Sin of Sodom: A Case of Denial

The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, John Martin, 1852

Folks will tell you that the Biblical account of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18-19) is about the "sin of homosexuality." In fact, the word "sodomy" even comes from this interpretation.

Many do not question this interpretation at all. It is treated like it's built into the law of nature: Birds fly, fish swim and the sin of Sodom is homosexuality.

Easy peasy, right?

There is no shortage of commentaries on this subject with scholars exploring all angles. I'm going to risk looking at it from a simpler perspective to make this case: Sodom fits right into themes of denial and cognitive dissonance that I've been exploring on this blog lately.

Take a look at this:

Ezekiel 16:49-50 (NSRV)
This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty, and did abominable things before me; therefore I removed them when I saw it.

See also: Genesis 18-19, Jeremiah 23:14, Amos 4:1-11 and Jude 1:7

The Bible is full of brain-teasing parables and puzzling narratives. It's hard enough to figure out what a good many passages might mean. In fact, I hold that the Bible invites us on a multi-layered journey of introspection, growth and discovery. It's about a people who are in varying stages of that same journey. Good folks can reasonably disagree about many things. However, in the case of these texts above, Scripture does us a favor: Bible authors tell us point-blank where to direct our attention. 

The Ezekiel passage specifically lists the sins of Sodom. It even prefaces it to be as clear as possible:  "This was the guilt of your sister Sodom," followed by an actual list. I don't know how you can get any clearer than that. For those who take the Bible literally, this should be an even simpler matter.

Yet, people will insist that Sodom is about something other than what it actually says. I respect if people don't agree with the Bible here, but let's at least be honest about what it says.

The Book of Ezekiel very clearly writes that pride, haughtiness and hoarding riches at the expense of the poor are among those sins. It also lists "abominable things." What does this last point mean? You could argue that those "abominable" things could include homosexual acts, but it does not specify.

There were all sorts of "abominable acts" in the Old Testament, and the passages from Jeremiah and Jude seems to suggest those acts relating to Sodom were adultery. You could argue further that "homosexual acts" could be considered a form of adultery, but then you would have to bend and stretch the text all sorts of ways to get it to read that way. Even worse, you would be ignoring all the other possible ways to interpret it, especially those that have far more evidence to support them. In addition to the verses mentioned above, the original Genesis reading looks like the sin in question was gang rape of houseguests by a violent mob. Amos affirms that the sins were greed and a corresponding lack of charity. And so on.

Nothing that seems to match our modern understanding of same sex partnerships seems to be described in any of these verses.

It seems like the people of Sodom were violent and focused on partying and rowdy pleasure-seeking while the poor suffered. They were treated each other in outrageous displays of selfishness and meanness--these are the "abominable acts."

Why would people take the Ezekiel passage above, ignore the first three very clearly stated points, and then focus all attention on a questionable interpretation of the fourth point?

Even if the sins of Sodom were to include a general indictment against all "homosexual acts" (which I highly doubt), anyone preaching on this text should still give the most time and emphasis to the sins of pride, greed and haughtiness.

Preachers should be pounding the pulpit over and over again about pride and greed if they want to be consistent with Scripture. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of Bible passages condemning greed, for example. By contrast, there are a total of six that many claim relate to homosexuality, and even those have come under some serious doubt in light of recent scholarship (including the story of Sodom).

Are pride and greed no longer major problems in our world today? The United Nations claims that around 21,000 people die every single day from hunger and hunger-related causes. How do we sit with that given that many of us have time, talent and treasure that we spend pursuing pleasures of all kinds? That's the sin of Sodom. But we can't face the truth of that statement, so we redirect our attention to "those homosexuals." Regardless of your beliefs about homosexuality, how is this even an honest read of this particular story?  How can we justify the monumental attempt to distract attention from greed, pride, lack of charity and violence?

This blog post is not about homosexuality. Neither is the story of Sodom, but people have neutralized its meaning this way. It could powerfully critique the greed and pride in all of society. It could be a warning to all who are going down that path that God is going to blow us all to bits (figuratively, let's say). Leave that lifestyle and don't even look back. It's not the path that leads to love, goodness and wholeness. Just look at the classic painting at the top of this post--it's a fierce condemnation.

Given the stockpiling of nuclear weapons, climate change and endless wars, it is easy to see how this path of consumerism and world power will also end in ruin for us all, just like it did for the people of Sodom. We need to hear this story with new eyes today. Look at that painting again and see nuclear war, not homosexuality.

We've been robbed of the power of the story of Sodom. It should be a strong companion to Matthew 25:31-46, which also gives dire warnings for those who do not serve Jesus by feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger and the other Works of Mercy. It's a path that ends in destruction.

It's so tempting to bring the explanation we want to the Bible, rather than let the Bible teach us. We are afraid of the power of the Bible. If we don't already have a preconceived idea, a preacher tells us what to find in the Bible, and lo and behold, that is exactly what we find. It's the power of suggestion.

When a passage does not fit our preconceived notions, our brain simply discards it. It's how we deal with cognitive dissonance. People do it all the time. We've been told so often that Sodom is about homosexuality, so when we find lines about greed and pride we simply gloss over and discard them.

Thomas Merton in Opening the Bible says that the Bible tells us about ourselves. In other words, if we go to the Bible and ask, "What is this book about?" the response from the Bible is, "Who are you?"

The story of Sodom is a perfect example of this. The subjects in the story are not the people of Sodom. No, the true subjects are the people reading it. How you interpret the story and what you find says more about you than it does about the people living in that doomed city thousands of years ago.

As a closing, the fact that the "good guy" in the story named Lot offered up his virgin daughters to appease the violent mob from attacking his houseguests should make it pretty obvious that we should not be taking every detail from this story as direct instruction about morality. It should also make us wonder if this story is an allegory about some other spiritual truth. Or maybe the story does the very thing Merton proposed--we think it's telling us about something else but it is really tells us about ourselves.

***

NOTE: Thanks to this article for help in identifying verses which relate to Sodom.

Moving Beyond Tribalism, Jesus Style



Missionary celebrating Mass in a rural barn.
Glenmary archives.



Jesus seemed to treat everyone who crossed his path with the same respect and dignity. I find this to be one of the most amazing things about his earthly ministry.

It didn't matter if someone were rich or poor. Jesus seemed equally willing to be scandalized by hanging out both with "sinners" and tax collectors (I put "sinners" in quotes because maybe the Bible was recording the public chatter, and "sinners" was really another word for "outcasts"). Jesus developed quite a reputation for himself for doing this.

Jesus could still be tough on people. He could still get angry. But he never seemed to lose sight of that basic, God-given dignity of every person. 

This is enormously difficult for most of us. When we encounter anyone, we often do it through layers of social strata. We are quick to find out which groups they belong to. Which race?  Which political party? Which religious denomination? Which social class? What profession?

It's like we need to know these things before knowing how to interact with someone. We may take their opinions more or less seriously based on which groups they belong to.

Jesus seemed to completely ignore all of the above and simply interacted directly with the person.

Imitating Jesus in this--I believe--is one of the strongest aspects of Christian discipleship. And the most challenging.


Free Christian Clip Art, ©2008 GospelGifs

We don't handle cognitive dissonance very well.

We develop allegiance to certain groups or causes--our family, our denomination, our race, our country. We have plenty of reasons to sing the praises of our group and plenty of reason to deride the aspects of others. A lot of that may very well be based on fact--or at least, a highly-selective representation of the facts.

But what happens when a piece of information come along that doesn't fit into the narrative mold that we have fashioned? What if something comes along that challenges the way we have put it all together in our mind?

Studies have shown that our tendency is to simply throw away the new information outright. Or we rationalize or find other ways to minimize it. We say things like: "Oh, that's not a big deal." "That was just an off day." "This person is not as bad as that other person."

You can see this play out in American politics. People will support a candidate even though that person may be complicit in doing the very same things that we claimed were the reasons for not supporting another candidate from another party.

Many people today support Donald Trump who were the very same people who couldn't tolerate Bill Clinton's sexual antics. Clinton was so bad, they argued, that they had Clinton impeached. There was no shortage of sermons and soliloquies deriding and denouncing Bill Clinton for this. In their equation, Clinton's sexual exploits made him unfit for the Office of President. Period. There was no room for ambiguity. No if's, and's or but's. He was a terrible role model, they argued, and any other positive achievements he may have made were tainted by these sexual exploits.

Trump has arguably a far more scandalous history of sexual exploits. He has shown no remorse or evidence that he wants to change any of that. Yet, he is accepted by the same people who found Bill Clinton unacceptable.

I hear very few cries from the "moral majority" about this. I hear more talk about the "lesser of evils" and "trying to look at the whole package" and other rationalizations. Perhaps the crusade against Clinton wasn't really about his sexual exploits in the first place--maybe that was just a cover for other motives.

Or maybe this is an example of a poor way of dealing with cognitive dissonance.  It goes something like this:  If he's in your political party, you shrug off his negative side. If he's not in your group, you hold his feet to the fire and hate him for most everything he does. You give the benefit of the doubt to those in your group and you have little tolerance for those outside your group.

[And yes, I am quite aware that these same kinds of arguments could and should be made about candidates on the "other side."]

That's exactly the opposite of what Jesus was modeling for us.

Jim Wallis is right in saying that racism is American's "original sin." Perhaps it's the original sin of the entire human race. Jesus tried to pull us out of this tribalism--where we have unquestioned brand loyalty to "our group" and suspicion, derision and outright hatred for those in other groups.

It's a good exercise to listen to what someone says without first knowing anything about their background. I have done this in online chat rooms. I have read brilliant commentary from people who later turned out to be extremely young, and have also read moronic commentary from people who I later discovered to be doctors, lawyers and heads of industry--the so-called high status professions. I might have listened to all of them differently if I had known ahead of time their age or position. 

In a likewise manner, it's good to take passages from famous speeches and ask people their opinion. Later, tell them who said it.

Authentic, Jesus-style dialogue calls us to leave tribalism behind and enter this space of Mystery.  We call this liminal space--it exists between categories and preconceived notions. It's just listening to what is truly being said and interacting with the truth of the person in front of you without first labeling based on which groups a person is associated with. It's the space where we can hear God so well, because we have suspended our own assumptions and conclusions and can truly listen.

It takes a lot of work to evaluate everyone and everything on their own merits and not rush to conclusions based on which group they belong to.