TV evangelists love Genesis 19. Turn your channel to John Hagee or Pat Robertson, and you’re likely to hear that we’re living in a present day “Sodom and Gomorrah,” so plagued our culture is, they say, by the sin of homosexuality. Such a pronouncement may rally their base (and fill their coffers), but when I hear it, I wonder if they’ve actually read this chapter. Not only does it not explicitly condemn homosexuality, but it also seems to sanction both heterosexual rape and incest. What’s going on here, and how can we read these stories responsibly and as scripture?
For one thing, we do find here a decided difference between Lot and the rest of the city’s residents, but it has a lot more to do with the view of the “other” than with sexual orientation. There’s Lot, whose actions sound a lot like Abraham’s (see yesterday’s reading) as he welcomes, feeds, and cares for the visitors in his midst. And then, as if in caricatured contrast, the rest of the city focuses on their “alien” (19:9) status and intends them the most heinous of harms. That Lot instead offers his virgin daughters reflects, it seems to me, the cultural assumption that women are property, not that God somehow sanctions heterosexual rape.
Yet every once in a while, even such a patriarchal story ends up featuring a sneak peak at female power and resourcefulness. Perhaps panicked by their loss of male sexual partners, Lot’s daughters take matters into their own hands and seduce their drunken father. And though at least one editor calls this story the “Shameful Origin of Moab and Ammon,” the biblical account itself pronounces no judgment on them at all. In my reading, this story’s just a reminder that human relations are messy, that “aliens” are related to us too, and that somehow, some way, God is in the mix—and not always as a judge or evaluator.
- How do you view “aliens”? Do you know any? How does our society view and treat them?
- When do you take matters into your own hands? Why?
- What other details did you notice in today’s reading?
Prayer: You invade our lives with alien thoughts, worldviews, and people, O God. May we learn to welcome the “other” and learn from her. Amen.
Breath Prayer: Came here // as an alien.
