Genesis 19-21

Today is apparently the day of the year when the most people start looking for a new job or file for divorce. Sadly, suicide attempts also seem to be common at this time of year, as anyone who’s taken the underground lately will be able to attest.

On that note, today’s reading contains some of the darkest and most disturbing passages found in the Bible. Like coping with January itself, our best course is to just hunker down and get through it as best we can. Here we go: In Genesis 19-21 we read about attempted gang rape, the destruction of two cities, incest, and some really terrible parenting skills. Happy Monday everybody.

Tenuous link - Bez, from the Happy Mondays!

 We join up with Lot again in Sodom and Gomorrah. Whilst scripture tells us that he despaired over the actions of the people of his city, he has still clearly compromised his own morals to some degree. Rather than remaining in his camp outside the city as originally instructed, he has moved inside the city walls. He has also become a fairly powerful magistrate and materially wealthy (not that success or wealth are inherently bad, but the attitude we hold towards them can be, as we’ll see further on).

When discussing the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, people tend to focus on the ‘sodomy’ act which gained its name from the infamous city. However, we find out in other parts of scripture that the sins which doomed the city were actually behavioural sins such as neglect of the poor, selfishness, love of money, and apathy. I think it’s important to point out that, far from God destroying these cities because ‘God hates gays’ (to be clear that was a sarcastic comment, I don’t think God hates anyone), God destroyed these cities because of a much bigger picture of sinful behaviour.

When considering the men’s attempted gang rape of the angels (or messengers of God) staying with Lot, I have read suggestions that this act wasn’t actually about homosexuality so much as about completely humiliating your victim or enemy (I’m not sure that makes it any better, it’s just some further information to explain possible character motivation). In flimsy defence of Lot offering his own daughters to the mob instead of the angels, it is argued that in the culture of that time and place a guest’s welfare was more important than your own, and that for a guest to be abused in such a way would be a shameful thing to happen in your care. Not to mention that these would be holy men/angels of God being violated here. However, I cannot find it in myself to defend Lot in any way. Lot isn’t offering up himself in his guests’ place to defend their honour, he is offering up his own children, the people for whom he is meant to protect. There is no getting away from this being the nauseating act of someone who won’t be winning any parenting awards anytime soon.

At first it is difficult to even apply the mantra “descriptive, not prescriptive” here, as Lot is described as a “righteous man” in scripture. The question arises as to what kind of God would consider Lot a righteous man, and why we would ever follow a God who thought like that. However, Lot’s righteousness is based on the covenant God made to protect him, not based on Lot’s actions and goodness, or lack thereof. This is yet another echoing of the righteousness that is credited to us when we enter into covenant with Jesus – we are saved based on Jesus’ goodness, not our own. God is faithful to Abraham’s family not because Lot is good, but because God’s own nature is faithful, He cannot break His promises, and nothing we do can separate us from His love.

Despite the depravity the city had sunk into and its impending destruction, Lot and his family obviously find it difficult to leave. It is implied they struggle to leave their material wealth behind even in the face of death, demonstrating how much their values had become corrupted. Despite God’s instructions not to look back, Lot’s wife does so and is turned into a pillar of salt. Whilst this might sound like a harsh punishment, the implication here is that she not only glanced back but tried to go back for material possessions. In doing so she was not only disobeying God’s instructions, but clearly demonstrating just how far her love of money had taken root.

Lot’s wife having been left to a salty death, we follow Lot and his two daughters living in a cave in the mountains. Lot has obviously developed a serious drinking problem, and his daughters are anxious that as there are no men around for them to marry they will not be able to have children. Sealing their position as possibly the most dysfunctional family in the Bible, the daughters get their father drunk and sleep with him, bearing children as a result.

They really are an advert for not raising your family in Sodom and Gomorrah, aren’t they? Clearly the sinful nature of the city had influenced the family, in the same way that we’re all influenced by our environment, much as we try to resist it. I also do not accept that Lot wasn’t partly responsible for what happened. Whilst he may have been too drunk to remember the events the next morning, I firmly believe that alcohol, whilst making us do things we wouldn’t normally do when sober, usually only makes us act on whatever’s already in our hearts.

The only possible defence I can suggest for the daughters here is that not only was being without children a terrible stigma for women in this time and place, but also the continuing lineage of a family was considered more important than the individual.

In a note of hope out of all this depravity, the children that Lot’s daughters bear go on to play prominent parts in furthering God’s Kingdom, illustrating for us that God can redeem us from the murkiest of beginnings. 

Image from badaxemi.com. Bez from mirror.co.uk

After all that horrible death and immorality, here's a picture of a kitten.