Scripture Readings: Genesis 18-19 (selected verses); Luke 10: 1-12
After this the Lord appointed 70 others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to
every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, "The harvest
is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out
laborers into his harvest. Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the
midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road.
Whatever house you enter, first say, 'Peace to this house!' And if anyone is there who
shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you.
Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the
laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house.
Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you;
cure the sick who are there, and say to them, 'The kingdom of God has come near to you.'
But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and
say, 'Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against
you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.' I tell you, on that day it will be
more tolerable for Sodom than for that town."
--Luke 10:1-12
The second scripture reading today is from the Book of Genesis, chapters 18 and 19,
beginning with verse 16, the story known as "The Destruction of Sodom and
Gomorrah." It is a rather explicit and gruesome story. This pair of stories is
referred to in Hebrews, where we are told "not to neglect to show hospitality to
strangers, for by doing that, some have entertained angels unaware" (Hebrews 13:2).
The context of the story is that three men, who according to the story are really God
and two angels, have come to the tents where Abraham, Sarah and their slaves live. In the
tradition of Middle Eastern hospitality, Abraham invites the strangers in and gives them
much needed water, while Sarah prepares a feast for the strangers.
After they have eaten and rested, the men tell Abraham and Sarah that Sarah, who has
wanted to have a child for many years, will finally bear a son. Then they prepare to
leave. This is where our story picks up:
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 has been promised." 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 according to the outcry that has come
to me; and if not, I will know that, too."
So the men turned from there, and went toward Sodom, while the Lord stood before
Abraham. Then Abraham said to the Lord, "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! 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 the 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 Abraham 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 the 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 the 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 the 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.
The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Abraham's nephew, Lot, was sitting
in the gate. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them, and bowed down with his face to the
ground, [as one did when meeting strangers. Following the custom of Middle Eastern
hospitality in a harsh climate,] he said, "Please, my lords, turn aside to your
servant's house and spend the night, and wash your feet; then you can rise early and go on
your way." The men went to Lot's home in the city, where he washed the travel dust
from their feet and gave them a feast.
But before they could go to bed for the night, all the men of the city, every one
of them, young and old, surrounded the house and shouted to Lot to send out his visitors
so they can gang rape them. Lot stepped outside and closed the door behind him. "I
beg you my brothers, do not act so wickedly. Look, I cannot give these men to you, because
I've given them the shelter and protection of my house. But I have two teenage, virgin
daughters, and you can have them instead to rape all night if you wish. You just cannot
injure my guests because I am honor bound to protect them."
But they replied, "Stand back! This fellow came here as a foreigner, and he
would criticize our hospitality! Now we will deal worse with you than we were going to
with them." And they closed in on Lot and were going to break his door down. But the
men inside reached out and brought him into the house, and shut the door. Then they made
the men outside blind and confused so they couldn't even find the door.
The men told Lot they were sent from God to destroy the city because of its
injustice and unrighteousness. "Get all your relatives, and the men who are engaged
to your daughters and leave immediately." So Lot went out and said to his daughters'
fiances, "Up, get out of this place; for the Lord is about to destroy the city."
But they thought he was joking and didn't leave.
When morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, "Get up, take your wife and
your two daughters who are here, or else you will be consumed in the punishment of the
city." But he lingered; so the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by
the hand, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and left him outside
the city. "Run, and don't look back, or you may not escape." Lot and his family
fled the city. Then an earthquake and fire struck the city, and the whole plain. Lot's
wife looked back and turned into a pillar of salt.
Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Lord;
and he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and the Plain and saw the smoke of the land
going up like the smoke of a furnace. So it was that, when God destroyed the cities of the
Plain, God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when God
overthrew the cities in which Lot had settled.
--Genesis 18 & 19
Sodom and Gommorah. These were two large cities on what was then a fertile plain. The
area lies on a geologic rift extending from Turkey to East Africa, with extensive sulfur
and bitumen deposits and oil springs. It is thought that an earthquake, with its
associated fires, ignited these deposits and created an explosion that
"overthrew" the cities. This story is an ancient explanation of why such a
tragedy would happen. Of all the stories in the Book of Genesis, this is the most
frequently referenced in the rest of the Bible. If you like Bible trivia, it is referenced
five times, and maybe six.
Most of us grew up believing that the sin for which Sodom was destroyed, was
homosexuality; hence the word, sodomy. But scripture says otherwise. In the story itself,
God says that the outcry against Sodom is great and their sin is grave, but does not say
what the sin is. Each time the Prophet Isaiah refers to Sodom, he refers to injustice
(Isaiah 1:10, 3:9); Jeremiah refers to a variety of irresponsible acts (23:14) never
mentioning homosexuality either, and Ezekiel says the sin of Sodom is pride, excessive
food, and indifference to the needy.
Jesus puts it in the context of a lack of hospitality towards those who represent God.
It seems that the "sin of Sodom" was a pervasive failure to live the justice and
hospitality of God.
When Lot says to the men, "Do not act so wickedly," what is he calling
wicked? Homosexuality? Gang rape? Or raping strangers who have been given the protection
of his house. A careful reading of the text says the correct answer is "C."
Calling homosexual gang rape wicked says nothing about homosexuality in general, any
more than condemning heterosexual gang rape condemns heterosexual behavior in general. Lot
offers his daughters to be raped all night, not because heterosexual rape is more
acceptable than homosexual rape, but because Lot's daughters were considered his property
and the men were his guests. According to the code of the day, you could do whatever you
wanted with your property (which included your wife and daughters), but you had a
God-given responsibility to welcome and protect the stranger in your house, even if it
meant sacrificing your own life.
Please note that the angels do not allow those innocent young women to be taken
outside, either. Gang rape of any kind is always and forever, a violent and heinous crime
against God and humanity. The sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was great, for any society that
would gang rape strangers of either gender is certainly not caring for the poor, listening
to the cries of the oppressed, honoring the earth, showing proper hospitality to
strangers, or following the other ways of God. No wonder the outcry against them had
finally reached the ears of the Almighty!
The people of Sodom missed the moment of their salvation because they forgot that God
sometimes appears to us in strangers. They refused to welcome the very angels God had sent
them for deliverance. Both in Genesis and Luke we are reminded that those who do not
receive the stranger as a potential emissary from God may turn away the very one who will
bring them salvation and life. This is what was at stake for Sodom and Gomorrah, and for
the people who welcomed or did not welcome the 70 disciples Jesus sent ahead on his
behalf. So we ask, who are the strangers we need to welcome, and how will we respond?
At the end of a week when we celebrated the birth of our nation, I am reminded that we
are a nation of immigrants, of travelers, of strangers who came to this land looking for a
home, whether our lineage takes us back to those who came by sea or strait so long ago to
be called Native Americans, or to Europeans who wanted a new Jerusalem, or to the proud
peoples of Africa brought here against their will, or to the tired, the poor, the huddled
masses yearning to breathe free who came to this land through Ellis Island, and still do
through Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and El Paso.
We are a nation of immigrants, of strangers seeking the hospitality of this land and of
one another. Los Angeles is the largest Iranian city outside Tehran, the largest
Spanish-speaking city outside Mexico City, the largest Portuguese-speaking city outside
Sao Paulo, the largest Jewish city behind Jerusalem and New York. Whatever our skin tone,
we are blessed here with the incredible opportunity to be surrounded every day by people
whose skin and accents remind us of our strangeness to one another: in the faces of people
stopped beside us on the freeway, the person in front of us at the market, the next door
neighbor bending down at the same time as we to get a newspaper from the driveway.
Although it is true that all of us are the same before God and ought to be revered
equally in each other's eyes, it is also true that our histories and cultures make us
strange to one another and bring a diversity that can divide or enrich. Today's choral
anthem ("In That Great Gettin' Up Mornin'") and the final hymn ("Lift Every
Voice and Sing") remind us of the challenge and gift that our histories bring to each
other. We are strangers to one another, and therefore given the opportunity every day to
be kind and give hospitality to someone who may be an emissary from God or for whom we
ourselves may be an angel.
Who are the strangers God sends us? This congregation worships in three languages:
English, Korean and Spanish. At 11:00 (more or less) we will have refreshments on the
patio with people where the only language we have in common is the language of God's love
and God's hospitality. We are called to be one people, to learn from one another, to share
lives and goods and power with one another. Love smiles the same in every language, my
friends. Together we can model for this city what it means to live the hospitality of God.
We can be the yeast that leavens the loaf.
Who are the strangers? They are dying in the desert and in cargo holds as they try
desperately to reach the promise of America. As people called to show the hospitality of
God, can we leave them to fend for themselves against a harsh climate, robbers and thieves
who would do violence to their body and soul? Do we not welcome them, somehow. into our
hearts and home and land? There is some evidence that Sodom was known for treating
visitors harshly in the hope it would discourage people from traveling there and wanting
to settle among them. Surely we do not want to be known as such a people as they. No one
says it is easy to offer the hospitality of God, but surely the God in whose image we were
made gave us more than enough creativity and will power to devise humane responses to
these human needs beyond those we are currently trying.
Who are the strangers God sends us? In the coming year, local churches and our
denomination will struggle openly with the question of whether local churches and
presbyteries should regain the right to discern locally who God is calling to the ordained
ministries of elder, deacon and minister of Word and sacrament, even if that includes gay
and lesbian Presbyterians.
I believe such brothers and sisters are among the strangers God sends to expand our
understanding of the breadth of humanity and to lead us into greater righteousness.
I believe the church will be judged by God for our exclusion or our welcome of gays and
lesbians in our day much as the church as been judged in prior years for its support of
slavery and apartheid, for its discrimination against Latinos, for its silence in the face
of Hitler's death camps and this country's interment of Japanese Americans, and for its
long-held position that women were a substandard species unable to preach the gospel of
Jesus Christ.
I know that many of you agree with me. I know that many of you do not. As my mother
said recently when my sister was disagreeing vociferously with one of my sermons, "I
don't agree with everything my own minister preaches either. If I did, church would be
terribly boring." We are called to struggle together, to discern the will of God,
respectfully, prayerfully, but hanging in there with each other as children of God,
strangers to each other who have something of God's wisdom to share with one another.
It is the preacher's job to call the pitches as she sees them, to preach the Gospel as
she believes God is calling her to do. As it is my calling to preach the gospel, it is
yours to listen carefully, to take seriously my words and deeds, and to respond
prayerfully in dialogue so I can listen carefully to you as well. Let me say it again, it
is our job together - our calling, our vocation - to remain in relationship with each
other, and you with one another, both when we agree and when we disagree, treating each
other with respect, expecting to grow and learn from one another, for that is how we best
discern the word and will of God.
This brings me to a final dimension of who the stranger is that God sends our way, and
what it means to live the hospitality of God. I want to talk for a moment about what it
means to be the church.
As some have said, the church is for hatchin', matchin' and dispatchin'. But it is much
more than that. The church is the body of Christ, where we come together in some way
always as strangers, no matter how well we know each other. We come together as strangers
whose deepest places are known only to God and who wear a variety of faces with each
other.
Church is where we practice being disciples of Christ. It's where we celebrate when we
get it right and are challenged when we get it wrong, and through it all are surrounded by
people who will pick us up, bandage the broken places, carry us until we can walk again.
We often think of church as something we do for ourselves, or something that is done
for us: the choir sings a moving anthem, Dan Kerr plays a piece that makes the organ soar,
the minister preaches a sermon that inspires or comforts or challenges, a teacher gives a
new insight for the week. But church is much more than all of these combined.
Church is about the hospitality of God welcoming each of us, just as we are, and moving
through us to welcome others.
Church is where people who are joyful and people who are suffering, and people who are
a mix of the two, take each other's hand and share the peace and strength of Christ with
each other.
Church is where we model for the world that people who are different from one another
rich and poor, young and old, conservative and liberal, people of color and we who are
melanin challenged - we who are ultimately strangers to one another - are also kin to one
another, brothers and sisters in Christ whose family ties transcend all boundaries.
For these reasons and others, church is something that as much as possible, needs to be
done in person. As much as I enjoy watching this service at home over my morning coffee
sometimes when I'm on vacation, it is not the same as being part of the church in person.
In person we come face-to-face with other believers. A risky endeavor, I must admit,
for someone might ask us how we are and we might tell the truth about where we hurt. A
risky endeavor, I admit, for someone might tell us something about their life that invites
us to be an vessel of God's grace and healing for them. When we're here in person, we
become a part of God's hospitality.
When we are in church, we hear the voices of God's people raised in song all around us
and those voices buoy us up for the week as if someone had slipped a life raft beneath us.
We take another's hand and they invoke the peace of Christ upon us. We look around the
sanctuary and see not a room full of perfect people, but a room full of imperfect people
who need God's love and have dared to admit it by showing our faces here. When we pray,
the silence is deep and sacred, as if every heart is beating as one in thanksgiving or
intercession.
We come to church not just for ourselves, but because together we are the body of
Christ. We come to church because God needs us to be here for one another, and for the new
person who walks through these doors for the first time, shyly seeking, wanting to find
God, wanting to find community, wanting not to be alone on the journey.
God needs us to be here, every Sunday, because God needs to reach out through your
words and your presence, my words and my presence, to the people who enter these doors
seeking the Divine. We are the ones who prepare the feast on God's behalf, who bring the
water to refresh a thirsty traveler on God's behalf, who open our imperfect house and
imperfect heart to other imperfect souls who would find shelter and guidance here for the
journey. Each of us is traveler, stranger, potential angel. And each of us is host on
God's behalf.
Christ commissions us to go as strangers, carrying the word of life. And Christ
commissions us to welcome the stranger, that we might receive the word of salvation.
Christ, who is our eternal host, invites us into the shelter of God's eternal home, where
all of us, both those who are near and those who are far off, become as one.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
