Genesis c. 23

v. 4 "I am a foreigner living here among you; sell me some land, so that I can bury my wife."

Abraham mourned Sarah’s death. He went to buy a piece of land from the Hittite and there he buried her.

Abraham and his people led a nomadic life. They had no land to call their own, even burial land.

Christians are like Abraham’s people. They are nomads mingling with strangers; this world is not their home.

Genesis c. 22

When they came to the place which God had told him about, Abraham built an altar and arranged the wood on it. He tied up his son and placed him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he picked up the knife to kill him. Gen 22:9-10

It was faith that made Abraham offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice when God put Abraham to the test. Abraham was the one to whom God had made the promise, yet he was ready to offer his only son as a sacrifice. Heb 11:17

And the scripture came true that said, "Abraham believed God, and because of his faith God accepted him as righteous." And so Abraham was called God's friend. Jam 2:23

But, how about Isaac? What about his faith?

I remember a Sunday school discussion we had about Abraham. One of the members of the class said that Isaac trusted Abraham. Isaac had faith in Abraham that as his father he will not allow any harm to come to Isaac. So Isaac has faith in his father that no harm will come to him and Abraham has faith enough in God to trust his son, even his death, to God knowing that God giveth and God taketh. Will I do what Abraham has done? Listen to a voice telling to sacrifice our children in the name of God?


I will never be able to understand and experience Abraham’s faith. That’s why Abraham’s faith is the standard of faith.

Genesis c. 21

v. 17-20 God heard the boy crying, and from heaven the angel of God spoke to Hagar, "What are you troubled about, Hagar? Don't be afraid. God has heard the boy crying.
Get up, go and pick him up, and comfort him. I will make a great nation out of his descendants." Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well. She went and filled the leather bag with water and gave some to the boy. God was with the boy as he grew up; he lived in the wilderness of Paran and became a skillful hunter.

Abraham and Sarah had sent Hagar and Ishmael away for it was Isaac where Abraham’s offspring will be reckoned. But God did not forget Hagar and Ishmael.

Is God unfair?

A story like this is difficult to understand. Hagar and Ishmael were wrongly treated by Abraham and Sarah and yet God took their side. I remember the old and worn illustration of the white paper with a small dot in the middle and the first thing that people notice is the dot and not the white paper.

As I was trying to ask myself the question, is God unfair? The thing that comes into my mind is that of Abraham and Sarah banishing a mother and her child with so little provision that in reality it can only be called murder, and yet God still took Abraham and Sarah’s side and allowed the banishment of Hagar and Ishmael.

Now I’m seeing the dot and not the whole paper.

Maybe God allowed Abraham to banish Hagar and Ishmael because God knows that Hagar and Sarah will not be able to live together. Maybe this story teaches women that being a second wife has consequences, maybe this is all about family, maybe this is about Abraham and his leadership, maybe and maybe…

Maybe God is telling me that despite Hagar’s condition as the second wife and not deserving of anything at all, God still comforted her and made her son into a great nation.

God is not unfair. He will not forget the work you did or the love you showed for him in the help you gave and are still giving to other Christians. Heb 6:10

Is God unfair?

Maybe it’s me who’s being unfair to God.

Now I’m starting to see the paper.

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Pray for one of our hardworking pastors, Pastor Pete Caderon, the Pastor of Ahon Evangelical Christian Baptist Church. Pastor Pete needs to undergo medical operations and he needs money for the procedure. Pray for God’s provisions and healing.

Genesis c. 20

Vs. 3-6, One night God appeared to him in a dream and said, "You are going to die, because you have taken this woman; she is already married." But Abimelech had not come near her, and he said, "Lord, I am innocent! Would you destroy me and my people?
Abraham himself said that she was his sister, and she said the same thing. I did this with a clear conscience, and I have done no wrong."

God replied in the dream, "Yes, I know that you did it with a clear conscience; so I kept you from sinning against me and did not let you touch her.

Abimilech must be very upset at Abraham because he lied to him and it almost cost Abimilech his life and his kingdom. But God kept him from sinning.

Temptation. This is the first thing that comes into my mind upon reading this story. Here was a Abraham with Sarah, a beautiful wife, offering her to Abimilech for good favor. It’s sexual trading, may I say. Abraham is tempting Abimilech to sin.

I tend to think that anything or anyone who (I think) tempts me is to be faulted. If I see a beautiful lady with a cleavage, and my eyes were tempted, my first instinct is to tell that lady to, “Hey, you’re a temptation! Get thee behind me Satan!” or I may pray “God keep that lady away from me”.

I sometimes forget what Christ said “And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.” Mar 9:47

It is I that sins because I entertained temptation, not the object of my temptation. Sometimes I forget that. I can’t go around telling ladies prescribing what type of underwear to wear, what kind of shirt to wear so that I will not be tempted, so that others will not be tempted. Sin starts in the mind and grows in heart.

Can I blame some women for being beautiful and sexy? Surely not, their beauty and sexiness is God given and to treat God given attributes, like a beautiful face and a beautiful body, is wrong. I can only appreciate beauty, I hope, without sinning. Difficult!

Vithel, one me of my classmates asked me why “men are like that.” Like what? I asked. “They look at us girls as if they want us.” I told Vithel, “I am a man. It’s an instinct. If I see beautiful or attractive women, I will look. I can’t help it.” “Then you are sinning?” She smiled at me. “Vithel, looking is not sinning. When analysis sets in, that’s sinning.” She laughed.


God grace is sufficient and God’s grace keeps me from sinning, I just need to do my part—resist it. I hope when temptations sets in God will find me like Abimilech. "Lord, I am innocent! I have done no wrong.”
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Pray for one of our hardworking pastors, Pastor Pete Caderon, the Pastor of Ahon Evangelical Christian Baptist Church. Pastor Pete needs to undergo medical operations and he needs money for the procedure. Pray for God’s provisions and healing.

Genesis c. 19

Pray for one of our hardworking pastors, Pastor Pete Caderon, the Pastor of Ahon Evangelical Christian Baptist Church. Pastor Pete needs to undergo medical operations and he needs money for the procedure. Pray for God’s provisions and healing.

Sodom and Gomorrah

I can’t understand Lot’s story so I’m posting one sermon that I think will be helpful in understanding the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. This about compassion also.

Remember Lot’s Wife
By Sally Baehni Burgess
[Sally Baehni Burgess is the Associate Pastor of the Broadway Baptist Church
in Kansas City.]

What images come to mind when you hear the word compassion? Do you
think of righteousness, strength, power, and justice? Or do you think of
sentimentality, softness, maybe flabby convictions? Does the word compassion
stir up the image of a winner, someone who comes out on top in the end? Or
does the word conjure up the image of a loser, someone who feels too much,
isn’t rational enough, wears her bleeding heart on her sleeve?

The image that usually comes to mind for me is Jesus weeping over Jerusalem,
and I hear the words God said to Moses, “I AM Yahweh, the compassionate
and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness….”f1 And
just as I’m about to settle down into this image of compassion, I hear this little
voice coming from somewhere deep down in that “bad neighborhood” f2 part of
my mind saying, “Oh yeah? Well, what about Lot’s wife? And what about
Job’s wife? And Miriam? And Eve?

Seems like I’m always running smack dab into these Old Testament women
who are getting kicked out of paradise, contracting serious skin disorders, or
turning into salt licks.

Now some might view this as an obstacle. But I see it as good sermon fodder.
How come compassion and grace don’t seem to abound for these women?
What would we hear if we listened with compassion to their stories?
Last fall when I was on my old Seminary campus to hear Phyllis Trible’s
lecture series, I mentioned to Dr. Graves, my former preaching professor, that I
was thinking about preaching a sermon on Lot’s wife.
“Oh,” he said. “That’s an easy 3 point sermon. You don’t even need a poem at
the end because it rhymes.”
I waited.
Dr. Graves cleared his throat: “Lot’s wife in three points. She halted; she
faulted; she salted.”
The crowd that had gathered around us in the lunch room laughed.
“Good one, Dr. Graves,” I said. “Only, I’m not sure she faulted, at least not
any more or less than Lot did.”
“I’m not either,” he said. “But that’s about what her story has been reduced
to.”
And he’s right, because Lot’s wife is one of the losers in the Bible. But Phyllis
Trible said: If we want to hear the loser’s stories we just have to listen; we
have to look and listen with compassion for the voices in scripture that have
been silenced.

So I want to focus on the story of Lot’s wife because I want to invite you to
begin listening with compassion for the losers’ voices in Scripture. It’s a
discipline I’ve been practicing, and Iwant you to practice it with me now
because listening for “the view from below”f3 in Scripture helps tune our ears
to the voiceless ones in our communities, in our churches, in our city, our
country, in the world.

In our story from Genesis, Chapter 19, Lot’s wife is one of the losers along
with the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Verse 19 says: “But Lot’s wife looked
back, and she became a pillar of salt.” The comment at the bottom of my NIV

Study Bible says:

“Her disobedient hesitation became proverbial in later generations.
Even today grotesque salt formations near the southern end of the Dead
Sea are reminders of her folly.”f4
Poor Mrs. Lot. She never says a word through the entire story. And yet, she is
defined as foolish, disobedient, doubleminded — even greedy — generation
after generation after generation. It makes me curious. How do they know so
much about her, about her motives when she never says a word.
As the story begins, her husband brings home these alien travelers (who
actually are angels; the Lots don’t know it but we do because the narrator lets
us in on that little secret). Lot didn’t call before he came home with guests. He
didn’t give Mrs. Lot any warning that he was bringing two rough looking
strangers home to spend the night. She didn’t have a chance to pick up the
toys, do up the dishes, make up the guest room. No, he just appeared at the
door at the end of the day and said, “Honey, I’m home. And, uh, I brought a
couple of aliens home with me for dinner. Uh, they’ll be spending the night,
too.”

What does she say, what does she feel? We don’t know. She is silent.
Verse 3 says “He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast….”
Yeah, right! He’s been hanging out at the city gate all day. When did he have
time to cook a meal? My guess is that unless Lot was the first liberated man in
the Bible, he instructed his wife to prepare a meal and she did so — silently.
Well, then this horrible scene erupts outside of their house. A gang of men
surround the house and taunt Lot and his family, “Send out those aliens, those
foreigners. Send them out so that we can have a little fun with them, show
them where they stand, run them out of town, or kill them.” The verse says
“send them out so that we can know them,” and it is translated “so that we can
have sex with them.”

Because of that some want to stop listening here. It’s too uncomfortable so
they quickly and easily dismiss the “sin of Sodom” as homosexuality.
Something we wouldn’t do. But there are at least two very serious problems
with that interpretation. One is it assumes that having a same sex orientation
automatically means someone will engage in a violent gang rape. That tells me
we haven’t been listening — we haven’t been listening to the reports of the
war crimes, the gang rapes, that have been perpetrated in Bosnia by soldiers
against women and men; we haven’t been listening, we don’t want to hear the
reports about these same kinds of crimes being committed against inmates by
other inmates in our own American prison systems. Rape isn’t about
homosexuality or heterosexuality. It’s not about a sexual relationship at all. It’s
about power and humiliation and abuse. But we haven’t been listening; we
haven’t wanted to hear.

The second problem is this interpretation doesn’t take seriously what the Bible
says the sin was in Sodom and Gomorrah. It lets those of us who are
heterosexual off the hook; but we are not off the hook. Isaiah names the sins of
Sodom and Gomorrah as mistreatment of the alien, abuse of the outcast, and
lack of justice for the powerless, for those with no voice. We must allow the
scripture to confront us about those parts of ourselves that commit the same sin
as the people of Sodom and Gomorrah: We lack hospitality; and we lack
compassion for the “aliens” in our midst, for the ones who are different from
us.

There is an inherent fear of the foreigner that we humans feel. You can see the
evidence of our fear if you listen to the things we humans say. Remember how
we were so sure, at first, that an Arab terrorist had bombed the federal building
in Oklahoma? Remember the disbelief expressed in Israel recently when they
learned that Prime Minister Rabin was assassinated by a Jew? “Jews don’t do
this to Jews,” they said. “We would expect this from a foreigner but not from a
Jew.”

We’re not that different from the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. This
hospitality thing, this welcoming the stranger in our midst, hearing the voice of
the voiceless is hard stuff for us, too. We don’t do it very well either.
Last May my husband and I visited his sister, Mary, in Ohio. While we were
there, one of my husband’s nieces came through with some of her friends.
Anna is an art major at Kansas University. She and her friends had been
traveling around the country visiting some of the nations art museums.
I’ve known Anna since she was little and I’ve always liked her. She’s very
creative, very intelligent. And so when she turned sixteen and dyed half of her
hair orange and the other half purple, I didn’t think too much about it. That
was just Anna. I knew her. She was all right. But when she arrived at Mary’s
and her friends got out of the van with their hair sticking up in these spiked
things, and their leather jackets and chains, I said to Mary, “They look really
scary. Do you think they’re trying to make a statement? Do you think they’ll
hurt us?”

Mary said, “I don’t know. Why don’t we go in and make a pot of coffee? We’ll
sit and talk, find out who they are.”
Ah, Mary! Hospitality — the compassionate way!f5
Holding a cup of boiling hot coffee in my hand I felt a little more secure. We
talked; we asked questions about their travels, about their plans for the future.
We listened to their dreams about the places they wanted to go, the art
businesses they wanted to open. They really loosened up, and so did we.
And then I noticed that their “chains” were actually pieces of jewelry they had
designed and made themselves. Now it’s not like any jewelry I would wear;
but then I’m 40.

The scene at the van saying goodbye was a whole lot more fun than saying
hello had been. There were hugs all around.
After they left, Mary kidded me about my fears: “Sally, when you were in high
school didn’t you have really long hair and hang out with kids who wore a lot
of beads and macrame and bell bottoms?”
I didn’t say a word. I was silent.
Hospitality, that’s what Lot offered the strangers. He was so earnestly
hospitable he was even willing to sacrifice his daughters for the strangers’
safety. “Here are my daughters,” he says to the angry mob in verse 6. “Do
what you like with them.”

Thank heaven the angels were more liberated than Lot. Thank heaven that
daughters, women, were not aliens to the messengers of God. And Lot’s wife?
What did she feel when she saw her husband’s lack of compassion for his own
daughters? What must she have felt when she saw the messengers of God
value her daughters, save them from their own father? There is only silence.
When the angels finally tell Lot and his family to flee, Lot hesitates a couple of
times, bargains some with the angels, even changes the arrangements. His wife
hesitates one time and yet “her disobedient hesitation becomes proverbial”; she
turns into a pillar of salt. And we assume this means she was punished for her
disobedience; that the God who had been so patient with Lot, lost patience
with her.

Well, there’s another interpretation. It’s called a midrash. A midrash is a story
(sometimes a very old story passed down to us by our Hebrew ancestors) told
by those who study the Old Testament stories and wonder about what has been
left out, about the silent parts. So they add an explanation, a midrash to help us
listen.

Why did Lot’s wife turn around and look? Was it disobedient hesitation?
Maybe. Was it greed? Was she foolishly longing after all the material things
she had to leave behind in order to flee? Maybe. And why did she turn into a
pillar of salt? Was it punishment?

Well, the midrash says “she turned around out of compassion for those who
had been left behind, and the pillar of salt was from her tears.”f6
Compassion can be costly; compassion can seem like folly. The cross seems
like foolishness to some. And yet, the Apostle Paul writes: “…the foolishness
of God is wiser than [human] wisdom….”f7

Let me close with a story about an ordinary, foolish — somewhat costly —
compassionate act that Anne Lamott writes about in her book, Operating
Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year. Lamott is the single parent of a
newborn baby. The baby’s father has chosen to be out of the picture so she’s
on her own with a few good friends. Well, the baby is colicky and has been
ever since he came home from the hospital six weeks ago. No one — not the
baby; not the mom — is getting any sleep, and Lamott has finally reached that
“zombie point” where you’re so exhausted you’re not sure if you’re going to
cry or kill something.

Then something truly amazing happened.

A man from church showed up at our front door, smiling and waving to me
and Sam, and I went to let him in. He is a white man named Gordon, fiftyish,
married to our associate pastor, and after exchanging pleasantries he said,
“Margaret and I wanted to do something for you and the baby. So what I want
to ask is, what if a fairy appeared on your doorstep and said that he or she
would do any favor for you at all, anything you wanted around the house that
you felt too exhausted to do by yourself and too ashamed to ask anyone else to
help you with?”
“I can’t even say,” I said. “It’s too horrible.”

But he finally convinced me to tell him, and I said it would be to clean the
bathroom, and he ended up spending an hour scrubbing the bathtub and toilet
and sink with Ajax and lots of hot water. I sat on the couch while he worked,
watching TV, feeling vaguely guilty and nursing Sam to sleep. But it made me
feel sure of Christ again, of that kind of love. This, a man scrubbing a new
mother’s bathtub, is what Jesus means to me. As Bill Rankin, my priest friend,
once said, spare me the earnest Christians.f8

Spare me the earnest Christians; give me the compassionate ones.
May God grant each one of us the grace and the strength to follow the
compassionate way, to see the view from below, to listen to the voices of the
voiceless, and in doing so to experience new life, new joy, healing and the
resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Endnotes
ft1 From Exo. 34: 6.
ft2 In her book, Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year, Anne
Lamott writes: “My mind is a bad neighborhood that I try not to go into
alone.” It’s a metaphor I connect with not only because I, too, have a
family of Greek “furies” living in my head ready to pounce and beat the
stuffing out of me at the least little mistake. But also because the questions
I ask lead me into unconventional thoughts that have gotten me in trouble
more than once with conventional thinkers.
ft3 I first heard this expression in Fr. Richard Rohr’s articles and tapes. I have
since heard it in various forms from other feminist and liberationist
theologians.
ft4 From The NIV Study Bible, page 34
ft5 For a marvelous description of “the compassionate way” read Compassion:
A Reflection o the Christian Life by Henri J. Nouwen, Donald P. McNeill,
and Douglas A. Morrison.
ft6 I read this midrash in the introduction to a book titled But God Remembered:
Stories of Women from Creation to the Promised Land by Sandy Sasso.
ft7 1Co. 1:25.
ft8 Lamott, Anne. Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year,
page 70.

Genesis c. !8

v.13 Then the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, “Will I really have a child, now that I am old?” Is anything too hard for the Lord?

Just like Abraham who fell faced down and laughed when the Lord said he will have a child, Sarah laughed too. But the Lord reacted to Sarah’s laughter. Why? Maybe it’s because Sarah’s laughter was tinged with scorn. Who would not be? She’s already way, way past the fertile age. Abraham can laugh all he wants but he can still sire children; but for Sarah, the thought of getting pregnant at that age must have sounded to her like a big bad joke. I can’t blame Sarah for laughing at God.

I doubt God, I laugh at God because I tend to think that some things are difficult for the Lord.

How can one have faith without doubt?

If a person has only faith and no doubt, nothing that the Lord can do can be called divine. Just like Sarah when the Lord said she will conceive Isaac, she doubted the Lord. But when she did give birth to Isaac, she knew that because of her doubt, God performed an act that is beyond the power of anyone and anything ever known. She doubted God but she later realized that there is really nothing too difficult for the Lord to do.

If she did not doubt all she would have said is, yeah, yeah, yeah, so what, I’m preggy and I will name the baby Isaac…blah, blah, blah as the Lord commanded…But because of her doubt and Abraham’s doubt, the fulfillment of God’s covenant is ever more sweeter.

Doubt is not the opposite of faith. The opposite of faith is unfaithfulness, infidelity to God—idolatry.

Little by little doubts are overcome and every time doubts are overcome faith grew little by little for in weakness there is strength.

….when I am weak God makes me strong. (2 Cor. 12:10)

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Pray for one of our hardworking pastors, Pastor Pete Calderon. He needs to undergo surgery for his hernia and prostate. Pray for healing, financial provisions and strength.

“All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” Rom 8:28

Genesis c. 17

v. 17 Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear at the age of ninety?”

Maybe what’s funny was that at the age of hundred years Abraham was still uncircumcised. Nah, just having fun. Of course what made Abraham laughed was that at his age and at Sarah’s age, it is impossible for them to conceive a child.

Funny, funny, funny…

How many times have I laughed at God? Me do this, me does that? Me go there, me go here? Lord you know my conditions and my weaknesses will I not be that I will become funny an oddity, a stumbling block?

Funny, funny, funny…

I always laugh at God. I hope I’m not sinning but I do laugh at God. I doubted God. I doubted his abilities, I doubted his grace.

I laugh at God sometimes.

I remember Thomas. He must be laughing inside (like Abraham) when he saw a man claiming to be the risen Christ.

So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord!" Thomas said to them, "Unless I see the scars of the nails in his hands and put my finger on those scars and my hand in his side, I will not believe." A week later the disciples were together again indoors, and Thomas was with them. The doors were locked, but Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here, and look at my hands; then reach out your hand and put it in my side. Stop your doubting, and believe!" (John 20:25-28)


Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" Maybe this is the funniest and the most powerful words that Thomas exclaimed in all of his life. Why? Thomas was a disciple and those times that Christ’s taught salvation and resurrection he thinks of himself as convinced of this truth, yet when Christ appeared to him in person he doubted.

How many times have I laughed at but I always ended up shouting my Lord my God!

I remember when I resigned from my job (my boss resigned so I had to resign also) and the first few weeks and months is so depressing that I shouted, to myself of course, “My Lord, My God help me!”

Abraham laughed because he doubted.
But God is faithful whether I doubt or not is not important as long as I have enough faith in my heart to laugh at God and to laugh at my doubts.

God keeps his promises. Though it is beyond our powers to claim them for God is sovereign.

“I am God almighty, walk before me and be blameless. I will confirm my covenant between you and me…(vs. 1-2)