Proper 12 Year C 2025: Genesis 18:20-32

There’s a popular icebreaker game that I would bet most of us have played, even if you, like me, haven’t played it since childhood: telephone. We probably don’t play it as adults because HR might have problems with us getting so close to one another’s ears. But if you haven’t played telephone, the first person whispers a message into the next person’s ear, who whispers it to their neighbor, on down the line until the last person announces what message they received. The final message is usually vastly different from the original, leading to laughter throughout the group.

Today’s text from Genesis mostly contains a transition. Last week we heard through verse 10. What is missing between that text and this week is that after the men tell Abraham that Sarah is to have a son, the author reminds the readers that Abraham and Sarah are old, beyond childbearing years, (complete with my favorite Biblical euphemism - “it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women” - simply meaning she’s postmenopausal) and so Sarah laughs at the prospect. Sarah denies laughing, the Lord said, “yes you did”, and then the Lord demurs about whether to tell Abraham what he’s intending to do by going to Sodom, he decides to tell Abraham after all, and then today’s text begins with the Lord telling Abraham he’s going to check in and see if what he’s heard is happening in Sodom is indeed true.

We’ve also just had several examples of what good hospitality looks like. Two weeks ago our gospel lesson was the Good Samaritan. Last week we had two examples: the gospel lesson of Martha and Mary and the Genesis reading of Abraham welcoming the three men, serving them cakes made of choice flour and preparing a calf with curds - a very generous gesture for strangers. Then today’s text prepares us for what happens in Genesis 19…but we never get there. After all of that leadup, our Sunday lectionary stops after today’s story. 

The next part of Genesis to appear on any Sunday picks back up at chapter 21. And it does so for good reason. Typically, if there’s a segment of text that is left out, I like to read it aloud for context or to fill in the blanks. But I will not be doing so with chapter 19. In the Bible I use most often, the story is titled “The Depravity of Sodom”, which is spot on. I encourage you to read it in its entirety.

People largely have a warped view of what happened at Sodom. The modern understanding - or, rather, misunderstanding - of what the sins of Sodom were didn’t happen overnight. It is a result of a centuries long game of telephone, mixed in with homophobia, mixed in with the human propensity for excitement about anything sexual, finished off with a dash of discomfort surrounding the topic of sexual violence.

The story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah contains three sections: first, the angels’ investigation of the wickedness of Sodom and the righteousness of Abraham’s nephew Lot; second, the escape of Lot’s family followed by the destruction of the cities; and third, the birth of Lot’s sons. In each part, Lot’s righteousness with respect to the men of Sodom is tempered by his moral weakness with respect to Abraham. This situation justifies Lot’s deliverance from destruction while he receives lesser genealogical positioning as the ancestor of Moab..

Two of the visitors written about today came upon Lot in Sodom. Lot welcomes the visitors with hospitality, albeit not at the honored level of fine cuisine as did Abraham. Upon hearing of the visitors, the men of Sodom surround Lot’s house, and attempt to seize the visitors and sexually assault them. Their wickedness is sexual violence as the ultimate inverse of hospitality and protection. The men of Sodom then threaten to assault Lot, who tries to deescalate the situation by offering his own daughters as victims in place of the visitors. The visitors pull Lot back into his house and extend their protection to Lot in return for his attempt to protect them when Sodom and Gomorrah will be destroyed.

The story of Lot and his daughters, like the story of Noah and his sons earlier in Genesis, is an ethnographic story that casts aspersions on Israel’s cultural rivals while at the same time acknowledging a kinship between them. The offspring of Lot and his daughters come to be known as Moabites, known rivals and enemies of Israel. Now, there is a notable Moabite without whom we would not be worshiping here in this way today: Ruth, the great-grandmother of King David. Ruth, who is named in the Gospel of Matthew as an ancestor of Jesus.

But Israelites were not permitted to intermarry with Moabites. In Deuteronomy 23, Moabites are explicitly excluded from admittance to the assembly of the Lord. So we reach this place where these people with whom we aren’t even supposed to associate are still a part of who we are. That we share not just history but blood. Throughout the Bible, then, we are conflicted. We are confronted with occupying space with desirables and undesirables, where we are connected with various peoples whether we like it or not. And as that tension occurs and unfolds, we start to see people personally, as opposed to part of an undesirable group of “them” or “those people”, and it becomes harder to condemn them. It’s harder to assume the worst of them. And it’s easier to see ourselves in them and we become part of “we.”

There is a risk of being too eager to explain away the story of Lot. To make it simple hyperbole to make a point about the importance of hospitality and hospitality to strangers. Or to misinterpret it into a shameful and simplistic false equivalency weapon to use against consensual relationships between men. To do so dismisses the naming of sexual violence that occurs in every part of this story. It makes it a story about “them” and how horrible “they” are without acknowledging the “us”, our connection to all of humanity.

We are never too far separated from whatever we don’t want to be that we can be self satisfied. That we can hold ourselves up as examples. Every person who is undesirable to us is beloved by someone else. And regardless of how desirable or undesirable we are, regardless of our sins, we are all beloved children of God. It can be hard to wrap our heads around - that God loves the men in this story of Sodom as much as God loves you and me. But when I say God’s love is unconditional, it needs to truly be unconditional. And for that I need to accept that God’s grace is for all people. A grace that is a freely given gift. Amen.