Ezekiel 16:49-50 CEB

49 This is the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were proud, had plenty to eat, and enjoyed peace and prosperity; but she didn’t help the poor and the needy. 50 They became haughty and did detestable things in front of me, and I turned away from them as soon as I saw it.

Genesis 18:20-32 CEB

20 Then the Lord said, “The cries of injustice from Sodom and Gomorrah are countless, and their sin is very serious! 21 I will go down now to examine the cries of injustice that have reached me. Have they really done all this? If not, I want to know.”

22 The men turned away and walked toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing in front of the Lord. 23 Abraham approached and said, “Will you really sweep away the innocent with the guilty? 24 What if there are fifty innocent people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not save the place for the sake of the fifty innocent people in it? 25 It’s not like you to do this, killing the innocent with the guilty as if there were no difference. It’s not like you! Will the judge of all the earth not act justly?”

26 The Lord said, “If I find fifty innocent people in the city of Sodom, I will save it because of them.”

27 Abraham responded, “Since I’ve already decided to speak with my Lord, even though I’m just soil and ash, 28 what if there are five fewer innocent people than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city over just five?”

The Lord said, “If I find forty-five there, I won’t destroy it.”

29 Once again Abraham spoke, “What if forty are there?”

The Lord said, “For the sake of forty, I will do nothing.”

30 He said, “Don’t be angry with me, my Lord, but let me speak. What if thirty are there?”

The Lord said, “I won’t do it if I find thirty there.”

31 Abraham said, “Since I’ve already decided to speak with my Lord, what if twenty are there?”

The Lord said, “I won’t do it, for the sake of twenty.”

32 Abraham said, “Don’t be angry with me, my Lord, but let me speak just once more. What if there are ten?”

Luke 11:5-10 CEB

”5 He also said to them, “Imagine that one of you has a friend and you go to that friend in the middle of the night. Imagine saying, ‘Friend, loan me three loaves of bread 6 because a friend of mine on a journey has arrived and I have nothing to set before him.’ 7 Imagine further that he answers from within the house, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up to give you anything.’ 8 I assure you, even if he wouldn’t get up and help because of his friendship, he will get up and give his friend whatever he needs because of his friend’s brashness. 9 And I tell you: Ask and you will receive. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you. 10 Everyone who asks, receives. Whoever seeks, finds. To everyone who knocks, the door is opened.

What I want to talk about today is persistence in the face of injustice, but because of how the story of Sodom and Gomorrah has been misused to villanize and criminalize gay men, I’ve got to address that injustice first.

You’re going to need the scripture, so keep your bulletins handy!

I chose to have us start with the Ezekiel scripture because Ezekiel, who was a Levite – that is, a person of the Priestly family, as well as a prophet, offers us the definitive interpretation of the story of Sodom and Gamorrah, as a message from God, written down as the duty of a prophet.

The English word, sodomy, is wrongly derived from this story, because at one point the people of Sodom and Gamorrah, threatened to rape Lot’s male guests.  Threatening rape, is bad.  Period.  The gender of the victim is not the important part here!  And gay marriage and consentual gay sex are not the same thing as rape!

Also, rape was not the only sin, for which God was planning to punish the Twin Cities.  Look at that Ezekial passage:

• They were proud in the bad way.
• They had plenty to eat, and enjoyed peace and prosperity; but didn’t help the poor and the needy.  
• They became haughty and did detestable things in front of God, and God turned away from them as soon as God saw it.

When you read the story of Sodom and Gamorrah, please read it in light of Ezekiel’s prophetic interpretation.  This story has NOTHING to do with condemning Gay love.  Nothing!

Having addressed that particular injustice, let’s move on to the topic of persistence.

I read a hopeful post on facebook the other day, insisting that the average dictatorship only lasts 3-5 years, but like so much that is posted on social media this little snippet of hope, was not exactly true.  Like so many things in life, the truth is much more nuanced.

What I was hoping for, was some clear, historically vetted timeline, to give me hope that it will only be a little longer before this season of ICE raids, defunding medical care for the most vulnerable, and Christo-facism defaming the name of God by praying over actions that Ezekiel would call detestable, will soon be over.

I cry out to God like a Psalmist, How Long, Oh God!

How Long, Oh God!

Will the taxes of the middle class be given to Billionaires while they raise the cost of living and pay their workers starvation wages?

How Long, Oh God?

Do you not hear the cries of hungry children?

Do you not see the sleepless nights of gay couples who wonder if they will still be legally married in the morning?

Do you not hear the cries of the asylum seekers snatched as they showed up for court?

How Long, Oh God!

Are you not a God of Justice anymore?

Will you let our entire country suffer for the sins of the 1%??!

OK, maybe more than 1% of us have supported these detestable actions.

Will you let the whole country suffer for the sins of 30% of the US?

What if only 50% of us are innocent?

What if only the children are innocent?

Abraham argued for the lives of the innocent minority in Sodom and Gamorrah because Lot was family.

Maybe Lot wasn’t the most innocent person, because, later in the story, Lot offers the crowd his daughters to assault in place of the guests, but Lot was family.

Have you ever had a relative like that?

Maybe they’re not smart.  

Maybe they don’t make the best choices.

Maybe you can’t agree with their values or their politics.

But they’re family, so you don’t want them to suffer.

Not even suffer the consequences of their own actions.

So Abraham, having heard that his nephew of questionable values and choices, is in the path of God’s wrath, is persistent in bargaining with God.

Now, personally, I think that Abraham questioning Lot’s life choices is pretty much the pot calling the kettle black.  After all,  Abraham was willing to pimp out his wife Sarah to protect himself, even after God demonstrated God’s protection.  Abraham kicked out his firstborn son, Ishmael and his baby-momma Hagar, straight into the desert to die with no child support or anything.  And Abraham got it into his head that God wanted him to sacrifice his second son, Issac… probably because sacrificing your children was a common religious practice in the area at the time, and God had to put a stop to that child-sacrificing nonsense by tangling a ram into a nearby bush, which is generally agreed on as the beginning of animal sacrifice as a replacement for child sacrifice – one of the greatest religious innovations of the time.

All of that is to say that, Abraham was no angel, because sometimes we think that we need to be worthy to pray.  

That we need to be extra holy to dare to question God, like Abraham or the Psalmists.  That it’s somehow dangerous for us to ask, How Long, Oh God? Because that is questioning God.

But persistence is Biblical.

Persistence is Biblical.

And not just Hebrew Bible Biblical.

Although, those who try to claim that the New Testament is somehow more valid than the Old Testament are ignoring the fact that Jesus himself said, in Matthew 5:17,  that he did not come to abolish Torah, but to fulfill it.

Jesus often referenced these Biblical concepts in new ways.

I’m going to have our Worship Leader come up here and read/

5 He also said to them, “Imagine that one of you has a friend and you go to that friend in the middle of the night. Imagine saying, ‘Friend, loan me three loaves of bread 6 because a friend of mine on a journey has arrived and I have nothing to set before him.’ 7 Imagine further that he answers from within the house, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up to give you anything.’ 8 I assure you, even if he wouldn’t get up and help because of his friendship, he will get up and give his friend whatever he needs because of his friend’s brashness. 9 And I tell you: Ask and you will receive. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you. 10 Everyone who asks, receives. Whoever seeks, finds. To everyone who knocks, the door is opened.

This passage comes right after Luke’s version of Jesus teaching the disciples how to pray – what we often call, The Lord’s Prayer.  So the topic is prayer.  

Jesus is telling them, telling us, to imagine that God is like a friend who has the means to help us with whatever unexpected visitor life has brought us, but might not feel like helping us in the moment.  

But because we kept asking…  

Because we kept praying…

God answered.

And as with so many things that Jesus taught, they apply on both a spiritual and an earthly level.

Yes, we must keep knocking on heaven’s door and asking for God’s reign to come and God’s will to be done here on earth as it is in heaven.

And, we must be persistent in accepting the freedom and power that God has given us to resist evil, injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves, as it says in our Baptismal Vows on page 35 of the hymnal.

Friends, one of the healthcare providers who donates his time at the free clinic that Rahab’s Sisters is doing a pilot program with this summer didn’t show up last week, because he was detained by ICE while dropping his child off at care.

They have asked us to pray.

So every Sunday, from now on, we will be praying Micah 6:8 – for our leaders to do Justice, act with Mercy and walk Humbly with God, and I ask you to join me in persistently praying throughout the week.

And we are also called to leverage whatever freedom, power, or privilege, we might have, to resist the evil, injustice and oppression that presents itself in our city, our country and our world.  

This can look like a lot of things. 

From being persistent in emailing your legislators.

To more direct actions such as protest, and boycotts.

I can’t tell you how long these evil times will last, but I can tell you that they will not last forever.

God will eventually inspire enough people and change enough hearts, to change the course of history.

Until then, we will persist in prayer and action.

We will persist in hope.