Daily Devotion for Lent 2018 - Day 15, Friday

Scripture Reading: Genesis 19 (NRSV)

There is a lot that is disturbing about this chapter.  The angels of God are in danger of being gang raped by the men of Sodom - that is, if they couldn't protect themselves supernaturally.  This alone would be bothersome enough but then Lot offers to appease them with his own daughters.

Does this mean that culturally, women were thought of so little?  

Or does it mean that Lot knew these were angels and was afraid of God's wrath if harm were to come to them?

Abraham was trying to find ten good people in Sodom.  He failed to find even this many.

Lot's wife as displayed in Lego

rather than salt!

And so Sodom is destroyed.  We can see that every man in the city turned up at Lot's door.  This seems like an exaggeration as you couldn't get that many people in that small an area.  But even if we take it at face value, I wonder about the innocent that were destroyed along with the wicked.  There would have been plenty of infants living in Sodom.

Much has been made of the sin of Sodom.  We often equate it with homosexuality with references such as "sodomy" coming from this story.  However, the prophets have looked at it somewhat differently.

Ezekiel in particular names the sin in 16:49-50: 

This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty, and did abominable things before me; therefore I removed them when I saw it.

Some people would look at the "abominable things" at the end and include homosexuality as one of the unmentionables.  However, even if this is the case, the list begins with some of the sins with which all of us engage: pride, prosperity with no eye to those who have less.  Well, that's troubling because it is much easier to throw stones at someone who does things that I don't!  If were to see the "abominable things" as gang rape, we understand that this is unacceptable for everyone whether you are straight or gay.  It is more about violence and control than sexuality.

As we see how this chapter follows chapter eighteen, we can see the theme of hospitality runs throughout.  The hospitality of Abraham in chapter eighteen is juxtapositioned with the inhospitality of Sodom in chapter nineteen.  The angels wanted to stay in the town square.  A civilized town would be safe for foreigners in this space.

Like Abraham, Lot feasts his angelic visitors but behind locked doors.

Jesus seems to agree with the interpretation of hospitality.  When he sends out his disciples, he bids them to go nowhere among the Gentiles or the Samaritans but only to good Jewish towns.  Why?  Because these have the example of Abraham.  And if they don't respond as they should?  

it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.

The real difficulty of this interpretation is that we all fall under its gaze.  We could all stand to be more hospitable to our neighbors.  My hope is that we're not all struck blind by our insistence to do what we want and think about those in need only at our leisure.


Ever-Loving God,
who having loved us loves us still,
help us to hear again your word,
“By this shall they know you are my disciples;
that you love one another.”
Turn our hostility into hospitality
and our callousness into care.
Through Christ, we pray.
Amen.


Prayer by Reuben P. Job and Norman Shawchuck, A Guide to Prayer for All God's People.

Photo by Andy Ihnatko via Flickr.com.  Used under the Creative Commons license.