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Thursday, July 18, 2013

Tough Love

This is the message given at the WOW (Worship on Wednesday) service in Gettysburg July 17, 2013.  The Bible verses are Genesis 18:12-33, 9:1, 12-16, 24-25. 

One of the questions we sometimes have about God is whether the God of the Old Testament is the same as the God of the New Testament.  What I mean by that is that a lot of times we think of the God of the New Testament as a God of love and forgiveness, but we think of the God of the Old Testament as a God of judgment and punishment.  Naturally, we like that God we think of in the New Testament a lot better than the God we think of in the Old Testament.

Because of that, we tend to read the New Testament a lot more than we do the Old Testament.  That’s one of the reasons we’re doing this sermon series focusing on Old Testament stories.  The Old Testament is just as much a part of the Bible as the New Testament, and it’s just as much a part of our faith as the New Testament.  It may be harder for us to understand, and it may not be as warm and fuzzy in places, but it still is a part of the Bible.  Come to think of it, there are parts of the New Testament that are not particularly warm and fuzzy, either, but that’s a different sermon series.

As we’ve looked at these stories, I think we’ve found that the God of the Old Testament really is the same as the God of the New Testament.  The God of the Old Testament was a God of love and forgiveness, too.  We've talked about how God gave Cain second chances, and how God promised Noah that no matter what humans did, they would never be wiped from the face of the earth.

We've also talked about something else, though.  We've talked about how, some day, our second chances come to an end.  That’s why it’s important that we take advantage of the chance God has given us now, today.  After all, no matter how old we are, and no matter how healthy we are, God does not promise a tomorrow on this earth to anyone.

Which brings us to our story for today, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.  If you’ve heard this story before, or even if you were just listening to the scripture reading this evening, you know what happened.  The people of Sodom and Gomorrah had completely forgotten about God.  Everyone did whatever they wanted.  Not only had they forgotten about God, they’d forgotten the basic principles of right and wrong.  Those towns were in a state of complete lawlessness, chaos, and sin.  So, God sent down fire from heaven and wiped them out.  Both cities were completely destroyed and all the people in them except Lot and his family were killed.

I've heard this story many times, of course.  Many of you probably have, too.  As I thought about it this week, though, it occurred to me that a lot the discussions I’ve heard about it missed something.  Too often, this story is interpreted as the story of a vengeful God eagerly executing a death penalty on people who got too far out of line.  I don’t think that’s what was going on here at all.  As I look at this story, I see God doing everything possible to avoid destroying Sodom and Gomorrah.  God only went ahead with it when there was no other way.

How else do we explain the discussion between God and Abraham?  God could have just gone ahead and taken out Sodom and Gomorrah without saying anything to Abraham at all.  In fact, the way the story reads, God considered doing exactly that.  Instead, though, God not only told Abraham what he was about to do, God allowed Abraham to bargain with him to provide the two cities a way out.

We don’t know how big the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were.  They’re mentioned a few other times in the Bible before this, so they were big enough that people knew about them and knew where they were.  Cities were not as big back then, so say they had a couple thousand people or so.  Abraham got God to agree that if there were even ten good and righteous people out of those couple of thousand, God would not destroy those towns.

To me, that does not sound like a God who’s eager to bring about destruction.  That sounds like a God who wants to give these people another chance.  Think of it:  if less than one percent of the people in these towns were found to be good and righteous people, God would save all the people of both towns just for that fraction of a percent.  That sounds to me like God is trying very hard to avoid destroying these towns, not looking for an excuse to do it.

As we know, though, not even ten good and righteous people could be found in those towns.  The only ones found were Lot and his family.  So, God went ahead and destroyed the towns, only allowing Lot and his family to escape.

It must have made God very sad to do that.  Still, though, we hear that and we think, if God was so sad about it, could God not have let them off the hook anyway?  Could God not have bailed them out, protected them, given them another chance?

Well, yes, I suppose God could have.  After all, God can do anything God wants to do.  As I was thinking about that, though, here’s what occurred to me.

Wanda and I don’t have children, of course, but we’ve known a lot of parents, including some of you.  Sometimes, when we raise kids, those kids go off and live a lifestyle that’s totally opposite what we’d hoped when they were growing up.  Sometimes kids get into drugs.  Sometimes they get into a life of crime.  Sometimes they refuse to work, and live off handouts.  There are lots of other things that can happen, too.

As parents, you want to bail out our children.  You want to protect them.  You always want to give them another chance.  It’s a natural, loving instinct.  There are times when you do that, though, that you do them more harm than good.  When I worked as a deputy state’s attorney, I saw that all the time.  Either we or the judge would try to give a kid a break, give him or her another chance, and instead of being grateful and straightening out, they would inevitably think, “Gee, I did that, and nothing much happened.  I wonder what else I could do.”  Inevitably, they’d do something even worse, and a lot of times they’d start bringing other people down with them.  We thought we were helping those kids, but in reality we were hurting them and others.

I would think that one of the hardest things parents ever have to do is to see their children in trouble and know that this time, the loving thing to do is to not bail them out.  Instead, the loving thing to do this time is to let those kids sink or swim on their own.

Now, when you let someone sink or swim on their own, of course, you take the chance that they’ll sink.  That has to be so hard, to watch your child sinking and know that you cannot bail them out.  It’s called “tough love” not because parents want to be hard on their children, but because the toughest thing a parent can do is see their child in trouble and know that they cannot do anything to rescue them.

I suspect that’s how God felt when God saw that there were not even ten good and righteous people in the entire population of Sodom and Gomorrah.  Every loving instinct of God must have wanted to bail them out, to give them another chance.  It had to be incredibly hard for God not to do that.  Yet, God knew that if God bailed them out, things would not improve.  They would keep getting worse.  What was happening in Sodom and Gomorrah would spread to other towns.

God must have wanted so badly to avoid destroying those towns.  God knew, though, that doing so would not help the people there.  They would continue what they were doing, and they would drag others down with them.  It must be one of the hardest things God ever has to do.  It has to be so hard for God to see God’s children in trouble and to know that this time, the loving thing for God to do is not to bail them out, but to allow them to sink.  It’s hard for me to even imagine what God must go through when God has to do that.

I think the lesson of Sodom and Gomorrah is not that God is a judgmental, punishing God.  The lesson is that, at some point, our second chances come to an end.  The lesson is that, if we refuse to turn back to God, at some point God has to let us sink.  It’s hard for God to do that, but God has to, so we don’t take others down with us.

        When we do turn back to God, though, God promises to always be there for us.  That does not mean God will always take away our problems, but God will always help us through our problems.  The help may not come the way we wish it would, but the help will be there.  Every time we turn to God, God will be there for us.

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