Hell fire and damnation, just what had they done wrong?

The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, John Martin, 1852 Source: Wikipedia

The story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19 is as confusing as it is dramatic. The towns are viewed as beyond redemption by God and Abraham pleads to save them as long as there are 10 good people in residence. God sends in the angels to assess whether there are 10 good people or not. And that’s when the trouble begins.
The two angels arrive and are greeted by Lot who gives them a warm welcome and asks them back for a meal. He is keen to show them the customary hospitality. However, by nightfall the house is surrounded by other male residents of Sodom who demand the angels be brought out so they can have sex with them. Lot refuses and eventually the angels blind the men while Lot, his wife and daughters make their exit from the city. Having not found 10 good men in Sodom and Gomorrah, God rains down sulphur from heaven and the towns are destroyed.

Now this passage has always interested me as it forms one of the five main passages that are used to justify the church’s intolerance towards homosexuality (the other passages are Leviticus 18:22, Romans1:18-32, 1 Cor. 6:9-10 and 1 Tim. 1:9-10 and we will no doubt touch on them later. Although given this is a five year study it’ll be 2018 before we get to Romans!)

Once you read the story in context, you do wonder what point people are trying to make by using this passage to condemn homosexuality. The first thing you notice is that the Sodomites are practising sodomy – something that is still an offence on the UK statute books today – male rape. Raping another male is against the law, just like raping a woman is against the law. This passage is clearly condemning male rape as a bad thing – something I would guess almost everyone would agreed with.

To generalise sodomy as being the same as all homosexual activity is clearly wrong. Nowhere does the passage try to suggest that the people of Sodom are having loving, same-sex relationships. As we can see from the confrontation between Lot and the men at his door, this was going to be gang rape with two unsuspecting “travellers”.

There are few passages where the anger of God is so clearly and completely revealed. Apart from Lot and his family, everyone is destroyed. So was it homosexuality that condemned them?
Seemingly not. A good number of scholars focus on the failure of the people to honour the cultural more of hospitality and compassion for the alien or sojourner (foreigner). Some years later in Exodus 22 we read:

Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt. “Do not take advantage of the widow or the fatherless. If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry. My anger will be aroused, and I will kill you with the sword; your wives will become widows and your children fatherless.

God has a high standard of hospitality and those who fail to meet it will suffer the consequences. Even Ezekiel, a prophet who isn’t slow to grasp the sexual nettle, in reflecting on the Sodom and Gomorrah story says:

“Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters (the other towns around Sodom) were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.  They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.” .

So Ezekiel is clear about what brought down fire and brimstone on Sodom – a lack of love and compassion for the people around you – especially the stranger in your midst.

My reading of this passage is that it is time to worry less about what goes on in same-sex, loving relationships and more time to worry about the poor. The people of Sodom were condemned for their failure to love the poor and the needy – how do we stack up against that? God’s love is revolution for those who are the outcasts, not those who are observing the religious law to the Pharisaical letter. It is clear who God reserves condemnation for – which side are you on?