Then Abraham said, “Oh do not let the Lord be angry if I speak just once more.  Suppose ten are found there.”  God answered, “For the sake of ten I will not destroy Sodom.”   

The Story of Abraham pleading for the city of Sodom is one of the more interesting and unique stories in all of scripture.  Try to imagine how strange this story must have sounded to the ancient Hebrew people.  The Bible is filled with pleas for God’s justice against the gentile cities.  Jonah pleads with God to destroy Nineveh even though the people there repented of their sins.  The Canaanites had the hardest time, for under the dictates of holy war, their cities had to be totally destroyed.  Not often in the Old Testament do you find a patriarch or prophet pleading for the lives of the sinful city.   

Abraham is also praying to God in a conversational way, and getting what he asks for.  Abraham asks and receives six times.  He is persistent about praying for a city in which he has no real connection.  Why should Abraham do this?  In this story there is a sense of common humanity that Jesus would later call praying for our enemies.  In fact, Abraham’s prayer for Sodom is the first solemn prayer in the Bible.  Abraham has no reason to love the people of Sodom, but he prays for the people of the wicked city anyway.     

Later Christians would read the Sodom story as being one primarily about sexual immorality, but in Genesis 19, the story of the two angels being threatened by the Sodomites, which leads to the city’s destruction, I believe, is really a story about a lack of hospitality.  The Old Testament is filled with parallelism and juxtapositions.  Today’s Old Testament lesson is placed between Genesis 17 where the righteous Abraham offers hospitality to three strangers, and Genesis 19, the story about two strangers (who happen to be God’s angels) being mistreated by everyone in town except by Lot and his family.  This action proves that there is only one righteous man and three righteous women in the whole city.   Their lives were spared by the angels, but the rest of the city would be destroyed.   

In the ancient world there was nothing more dangerous than traveling.  One had to depend on the kindness of strangers to survive long journeys.  The Sodomites were guilty of hatred toward the stranger, which was a serious crime in the ancient near east.  You lovers of classical mythology will note the number of times Gods and Goddesses disguise themselves to see if the people of a city show kindness to them.  A witness to this belief is in the book of Acts, when Paul and Barnabas are assumed to be Zeus and Hermes in disguise.  In the Christian tradition we have similar stories.  In our own Victory Tower, there is a stained glass window of St. Martin of Tours.  St. Martin is seen cutting his cloak in half and giving it to a strange beggar.  The night after Martin performed this act he had a dream where he saw Jesus talking to his angels, “Here is Martin,” Jesus said, “The Roman soldier who is not baptised, he has clad me.”[1]  When Martin woke up, his cloak was restored, and very soon after he became a Christian.     

You may have read a few years back that the Episcopal Bishop of Rhode Island, Geralyn Wolf, was inspired by this story and dressed and lived as a homeless woman to see how her priests and laypeople would treat her.  I would hope and pray that you and I would pass this test of hospitality.  Hospitality is important in the ancient world of Abraham, in the world of late antiquity of St. Martin, and in our own modern world.

Abraham, a stranger in a strange land, whose family was not shown any hospitality from the people of Sodom, prays for their lives.  He pleads six times with God, but understands God’s need for justice.  Abraham insists that God should spare them if there are ten righteous people in their midst.  Unfortunately, Sodom is wicked to the core, and the city is destroyed.  There is a lesson for us concerning hospitality and prayer.  Every week at the Redeemer we are praying for strangers.  Perhaps we do not know a single person from the diocese of Rhode Island who we will pray for during the prayers of the people, but we pray for them anyway.  These prayers are not pointless.  As Abraham did, we should pray for people we don’t know, for just as Abraham was heard by God, so are we.   

Jesus also tells us that our prayers are listened to in our gospel lesson from today.  He says that our father in heaven is infinitely more generous than our own parents, and what father, even a wicked father, would give a serpent when his child asks for a fish.  There are two lessons here: first, that God listens to our prayers, and second, that we should ask God for things.  The great Patriarchs, like Abraham and Moses, asked for things.  Jesus encourages us to ask God to give us our daily bread.  God is listening, and part of our relationship with God is to ask for things, and God will answer our prayers.  Not always when we want God to, but God will answer them.   

When I was a hospital chaplain, I met a lovely woman who had a very rich prayer life.  She would write beautiful prayers.  I even read some of them over the loud speaker at the hospital.  At one point I asked her what she wanted God to do for her.  She looked surprised and said she didn’t know.  She told me that she did not ask God for personal things.  She didn’t consider it polite.  This was a woman who asked God for healing and peace for as many people in the hospital as she could meet.  Perfect strangers she would pray for incessantly.  She was hospitable to all, and she prayed for people she didn’t even like.  All of this she would do, but she would not ask God for anything for herself.  She said that she didn’t pray for things like winning the lottery.  I told her I didn’t pray for those things either, but if she asked for spiritual healing and peace for perfect strangers, should she not ask the same for herself?  I asked her if she wanted a closer relationship with her daughter, and she said she did.  I asked her if she would pray for it.  She still wasn’t sure if she should ask, however.  She was afraid it would not work, but does God care more for our intercessory prayers for strangers than for our own personal petitions?   

It is not selfish to pray for ourselves.  After all, we are to love our neighbors as ourselves.  The way around this rule is not to love ourselves so little that we can avoid loving our neighbors.  As narcissistic as our general culture can be, I am continually astonished as to how difficult it is to convince people that God loves them.  Even good praying Christians who believe that God loves people, and that God loves the stranger, have a very difficult time accepting that God really loves them.  This reality comes out in prayer. 

If you believe that God loves you, does it not also stand to reason that God would want to answer your personal prayers?   

I am willing to practice what I preach.  I am praying to God everyday that he will bless my ministry here.  I pray that I will have some real impact, and have some effect on the life of the people at the Redeemer.  I pray that God will give me a big enough heart to love each and every one of you more each day.  I want to love you as brothers and sisters and not simply as strangers I pray for.  Thank you all for showing me hospitality as I get settled at the Redeemer.  May God give us the strength to show hospitality to the stranger, keep us praying, and may God bless us and keep us all.   

Amen.