"Bring them out"

I had an eerie sense that I had stumbled upon the paradigmatic judgment text in the Bible. From explicit references--"it will be more tolerable for Sodom on that day"--to the implicit--"the shut door" of the parable of the ten virgins--the story of the impending destruction of Sodom appears to have set the standard of judgment in the theology of Jesus.

What is that standard? And how does the text, Genesis 19:1-14, construct a biblical theology of judgment?

Having dissected the text in Hebrew, I settled upon the verb translated as "bring out" as that which brings out the key meaning in the text. It makes three appearances, each in turn lending central interpretive credibility to the objects and subjects which surround it.

In the first instance, "bring out" is the action of "the men of Sodom", those who have gathered at the door of Lot seeking "the men" who have "come to [Lot] in the night." Specifically, "the men of Sodom" request that Lot "bring them out to us, so that we may know them." Lot, noting his special responsibility toward guests--those who have "come under the shelter of my roof" and for whom he has already prepared a meal, baked unleavened bread, and washed their feet--is determined to protect "the men" from the "men of Sodom" in whom he sees "evil" intent. In fact, so great is Lot's determination that he offers in place of "the men" his two daughters "who have never known a man" to the "men of Sodom"--"to them [the daughters] do as seems good in your eyes", Lot tells the "men of Sodom."

This determination to protect guests was a quality not lost upon my student-readers; in every location where we studied together, they viewed Lot as righteous for this impulse. As one man put it, "Lot was in Sodom, but Sodom was not in Lot."

On one hand, his pithy statement was true; Lot, a "resident alien", through his hospitality toward "the two angels" does indeed "play the judge" against the residents of Sodom whose only gesture toward these same "men" is pregnant with the lust that would bear rape. The text indeed--in this regard--means to contrast the hospitality of the sojourner toward guests with the indignity of those who sit in Sodom toward the same.

On quite the other hand, however, Sodom is too much in Lot, for he appears unconcerned with the well-being of his daughters: "I have two daughters who have never known a man. Let me bring them out to you, and to them do as seems good in your eyes."

Such a thing is not good in the eyes of the text. Whereas Lot would "bring out" his daughters, abandoning them to abuse, "the men inside the house" would have Lot "bring out from the place all who are his in the city"--"sons-in-law", "sons", yes, and "daughters."

We note then, the ascending pattern of the usages of "bring out" with its subjects and objects. Whereas the activity began only with malice--"the men of Sodom" demanding that "the men" be brought out to them--it ends only with mercy--"the men" of Yahweh pleading with Lot to "bring out" from the city even "the daughters" Lot would have "brought out" to the mercy of evil men.

An undercurrent of my own seminary education--to which, by the way, I am indebted for the Bible study method employed above--was suspicion, if not dismissiveness, of allegorical readings of scripture. And yet, upon having completed the round of teaching this text at the final location last February, I found myself unrelentingly, by the Spirit, in allegory's grasp. The text, perhaps more neatly than is often the case, had presented three clear "types", specifically, "three" men. The first "man" and the last "man" are more obvious in the text; indeed, if you have been reading this entry, you will have noted well "the men of Sodom" and "the men". The second is somewhat veiled, hidden, deeply embedded in the story. Whereas the references to the other "men"--both of Sodom and of Yahweh--are rather ubiquitous, only once is a third, or as we are calling it, second, man, namely Lot, called a "man." This reference comes precisely at the point at which Lot's status as man in the middle is most acutely felt: "hard pressed against" by the "men of Sodom" but presently to be rescued by the hands of other "men inside the house." The man Lot stands in "the entrance of the doorway" of condemnation and salvation, of death and life; Lot has come out "to the men" and will go back in to other "men", but eventually the door stays shut.

Lot is a worldly man; Lot is in Sodom, and Sodom is in Lot.

Lot is a godly man; Lot is in God, is God in Lot?

And how might we, the church, like the Israel to whom the story first came, judge such a thing?

The church is in the world, and the world is in the church.

The church is in Christ, is Christ in the church?

Perhaps the daughters can tell. In the text they are powerless; so too are they in many places in the world. The Xhosa translations perhaps serve the point: Ndineentombi ezimbini, "I have two girls", says Lot, offering his daughters to the men of Sodom.

The point, in fact, came to me with some force this week. While staying for some days with a Xhosa family, we often heard the grandmother of the house cry, "Nontombi"--the name means literally, "mother of a girl"--whenever she wanted something. Without fail, Nontombi, or one of the two other adolescent girls there, would come with the desired thing. Young children--and especially young girls--serve their elders with unquestioning and, to these western eyes, astonishing, obedience. And while I know no one who would follow Lot's course in relation to his daughters, I do wonder who bears the brunt first when the forces of the world "press hard against" those who possess a relative measure of power (hint: it is not the latter).

And so, what of judgment?

Our treating as genuinely human the daughters--indeed any who are daily subject to suffering--is the quality by which we are judged, by which we know that the Holy Spirit of Jesus is in us, even as he has brought us to himself.

-Joe

Texts referred to or quoted in this entry: Lk. 10:12; Matt. 25:10; Gen. 19:1-14