Week 13 Monday (Year 1)

Readings: Genesis 18:16-33; Psalm 103; Matthew 8:18-22

What moves Abraham in his bargaining with God? Perhaps it is his concern for Lot, for his family and herdsmen. We know from an earlier passage in Genesis that Lot and his entourage settled near Sodom and it would be quite natural for Abraham to seek to save his nephew from the destruction soon to be visited on that notorious city.

The Lord is also bargaining with Himself, it seems, since two of the men who visited Abraham go down to check whether things are as bad as has been reported. Abraham is in God's confidence and so can engage in the oriental style bargaining that we see. The outcome of the bargaining is that if there are even ten innocent people there, the city will be spared. It seems there were not, for Sodom was destroyed, though not before Lot and his family managed to retreat to the hills (the consequences for Lot's wife for disobeying the instructions for their departure leading to consequences that are well known).

What are we to focus on in this story? One thing is the growing intimacy between God and Abraham who is now admitted into the inner circle, as we might say, of divine deliberations. How can God hold back from him, whom He has taken into His friendship, what He is about to do? It anticipates one of the most powerful points in Jesus's teaching: 'no longer do I call you servants because a servant does not know his master's business, but I call you friends because I have made known to you everything I have heard from my Father' (John 15:15). Abraham is the first person to be called a friend of God (2 Chronicles 20:7) and in the offspring of Abraham, Jesus Christ, all human beings are admitted to that friendship (Galatians 3:16).

However, it might be the fact that God punishes wrongdoing by dealing out death and destruction that catches our attention. It is mitigated somewhat by the fact that God wants to confirm how bad things really are and that He is also open to sparing entire cities if a remnant of innocence is found in them. But if not, then it seems to be necessary by some kind of fatalistic law that these communities should be destroyed. Abraham does not protest this, and God seems to be acting out of a required obedience to this law rather than out of angry vindictiveness or wilful destructiveness. We saw it earlier in Genesis, at the time of the great flood, when again it seemed better to God to call the whole thing off - except to change His mind on account of Noah who found favour in His sight.

So in one way the picture of God presented here is very comforting - God who takes Abraham into His friendship is faithful to that friendship as Abraham is also faithful to it. (We will see to what extent Abraham is prepared to be faithful as we read on in Genesis.) Abraham carries the promise not just for himself and his own family and people but for all the nations of the earth. We believe this promise gets its fullest realisation in Jesus.

On the other hand the picture of God is challenging, God who is either powerless to act other than He does or chooses not to act other than He does, raining death and destruction on Sodom and Gomorrah. On this point there will be radical developments over the course of time until we come to the situation where the Son of God - once again Jesus Christ - becomes 'the righteous one who stands in the breach before God on behalf of the land so that He would not destroy it' (Ezekiel 22:30). Instead it is the Son Himself (one of the men who went down to check out Sodom?!) who is prepared to die on behalf of the ungodly, not just to save a human city from destruction but to lay the foundation of a new city, established on a radically new basis, the City of God of which He is the cornerstone.