Genesis 18:23-25, Psalm 85:7-10

“Even One”

A few years ago, my mom got a new dog, named Sukka. My youngest sister was moving out of the house, and my mom was preparing a new stage of life which is known to some as “empty nesting”. For the first time in twenty-four years, my mom would be living without any of her children at home. A new adjustment. So along came Sukka. My mom spent more time outside, hiking, and taking Sukka for walks in the park. She rediscovered a love of travel. I watched as my mom became less “my mom” and more herself, a whole person, with joys and interests and passions that had been hidden from me in the years that I had been at home. At the same time, I was growing, too, changing from my mother’s child into myself.

Perhaps each of us has a moment when we look at someone so familiar as a parent or child and we see them for the first time as they are. Not as the relationship, but as the person. It can come with significant shock when we aren’t expecting it. There may even be growing pains.

Abraham is often called “Father Abraham,” because he is considered the father of the faith, the spiritual ancestor shared between Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Yet Abraham was very much a child himself, even in his old age, in his relationship with God. The passage we read from Genesis 18 today represents a turning point in God’s relationship with Abraham. God had made a covenant with Abraham, and God promised to give Abraham a son, Isaac. God had a plan for Abraham’s life and for his family.

So God included Abraham in His plan for Sodom, too. The Lord said, “Can I really keep the truth from Abraham? I will tell Abraham that I have heard the cry of injustice rising up from the city of Sodom and I must go and see for myself what evil has taken place there.” God shares God’s intentions with Abraham, and for the first time, Abraham sees God as God is. Not exclusively in terms of their relationship, but in terms of God’s desires, God’s passions, God’s sorrow.

And the scripture says that Abraham remained standing in front of the Lord. He stood firm, knowing himself and responding boldly to the challenge of God’s judgment.

“Will you really destroy the righteous with the wicked?” Abraham asks. On the one hand, he is questioning God, but on the other, he is questioning his knowledge of God. Will God really destroy the righteous with the wicked? God, is it in Your nature to do such a thing? Haven’t You promised to be faithful to those who are faithful to You? Abraham is looking at his Holy Parent and wondering, am I seeing You for the first time as You really are?

Our walks of faith are filled with these moments, destabilizing moments when we can no longer take for granted exactly what we thought we knew about God. We, like Abraham, struggle and barter our way through. Ultimately, we arrive at a new discovery, a new solid ground. And we can stand firm before God again.

But we meet Abraham in the in-between space of faith today. God has informed Abraham of God’s plans to punish the people in the city of Sodom. Their ways had become so wicked that even when messengers from God visited them, they threatened them with sexual violence. Ezekiel chapter 16 tells us that the sin of Sodom was that the people were arrogant, overfed, and unconcerned. They did not help the poor and needy, they were haughty, and they did detestable things before God.

The “city” in the ancient near East symbolized power and the concentration of wealth. It was often associated with moral corruption and abuse. Sodom is held up as an extreme example of the evils which were prevalent across the land. Today, the cry of injustice rises up from our city, too. From the poor and the sick, the abandoned and the imprisoned. The cry of injustice rises up from our border. The cry of injustice rises up from the landfills and polluted waters. The cry of injustice rises up from the sweatshops and factories which are the backbone of our modern life.

God hears the cry and calls out to Abraham, I need to see for myself. God is not indifferent to evil. Abraham knows what God is capable of. Abraham knows what God’s justice should look like in the city.

Abraham boldly bargains with God. If you can find fifty righteous people in all of Sodom will you spare them? And God agrees. For Abraham, the matter was personal. He knew that the people of Sodom were corrupt. But he also remembered his nephew Lot and Lot’s family, his two young daughters who were expecting to be married soon, who had their lives ahead of them. Good people caught up in the chaos of an evil society. Abraham was moved with compassion.

What about 40? What if there are only 40 righteous people? Could you save them? Abraham asked. For 40 people, God would be willing. Abraham was amazed at his own boldness. Was he really questioning God?

What about 30? Or maybe even 20? He wondered aloud. Would God really condemn an innocent person? God told Abraham I will save them. According to tradition, Abraham bartered down to 10 people in the hopes that he could save the city.

Now, those who may be familiar with the story of Sodom and Gomorrah know that the city was destroyed. It feels like a frustrating and anti-climactic end to the story. Yes, God hears Abraham’s prayer, but in the end, it still wasn’t enough to change the outcome.

To be perfectly honest, biblical texts about God’s judgment make me really uncomfortable. They’re found throughout the Bible, in the account of the flood. God’s punishment of Sodom and Gomorrah. The plagues in Egypt. The Babylonian Exile. Even in the New Testament, there are accounts of events which have been remembered for centuries as signs of God’s judgment, like the death of Ananias and Sapphira. Now it may be tempting to write these events away as just stories. But there they are in the pages of scripture, testifying to God’s acts in the world.

I find myself, with Abraham, questioning God. Would you really destroy the righteous with the wicked? And even, would you really destroy the wicked? It is unsettling to imagine that God’s response to evil is destruction, because destruction is so often thought of as a bad thing. I want to imagine the peaceful path to reconciliation is always God’s intention. The alternative is admittedly, too terrifying to really imagine.

Those who do ascribe events to God’s justice often seem short-sighted and bigoted, quick to identify sin in others and slow to find compassion in the midst of suffering. In 2009, when my denomination voted to allow LGBTQ ministers to serve in our church, a tornado touched down on the steeple of the church across the street from the convention center where leaders had been gathered to vote. Christians were quick to assess the tornado as either a warning from God or as the movement of the Holy Spirit in support of the vote.

While many look to our surroundings to discern revelation from God, it is God’s own word which remains our best and clearest revelation of God’s character. In the 85th Psalm, we are reminded of God’s steadfast love and faithfulness. The word of the Lord is peace for the faithful, for all who turn to God in our hearts. Surely God’s salvation is here for those who fear and trust in God.

God is a God of justice, hearing the cries of injustice which rise up from the cities and bringing forth a new day when all shall be well. God is a God of mercy, having compassion on the suffering and brokenhearted and even drawing us out of sin and evil and calling us to repentance. Our faithfulness will be met with the steadfast love of God. Righteousness and peace, justice and mercy, will kiss.

I’m drawn once again to Abraham’s question, “Suppose fifty righteous people are found in the city”. Would God save the people for 50? For 30? For 10?

Sometimes salvation is destroying the evil within us. Sometimes it is taking away the things that draw us most to sin. Sometimes it is the one righteous person taking up a cross and bearing the weight for the people to set us free. This is God’s character. In Jesus, we see God as God is. When God could not find a righteous person, no not one, God became the one to save the world. God would save the world for fifty people. God would save the world for ten. God would save the world for even one.

Return to the Lord Your God, for God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. Amen.