Sodom and Gomorrah

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Tuesday, 2 July 2013 : 13th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Genesis 19 : 15-29

At daybreak the Angels urged Lot, saying, “Hurry! Take your wife and two daughters who are here, lest they perish because of the sin of the town.” As he hesitated, the men took him by the hand and his wife, and two daughters with him, because YHVH had mercy on him. And they led him outside the town.

When they were outside, the men said to him, “Flee for your life and do not look back and do not stop anywhere in the plain. Flee to the mountain lest you perish.” But Lot replied, “My lords, your servant has found favour with you, and you have shown me great kindness in saving my life. But I cannot flee to the mountains for fear the disaster will overtake me and I die.”

“See, there is a town near enough for me to flee to and it is a small one. Let me flee there : it is very small, that is why the town is called Zoar. So I will be safe.” And the angel answered, “I grant you this favour as well by not destroying the town you speak of. But flee fast for I can do nothing until you arrive there.”

The sun had risen on the earth when Lot reached Zoar. Then YHVH rained on Sodom and Gomorrah burning sulphur out of the heavens from YHVH, and He completely destroyed those towns and all the valley and all the inhabitants of the towns and everything that grew there.

Lot’s wife looked back and she became a pillar of salt. Early next morning Abraham returned to the place where he had stood before YHVH. He looked towards Sodom and Gomorrah and towards all the land of the valley and he saw smoke rising from the earth like the smoke from a furnace.

So when God destroyed the towns of the plain He remembered Abraham and made Lot escape from the catastrophe while He destroyed the cities where Lot had lived.

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Monday, 1 July 2013 : 13th Week of Ordinary Time (Scripture Reflection)

Brothers and sisters in Christ, to follow Christ is to suffer and to endure rejection the way the world had rejected Him first, and we have to carry our own crosses in our faith journey with our Lord. That is what the Lord Himself told us we should do, to follow Him and love Him through the journey of the cross.

Our Lord is a loving God, and He loves all of His children, regardless of their backgrounds. We are all equal before the Lord. But as much as the Lord loves all of us, He is also a just God and a good God, who rejects the filth of sin and the corruption of evil. That was why He wanted to end the wickedness of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, whose sins had become so bad that they ended up angering the Lord greatly so that He would want to punish them.

Lot, the relative of Abraham settled in the valley of Sodom after his separation from Abraham, which occurred because of conflict between their shepherds over the matter of land. He then settled in the city of Sodom and Gomorrah, and therefore would have been subjected to the destruction of the city by God’s wrath for its sins.

But God is a loving God and is not heartless, and that was why He would not let those who are just and good to suffer from the suffering and punishment intended for those who had rebelled against the Lord. Therefore, even without the interventions of Abraham, God certainly would still go and send His angels to help rescue Lot and his family, the only righteous ones that can be found in all of Sodom and Gomorrah, so that they would not suffer the same fate as the sinful ones.

The questions of Abraham to the Lord, his interventions to save the righteous merely serve to highlight even more clearly that our Lord and God is both a vengeful and angry God, but also a just and loving God. A God who detests sin and all of its evil fruits, and yet also forgiving and merciful to those who are repentant and those who love Him. He wants us all to return to Him, and He does not want us to be lost just because of our faults and those of our forefathers’.

Yet, it is indeed difficult to find good and repentance in our world, and that was why, despite Abraham’s repeated pleas to the Lord to spare the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, if as little as ten righteous people could be found, the two cities were not spared simply because of the wickedness of those who stayed in them, not even ten righteous ones could be found. Only Lot and his family were considered righteous, and therefore, the Lord sent His angels to rescue them from the catastrophe of God’s judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah.

God loves us, but He also wants all of us to understand the need to be pure and good, as our Lord is good, and nothing evil can stand before Him and survive. The Lord is merciful, and if only we approach His throne with a contrite heart full of regret and grief for our sins, He will embrace us and reunite us with Himself.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, God gives us a chance at repentance and redemption in this life, one made possible by none other than the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord on the cross at Calvary. This sacrifice bridged the unbridgeable chasm between us and God. God will welcome us back if we are truly sincere in our repentance and our love for Him who also loves us with all of His heart.

May God be with us, as He had been with Abraham and may we all also remain faithful to God’s covenant with us, keeping His commandments and teachings passed down to us from the Apostles through the Church. Amen.

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Monday, 1 July 2013 : 13th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Genesis 18 : 16-33

The men went away and turned towards Sodom. Abraham walked with them to set them on their way. And YHVH said, “Can I conceal from Abraham what I am about to do? Abraham, in fact, is going to become a great and powerful nation and through him all the nations of the earth will be blessed, for I have chosen him to command his sons and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that YHVH may bring about for Abraham what He has promised him.”

Then YHVH said, “How great is the cry for justice against Sodom and Gomorrah! And how grievous is their sin! I am going down to see if they have done all that they are charged with in the outcry that has reached Me. If it is not so, I will know.”

The men with Him turned away and went towards Sodom, but YHVH remained standing before Abraham. Abraham went forward and said, “Will You really let the just perish with the wicked? Perhaps there are fifty good people in the town. Are You really going to let them perish? Would You not spare the place for the sake of these fifty righteous people? It would not be at all like You to do such a thing and You cannot let the good perish with the wicked, nor treat the good and the wicked alike. Far be it from You! Will not the Judge of all the earth be just?”

YHVH said, “If I find fifty good people in Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”

Abraham spoke up again, “I know that I am very bold to speak like this to my Lord, I who am only dust and ashes! But perhaps the number of the good is five less than fifty. Will You destroy the town because of five?”

YHVH replied, “I will not destroy the town if I find forty-five good people there.”

Again Abraham said to Him, “Perhaps there will be only forty.” He answered, “For the sake of forty I will not do it.”

Abraham went on, saying, “May my Lord not be angry, but let me speak. Maybe only thirty good people will be found in the town.” YHVH answered, “I will not destroy it if I find thirty there.”

Abraham said, “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to my Lord, what if only twenty can be found?” He said, “For the sake of twenty I will not destroy the place.”

But Abraham insisted, “May my Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found?” And YHVH answered, “For the sake of ten good people, I will not destroy Sodom.”

When YHVH had finished speaking with Abraham, He left and Abraham went home.

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Tuesday, 25 June 2013 : 12th Week of Ordinary Time (Scripture Reflection)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, being a good person, and a good child of God is never easy. It is much easier to follow the path of the world, and immerse ourselves in its corrupting influence and take in all the pleasures and temptations that it offers us, rather than to follow the Laws of God and the teachings of the prophets.

It is much more difficult to become the followers of Christ and to follow the teachings of Christ and His Apostles rather than becoming the disciples of this world, that is the disciples of evil. For the world, for all its goodness, belongs to the evil one, who will certainly utilise all within his power to corrupt the children of God, that is all of us.

That is why Christ had said that the path that leads to the Lord is a narrow one, a narrow path, and a narrow gate indeed. Because it is very difficult to go to the Lord, and it is easier for one to stumble along the path, that narrow path, and fall into damnation than to successfully reach the Lord at the end of that way, at the other side of the narrow gate.

Difficult as it is to reach the Lord in that journey, along that path, God has given us His help, in none other than the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, His own Son, whom He sent to all of us to be our Redeemer, and our Saviour, He rescued us from our own damnation, from the hells that is our fate, for our rebellion against God since the beginning of time.

The story of Abraham and Lot, his cousin, which all of us are well aware of, is another example of the difficulty facing us in our journey towards the Lord. Abraham and his cousin, Lot, are God-fearing peoples, and they obey the will of the Lord in all that they do. They do not fall astray of the narrow path that God has given them. But the same cannot be said of the people who were living with them, and around them.

As we all know, Lot was involved in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the names which still resonate in our minds even today, as the example of God’s wrath and punishment that awaits those who defy Him and those who do not obey His words and His will. The sins of Sodom and Gomorrah were enormous, and that was why those who fell astray from the narrow path of salvation, if they do not repent, will face eternal damnation as the people of Sodom and Gomorrah once did.

The temptations of pleasure and the lure of wealth easily corrupts mankind, both their bodies and their hearts. Once corrupted by the sins of the world, they would be easily led astray from the path of salvation into damnation. That was exactly the sort of problems faced by those people of Sodom and Gomorrah, and even the people of Israel throughout their history, and ultimately, all of us.

God loves us, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, and He wants to forgive us, if we repent from our faults and our sins. But He is also a just and avenging God, who hates sin and all forms of evil that is unworthy of His presence and His love. He detests sin and evil, and great is indeed the suffering of those who refuse to follow the way of the Lord and instead follow the teachings of this world.

But that is exactly why God sent so many prophets to us, to the people of Israel, so that hopefully through their ceaseless calls for repentance and their teachings, the people of God will once again open their hearts to God’s love, and discard all things that make them unworthy of the Lord. And that is why He even sent His own Son into this world, because He loves us, and He wants all of us saved from the fate of death that awaits us, if we do not repent from our sinful ways.

But yet, we remain in our own rebellious nature, and continuing to rebel against His compassion and love, many of us slaughter His prophets and saints, and preferring to listen to the devil than God, we shut our hearts from the words and encouragement of the prophets and the saints that does none other than to push for our own redemption. That was why we even rejected Christ, who offered Himself willingly for all of us, that we may live, and no longer fall under the thrall of sin.

Therefore, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, let us reflect today, on the nature of our Lord’s salvation, and even more importantly, on His love, remembering always His care for us, His concerns for us, and His love for us, shown by no greater example than the ultimate sacrifice at Calvary, when He gave up His own life and shed His own Body and Blood, so that all of us who believe in Him may not die, but gain everlasting life with Him for all eternity. God bless us all. Amen.

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Tuesday, 25 June 2013 : 12th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Genesis 13 : 2, 5-18

Now Abram was very rich in flocks, silver, and gold. Lot who went with Abram also had flocks, cattle and tents. The land was not sufficient to allow them to stay together, for their possessions were too great for them to live together.

A quarrel arose between the herdsmen of Abram’s flock and those of Lot. The Canaanites and the Perizzites were living in the land at the time. Abram said to Lot, “Do not let there be a dispute between you and me, nor between my herdsmen and yours, since we are brothers! Is not the whole land there belong to you? Let us part company. If you go to the left, I will go to the right; if you go to the right, I will go to the left.”

Lot looked up and saw the whole valley of the Jordan : how well it was watered! Before YHVH destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, this was like one of YHVH’s gardens, like the country of Egypt, on coming to Zoar. Lot chose for himself all the Jordan valley and journeyed eastward. In this way they separated from each other.

Abram settled in the country of Canaan while Lot lived among the towns of the plain and moved his tent as far as Sodom. Now the people of Sodom were wicked, sinning greatly against YHVH.

YHVH said to Abram after Lot had left him, “Raise your eyes and look from where you are, towards the north, the south, the east and the west; all the land you see I will give to you and your descendants forever. I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth; if the grains of the dust can be counted, then your descendants may be counted.”

“Come, travel through the length and breadth of the land, for it is to you that I am giving it.” So Abram moved his tent and came to live by the oak of Mamre at Hebron. There he built an altar to YHVH.