SERMON By the Numbers

Pentecost 9C Genesis 18:20-32

Sisters and brothers, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Let’s think about numbers. There are 6.7 billion people, give or take, alive today. According to population scientists, this represents a little more than 6% of the more than 100 billion humans who have ever lived. Of the 90-100 billion odd people who were once living and are now dead, 25 million or so died in the European outbreak of the Bubonic plague. Another 55 million died in World War II. 230,000 died in the Christmas tsunami of 2004. Perhaps 70,000 died in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.

And, if our story from Genesis today has any historical truth to it, perhaps a thousand people died at Sodom and Gomorrah. To put it in perspective, that is .00000001 percent of all humans who have ever lived. And Abraham pleads, in the end, on behalf of ten righteous people. Add two more zeroes to that last number.

Why should we consider the story of Abraham’s bargaining with God over the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah in such ghoulish perspective? Only because if we are going to think about the meaning of God’s judgment and God’s mercy, we need to think about the meaning of individual human lives. And in the big scheme of things, what may have gone down at Sodom and Gomorrah 38 centuries ago is arguably trivial. Annie Dillard, raises this problem in her book For the Time Being, which I recommend if you are feeling too happy and well-adjusted. She considers the huge numbers of deaths caused by plagues, disasters, and human violence, and observes:

“Of Allah, the Qu’ran says, ‘not so much as the weight of an ant in heaven and earth escapes from him.’ That is touching, that Allah, God, and their ilk care when one ant dismembers another, or note when a sparrow falls, but I strain to see the use of it.” (p.75).

So what is the use of this strange, awful story? Think of it with me, for a few moments, not as a journalistic account of actual events, but as a little drama that attempts to answer Annie Dillard’s dilemma: what is the use of caring about an individual life in such a vast universe?

First, some background. The Lord has just tarried with Abraham a while at his tent by the oaks of Mamre. God and Abraham have shared hospitality and are already bound together in a relationship for life. The messengers of God who came to Abraham set out towards Sodom, and God decided to involve Abraham in the problem of what to do about that city. Standing before Abraham, God says, “How great is the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah and how great is their sin!” God resolves to investigate this outcry. The word ‘outcry’ here is used throughout the Old Testament whenever the oppression and violence being done on the earth becomes heinous enough to offend and provoke God. It is the outcry of those suffering that God hears. It was long said that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was homosexuality, but that isn’t accurate. God’s messengers to the city are trapped in a house and threatened with rape. It is the violence of the town and the perversion of hospitality that it represents, that provokes an outcry. The implication here is that God is actually rather indulgent of ordinary sins. So long as our many failings are somewhat restrained by self-control and good government, God is patient and merciful. But when we turn our destructiveness outward, when we lose all sense of good and bad, when we become forgetful of God’s very presence right here in our friends and neighbors, we are putting ourselves in grave danger.

Now it is easy to read this story and accuse God of rough justice in the matter of Sodom and Gomorrah, and there’s something to that. But we should consider what we are asking for if we grumble about this stern response from God--and I, for one, do grumble about it. Would it be better for God to take no note of our actions or of the suffering of the innocent? How little would God think of us, God’s prized creation, if no evil we could devise would be worthy of God’s anger? Would it cheer us to imagine that God’s patience is really just total neglect?

So God will investigate, and if Sodom and Gomorrah are guilty as charged, the justice will be forthcoming. But then we encounter the other side of the story: the prayer of Abraham. Abraham takes it upon himself to speak boldly, even rashly, to his God. “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?” What if there are fifty who are blameless in this matter? Will God have it said that he snatches away the wicked and righteous together? Far be it from you! And God, no doubt pleased to have some give-and-take, agrees to spare the place for the sake of fifty, perhaps 5-10% of the city’s population.

But Abraham continues, with a flourish of humility. “Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes.” How about 45? Will you destroy the whole city for the lack of five of the fifty? Can I get forty? Thirty? Twenty? Ten? “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it,” God concludes.

And there, fatefully, the dialogue ends. It has a great rhythm, almost comical, until that point. But Abraham haggles no further. And the ten righteous are not to be found. And we are left to learn from a tragedy.

We learn that God is patient with our daily sins. But God is strict when we spill out into violence and injustice. This need not be a matter of fire from heaven or supernatural events. Consider only the massive and ongoing destruction caused by the late oil spill in the Gulf, a direct consequence of our crippling need for that commodity. We learn that God will run to protect the innocent and punish the wrongdoer; but also that God will overlook very great crimes for the sake of even a few decent people. We hear that God’s anger burns hot, but also that God is eager for his chosen servant to urge mercy on God.

Moreover, we learn what it means for one human life to matter in the big scheme of things. For good or ill, our actions matter a great deal. A thousand people, or fewer, who abandon all mercy and goodness can bring about immense destruction. Ten people, or fewer, who strive for goodness in the midst of corruption and death can redeem the land. And one faithful person can go before God and plead without shame to save both the righteous and wicked alike, God invites Abraham to take the cause of Sodom and Gomorrah into his own hands. It is a remarkable privilege that God grants for the sake of faith.

It is the same privilege that we exercise when we pray as Jesus taught us--for the forgiveness of our own sins and those of others; for daily bread to feed the righteous and wicked alike, because we are all both righteous and wicked; for God’s kingdom to come not just for us, who ask, but for the whole world, which does not know how to ask. Each of us stands in the position of Abraham, appealing to God for the sake of a lost and wandering world. But we have a yet greater privilege. We pray each week for the fulfillment of a more powerful promise: that for the sake of one righteous man, a whole world of sinners would be spared. That the life, witness, death, and rising of one out of 106 billion would carry us all beyond even the dreadful power of our own sins. Amen.

Rev. Ben Dueholm

Wicker Park Lutheran Church

July 25, 2010