As long as it's black

The moment where Abraham is pleading with God for the people of Sodom has a sort of negotiation element to it.  He starts off with a certain number of righteous people that he feels as though it would be appropriate for God to save, and keeps on making that number smaller and smaller.  Negotiating.

But this negotiation is very much the same as the sort of negotiation as Henry Ford's when discussing the colour palette for the Model T.

I'm not really confident that that's a real Henry Ford quote.  It's sort of apocryphal, and although it may not have been a thing Henry Ford may have said, it's a useful line to come up with when you're discussing that kind of negotiation.  The kind of negotiation that will have only one outcome. The kind of negotiation where you can talk all you want, but there will only be one answer.  There can only be one answer, and any kind of input you might want to give won't help that response.  

So, again, take Abraham. Please.  Abraham is pleading with God on behalf of the righteous people who may be in Sodom, starting with a relatively big number.  This is partially because Abraham is aware that his nephew, Lot, is there in Sodom, and Abraham really doesn't want his nephew and his family to be swept away with all the wickedness of Sodom.  So, Abraham starts out and says 'Lord, suppose there are fifty righteous in the city.  Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the sake of the fifty righteous people who are in it?'  God responds by saying 'If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake.'  Good start, for negotiation purposes.  That is, Abraham has managed to have God admit that if there are a certain number of righteous people in Sodom, that God will spare it.  Wonderful.  Now, all Abraham has to do is to see how small that number can get. Abraham says 'behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking.  Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?' And God said 'I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.'  Perfect, all going according to plan.  Abraham has leverage, and he will continue to use it.  So he says 'Suppose forty are found there.'  God responds 'for the sake of forty I will not do it.'  Abraham continues, saying 'Oh, let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak.  Suppose thirty are found there.'  God answers 'I will not do it, if I find thirty there.' Then Abraham continues the negotiation, wondering just how low this number can get, 'Oh, let not the Lord be angry and I will speak again but this once. Suppose ten are found there.' God answered, 'For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.'

But you all know how this story ends, don't you? You know what happens to Sodom and Gomorrah, right? What God does there is the origin for the perhaps a bit hackneyed expression 'Fire and Brimstone.' Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed by God, who evidently, based on the results of what happened there, didn't find the ten righteous people that he and Abraham had agreed on.  Obviously not.  The twin cities were demolished with fire and brimstone from heaven, and even though Abraham had asked for clemency for the people of Sodom if ten righteous people could be found there, ten were not found.  

Abraham could have had his model T in any colour as long as it was black.  And he could have pleaded for any number of righteous people, as long as that number was zero.  Because that was going to be the number of righteous people in the city of Sodom with or without Lot and his family.  It's not as though Lot and his family are paragons of virtue either, you know.  It's not as though Lot and his family have no problems. Some may argue that Lot and his family have even more of a messed up record than the people of Sodom who were obliterated.  Think on this - Very soon after fleeing Sodom, Lot's daughters are convinced that it the end of the world, which I can understand, if you consider the severity of the devastation that they had just witnessed.  And Lot's daughters get Lot drunk and seduce him, and bear him children, which is colloquially known as incest, and generally frowned upon by just about everyone.  So even had Lot stayed in the city with his daughters, whom he offered up to the riotous men for them to have their way with, it seems unlikely that God would have spared the city.  You can have any colour, so long as it's black, and you will find any number of righteous people, as long as that number is zero.  Which it was.

This isn't news to Christians though.  This isn't news to Christians, because we all know the reality of the book of Romans, where Paul helpfully details the number of righteous people that we could expect to find, not just in Sodom, but everywhere forever.  "None is righteous, no, not one.  No one understands, no one seeks God. All have turned aside, together they have become worthless.  No one does good, not even one.  Their throat is an open grave, they use their tongues to decieve.  The venom of asps is under their lips.  Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.  Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.  There is no fear of God before their eyes.'  This isn't just Sodom or Gomorrah, this is global. This is literally everyone.  If God were to destroy the world, and we were to bargain him down, saying to him, 'surely, God, for the sake of fifty people on earth? 45? 30? 20? 10? 5?'  That number could go down and down, and the answer would be the same, which is that you can pick any number you want, as long as it's zero.

Or as long as it's one.

When the Bible talks about Jesus, it is as someone who actually was righteous in all he did here on earth.  The book of Hebrews talks about him as 'holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens. He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself.' Even the enemies of Christ, when they bring him to trial, say of him 'I find no guilt in him.'  And if you think about it long and hard, the Christian faith is absolutely all about this interplay between Abraham and God, taken to its logical conclusion.  For the sake of 50? 40? 30? 20? 10? 5? 1?  If you can find just one righteous person on Earth, God, will you relent from sweeping us all away?  And God responds by saying 'Yes.  For the sake of only one righteous person, I will relent.  If there can be found one righteous person, just one, in all of human history, I will save any who calls upon his name.  If I can find only one righteous person, then  I will spare all the people, and bring them to salvation.  But it isn't enough to find one, I will send one.  All who call upon his name, all who seek him while he may be found, and all who believe in his sacrifice for their sins can and will be saved.'  The conversation with Abraham and God came to the only possibly conclusion for this seeking for smaller and smaller numbers.  That God would be willing to spare us all for the sake of the one who was sacrificed for us.  

Don't you love it when these Old Testament stories mean a little bit more once you've seen Christ in them?  Me too.

Walking the beat

A long time ago, the police were a preventative service.  That is, they weren't what we have now, which is a force that reacts to crimes that have been committed.  A long time ago, you would find a lot more of police patrolling on foot, walking through neighborhoods, and dealing with the people who were living and working in that area.   What that would do, is that it would create a relationship with the people beyond just the idea that the police would only show up if there had been an offense already committed.

I've often thought about what things would be like if police continued to walk the beat in places like this.  What things would be like if you had a cordial, even collegial relationship with the police - where you understood far more of what was intended from the beginning of their formation by Robert Peel. That they were intended to be public servants.  And the most important thing that you can do as a constable would be to prevent crimes from happening in the first place, not just responding to crimes that have been committed already.

But that's not happening now.  What is happening now is that if you see the red and blue lights of the police behind you on the motorway, you tend to have a sense of dread in your chest, as you assume, probably correctly, that the best case scenario is that you will be ignored.  Maybe they're after someone else.  You know for sure that if they do, in fact, want to talk to you, it will be discussing an infraction that you have committed.  They aren't there to discuss pleasantries, nor to congratulate you for your safe driving.  Rather, they're there only to enforce laws that have been broken.  And they don't bear the sword for nothing.  My desire for a more cordial relationship with the police is based on my desire for a more cordial relationship with everyone.  You never want a relationship with someone where your only reward is not being punished.

But what you will find, largely, is that the majority of interactions you have with people will be that your only reward is not being punished.  The only positivity is a lack of negativity.  I'm convinced that this is a cause of things like marital breakdown, and the like, that the only interactions you have with a spouse, or with a relative, with a boss or a customer, will only be negative.  The positive reactions simply don't exist, and your only reward is not being punished.  And that's the source of the 'footprints' poem.  I know you all know it, but in case you don't, here it is.

Now, you all know this poem, and what it's about.  But the nugget at the heart of it is that where there is only one set of footprints, that's where you walk alone.  In other words, when things are bad, you get no help.  You have God strolling along with you when things are fine, but when they are hard, he's nowhere to be found.  And more and more people truly and genuinely do see things that way, seeing things from the perspective of only asking where God is when things are bad, when they're hard or difficult.  They don't think too much about where he is when things are going fine, during those times they're happy to forget about him.  But when things are bad and hard, they curse his holy name.

For us as Christians, we need to be the hands and feet of God in the world, and that is going to involve doing more than just correcting and scolding out of nowhere and having no other interactions with people.  If we only do that, people will spurn and reject our message, in the same way as we would if we believed that God only had negative interactions with us as well. If the only reward we had ever received from God was not being punished, then we would be angry with him with every interaction we have with him.  Just like we do with the police, revenue Canada, or anything like that.  It's perpetual.  If there is someone we only have either negative or neutral interactions with, we won't care for any of the interactions we have with them.

So then our job, if we are to go into the world and call sin what it is, if we are going to discern wisely and call people to repentance as we should, we are going to have to do more than just have negative interactions with them.  We're going to have to bear their burdens, and in so doing fulfill the law of Christ.  That's hard to do, of course.  it's no fun to do that.  It's all the harder when you consider how difficult it is for you to just bear your own burdens, to carry your own load.  When you think about how difficult it is to carry yourself towards the finish line, then you become much more reluctant to carry the burdens of someone else.  What can possibly help?

If you take Dr. Martin Luther seriously, as you ought to do, then you'll pay attention to the section at the end of the small catechism that talks about the daily prayers. The daily prayers that Martin Luther has in mind for you to engage in are there for your benefit, in order that you may be always mindful of what God daily and richly blesses you with.  If you go to the section on the Lord's Prayer, especially the part about daily bread, where every time you pray the Lord's Prayer (which Martin Luther recommends you do 8 times a day), you will be reminded of how much God gives you every day.  House and home, clothing and shoes, spouse and children, all that.  And what that does is to remind you that your only interactions with God aren't scolding and brimstone, he blesses you every day, gives you everything you need for body and soul, and wins your soul for everlasting life.  If you believe that, then you will be far more able to bear the burdens of others.  It all starts with being mindful of how much you have been given, and only then can you begin to bless others.  Any other way, and you will try to bear the burdens of others with bitterness and resentment, as you feel you are carrying your own load yourself.  But with Christ, because of what he has already granted you, you are free to bear the burdens of others.