Gn 18:16-33
22 June 2008
“Evil”
When I was a little kid, my mother would sometimes reflect on the state of affairs here in America. One commonly-expressed opinion was that our country is becoming like Sodom and Gomorrah. However, my youthful mind was unable to distinguish the individual words she was saying. The “Sodom and Gomorrah” which left her lips entered my ears and brain as the single word “Sodamincamora.” I wasn’t sure where Sodamincamora was located, but I figured that it must be a really bad place!
When I was a little older, I found out that these two cities were so bad that they earned a spot on the Lord’s hit list. Sodom and Gomorrah have become almost synonymous with wicked; their names are almost identical with evil. But just as I once had trouble figuring out the names of the places, sometimes we have trouble figuring out what was going on there. I’ll say a little more about that in a few moments.
First, let’s put our story into context. The men in verse 16, who we’re told “set out from there,” are introduced at the beginning of the chapter. They’re the three who visit Abraham “in the heat of the day” (v. 1). We find out in the next chapter that they’re actually angels in human form.
Abraham, following the custom of hospitality, hurriedly has a meal prepared for them. They give him the message that Sarah and he will have a son. Hearing them speak, Sarah laughs to herself. It’s probably the laughter of joy, since men and women who had produced no offspring were thought to be deficient. But considering their ages, she may be laughing just to keep from crying!
As our scripture reading begins in verse 16, we see that delivering the message to Abraham is only the first part of their task. They also have the unpleasant business of carrying out the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. As often happens in the Old Testament, an angel is referred to as “the Lord.” That’s especially the case with the one who talks with Abraham, and as we see in chapter 19, the other two continue the journey to Sodom.
What we have in verses 17 to 19, in the language of the theater, is a soliloquy. The Lord is speaking to himself. Actually, it’s better described as an internal debate. “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?’” God is struggling with the question: should I keep him in the dark, or no?
This divine deliberation ends with the decision to clue Abraham in. “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” (v. 19).
So, the choice has been made. Abraham is made privy to the Lord’s plan. But then there’s this curious statement. “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” (v. 21). God is portrayed as needing to physically journey into town and check things out for himself.
This is called anthropomorphism. That’s a big word that means giving human qualities to something. Writers throughout the Bible do this to God. It starts at the very beginning, when God is seen as walking in the garden of Eden.
But more important than that is what it means. This idea of God needing to, so to speak, “see for himself,” indicates something. It indicates that the judgment of destruction can be reversed. It doesn’t have to happen! Those who joined us in Sunday school when we studied the book of Jonah will recall how the obliteration of Nineveh didn’t come to pass. (No matter how desperately that stubborn prophet wanted it to!)
What is the “x” factor that can save the city? Abraham puts his finger on it. He asks, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?” (v. 23). “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” (v. 25). It is inconceivable to him that the innocent should be declared guilty.
As a result, Abraham begins interceding for Sodom. A less charitable observer would say that he starts pestering God about the plans for the place. He opens by proposing that if fifty righteous people can be found, would that be enough for a stay of execution? The Lord agrees that fifty is enough for Sodom to be spared.
And here’s where the bargaining begins! Okay, fifty is good. How about forty-five? Can I get you to go for forty-five? Yes? Well, how about forty? How does forty sound? Forty works for you? What do you say to thirty—thirty righteous? Hold on, what about twenty? Is twenty enough to save the city?
I like the way Abraham prefaces his questions to the Lord. Here’s an example, as he gives it one last shot. “‘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’” (v. 32). Of course, it turns out that not even ten righteous people can be found.
Here’s a question. In verse 19, Abraham is said to be chosen “to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice.” And yet, he would have Sodom—that wicked, wicked place—spared for a tiny fraction of the population. Is that keeping the way of the Lord? Shouldn’t he instead cheer on the annihilation of the evil? There are plenty of psalms in which people are praying for that very thing.
However, there’s a problem with the use of the word “evil.” It’s very easy to see the evil actions that people do and then conclude that they themselves are evil—to say that their very essence is evil.
This happens at the government level: grouping together entire nations and calling them an “axis of evil.” President Reagan famously declared about the Soviet Union (“the evil empire”) that it was “the focus of all evil in the world.” Similar statements have been made about the US.
Of course, this happens at the personal level, as well. When we were at our former church, one of our members was visiting our house. She spoke of a certain person in the community with whom she’d had some kind of disagreement. I wasn’t familiar with him, and I said I don’t even know what he looks like.
She said if he comes to your door and you answer it, he’ll be dressed completely in red, with a pointed tail and a pitchfork! Apparently, he is evil incarnate. (The image that came to my mind was the red devil on the cans of Underwood Deviled Ham.) Anyway, I said to her, “The man is not the devil.” But she didn’t want to hear about it.
When we say someone is pure evil, that pretty much rules out any possibility of discussion. It also ignores the fact that everyone, no matter how many contemptible and despicable things he or she has done, is created in the image of God. When we give somebody the label “evil,” that makes it pretty hard to have any kind of human interaction. It’s the very definition of dehumanization.
The philosopher Susan Neiman reminds us, “The word evil by itself need not dehumanize if [it’s joined with ways] that show how ordinary people with ordinary motives get caught in it.” Those of us here get entangled in evil. Just one of the ways it happens is how we spend our money. We can (and should) check on how things are made, how people are treated, and so on, but often we’re choosing between the lesser of two (or more) evils.
She continues, “Calling actions evil can be polarizing; so be it. Calling people evil is [needlessly belligerent]. Worse than that, it presumes a knowledge of the human soul to which I have no right.” We pretend to know more than we really can. I think this is what Jesus is getting at in the Sermon on the Mount when he says, “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged” (Mt 7:1).
Neiman goes on, “We know that our motives are usually mixed, and that we’re strongly inclined to see our own behavior in the best possible light, weakly inclined to see other people’s in the worst.” Again, Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount: “Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?” (Mt 7:3).
Some people, after hearing all this, may think I’m saying to ignore evil or to pretend that it doesn’t exist. That’s hardly the case. I hope I’ve been clear in distinguishing between actions and people, or for that matter, groups of people, including nations. As well as doing good, all of us do evil. To pretend otherwise would actually threaten civilization itself.
What then, of Sodom? What is the evil that threatens its civilization? Sodom, of course, is the origin of the word “sodomy.” That’s a word with a variety of connotations, from simply “homosexuality” to “homosexual rape,” like what we see in chapter 19. Still, the prophetic tradition, namely Ezekiel, sees the evil of Sodom in a different light.
In Ezekiel 16, the prophet is denouncing Jerusalem for its crimes. Speaking the word of the Lord, he says Jerusalem is worse than Sodom. “[Y]our sister Sodom and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done. 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” (vv. 48-50).
I don’t know; maybe Sodamincamora is closer than I thought!
One of the ministers in our presbytery posted a sermon in which his thoughts intersect with mine at this point. I told him that I would be “borrowing” some lines of his.
“The men visiting Sodom originally expressed a desire to go and stay in the city square. This was what needy people did, and in Arabic culture, such people are to be welcomed and given shelter. Sodom could have done this. She had excess food, a life of ease. But in Sodom they did not want to welcome the needy person; they wanted to use them up. They saw visitors, literally, as fresh meat. To be consumed.
“Do churches ever commit the ‘sin of Sodom?’ Do we ever see visitors as ‘fresh meat?’
“Sometimes, when somebody new comes, we don’t think, ‘Come and stay and eat our food and rest here.’ We think, ‘This new person is going to give to us, and staff our committees, and attend our programs, and keep our church alive.’ Churches eat people up and use them.”
Last week, I said that we must constantly guard against slipping into the “religious club” mentality. The evil of Sodom, a lack of Spirit-led hospitality which causes us to literally “use” people, is also something we have to guard against.
We can take at least two things from all of this. One is the realization that no one is pure evil. Even Hitler and Stalin occasionally did good deeds! Imagine yourself doing the worst thing—or the most embarrassing thing—in your entire life. Now imagine that moment frozen in a photograph. Would you agree that that’s an accurate representation of who you are?
If we can see why that’s wrong about ourselves (assuming that it is!), then secondly, we’re less likely to commit the evil of Sodom. We’re less likely to use people. That’s how we can keep the way of the Lord. That’s what righteousness and justice are all about. And we can thank father Abraham for being our role model.