2nd Sunday after Pentecost A

2017
 2nd Sunday after Pentecost A
1. Today I would like to talk about the reading from the book of Genesis: in chapters 18 and 19
Genesis has 2 parallel stories dealing with hospitality and inhospitality.
The Oaks of Mamre is an area near Hebron at the edge of the Negev. This was a place where
caravans traveling from Egypt to Asia would finish the crossing of the desert of Sinai and reach areas
where they could find food and water.
Many ancient tribes who lived at the edge of the desert, considered hospitality to be a sacred duty ,
mandated by God. However, some villages in the area earned a sinister reputation for robbing and
exploiting travelers as they emerged exhausted from the desert.
In Ch. 18 we read that Abraham went out of the way to welcome strangers. He gave them water, fed
them and gave them a place to rest. As a result, he was rewarded by God who finally gave him a son,
even though he was old and his wife was past child-bearing age.
In Ch. 19 we find the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Two cities with a well deserved reputation for
assaulting, robbing and humiliating hapless strangers coming out of the desert. God punished the 2
towns for being inhospitable and exploiting strangers by destroying them with fire and brimstone.
This part of Genesis is one of the most misinterpreted parts of the Bible. Clearly the overall message is
that God rewards those who treat strangers in need with kindness and charity and punishes those who
mistreat and exploit strangers in need.
Centuries later Jesus would restate the same principle by saying love your neighbors as yourself and
when asked what he meant by neighbor, Jesus pointed to the Samaritans, who were strangers and
enemies of the Jews.
2. Let us look briefly at the story of Abrahams hospitality
Abraham had been called by God, instructed to leave his country and move to the land of Canaan.
God promised that he would make Abrahams descendants a great nation, even though Abraham and
his wife Sarah were old and childless.
Abraham was a good man who had faith in God. He practiced hospitality and welcomed strangers by
sharing with them the best of what he had. The strangers were messengers from God who told
Abraham and Sarah that God was about to maintain his promise and give them a son, Isaac.
 2nd Sunday after Pentecost A
3. In the next chapter, we read the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.
They did not welcome travelers coming out of the desert, but took advantage of the fact that these
strangers were weak and worn out to rob, beat, rape, and humiliate them in every way.
If I ask, what is Sodomy or the sin of Sodom? How many people think that it is homosexuality? Yet
every time the Hebrew Bible talks about the sin of Sodom the sin of Sodom is never associated with
homosexual sex, but always with violence, exploitation and injustice.
Abrahams nephew Lot and his family lived in Sodom. Unlike the other people in Sodom, Lot was a
good man who offered hospitality to strangers and protected them. Lot was rewarded: his family was
safe and survived, while Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by a volcanic eruption.
The story of Sodom contains a couple of unsavory and weird elements that leave us perplexed:
A. The first is that Lot tried to stop the rape of the strangers by offering to the mob his two virgin
daughters. Fortunately his offer was rejected and the girls were safe
B. The second is that after escaping the burning town Lot and his daughters made their way to a cave
in the mountains. The girls became convinced that they were the last people on earth, so they
decided to get their father drunk, and have sex with him to get pregnant and have children. Genesis
goes on to state that this incest gave origin to the Ammonite and Moabites, two nations who were
neighbors and enemies of Israel.
Please note that everywhere else in the Bible, rape and incest are condemned harshly. Those found
guilty of rape or incest were stoned to death. But in this story these actions are described without a
single word of condemnation. The reason is that this in not a story about sex, heterosexual, nor
homosexual. This story is about hospitality.
However, these stories also show the barbaric culture of the Ancient Middle Eastern where women had
no rights, no social status, and were just possessions of men and where the worst thing the could be
done to a man was to treat him like a woman.
According to Biblical scholars, the detail about the origin of the Ammonites and Moabites is an etiology,
or a myth of origin. An ancient derogatory story about the hated neighbors of the Jews. These were
populations who lived South and East of Israel and who were traditionally antagonistic to the Jews. So,
the Jews came up with this story to labeled them as inbred bastards.
 2nd Sunday after Pentecost A
4. The two stories of Abraham and Sodom were placed side by side to emphasize the duty of
hospitality. The Bile ordered the Jews to care for strangers and reminded them that they
would be held accountable for the way they treated strangers.
In the New Testament Jesus reiterated the same concept when he talked about the Final Judgment: I
was hungry, I was thirsty, I was sick, I was a stranger Did you help me? If the answer will be Yes we
will be rewarded, if No, we will be punished.
Tragically, the story of Sodom is very often taken out of context and separated from the story of
Abrahams hospitality, and is used by homophobic people to condemn homosexuality and justify all the
prejudices and violence against gays.
Think about it: if the point of the story of Sodom was teach sexual morality, then the lesson would be
bizarre: homosexuality is wrong, but there is nothing wrong with raping girls an committing incest.
These are not stories about sex. These are stories about the the duty to care for strangers.
In the entire Bible there are 6 or 7 sentences that are erroneously interpreted by some people as
condemning homosexuality. When scholars do thorough study of these passages they find that they do
not condemn homosexuality but sexual exploitation.
So if you wonder, what does the Bible say about homosexuality? The answer is nothing. There was and
there is still is anti-gay bias not just in the Middle East but also in Western countries, and in the Church.
Many homophobic people project their own biases into the Bible and misread the story of Sodom to
support their homophobia.
Look at it this way: there are half a dozed passages in the Bible that are misinterpreted as condemning
homosexuality. On the other hand, there are a couple of thousand passages in the Bible that tell us to
love our neighbors and to care for people in need. Jesus made it his mission to reach out to all the
people in his society who were marginalized and treated as sinners.
I read a statement recently that made an impression on me: the churches who ignore Jesus message to
be inclusive, and thousands of exhortations to love everyone and, chose to misinterpret a few passages
to support homophobia are committing theological malpractice and will be held accountable for it.