050501 Abraham
A Pleading Priest
Big a idea: God calls us to a “priestly” through hospitality and praying for others.
Don Cowie is a ministry colleague, who works part time at Tenth as an outreach pastor, but he who spends the bulk of his time leading Mosaic, a new church plant.
A few yeas ago Don and Lisa were getting ready to put on a offer on the home where they now live. When the woman who as selling the house found out that Don was a pastor she exclaimed, “My sister in-law (who owned the house and had lived in the house most of her life) is going to be thrilled a priest is going to buying her home!”
Then the woman said, I have a cousin who’s a priest in Italy, do you know him?
Sometimes when you say you’re in or going to into ministry or in you get some strange reactions.
When I was working as part of a corporate conglomerate in Tokyo and would explain that one day I was hoping to go into the Christian ministry, people at times (to use Luther’s expression) would look like a cow staring a locked gate, and then after some time asked, “Does this mean you can never marry?”
Most of you here have never thought about your becoming a pastor or priest… but if you become a follower of Jesus Christ, you will be called to a kind of “pastoral or priestly” role meaning you will be called to act as a kind of intermediary role between God and people and vice-verse. We’re going to see what this looks like as we look the journey of Abraham. If you have your Bibles please turn to Genesis 18:1-5, 16-33
The Three Visitors
1 The LORD appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. 2 Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground.
3 He said, "If I have found favor in your eyes, my lord, do not pass your servant by. 4 Let a little water be brought, and then you may all wash your feet and rest under this tree. 5 Let me get you something to eat, so you can be refreshed and then go on your way-now that you have come to your servant."
"Very well," they answered, "do as you say."
Abraham Pleads for Sodom
16 When the men got up to leave, they looked down toward Sodom, and Abraham walked along with them to see them on their way. 17 Then the LORD said, "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? 18 Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him. 19 For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just, so that the LORD will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him."
20 Then the LORD said, "The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous 21 that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know."
22 The men turned away and went toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the LORD . [e] 23 Then Abraham approached him and said: "Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? 24 What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare [f] the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? 25 Far be it from you to do such a thing-to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge [g] of all the earth do right?"
26 The LORD said, "If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake."
27 Then Abraham spoke up again: "Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, 28 what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city because of five people?"
"If I find forty-five there," he said, "I will not destroy it."
29 Once again he spoke to him, "What if only forty are found there?"
He said, "For the sake of forty, I will not do it."
30 Then he said, "May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak. What if only thirty can be found there?"
He answered, "I will not do it if I find thirty there."
31 Abraham said, "Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, what if only twenty can be found there?"
He said, "For the sake of twenty, I will not destroy it."
32 Then he said, "May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?"
He answered, "For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it."
33 When the LORD had finished speaking with Abraham, he left, and Abraham returned home.
The context here is one in which Abraham receives 3 unexpected guests, 2 of whom we know are angels and one appears be the LORD in human form.
We see how in the heat of the day, during siesta time, Abraham this 99 year old moves quickly to arrange for water to be brought for them and arranges for a meal to be prepared and served for these three guests. Abraham acts likes his guest would doing him a favor by letting him serve them. God deems hospitality to be an important characteristic of a person who is considered righteous.
Hospitality doesn’t mean we’re able to set a table like Martha Stewart or that we can cook like Rob Fennie, the celebrated chef at Lumiere.
Hospitality, does mean, as late priest Henri Nouwen, put it that we create space in our heart for people.
Part of the way we can act as priest, that i.e. part of the way we can re-present God to others is by creating space for them. A way we can reflect the face of God to others is by welcoming others even as God has welcomed us.
These 3 guests end up telling Abraham that he and Sarah will have a baby in a year. Sarah is 90 and ends us laughing in disbelief and then as the guests are about to go, they also confide in Abraham that they are about to bring judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah because the outcry of the oppressed against these communities is so great.
What were Sodom and Gomorrah like? Later in Genesis, we see that people of Sodom and Gomorrah have no hesitation about gang raping people. And in others parts of the Scriptures we see that they were considered arrogant, overfed, and unconcerned about the plight of the poor and needy.
God is about to bring judgment on them.
(BTW, once in a while you hear people say, I only believe in a God of love and not judgment. I could never believe in a God who judges.
But part of what it means to be a God of love is that he brings judgment. If God never judged he would not be loving.
God is a God of forgiveness and he is a God of love, but he is also a God who judges. (Someone told me that because she had been violated by a man, and the man glibly said that God forgave him, her view of God was tainted.) If God never judged people who use their power to sexually assault someone, he wouldn’t be a God of mercy to victim.
If God never judges the people and institutions that oppress the poor and vulnerable, he’s not being merciful to them. In verse 20, we hear God saying that the cries of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah are deafening. He’s about to judge Sodom and Gomorrah for their sexual immorality and violence and their complete unconcern for the plight of the poor and oppressed.
The 3 men set out for Sodom, but as Abraham approached God’s judge’s bench, he’s about to intercede on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Abraham says, “Are you planning on getting rid of the good people right along with the bad?” What if there are fifty decent people left in the city; will you lump the good with the bad and get rid of them all? Wouldn't you spare the city for the sake of those fifty innocents? I can't believe you'd do that, kill off the good and the bad alike as if there were no difference between them. Will not the Judge of all the Earth do what is just?"
GOD said, "If I find fifty decent people in the city of Sodom, I'll spare the place just for them."
Abraham come back, "Do I, a mere mortal of dust and ashes, dare open my mouth again to God Almighty? What if the fifty fall short by five--would you destroy the city because of just five less?"
God said, "I won't destroy it if there are forty-five."
Abraham spoke up again, "What if you only find forty?"
"Neither will I destroy it if for forty."
He said, "Master, don't be irritated with me, but what if only thirty are found?"
"No, I won't do it if I find thirty."
He pushed on, "I know I'm trying your patience, Master, but how about for twenty?"
"I won't destroy it for twenty."
"Don't get angry, Master--this is the last time. What if you only come up with ten?"
"For the sake of only ten, I won't destroy the city."
When GOD finished talking with Abraham, he left. And Abraham went home.
In response to Abraham’s prayer, we see that God is willing to spare the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah if there are just 10 decent people.
One of the ways we can act as a priest to others, is through hospitality, another way we can act as a priest to others is by praying for them.
It seems that in this passage, that God intends to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah for their grievous sins, but it also seems that he’s willing to allow Abraham to influence his decision to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.
Scriptures teach that certain things are “decreed by God” and prayer or no prayer God will do it. But the Scripture also seems to suggest in passages like this that there are certain things that are not decreed by God in an absolute unchanging way and that our prayers can influence the way God interacts with people and the world.
It’s an amazing thought that we (to use Abraham’s words) are mere dust and ashes can influence the living God through our prayers.
One of the ways we can bless others is by praying for them.
A couple of weeks ago a person named Steve who serves me as a local spiritual director was sharing how he had been battling with a very serious form of cancer in his neck and lymph nodes. The cancer was so aggressive that his neck began protruding. He and his wife Jean didn’t pray for healing. They both resigned themselves to the fact that it was time for him to die. I can see Steve saying, “Oh well, I’m going to die.”
But others prayed for him and he experienced a miraculous healing… He went to the oncologist they did more testing and discovered he was cancer free. Even the oncologist acknowledged he had never seen anything like this in all of his years as a doctor. He acknowledged that this was a miracle.
Apparently, unlike Steve and Jean sincerely thought, it was not the time decreed for Steve to die. People prayed for him and his life has been extended.
We can also act as priest to people by praying for God’s to draw people to Himself.
I believe through prayer we can we can mediate of the presence of God to people.
Over last few years, I have been encouraged some people in my world who I’ve been praying for who have come from nominally Buddhist backgrounds, but have no relationship with God, come into a living connection with God through Jesus Christ.
(BTW, most of the people in my world who I’m praying for would come into a relationship with God, there is NO clear visible movement toward God….
Thomas Merton says sometimes we pray for God’s grace in people’s lives, but God doesn’t seem to answer right away, because he knows if people reject their hearts will grow even harder.)
We can bless people by praying for them and we can also bless communities by praying of them and here we see Abraham praying for the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
John Dawson is a respected Christian leader from Southern California. A friend of his from the police academy was visiting the Los Angeles morgue. During any given week the morgue received about 80 dead bodies, many of them murder victims. His friend have you seen a major change in that 80 dead people a week pattern? The man at morgue said during the 2 weeks of LA Olympics the strangest thing happened. There were no murders… John remembered how during the LA Olympics 11,000 Christians from all over the world came to LA to pray and reach out to people with the love of God and how people from around the world were praying for LA then.
We can as a priest to the city by praying for it.
Many of us may tend to think that the destiny of cities and nations are in the hands of people who are quite corrupt. A lot of us Canadians may especially be inclined to think this in light of what’s being revealed with the sponsorship scandal.
But what this passage is teaching is that future of a city can be determined by the righteous. (As Darrell Johnson has rightly said, the health of the city depends on the health of the church.)
We can act as priest to the city by praying for it.
And Abraham has the potential to save Sodom and Gomorrah, but as you will find out if you read the next chapter, his doesn’t save Sodom and Gomorrah.
Some people will say as long as you believe hard enough or long enough or well enough--you’ll get what you want in prayer. Not so, Abraham prays this extraordinarily humble and bold prayer for Sodom and Gomorrah to be delivered and he doesn’t get what he “wants.” Sarah “gets” what she always wanted. She gets a baby when she’s 90 years old, but she doesn’t have great faith. When God tells her she’s going to have a son, she laughs in disbelief. When the greatest pray-er of all time, Jesus Christ prays that his cup of suffering would be removed, what does he get, he got the cross and forsaken by God.
So, even as we see that we can act as priest to others through prayer, prayer is no guarantee that things will turn out the way we want!!!
If you’ll let me cycle to the text one more time, I want to say one more thing as we prepare to come to the Lord’s table.
Theologians have pointed out that this text seems to teach that the presence of righteous individuals may be able to effect saving of others.
You notice in Abraham’s prayer… there is progression where Abraham says God you always do what is right and just, with no exceptions. Would you nuke the cities if there were 50 righteous? God says, No. I’d be willing to spare Sodom and Gomorrah for 50 righteous people…. What if there were 5 less? I’d spare it… then 40, 30, 20, 10… then Abraham stops..
We don’t why he stops here… maybe he just loses his nerve and doesn’t think he can test God’s patience any further… or maybe he thinks a community of 10 could change Sodom and Gomorrah. Years later it was recognized that if you had a minimum 10 people you could start a synagogue, a community of 10 was seem as a minimum starting point through which you could effect social change.
But imagine that Abraham had said what if there was just one righteous person? Would you save the cities for just one?
I believe that God would have yes, because there was one righteous who 2000 stood and God said, if we stand in solidarity with him we would be saved.
I think many of us understand intuitively how this principle also works in reverse, particularly those of you like me who are originally from cultures that are more group rather than individually oriented.
When you come from an Asian country like me and if you start getting involved in shoplifting, drug dealing, and joy-riding as a young person, it’s not only you who bears shame, but so do your parents and your clan.
Sometimes people of African descent, regard people from the West who live with certain kind of privileges regard Westerners as bearing guilt because their wealth, if you trace things thing back historically, in part stems for their ancestors who abused and oppressed African their ancestors.
We can be deemed guilty by an association with others who are guilty.
What this passage shows us is that in God’s mind the reverse seems to also be true, that through an association with a righteous person we can be saved.
There was one truly righteousness in the history of Jesus Christ. He lived the perfect life that God required. What did he get for that? He got nailed to the cross and on the cross he absorbed our sins in his body. The Bible when chose to stand with Jesus Christ, God regards our sins as having been paid for by Christ…
This is why on the night before Jesus went to the cross he took bread and broke it and said this is my body broken for you… this my blood shed for you… as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup you proclaim my death till I come…
And if you are here and you have aligned your life to Christ come and partake… If not be in prayer…
Big a idea: God calls us to a “priestly” through hospitality and praying for others.
Don Cowie is a ministry colleague, who works part time at Tenth as an outreach pastor, but he who spends the bulk of his time leading Mosaic, a new church plant.
A few yeas ago Don and Lisa were getting ready to put on a offer on the home where they now live. When the woman who as selling the house found out that Don was a pastor she exclaimed, “My sister in-law (who owned the house and had lived in the house most of her life) is going to be thrilled a priest is going to buying her home!”
Then the woman said, I have a cousin who’s a priest in Italy, do you know him?
Sometimes when you say you’re in or going to into ministry or in you get some strange reactions.
When I was working as part of a corporate conglomerate in Tokyo and would explain that one day I was hoping to go into the Christian ministry, people at times (to use Luther’s expression) would look like a cow staring a locked gate, and then after some time asked, “Does this mean you can never marry?”
Most of you here have never thought about your becoming a pastor or priest… but if you become a follower of Jesus Christ, you will be called to a kind of “pastoral or priestly” role meaning you will be called to act as a kind of intermediary role between God and people and vice-verse. We’re going to see what this looks like as we look the journey of Abraham. If you have your Bibles please turn to Genesis 18:1-5, 16-33
The Three Visitors
1 The LORD appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. 2 Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground.
3 He said, "If I have found favor in your eyes, my lord, do not pass your servant by. 4 Let a little water be brought, and then you may all wash your feet and rest under this tree. 5 Let me get you something to eat, so you can be refreshed and then go on your way-now that you have come to your servant."
"Very well," they answered, "do as you say."
Abraham Pleads for Sodom
16 When the men got up to leave, they looked down toward Sodom, and Abraham walked along with them to see them on their way. 17 Then the LORD said, "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? 18 Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him. 19 For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just, so that the LORD will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him."
20 Then the LORD said, "The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous 21 that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know."
22 The men turned away and went toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the LORD . [e] 23 Then Abraham approached him and said: "Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? 24 What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare [f] the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? 25 Far be it from you to do such a thing-to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge [g] of all the earth do right?"
26 The LORD said, "If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake."
27 Then Abraham spoke up again: "Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, 28 what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city because of five people?"
"If I find forty-five there," he said, "I will not destroy it."
29 Once again he spoke to him, "What if only forty are found there?"
He said, "For the sake of forty, I will not do it."
30 Then he said, "May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak. What if only thirty can be found there?"
He answered, "I will not do it if I find thirty there."
31 Abraham said, "Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, what if only twenty can be found there?"
He said, "For the sake of twenty, I will not destroy it."
32 Then he said, "May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?"
He answered, "For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it."
33 When the LORD had finished speaking with Abraham, he left, and Abraham returned home.
The context here is one in which Abraham receives 3 unexpected guests, 2 of whom we know are angels and one appears be the LORD in human form.
We see how in the heat of the day, during siesta time, Abraham this 99 year old moves quickly to arrange for water to be brought for them and arranges for a meal to be prepared and served for these three guests. Abraham acts likes his guest would doing him a favor by letting him serve them. God deems hospitality to be an important characteristic of a person who is considered righteous.
Hospitality doesn’t mean we’re able to set a table like Martha Stewart or that we can cook like Rob Fennie, the celebrated chef at Lumiere.
Hospitality, does mean, as late priest Henri Nouwen, put it that we create space in our heart for people.
Part of the way we can act as priest, that i.e. part of the way we can re-present God to others is by creating space for them. A way we can reflect the face of God to others is by welcoming others even as God has welcomed us.
These 3 guests end up telling Abraham that he and Sarah will have a baby in a year. Sarah is 90 and ends us laughing in disbelief and then as the guests are about to go, they also confide in Abraham that they are about to bring judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah because the outcry of the oppressed against these communities is so great.
What were Sodom and Gomorrah like? Later in Genesis, we see that people of Sodom and Gomorrah have no hesitation about gang raping people. And in others parts of the Scriptures we see that they were considered arrogant, overfed, and unconcerned about the plight of the poor and needy.
God is about to bring judgment on them.
(BTW, once in a while you hear people say, I only believe in a God of love and not judgment. I could never believe in a God who judges.
But part of what it means to be a God of love is that he brings judgment. If God never judged he would not be loving.
God is a God of forgiveness and he is a God of love, but he is also a God who judges. (Someone told me that because she had been violated by a man, and the man glibly said that God forgave him, her view of God was tainted.) If God never judged people who use their power to sexually assault someone, he wouldn’t be a God of mercy to victim.
If God never judges the people and institutions that oppress the poor and vulnerable, he’s not being merciful to them. In verse 20, we hear God saying that the cries of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah are deafening. He’s about to judge Sodom and Gomorrah for their sexual immorality and violence and their complete unconcern for the plight of the poor and oppressed.
The 3 men set out for Sodom, but as Abraham approached God’s judge’s bench, he’s about to intercede on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Abraham says, “Are you planning on getting rid of the good people right along with the bad?” What if there are fifty decent people left in the city; will you lump the good with the bad and get rid of them all? Wouldn't you spare the city for the sake of those fifty innocents? I can't believe you'd do that, kill off the good and the bad alike as if there were no difference between them. Will not the Judge of all the Earth do what is just?"
GOD said, "If I find fifty decent people in the city of Sodom, I'll spare the place just for them."
Abraham come back, "Do I, a mere mortal of dust and ashes, dare open my mouth again to God Almighty? What if the fifty fall short by five--would you destroy the city because of just five less?"
God said, "I won't destroy it if there are forty-five."
Abraham spoke up again, "What if you only find forty?"
"Neither will I destroy it if for forty."
He said, "Master, don't be irritated with me, but what if only thirty are found?"
"No, I won't do it if I find thirty."
He pushed on, "I know I'm trying your patience, Master, but how about for twenty?"
"I won't destroy it for twenty."
"Don't get angry, Master--this is the last time. What if you only come up with ten?"
"For the sake of only ten, I won't destroy the city."
When GOD finished talking with Abraham, he left. And Abraham went home.
In response to Abraham’s prayer, we see that God is willing to spare the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah if there are just 10 decent people.
One of the ways we can act as a priest to others, is through hospitality, another way we can act as a priest to others is by praying for them.
It seems that in this passage, that God intends to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah for their grievous sins, but it also seems that he’s willing to allow Abraham to influence his decision to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.
Scriptures teach that certain things are “decreed by God” and prayer or no prayer God will do it. But the Scripture also seems to suggest in passages like this that there are certain things that are not decreed by God in an absolute unchanging way and that our prayers can influence the way God interacts with people and the world.
It’s an amazing thought that we (to use Abraham’s words) are mere dust and ashes can influence the living God through our prayers.
One of the ways we can bless others is by praying for them.
A couple of weeks ago a person named Steve who serves me as a local spiritual director was sharing how he had been battling with a very serious form of cancer in his neck and lymph nodes. The cancer was so aggressive that his neck began protruding. He and his wife Jean didn’t pray for healing. They both resigned themselves to the fact that it was time for him to die. I can see Steve saying, “Oh well, I’m going to die.”
But others prayed for him and he experienced a miraculous healing… He went to the oncologist they did more testing and discovered he was cancer free. Even the oncologist acknowledged he had never seen anything like this in all of his years as a doctor. He acknowledged that this was a miracle.
Apparently, unlike Steve and Jean sincerely thought, it was not the time decreed for Steve to die. People prayed for him and his life has been extended.
We can also act as priest to people by praying for God’s to draw people to Himself.
I believe through prayer we can we can mediate of the presence of God to people.
Over last few years, I have been encouraged some people in my world who I’ve been praying for who have come from nominally Buddhist backgrounds, but have no relationship with God, come into a living connection with God through Jesus Christ.
(BTW, most of the people in my world who I’m praying for would come into a relationship with God, there is NO clear visible movement toward God….
Thomas Merton says sometimes we pray for God’s grace in people’s lives, but God doesn’t seem to answer right away, because he knows if people reject their hearts will grow even harder.)
We can bless people by praying for them and we can also bless communities by praying of them and here we see Abraham praying for the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
John Dawson is a respected Christian leader from Southern California. A friend of his from the police academy was visiting the Los Angeles morgue. During any given week the morgue received about 80 dead bodies, many of them murder victims. His friend have you seen a major change in that 80 dead people a week pattern? The man at morgue said during the 2 weeks of LA Olympics the strangest thing happened. There were no murders… John remembered how during the LA Olympics 11,000 Christians from all over the world came to LA to pray and reach out to people with the love of God and how people from around the world were praying for LA then.
We can as a priest to the city by praying for it.
Many of us may tend to think that the destiny of cities and nations are in the hands of people who are quite corrupt. A lot of us Canadians may especially be inclined to think this in light of what’s being revealed with the sponsorship scandal.
But what this passage is teaching is that future of a city can be determined by the righteous. (As Darrell Johnson has rightly said, the health of the city depends on the health of the church.)
We can act as priest to the city by praying for it.
And Abraham has the potential to save Sodom and Gomorrah, but as you will find out if you read the next chapter, his doesn’t save Sodom and Gomorrah.
Some people will say as long as you believe hard enough or long enough or well enough--you’ll get what you want in prayer. Not so, Abraham prays this extraordinarily humble and bold prayer for Sodom and Gomorrah to be delivered and he doesn’t get what he “wants.” Sarah “gets” what she always wanted. She gets a baby when she’s 90 years old, but she doesn’t have great faith. When God tells her she’s going to have a son, she laughs in disbelief. When the greatest pray-er of all time, Jesus Christ prays that his cup of suffering would be removed, what does he get, he got the cross and forsaken by God.
So, even as we see that we can act as priest to others through prayer, prayer is no guarantee that things will turn out the way we want!!!
If you’ll let me cycle to the text one more time, I want to say one more thing as we prepare to come to the Lord’s table.
Theologians have pointed out that this text seems to teach that the presence of righteous individuals may be able to effect saving of others.
You notice in Abraham’s prayer… there is progression where Abraham says God you always do what is right and just, with no exceptions. Would you nuke the cities if there were 50 righteous? God says, No. I’d be willing to spare Sodom and Gomorrah for 50 righteous people…. What if there were 5 less? I’d spare it… then 40, 30, 20, 10… then Abraham stops..
We don’t why he stops here… maybe he just loses his nerve and doesn’t think he can test God’s patience any further… or maybe he thinks a community of 10 could change Sodom and Gomorrah. Years later it was recognized that if you had a minimum 10 people you could start a synagogue, a community of 10 was seem as a minimum starting point through which you could effect social change.
But imagine that Abraham had said what if there was just one righteous person? Would you save the cities for just one?
I believe that God would have yes, because there was one righteous who 2000 stood and God said, if we stand in solidarity with him we would be saved.
I think many of us understand intuitively how this principle also works in reverse, particularly those of you like me who are originally from cultures that are more group rather than individually oriented.
When you come from an Asian country like me and if you start getting involved in shoplifting, drug dealing, and joy-riding as a young person, it’s not only you who bears shame, but so do your parents and your clan.
Sometimes people of African descent, regard people from the West who live with certain kind of privileges regard Westerners as bearing guilt because their wealth, if you trace things thing back historically, in part stems for their ancestors who abused and oppressed African their ancestors.
We can be deemed guilty by an association with others who are guilty.
What this passage shows us is that in God’s mind the reverse seems to also be true, that through an association with a righteous person we can be saved.
There was one truly righteousness in the history of Jesus Christ. He lived the perfect life that God required. What did he get for that? He got nailed to the cross and on the cross he absorbed our sins in his body. The Bible when chose to stand with Jesus Christ, God regards our sins as having been paid for by Christ…
This is why on the night before Jesus went to the cross he took bread and broke it and said this is my body broken for you… this my blood shed for you… as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup you proclaim my death till I come…
And if you are here and you have aligned your life to Christ come and partake… If not be in prayer…
posted by Shigematsu at 3:16 PM
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