Posted on 06/13/2006 5:46:37 PM PDT by sionnsar
Continuing with his excellent sermon series on Genesis, the Rev. William Klock of Christ Church REC in Oregon gives us the sermon Lessons from Lot, based on Genesis 19:1-38. I have to say that the character of Lot has always fascinated me, because frankly, as Fr. Klock notes, I'd have a rather hard time seeing Lot as "righteous" based on his actions about which we are told in Scripture--but Scripture also calls him "righteous Lot." Fr. Klock, though, brings the example of Lot much closer to home--as in our own lives:
We can learn a lot about God’s mercy from Lot. When I read the story, I don’t see a man worth saving. He’s a man who shows a lack of faith in God, and what little faith he does have he has compromised in sharing a life of sin and wickedness with some of the most worldly people we know of in Holy Scripture. But again and again God bears with him, waits for him, pleads with him, urges him, and spares him from his divine judgment and got him safely out of Sodom. We can take comfort in the fact that God is merciful. However much we may look down on Lot, all of us are sometimes guilty to some degree of the same sins and so God waits for us, follows us, guides us, and keeps us from destruction too.And indeed this applies to individuals and even to whole churches: if we are indistinguishable from the world in our daily lives, we will have no witness to that same world. May God help us to live as we profess--that our citizenship is in heaven, that we may be witnesses to the world in which we live.
Lot’s dangers may be ours too. First, he was in danger from doing lawful things. It wasn’t wrong for him to want to find a good place to pasture his herds and do business. His sin wasn’t in looking for the good life, but it was in putting his search for the good life first. Jesus reminds us that we can’t serve both God and money. The problem isn’t the use of lawful things – it’s the abuse of them – it’s in putting things before God. A ship in the water is perfectly right, but water in the ship is perfectly wrong. The Christian in the world is right and necessary, but the world in the Christian is wrong and deadly. Lot gradually started letting the water into his ship – and not by letting leaks develop, but by willfully filling his bucket in the sea and dumping it on the deck. At first he pitched his tent towards Sodom, but it didn’t take him long to move into the city. Maybe he though he could be a light to the evil people there, but whatever words he spoke were outweighed by his life. The men of Sodom weren’t stupid. They could see that Lot was just as interested in making money as the rest of them and before long he was probably just as interested in a lot of what they did there that was evil. A Christian has to be outside of Sodom in order to testify against it. Just like Lot’s sons-in-law, no one is going to listen to our message of God’s holiness and justice if we live the same way as the people to whom we preach. We must live a life of separation: in the world, but not of the world.
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. DISCUSSION ABOUT:
"Lessons from Lot"
I think the lessons to be learned from Lot and God's destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah are very pertinent to today's culture.
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No, I have never got drunk, nor committed incest.
I never like the way that the preachers try to normalise Lot's behaviour.
Thanks! I clicked on the link "Lessons from Lot" and found it an excellent reading. Just what I needed to start my day right. Thanks.
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