Sodom’s Real Agenda

I want to address how Sodom and Gomorrah is interpreted. The explanation people have most often been given about Sodom was that they were judged for their homosexuality and gay pride parades, or something like that. But, neither the text nor scripture’s “inner-textual” interpreters ever say as such. Following the midrashic wisdom, I advise looking to Abraham to set the standard for the antithetical parallel that Sodom comes to present.

            Prior to God visiting Sodom, there is a scene with Abraham standing under his tent’s entrance to avoid the sun, and in some emblematic sense waiting for God’s promise to come to fruition. Now years before this God made a covenant with Abraham accompanied by the symbolic gestures of giving him a new name (Abram to Abraham: father of lofty to father of many), and the promise of children that will make the name change true. This is then followed by the Ancient Near Eastern act of circumcision which was a serious gesture of commitment by the one believing such a promise (Gen. 17-18 and ouch).

In the years waiting Abraham apparently grows in humility and excessive hospitality. As three strangers come to his tent Abraham’s reflexive action is to run out and greet them in obeisance and asks them to rest, have water and stay for a meal. Then he goes to great lengths by having Sarah get that ready. Okay, he did slaughter a calf for them. Anyway, the three divine messengers oblige him and while conversing one of them tells Abraham that he and Sarah will have a son. If there was doubt about these strangers being divine messengers, the promise of God reiterated should clue us and Abraham in. It is at this that God reveals that Sodom’s and Gomorrah’s injustice was crying out against them which leads to Abraham being in a position to interact with God and tries to barter for not letting their deafness and injustice destroy them ( Gen.18).

But, what is their injustice? The divine messengers walk down to Sodom and are met by Abraham’s nephew Lot who offers them similar hospitality, but he insists on doing it secretly and sending them on their way as soon as possible. The divine messengers said, no, we want to stay in the square, to which Lot strongly insists that coming to his house is the better option. We see why when all males of the city descend onto Lot’s front door. They tell Lot to send the visitors out so that they may “know them” (which in this context is an innuendo for rape) (Gen 19).  According to Ezekiel this is not because Sodom was a bunch of sexual deviants, but because they were prideful, full of wealth, food and prosperity, and still neglected the stranger, poor and disadvantaged (Ezek. 16:49). Joseph Blenkinsopp adds that “according to one midrash the people of Sodom even covered the trees to prevent the birds from eating the berries.”[1] The lack of hospitality was their sin; welcoming the stranger was always central to Jewish faithfulness for following the Creator (Deut. 10:19; Lev. 19:34).

Wes Howard-Brook’s book, Come out my People, adds to this as well. He draws out the two competing religions within the Biblical narrative: YHWH’s “religion of creation” entangled with the rival “religion of empire”, which really took form when Cain builds the first city. Thus, Howard-Brook sees the dynamic at work here with Abraham’s hospitality rooted in peace contrasted with Sodom’s “inhospitable and violent stance deemed ‘normal’ by ancient city dwellers.”[2]

Nevertheless, the crowd was not threatening homosexual supremacy on anyone as if to say “we’re here, we’re queer and it’s contagious!” Though this is how fundamentalists can impose their culture wars onto a text. Rather, the innuendo is threatening rape and rape is always an act (and symbol) of domination. This is the condemnation of the counterfeit society producing the hostile violent fruit bore by ideologies of superiority and self-preservation. Systems like this have nothing to offer the stranger or the vulnerable but pain, suffering and death.

In my mind this interpretation and teaching has so much more to offer us than the faulty reading that has flooded Sunday-schools and sermons. In essence, the reality of Sodom was that they instituted policies and slogans to put Sodom first, built a wall and vetted the stranger so to make Sodom and Sodom's name great again. But, the way of Abraham, which is the way of YHWH, offers us a way out of such engineered cycles through hospitality and shalom for doing life together. And that will bear a much different fruit.

[1] Joseph Blenkinsopp. Ezekiel: Interpretation (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1990), 79.

[2] Wes Howard-Brook. Come Out My People: God’s Call out of Empire in the Bible and Beyond. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2010), 61.  He also points out that Jesus interprets Sodom and Gomorrah the same way when the cities inhospitably reject his disciples (Matt. 10:15; Lk. 10:12).