Going down Sodom Way - A Second sermon for the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

Sodom and Gomorrah - the stuff of legend in the annals of Hellfire preaching. After all this is the Biblical story of God’s ferocious judgement on homosexuals. Indeed, our words sodomy and sodomite come from this very story.

But is it possible that we have misunderstood this story. For a moment let’s look back at the story. Let’s go back before the Scripture that we have heard this evening. For at the beginning of the 18th Chapter of Genesis, we find Abraham sat by his ten beside the oaks of Mamre. He looks up and finds before him three men. He doesn’t know them but being a Middle Eastern man, Abraham welcomes them into his home and provides them with water whilst Sarah cooks up a feast. This is the hospitality which will be in the mind of the writer of Hebrews when writing;

“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained strangers without knowing it.”

As hospitality is enjoyed by the three guests, Abraham and Sarah are rewarded with some good news. Old as they are, they will receive the blessing of a son from whom will come a mighty Kingdom. More than that, as a result of this

“All the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him.”

But now comes an ominous turn. Two of the guests who are identified as angels, set off for the town of Sodom whilst the third guest who is revealed as the Lord tells Abraham that he too will go to Sodom to see if it is as wretched a place as it has been reported as being.

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