Bear With Me

I’m not sure if I should call it argumentative, storytelling, or didactic, but my style of preaching and teaching is usually crafted in a way to lead people on a journey towards a conclusion. The design is typically to introduce a situation/problem/conundrum associated with the human or societal condition, tease out why it’s an issue, and build to the wisdom found in scripture and how God is already at work for a solution.

But sometimes I know you have to bear with me.

Sometimes I fear I don’t get to the point quickly or clearly enough, and that perhaps something gets lost in the journey, but I did find some encouragement while sitting in the Agape small group (Room 105) this past week from the most unlikely of scripture passages: Genesis 19.

If you’re not familiar with one of the most infamous and misused stories in all scripture, Genesis 19 is the story of God’s judgment over Sodom and Gomorrah where God wipes out the entire population with a heavenly shower of sulfur and flaming rocks. I learned some scholars have record of a meteorite in that time and place that might make sense of that. Either way, it’s not usually found in the children’s Bible.

We were watching a video about how important it is to read scripture in context so that we can truly understand the Spirit’s intent as it was written, but it wasn’t the story of destruction or even why the cities were destroyed that captured my attention. It was the half-chapter leading up to the destruction: Genesis 18:16-33.

Bear with me.

It starts like this:

“The LORD said, ‘Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, seeing that Abraham shall become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? No, for 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; so that the LORD may bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.”

-Genesis 18:17-19

What I find interesting is that God makes clear that Abraham needs to understand the whole situation. With God being God, I’m sure it would be perfectly okay for God to enact heavenly justice without any collaboration or understanding by us mere mortals, but the question is, “is it as effective?” (If I am, in fact, allowed to question God as a mere mortal.)

When was the last time you used the line “Because I said so” with a child?

How’d that go?

In the short term, you may have outlasted what appears to be stubbornness, but are we ignoring their developmental needs to claim their own unique identity, understand the limits of their power, and, in general, having a real curiosity as to why they’d be put to the back-breaking hardship of taking out the trash.

Knowing “why” is beneficial in just about every circumstance that you wish someone to own the conclusion and not need to be led by the hand anymore. And here in Genesis 18, just like in almost all of scripture except perhaps Job, God decides Abraham needs to be let in on the decision-making process.

But what really captured my attention is the dialogue between Abraham and God in Genesis 18:23-33:

“Then Abraham came near and said, ‘Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will you then sweep away the place and not forgive it for the fifty righteous who are in it?”

God responds:

“If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will forgive the whole place for their sake.”

Surely, God already knows the answer to how many righteous people are in Sodom, and as the story unfolds it’s pretty much Lot and his family – although future stories would call us to question that or why he stayed living in Sodom. And Lot is allowed to leave after the angel visitors compel him to leave just in the nick of time. But if God doesn’t allow Abraham in on the decision-making process, how can Abraham understand the gravity of Sodom’s complete lack of value for their fellow humans?

But also…if God isn’t patient with Abraham, how can Abraham also whittle down a big, colossal generalization to the heart of even just five people or one person?

Abraham negotiates, desperately trying to find even 5 or 10 people who aren’t acting barbaric, and while he grows to accept God’s wisdom he also has the opportunity to be shaped towards righteousness and justice himself.

Bear with me…just a little longer.

I’m going to use as non-confrontational, non-political example as possible: Philadelphia Eagles fans.

If you’re not a Dallas Cowboy fan you won’t understand the utter annoyance we have with Philly fans who cheered for Michael Irvin’s near-paralysis and threw snowballs at Santa Claus (something my Philly-fan friend Joe still brags about as a “great moment”). On the flip side, Kylie Kelce will gladly join a host of Philly fans in chanting “Dallas s*cks,” in situations in which the Eagles aren’t even playing Dallas, so they feel the same way about us.

Clearly one side is completely evil and worthy of destruction.

Except, I know of at least a dozen Philly fans that go to Creekwood. Kirk Reagan literally flies back for games at Lincoln Financial Field AND he’s also a great guy who put his name in the ring to help the Men’s Breakfast get started up. Ben Winder proudly posts Philly related content on Instagram AND he serves in the praise band and is a supremely positive influence within the student ministry. The prior mentioned “Joe” who is my friend from seminary is a United Methodist Deacon in Georgia with a track record of successful youth ministry who I am proud to call “friend.”

Even if he’s an Eagles fan.

In this example and more convoluted religious, sociological, and political examples, it can be extremely easy to pronounce judgment upon a group or a cause without doing any of the relational, educational, and explorative work to find the “why” behind it all. We may find, as Abraham did, that all was copacetic. Or…we might find a human on the other side with a deep need, hurt, or passion that is worth loving enough to avoid calamity.

But we’ll never truly know unless we look, ask, explore…unless we bear with one another to find the heart of the matter. And therefore, we’ll never grow to be more and more like God.

Thanks for reading my ridiculously long e-mails. Perhaps they should be shorter to fit in with our modern, busy schedules. Or, perhaps God showed Abraham to take his time and bear with Him so he could be the most healthy version of himself.

Thanks for bearing with me. I’m delighted to bear with you in ministry together.