Pastor Scott Jonas
5/26/18
Abraham and Sodom
Genesis 18-19
Last week,
God gave Abraham visions in order to help him hold on to the promise. God promises to make Abraham the Father of a
great nation. Abraham sees animals cut
in half and fire walks between the animals.
This is a solemn covenant from the creator that he will keep his end of
the contract. God will make Abraham and
sarah, who are now barren, the creators of a family as big as the stars in the
sky. Then God tells Abraham to seal the
deal through circumcision. Every male,
from Abraham’s clan is to mark themselves as belonging to the Lord. Today, we mark ourselves through
baptism. We are children of the promise.
Today’s
story continues in Genesis 18 and 19. It
begins in an ordinary way. Abraham is in
his tent in the heat of the day. Three
visitors appear in the entrance. Abraham
followed the nomadic custom of hospitality.
If any stranger, graced your door then you were morally obligated to
provide them with food, water and rest.
Traveling was so dangerous that it needed to be rewarded with
kindness. You literally treated
foreigners like kin, kindness.
So upon
seeing three unknown travelers, Abraham jumps up and greets them. He bows and humbly offers drink, water to
wash their feet, bread and a place to sit.
Abraham runs to Sara and tells her to quickly make cakes. He runs and orders a calf to be killed and
prepared. Like any weary sojourners they
accepted and ate. Nothing
sensational. Just another day.
But then,
one of the visitors inquires about his wife Sara. That’s weird he didn’t mention his wife’s
name. Then the leader of the three says,
“I will return to you in a year and sara your wife will have a son. Getting weirder. Sara is listening behind the tent. Sarah hears the proclamation that she is
going to have a baby and blurts out a laugh.
The leader yells at Sara so she can hear, “Why did Sarah laugh? Is
anything too hard for the Lord?” Sarah
says hidden from view, “I did not laugh.”
Then the
three visitors start walking away from the camp and towards the great city of
Sodom. The leader said, “Because the
outcry against Sodom is great and their sin is very grave I will go down to see
whether they have done altogether according to their outcry.” Abraham gathers up his courage. He now knows these are not three men. He gets near the leader and says something
amazing, “will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked?”
When you
read Genesis there are shocking revelations.
But you have to understand how people lived and thought about gods at
the time. Abraham may be an ancient one
from our point of view but his God is revolutionary compared to the gods of his
day. The ancient gods would best be
described as barbaric, uncaring, demanding and chaotic. The gods of Egypt, mesopatamia and the
surrounding regions were celestial monsters.
These aren’t event he greek gods yet.
The greek and roman gods are downright civilized compared to baal and
asheroth. Life was barbaric, uncaring,
demanding and chaotic so the people created gods in that image. People died daily at the hands of invaders,
disease, crime and even a cold. Death
was everywhere. So the religions
reflected these monstrous conditions.
Abraham’s
God visits him at his home. He doesn’t
live in the sun or the moon or the trees.
He walks into your tent and has a conversation with you. No foreign God does that. The Lord chooses Abraham for blessing. There is no curse. In fact the curse is threatened to the Lord
himself if he fails to bless. Many gods
provide fertility but they don’t care about individuals. They certainly don’t care about
righteousness. The gods are not about
right or wrong. They are about raw
power. Obey me and maybe you live. Abraham’s God is revolutionary. He is personal, loving, generous and
purposeful.
Abraham
himself is pretty revolutionary himself.
It was a custom to care about the traveler because you would one day
need that kind of help. But he goes way
beyond that when he asks the question, “will you sweep away the righteous with
the wicked?”
Abraham is
feeling beyond his family, beyond his kinship, beyond his clan, beyond his
alliances. Abraham is caring about the
fate of people he doesn’t know. His
nephew lives in the region of Sodom but Abraham does not plead for Lot and his
family. He bargains with the Lord to
save the whole region. Abraham is
concerned that righteous people will die because they are surrounded by the
wicked. Abraham approaches God and
pleads for the lives of strangers.
Have you
done that? Do you care what happens to
those who aren’t your family? Who aren’t
your clan? We all have clans. Your clan might be Glendale Lutheran or the
LCMS or Kirkwood or Mizzou or conservatives or your place of work or fans of
your favorite work of art. We all have
clans. But do you care about the fate of
strangers? People who aren’t like you
and can’t help you. Do you want to save
them? Do you go to the Lord and plead
for them. When you see someone on the
news who is the opposite of you do you condemn them or do you ask God to save
them.
Abraham for
all of his faults, cares more about righteousness than clan identity. He talks like we should pray with fervor and
tenacity. Even though the Lord is making
him the father of a great nation, he asks for more. If you find ten righteous among the citizens
of Sodom then please don’t destroy them.
The Lord agrees with Abraham’s logic and earnestness. The foreign gods would never have done
that. Baal and the others don’t care
about separating good from bad. They
kill them all. But the Lord of Abraham does
care.
The Lord
saves Lots family, even though they are bent on destroying themselves. Messengers tell Lot and his family to get out
of Sodom. They refuse. When they do get out, the wickedness of Sodom
is still with them. Lot’s wife returns
to that wickedness and pays the price.
His daughters return to that wickedness as well.
To show us
how vile Sodom is, Genesis contrasts the hospitality of Abraham with that predator
practices of Sodom. Strangers are not
welcomed and cared for. They are preyed
upon as victims of sexual assault. The
vulnerable are not given food and shelter.
Instead they are used for the perverse appetites of the mob. The city is out of control. It has become a culture of rape, incest, and
murder. It is like a city of Cains. God will not put up with that kind of horror.
This week I
listened to an interview with an archeologist who discovered the city of
Sodom. For a century, the industry
believed that it was at the southern end of the dead sea.