The Compassion of Abraham

Steve Wilson

Introduction: Today’s scripture reading tells the extraordinary story of a conversation between God and Abraham. In the background is the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah and the story of wickedness and divine justice that will follow in Genesis 19. But in the scripture that we read this morning, the fate of the cities is in doubt. We are informed that even Yahweh does not yet know if the reports about the cities are correct, so Yahweh is determined to see if they have done according to the outcry that has come to him. It is a shame that so many reduce the sin of these cities to a sexual one. The import of Chapter 19 is that God’s messengers are met with the particular sin of hostility and intended violence. References in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekial suggest problems of injustice, pride, and indifference to the needy. So the problems of those cities were pervasive. But – that is in the future. In today’s reading, we find a remarkable discourse between God and Abraham about the nature of justice. Let us hear Genesis 18: 16-33.

Sermon: We are so accustomed to reading scripture. The words lie on the page. We read reverently. This is holy scripture, after all. It is the way we are taught to read. But look at these words. Is this how these words would have been said in an oral culture, a culture raised on stories spoken and listened to, and not read. “Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the judge of all the earth do what is just?” That is a bold way to begin a conversation with God! Walter Brueggemann suggests that even this standard translation is too mild. It is really a cry: “That is profane”: contaminated, impure, polluted. It is wrong.

A bold statement indeed from a man who is still waiting for God to fulfill his promise and give him an heir by his wife, Sarah. This boldness on the part of Abraham has not always sat well with commentators. John Chrysostom, in the fourth century, wrote, “O, what great confidence on the just man’s (Abraham’s) part – or, rather, his great compassion of spirit, overwhelmed as he was with a rush of compassion and not knowing what he was saying.” Oh, Abraham . . . As Randy Jackson might say, “yo, dog. . . listen up, dude . . . you can’t criticize God!” What’s gotten into you?

It’s a good question, isn’t it? What’s gotten into Abraham? Questioning God’s character, of all things. “Shall not the judge of all the earth do what is just?” What is justice? And is that what Abraham is really looking for?

We all have an idea of what we mean by justice. It usually boils down to treating folks fairly and equitably. It is just that everyone is given the same opportunity for education. It is just that we be compensated in proportion to our efforts and accomplishments. It is just that criminals go to jail and the innocent are freed.

Abraham started by asking God if he would be just. “Far be it from you to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked.” What? Of course not. This would not be fair or equitable. The innocent are to be spared and only the guilty punished. That is the essence of justice. But is that the form of justice that Abraham is asking for here? Look again at what Abraham is asking. He begins with a question, “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked?” This is a perfectly reasonable question of justice, which we would all recognize. The innocent should not be punished for the acts of the guilty. But that is not where Abraham goes with his questioning. “What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you sweep it all away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it?” He is not asking God to spare the fifty righteous. Rather, he asks something considerably more bold. For the sake of these few, will you not spare everyone? The dialogue then continues as Abraham worries that there may be very few righteous, indeed, and they wind up at ten. But the principle has been established with the first question. Abraham is not asking that everyone get what they deserve, the unrighteous, punishment, and the righteous, vindication. Rather, he seeks to establish the principle that it will take only a very small number of righteous ones to save an entire community, even though it is largely populated by guilty people. Abraham stands against the conventional moralism of each receiving his or her due. He looks to God for another way and God affirms Abraham’s quest. “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.” Abraham’s argument questions every caricature of God as a score-keeper and guardian of simple morality who is ready to pounce and judge and punish. God will be more attentive to and more moved by those who obey than those who do not.

This is a very communitarian approach to the question of justice. It is an approach that recognizes the interrelatedness of all in community and the possibility that a few who do what is right and just can be more important than the many. Today we are reminded over and over about the interdependence of the world and its peoples, not only at one point in time but with consequences that continue through history. We understand that “our community” is not simply a few of us. We understand that community stretches to reach everyone and all of creation, because we are interconnected and interdependent. Moreover, community stretches back into the past and forward into the future. What our forebears did affects us, what we do affects our children’s children. The sin of slavery perpetrated in this country two hundred years ago continues to have consequences and we continue to bear the burdens that that sin of injustice created. Some of us rail against that, claiming that we cannot be held responsible for what happened a long time ago. But railing does not change the fact that the consequences persist and we are all of us still burdened.

But Abraham argues for hope. Abraham argues for the possibility that the righteousness of the few might save the many. Abraham would argue for the possibility that the righteousness of a Rosa Parks, a Thurgood Marshall, the Little Rock Nine, and a Martin Luther King, Jr., could bring a nation to its senses and begin the process – slow and erratic as it may be – of repentance and redemption. Abraham argues that the righteous few matter.

What’s gotten into Abraham? I think these scriptures have already told us. At the beginning of today’s reading, we are told that God has chosen Abraham, that from Abraham will come a great and mighty nation, that all the nations of the earth will be blessed in him. It is interesting, when reading this scripture, to be reminded that three great religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, all trace their lineage back to Abraham. The Gospel of Matthew, for example, begins the genealogy of Jesus with Abraham.

But why Abraham? Why was Abraham chosen? Today’s scripture tells us why Abraham was chosen. The NRSV that we have read this morning translates the Hebrew as: “I have chosen him that he may charge his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice.” The NIV translation states it a little more clearly: “I have chosen him so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just.” The Lord has told Abraham about the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah. The Lord has not said, outright, what is to happen, but the Lord’s presence says a lot. God has spoken to Abraham. Abraham must respond. A more timid man – a man more committed to a simple morality – might have responded, “Terrible place. They deserve whatever they get. Good riddance.”

But that brings me back to John Chrysostom. “O, what great confidence on the just man’s (Abraham’s) part – or, rather, his great compassion of spirit, overwhelmed as he was with a rush of compassion and not knowing what he was saying.” Saint John may have questioned Abraham’s sense of propriety in so questioning God, but he understood where the impulse came from – from Abraham’s great compassion of spirit. Perhaps Abraham realized that all human beings have more in common than they have in conflict. It is, perhaps, precisely when it is a time of judgment that what we have in common needs most to be affirmed. It is, perhaps, in the nature of the righteous to stand up even for the unrighteous.

Biblical stories are strange stories. Is this a story of Abraham changing God’s mind? Or is it a story that justifies God’s selection of Abraham to do what is right and just? A story that illustrates, through Abraham’s compassionate intercession on the part of these two cities, the “way of the Lord by doing what is right and just?” In other words, that illustrates that the righteousness and justice that comprise the way of the Lord is measured, not be a strict accounting, but by compassion and grace.

This raises a hard question. As children of Abraham, how are we to keep the way of the Lord and do what is right and just? In my daily life, how do I do what is right and just? Does one bad apple spoil the bunch, or can a few good apples save a bad barrel? When is a strict accounting appropriate and when compassion? William Sloan Coffin says that it is a mistake to look to the Bible to close a discussion; the Bible seeks to open one. So, I don’t have an easy answer for you. But I’ll tell you what I think Abraham would tell you. Seek to live with a compassionate heart and speak to God. Question, implore, challenge, seek, intercede, cry, celebrate – pray: AND DO IT BOLDLY!

I would leave you with one final thought. In this scripture, we have a story in which God agrees to spare the many for the sake of a few. Through a Christian lens, we can look back at this story and see the beginning of a promise, a promise that ends on the cross, a promise that the sins of all will be forgiven for the sake of the one who died there. A promise that is an everlasting one, because the righteousness of this one, who we call Christ, is always with us. So when you pray, pray knowing that you pray with the righteousness of Christ, that you do not pray alone. So talk to God as though it matters. Because it does. Talk to God as though God might listen to what you have to say. Because God listens. Talk to God as though something might be changed in the world because of it. It can happen. And sometimes, like Abraham, you may find, in the compassion of your heart, that your answer lies within the question – and you might ask, Who is speaking to whom?