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Posts Tagged ‘Lot’

Lot’s Legacy

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 18, 2014| Leave a Comment »

YouAreHereInTheGalaxyAccording to scripture, Lot was Abraham’s nephew and although he traveled with his Uncle Abraham from Haran to Egypt and then on to the Negev. At some point, both men grew in wealth and decided to part ways. Abraham gave Lot the choice of land, and Lot choice the plain of Jordan to the East, well-watered, and dotted with large cities (among them Sodom and Gomorrah).

With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished.” . . . He [the angel] said to him [Lot], “Very well, I will grant this request too; I will not overthrow the town [Zoar] you speak of. But flee there quickly, . . .  Lot and his two daughters left Zoar and settled in the mountains, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He and his two daughters lived in a cave.  [Genesis 19:15, 21-22, 30]

Freed by the angels of God, generally negotiated by Uncle Abraham, Lot and his family are given the opportunity to start over. But Lot was a bit of a selfish man and appears to look for the easier way. He chooses the better land when he and his uncle part ways, he chooses to live in the city, he chooses to flee to a closer place than the mountains, and in the end, he even looks the other way when his daughters are impregnated by his drunken self. Moab and Bel-Ammi, are the children born by this incest and they become the ancestors of the Moabites and the Ammonites whose story is intertwined with Abraham’s line through Israel and Judah, but generally it’s a bitter relationship dotted with bloodshed.

This, because of Lot’s choices or passivity. This, because Lot took the way that seemed right to him alone.

From one story after another, whether fairy tale or movie or book, we are reminded that any one of our choices can set huge events in motion. In chaos theory, it is called the Butterfly Effect. But it’s not that hard to look at our own individual lives, so many left and right turns, families made and lost, love seeded and buried, by a single choice, a single conversation, a single word (yes or no).

I wonder if this hasn’t bred the meteoric rise of interest in genealogy. Why, we even have reality television traveling back into the lives of celebrities, church denominations building ancient libraries of such histories, and websites dedicated to helping people go back in time.

How did I get here? We want to know.

I supposed that’s all find and good. But I can’t help but wonder if we shouldn’t be putting more energy into the now. For whatever happened before we are living it. We cannot go back, only forward.

It is for us to respond, to act, to embrace. Whether it was our choices or the choices of our parents or grandparents or great-greats, this is where we have landed. This is where I am, with this family, with these gifts, with this personality, with this day.

And God is here with me. And anything can happen next.

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Where Were You?

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 14, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Artwork by Nathan Johnson

Artwork by Nathan Johnson

This question, “where were you?” changes its meaning by the emphasis put on each word. “WHERE were you?” versus “where WERE you?” versus “where were YOU?” And what emphasis did God use when he first spoke to Job?

“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?Tell me, if you understand. . . . “ [Job 38:4, NIV]

Is it about place or time or person?

I’m pretty sure it’s about person, that neither Job or you or I were present in the time of creation energy. We can describe and count and observe and hypothesize, but we’ll never really “know” or understand Godwork.

Partially, the problem is that we continue to anthropomorphize God. We keep making very big and very wrong assumptions about God as though a jealous God is like a jealous man or woman. Or that fearing God is like fearing cockroaches or stink bugs. Or that listening to God is like listening to U2 or Taylor Swift. These words are human words used to describe human feelings and activities. It’s simply not the same with God.

I used to believe that Abraham had the God thing down. After all, didn’t he negotiate the salvation of his cousin Lot from the clutches of Sodom (or was it Gomorrah)? Really? Did Abraham actually bring up something that God had not considered? Was Abraham bargaining with God or was he really bargaining with himself, the value of human life against virtue and right living.

And so, here we come to Job who finally hears God, a God who asks Job question after question after question in order to lock in a simple truth: God is God and human is not God. Creator envisions creation; human lives in it, molding what is given. We do the same with our lives. We have much freedom in the managing of our persons. But the spark of life came from God alone.

For my scant few years, maybe they will be as many as 100 or maybe only 85 or even less, I cannot know. But for this time, I am given the opportunity to partner with God in gratitude, sharing in the work of creativity and love and joy and relationships. Or not.

“Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live!” [Deuteronomy 30:19, NLT]

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Every Child — an Inheritance

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , on November 26, 2012| Leave a Comment »

All of us carries an inheritance from our ancestors and passes one along. Sometimes through nature (through the blood lines) or by nurture (environment and family life). We are the middle managers, standing in the gap between our history and our future.

Genesis 19:36b-38
So both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant by their father. The older daughter had a son, and she named him Moab; he is the father of the Moabites of today. The younger daughter also had a son, and she named him Ben-Ammi; he is the father of the Ammonitesof today.

There is much speculation about Lot’s daughters and why they did what they did. We are told they were virgins and yet they were promised to men of Sodom (who did not heed Lot’s warning to come with them). We know that Lot offered them to a crowd of men who were not interested in his daughters (they wanted the “angels.”) When they finally flee Sodom and later, even Zoar (the only small town on the plain that was saved), they end up in the mountains.

And here is my question: How long were they there? I am not saying that time excuses them, but I have a sense that years had passed before the daughters made this extreme choice. In those times, women without children (particularly those who were barren) were considered cursed and often outcast. By referring to their father as old, the implication is that his death might  put them in crisis.

Nonetheless, whether justified in any way or not, the result created two young men whose long-standing heritage were two of the most pagan (including human sacrifice) and violent peoples. A similar result happened when Sarai gave  Hagar, her handmaid, to Abraham and Ishmael was born.

Through no real fault of their own, these sons were cast into a destiny.

In our own lives, we will never really know what future we are setting in motion when we send our children forth. We cannot know if they are part of a long line, pre-determined by our genealogy or if it begins with us. The cycle of life in our age is complex now and crosses all borders. I suppose, this is just another form of the Butterfly Effect.

For me, today, the only reliable impact I can have, besides doing the best I can as a parent, is to pray; to embrace the presence of my God in the now who exists through all of time.

I have three adopted children, all with traumatic beginnings. By bringing them into our family, we made the first dramatic change to the course of their lives. I cannot help but wonder what will be their inheritance now.

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Why Was Lot Saved?

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , on November 25, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Lot Fleeing Sodom
by Benjamin West c.1810

When Lot and Abraham’s households parted, Lot chose the lush land and the river plain that included five cities, one of which was Sodom. When the angels went to witness the “abominations”in that city, they had a first-hand encounter at the house of Lot where they were threatened with gang rape. Gadzooks! Wouldn’t this experience be enough to flee the city even without the threat of imminent destruction?

Genesis 19:15-17a
 With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished.” When he [Lot] hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the Lord was merciful to them. As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, “Flee for your lives! Don’t look back . . .

Had Lot become complacent about the activities in his city? Had he lost sight of right and wrong and oblivious to the sin around him?

According to the story, in the night, his house was surrounded by ALL the men of the city (even if only a handful had been there, the story is horrific), and these were men who were sexually charged and blindly so. I understand that some people have sex with one another in a kind of cannibalistic way, wanting to “take in” the characteristics of the other, to be one with the beauty or success or talent. I can well imagine somehow that the “angels” might have been desirable in this way, in their “wonder.” I can even imagine them as “light” in the dark, illuminated from within.

But whether this is true or not, Lot refused the crowd and offered his virgin daughters. I have never understood how that was possible. How could a father offer his own girls to a gang? But, now I conjecture tat he was mocking the men outside for he knew they had no interest in women because the crowd’s reaction to his suggestion was indignation as though Lot was judging them. All very odd.

The story gets more “supernatural” when the angels blind the crowd which then protects the house from entry. The tale sounds like something out of the movies or Dr. Who. What is the point? The Genesis story hadn’t had a miracle on this order for several generations. Why now?

And then, after all this, Lot hesitates about leaving the city. Doh! (as Homer Simpson would say).

It’s so easy to get caught up in these Bible stories and wonder what is God doing? But the stories are really about God more than they are about Human. Ever since Adam, we should know, mistakes were made every day. Just like us. Biblical scholar, Andrew Whyte wrote: “Lot is the father of all those men whose righteous souls are vexed with the life they are leading, but who keep on enduring the vexation.”

There is only this then: God saves Human from destruction by grace, not because of worthiness. Lot was dragged out of the city even after he hesitated (more than likely, he had invested his wealth in the city), and it’s even possible that he didn’t understand this action at the time as “saving him” since he lost everything except for his life and the lives of his two daughters. It was a close save.

And yet, it was a second chance, or perhaps a third chance or a fourth chance to enter into a God covenant, to turn a life over to God. This particular chance appears to be as a result of Abraham’s prayers (negotiations) with God.

I try to remind myself daily: there is no one who cannot be saved. I think on this a great deal since I was one of those, I was in the crowd of Sodom as a young woman living in New York City. There was no reason for God to pull me out of the City. I had not earned it. My transformation came by grace, despite my hesitations and pre-conceived ideas of what it meant to follow Christ. I was a close call too.

And God’s grace continues still. Thanks be to God.

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