Good Morning, dear People.
Who does not love the story of Abraham’s successive questions to the Lord regarding the fate of Sodom? It is dramatic and it is comical. Actually, maybe it is meant to be comical. It relieves the tension. Sodom is a serious topic, and isn’t Abraham pushing God hard.
In storytelling, a series of statements or events that gets repeated with just little changes as it slowly gets to a point is called “incremental repetition”. It is a very old technique. We see it in “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” as Goldilocks successively tests the chairs, the bowls of porridge, and the beds. We see it in “The Gingerbread Man” as he runs away from his various antagonists, and then as he moves in degrees from fox’s back to the tip of fox’s nose.
But in these stories, the repetition has a purpose. In Goldilocks, the tension breaks when the heroine gets discovered and we get the answer to the riddle whose house is this anyway. In The Gingerbread Man, the happy, self-loving cookie gets his comeuppance.
So, what is the purpose of Abraham’s repeated questions to the Lord? Actually, I don’t think there is one. Why? Because Abraham is lying. Or maybe I should say he has ulterior motives. Or maybe I should say he’s hedging, he’s avoiding what he’s really interested in.
To understand this, we have to go back a little and check out the story that comes right before today’s passage. We read some of it last week.
“Three men” were passing by Abraham’s camp at a place called the Oaks of Mamre. Abraham sees that the three men are on a journey. Actually, they’re on their way to Sodom to check out its wickedness. Abraham seems to know that the three men are divine beings and that the Lord is one of them and the other two are angels. Abraham urges the three men to accept his hospitality and stay a while, have a wash, and eat a meal. He gives them the first-class treatment. (This is the same story in which the Lord says Sarah and Abraham will have a baby, and Sarah laughs behind the scenes because she and Abraham are way too old to conceive.)
When the men leave, Abraham accompanies them at least so far as to point out the right way. At some point on the route, Abraham and the Lord stop and remain alone together. The other two men keep going on to Sodom. I imagine Abraham and the Lord looking at each other. The Lord asks himself whether he should tell Abraham what he’s thinking about regarding Sodom. He reasons that Abraham should know because he’s chosen him and his descendents to maintain the Lord’s way by just and upright living. I think the Lord is fond of Abraham and he wants to enter into cooperation with him. So the Lord does tell Abraham that he’s going to see for himself whether the outcries about the sins of Sodom (and Gomorrah) are true. Abraham can figure out the likely judgment and its execution. And so he begins his questions that we heard in the first reading today.
What is the purpose of Abraham’s questions. Is he probing to see what his Lord is like? To understand the degree of the Lord’s forbearance or how much evil the Lord will tolerate? How many righteous people might be sacrificed? How much does the Lord love the righteous? And so forth. By the time Abraham is through, what we know is that the Lord will tolerate Sodom’s wickedness for the sake of ten righteous men. We don’t ever get down to the question whether the Lord will save Sodom for the sake of one righteous person.
So, unlike in Goldilocks, the “incremental repetition” does not come to a climax – the value of one righteous man.
That is because Abraham does not ask the Lord for what he really wants. Abraham’s nephew, Lot, lives in Sodom, and Abraham does not want him to perish. And Lot might not even be a righteous man. Lot ended up in Sodom when he and Abraham had to separate because the land couldn’t support all their livestock. In fact, Lot picked the area of Sodom because it was more fruitful than Canaan was. (Genesis 13:5-13) And, even at that time, it was well known that the people of Sodom were vicious and sinners against the Lord. (Genesis 13:13) This was Lot’s choice.
But why doesn’t Abraham make the personal plea for Lot’s well being? Well, he’s facing for the first time a person of unimaginable power, who can destroy cities. He sees the immense distance between himself and the Lord. He’s scared. He does not know how far he can go. He picks a line of questioning that maybe doesn’t fit Lot’s character. So, he lies by concealment and invents a theological riddle.
The Lord does destroy Sodom. And he decides without any plea from Abraham to spare Lot’s life. (Genesis 19). As the Bible says at the very end of the story, he does this for Abraham’s sake. The Lord has kept Abraham in mind anyway. (Genesis 19:29) He knew what Abraham was really concerned about. So, he took care of Abraham’s problem himself.
I wonder if Jesus had Abraham in mind when he taught us the Lord’s Prayer and gave us the sermon that follows it in today’s Gospel reading. Jesus says we should be direct, more direct than Abraham was. He says, in effect, “If you want something, come out with it! Don’t hold back!”
The Lord’s Prayer is full of direct pleas. The one that is most direct, in my opinion, is “Give us this day our daily bread.” This is an everyday prayer for ordinary times. Then, there is the plea “Do not bring us to the time of trial.” In the version in Matthew’s Gospel, there is the plea “Deliver us from evil.” (Matthew 6:13) These are all really direct prayers.
Jesus goes further in today’s passage. He gives us some intense advice about prayer. “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.” Please, God is listening to you. Look, he read between the lines when Abraham was in effect praying for Lot.
We may not get precisely what we pray for. In the prayer of St. John Chrysostom which we often pray at Morning Prayer, the words go “Fulfill now, O Lord, our desires and petitions as may be best for us.” Nonetheless, the point is that we should always ask directly. As Jesus says in his sermon, no parent will give a child a stone when he asks for bread or give a child a snake when he asks for a fish. This advice is urgent. It’s part of how we learn to approach God as our very own selves. It’s how we learn our place. It’s how we learn to trust God. And, if we trust him with ourselves, we can trust him with what is beyond ourselves.
Because we live in a world of doing things and of taking responsibility, we often pray that the hungry be fed, that there be peace in Gaza, that greed desist, that our political leaders be inspired, and so forth. All of this prayer for others and other things is fine and necessary. But I also think we shouldn’t be like Abraham and hedge when it comes to our own selves. If we’re facing health issues, it is ok to say, “Please ease my anxiety. Please do not let this hurt too much.” If we’re worried about our children, it is ok to say, “Please keep her safe while she’s driving home.” Or “Please make sure he drinks enough water at the Grand Canyon.” You can think of a million personal situations like this. Like the prayers about peace and world hunger, these personal prayers are a way of love too. Do not neglect the issues of the world outside ourselves, but do not be shy about yourself. God will not hand you a stone. And he may even make those green tomatoes ripen.
And please remember this. Jesus spoke the most ultimate of direct personal prayers in the Bible. It is an example to us in our praying lives. It goes: “Father, take this cup from me.” (Matthew 26:39 Also Mark 14:36, Luke 22:42)
