Our Sister Sodom

Sitting here for a bit trying to think of exactly how to phrase what I have been thinking about, my mind will not ease. Truthfully, it has been a real problem lately. I have too much to think about - I am busier than I care to be and then I hear a convicting lesson on my own lifestyle choices and I find that enough is enough.

When I recall the story of Sodom and Gomorrah I remember that their sin was something very terrible to God. I usually recall the homosexual aspects of the story and am happy to not have a share in that struggle. However, a good man shared a unique perspective on the history of those cities that is as old as the cities themselves. Read on and see if you can pin point the spot where my stomach began to ache and my mind began to race.

44 " 'Everyone who quotes proverbs will quote this proverb about you: "Like mother, like daughter." 45 You are a true daughter of your mother, who despised her husband and her children; and you are a true sister of your sisters, who despised their husbands and their children. Your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite. 46 Your older sister was Samaria, who lived to the north of you with her daughters; and your younger sister, who lived to the south of you with her daughters, was Sodom. 47 You not only walked in their ways and copied their detestable practices, but in all your ways you soon became more depraved than they. 48 As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, your sister Sodom and her daughters never did what you and your daughters have done.

49 " 'Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.

Here at the end of the story there is no mention of gays going to eternal hell. Oh, how is wish it could be! Instead I am faced with this harsh reality: God's concern with the poor far outweighs my need to feel safe, my future kids educations, my status in my church, my work and amoung my peers. I prefer the condemnation of those who sins are not my own and I live and die by God's grace and mercy when I realize that I am indeed - arrogant, overfed and unconcerned.

There are no truely worthy poor and God helps us all.

Getting Lost

My family has been attending church for most of my lifetime and sometimes (in fact, most times) I do very little learning on a Sunday morning. But I love to learn and so when I think of something new, or someone presents to me an idea in a way I have never thought of before - I am usually struck and spend some time thinking about said idea.

This morning Dr. Stephen D. Boyd was speaking to the church as he has for decades. He was discoursing about Jesus being lost in the Temple early in the Gospel of Luke. The story is worth reading if you don't know it and probably worth it even if you do. So, we're talking about the story when the idea hits. Steve tells about 120 listening folks that Jesus was not lost when his parents couldn't find him, but that they were lost. He makes reference to Jesus being in the house of God - not terribly original. But then, he draws the story to the end of Jesus' life, where he was dying in Jerusalem and the disciples are feeling a bit sorry for themselves for they have lost Jesus to the cross. When, in fact, they are ones who are lost and Jesus is, again, doing the work of the one who sent him.

Perhaps I am making too much of the simple connection, but I found it rather enlightening.

God is not far from each of us - though we often think that is so.