So… you just read Genesis 18-20. How was that? Are you confused? Are you disturbed? In this day and age, stories like this come with a trigger warning. It starts off well enough, if not a bit mysteriously. Abraham and Sarah are visited by three travelers who can see the future. They declare that Abraham and Sarah will have a baby in a year’s time. From there, God reveals a plan to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham is upset and seems to try to talk God out of his plan.
Meanwhile, two of the visitors go to Sodom and are almost raped by the whole town. Lot is the only upstanding citizen there, and he barely escapes with his family but his wife is destroyed because she can’t seem to pull herself away from the old life they are leaving. Lot is so shaken by the whole experience that he takes his daughters to live in a cave because the whole experience has made him afraid of people. This leaves his daughters bereft of their future and hopes for their own family, so they get Lot drunk and rape him. Meanwhile, Abraham has grown so scared of the people around him that he tells everyone that his wife is his sister to save his own skin in case anyone gets jealous enough to kill him and take her as his own.
If these stories don’t disturb you, you really aren’t paying attention. So, maybe these are your questions: what are we supposed to do with it? What does this story teach us about God? Does this story fit with the character of the God we believe in? Why is this in the Bible, anyway?
There are two grievances commonly levied against God: the first is that God is wrathful and cruel. The second is that God is distant and uncaring. These stories about terrible things are in the Bible because this is what the world is like. Of course, it is only part of the story of the world, but we can tend to ignore truths that make us uncomfortable. When we do that, we pretend away pain that spreads like a gangrene that moves up the finger to the hand, and from the hand to the arm, and then on to the rest of the body.
This is why God acts, and why God’s severe action in these chapters is actually an expression of God’s love and compassion. It is like gangrene. If it spreads enough, the only hope to be saved is amputation. Look at Genesis 18:20 and 19:13, the reason God is bringing destruction is because of the suffering that wickedness has wrought. God cannot be loving if he sits idly by while that suffering spreads. Abraham is disturbed to hear that God is about to perform an amputation and embodies the first grievance against God. His relationship with God makes space for him to ask if God is cavalierly cutting off something that has a chance to live. God patiently reassures Abraham but doesn’t back down from fighting back the darkness. Maybe Lot struggles with the other grievance; maybe he thinks, “God is distant, and is not actively working to make this world a safe place for me. I am the one responsible for my safety, and I am never coming out of this cave.”
The truth of God’s love is as nuanced and complicated as this broken world needs it to be. Throughout this story, every character fails to live as faithfully as they should—save one. God alone is faithful and just. God alone fights for truth and shows mercy without losing that truth. God alone saves.
God of grace and mercy, you are also the God of truth and justice. I realize you can only be one if you are also the other. Forgive my unfaithfulness, and transform me to embody the faithfulness this broken world really needs. Teach me to speak the truth in love and to trust you when I don’t understand how truth and justice are winning out. Amen.
Questions for reflection:
- Read Psalm 46:7-11. What does it teach you about the destruction God brings? What does it teach you about the best response from us?
- Read Psalm 85:10. How do we sometimes compromise the truth for the sake of love, or sometimes compromise love for the sake of truth? How is God different? One translation for the word “righteousness” is judgment. What does it mean for judgment and peace to kiss?
- Go back over Genesis 18-20, and mark out every point where you see God’s grace and patience.