begin again after the flood.

And in this passage, God makes a covenant with Abraham. God says, I will be your God, and you will be my people. He tells Abraham that through him he will build a great nation as numerous as the stars.

But this is the second covenant that God makes. The first one is after Noah and the flood, where God says, I will never again wipe out all the people because of their sin.

Now, as soon as the covenant is made, who do we expect to break it?

Abraham, right?

And don’t worry, Abraham makes his own mistakes. But biblically speaking, God is the first to be tempted to violate the terms of the covenant. Did you catch it? When God hears about the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah and the way they treat strangers, God decides to wipe them out. Well, that would break both covenants, wouldn’t it?

So God wonders, seemingly out loud, should I just go ahead and do it, but not tell Abraham?

Wow. That’s really interesting, isn’t it?

We think we’re the ones who should be afraid of God’s judgment. But according to Genesis, God seems to be a little bit afraid of Abraham’s judgments, not the other way around.

This is a turning point in Scripture and the basis for our faith and trust in God. To paraphrase the great Swiss theologian Karl Barth, we may choose to live without God. Humanity may prefer a godless existence. But God never chooses to live without us.

Perhaps the central characteristic and identity of the triune God is the refusal to ever be without humanity.

So one way to read this story of Sodom and Gomorrah, a good way I think, is to understand that this is actually a test for God. Prior to Abraham, God was free to do whatever God wanted to do. But now, now God is bound by the covenant that God has made.

God knows that if he lets Abraham in on his plan, Abraham will disapprove. And indeed he does. Abraham says, what if there are 50 righteous who live in these towns? Will you spare them then? God says yes, if there are 50. What about 45? 30, 20, 10.

Just, by the way, footnote, this is where the notion of a minyan comes from. A minyan is that ten people are required for certain prayers in the Jewish tradition. You have to have a minyan. And so, you know, there are some times where there’s a group that might be joining at a synagogue and there’s eight of them and they have to go out and flag down two other Jews to come in and have a minyan so that they can have prayers. That’s where this comes from: If there are ten, I will not destroy the city.

Like Moses, Abraham convinces God to show mercy. But let’s be clear, it’s not the case that God is vengeful and has to be convinced to show mercy. Rather, it is that God is merciful. But sometimes in the midst of anger, God forgets God’s self. It has to be reminded of God’s true nature.

Now it has been said to those who believe, no explanation is necessary, those who do not believe, no explanation will satisfy. I’m not sure if I buy that 100%, but I think it makes a good point. If we are inclined to faith, if we have a sense that we are a part of something bigger, if we believe that there is a benevolent presence that infuses the universe with life and meaning, we don’t need the Bible to convince us.

Rather, the Bible helps us work out what kind of God we believe in. And rather than just telling us what kind of God is, the Bible tells us stories about God that were shared throughout human history of people working out what kind of God is, considering what we know about God and what we know about the world. And if we approach the Bible this way, what we actually find is a treasure chest of the world’s biggest ideas and questions.

I mean, how limited and unhelpful is the interpretation that Genesis 18 is about how two people choose to share their love and affection. How mean-spirited and harmful is that interpretation? And what does it say about God?

Nothing good.

But it was the early Christian theologian and philosopher Augustine of Hippo who wrote, “whoever then thinks that he understands the Holy Scriptures or any part of them, but puts such an interpretation upon them as does not tend to build up this twofold love of God and neighbor, does not yet understand them as he ought.” In other words, if your interpretation of Scripture doesn’t lead you to love God and neighbor more, you have not yet understood Scripture correctly.

If your understanding of Scripture does not lead you to love God and neighbor more, you have not yet understood it correctly. Conversely, as the quote on our bulletin cover today states, “Hate, it appears, is the heresy.”

Friends, what I’m trying to get at here is that faith is not some static statement of beliefs to which we choose to ascribe or not. Not. Faith is a living, evolving relationship with God and one another. Faith, to put it in the language of the book of Genesis, is the living out of the covenant between God and humanity. “Faith,” writes Madeleine Lengel, “is what makes life bearable with all of its tragedies and ambiguities and sudden, startling joys.”

And one of the many ambiguities we encounter in life is the very issue of Sodom and Gomorrah. Not human sexuality, but how justice and mercy relate to one another. Because God has a point here. As much as we don’t want to admit it, I mean in the abstract, it’s easy to agree with Abraham. It’s not right to punish the innocent along with the guilty. That’s not fair. That’s not justice.

But neither is it fair to the innocent to leave the wicked go unpunished or unchecked, right? Bobby Williamson points out “there’s no discussion here about simply stopping the wickedness in one way or another. Or even just eliminating the people perpetuating wickedness while leaving the righteous alone.” That’s never even on the table. The assumption here is that they are all in it together. “But if mercy in this case basically means ignoring the land’s outcry and letting the wickedness stand, what does that say? And what does it mean for the innocent who continue to live there?” And he concludes with this: “In a modern society that so values individual autonomy, how do we think about the ways in which our fates are inextricably tied?”

Now that is a question worth wrestling with, don’t you agree? That will get us a lot further down the road than judging what we think about the way that two people love one another. How do justice and mercy relate? And how are our fates intertwined? With one another.

I don’t have answers to that. But I think that’s what we’re supposed to be wrestling with as people of faith.

It’s an odd notion to me that our image of God that we receive as children would not continue to grow and change with us as we get older and experience more of life in the world. We need an adult image of God to carry with us, to walk with us in this complicated and confusing world. But so many of us were never given permission, or whatever, to allow our notion of God to evolve, to wrestle with it in meaningful ways. And so we look like people who are trying to engage this complicated world with this very rudimentary image of God.

So if you’ve never received permission to wrestle with the image of God that you carry with you, please, please consider this sermon series your sign. Permission is granted. God welcomes your questions, your doubts, and your challenges because God has decided not to be God without you. So take it on good authority. Not mine, two guys named Moses and Abraham.

Amen.

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