Sermon for July 28, 2019 - Proper 12 C - The Rev'd Isaac Provencio Martinez

Gen. 18:20-32; Ps.138; Col. 2:6-19; Luke 11:1-13

Good morning, St. Paul’s! It is a true joy to be breaking open the Word with you this morning. For those of you I haven’t met yet, my name is Isaac Martinez and I am deeply honored to serve here for the next two years ministering with our children, youth, and young adults.

Now, I’ve only been working at St. Paul’s for two short weeks, but I’ve been a fan of yours for some time. I remember when you had a large banner outside these doors that was no mere slogan, but a way of life: God loves you, no exceptions. And just below that: The Episcopal Church welcomes you. It is because another Episcopal parish, St. James’s in Cambridge, welcomed me eight years ago that I realized God’s unconditional love meant I could become a minister, even though I thought, as a gay man, that I had to let that dream die. In fact, it is through our church’s expansive and radical welcome that we demonstrate that God loves each of us, no exceptions. This is the lesson I take from your banner and one that will guide my ministry.

The connection between the all-encompassing love of God and the welcome we show our fellow humans is evident in our readings this morning. In Genesis, we continue the story of Abraham entertaining heavenly visitors, including God’s own self. As we heard last week, Abraham was sitting under some trees at the entrance to his tent when God showed up with two other figures, though Abraham didn’t yet recognize them as divine beings. Abraham rushed to shower hospitality on these unexpected visitors, having his wife, Sarah, prepare the best flour for bread and choosing the best calf to cook. When everything is prepared, Abraham stood and waited on them, while the unknown guests sat and ate.

And in return for Abraham’s extravagant welcome, a sign of his faithfulness, God revealed the reason for their arrival—a promise that within a year’s time, 100-year-old Abraham and 90-year-old Sarah will have a son who will continue the covenant between God and Abraham.

But God has shown up with another purpose in mind. As we hear at the start of today’s Old Testament reading, God tells Abraham, “How great is the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah and how very grave their sin! I must go down and see whether it’s true.” Now, today’s passage doesn’t tell us what was going in these cities to make God so angry. But if we keep reading to Chapter 19, we get the story of Abraham’s nephew, Lot, and we see the complete opposite of the hospitality and welcome that Abraham showed his divine visitors.

In this story, Lot is so fearful to let two heavenly beings stay in the public square of Sodom that he insists they come home with him. In contrast to the feast Abraham had prepared, Lot does not make them anything more than simple unleavened bread.[1] And to make matters worse, the people of Sodom come banging at his door, threatening to violate his angelic guests, showing just how unwelcome they are in the city. And when Lot tries everything in his power to prevent that, the people turn on him as well, in essence telling him that if he didn’t like the way things were in Sodom, he should go back to where he came from. Despite the plea for mercy that Abraham carefully negotiated with God, it turns out there were not even ten righteous people in Sodom. After rescuing Lot and his family from the city, the two angels call down fire and brimstone to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.

So here we have two diametrically opposed stories. On the one hand, we have Sarah and Abraham, who left their home several times and repeatedly had to trust and rely on strangers for their survival. When they are finally in a position to do so, they repay the kindness others have shown them in their wanderings and provide abundant, radical hospitality, continuing the cycle of blessing, not just for themselves, but for the world. On the other hand, we have the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, who were so sure and so proud of their wealth and power that they thought they would never need to seek refuge themselves and that their hatred of foreigners was justified.[2] I’d like to think that God didn’t really need to use fire and brimstone to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. As it is with all sin, their indifference to the needs of others, their lack of mercy, and their love of power bore the seeds of their own destruction. Like all xenophobic societies, Sodom and Gomorrah would have grown weak, isolated, and hated and collapsed all on their own.

Reading these two stories together teaches us how God operates: choose welcome and you choose blessing. And indeed, I see that choice happening all around this congregation, from the Brookline Food Pantry to B-SAFE to our prison ministry and so much more. Yet, I know it can be a daily struggle for me to make that choice and show abundant, radical hospitality especially when I feel the pressure from our society to hurry, to be busy, and to succeed. Perhaps it’s difficult for you as well. The truth is, St. Paul’s, that we will sometimes fail to fully welcome the stranger and to share from our abundance with those in need. Sometimes, as individuals, as a parish, as a country, we will be a lot more like the Sodomites than Abraham. So where does that leave us?

Well my friends, thanks be to God that above all, She is a God of mercy. In our Gospel today, Jesus teaches us to how to pray, how to bring the struggles of our individual and collective lives into the presence of a God who loves us as a Parent. Forgive us, God, we pray, and make us more capable of forgiving others. Welcome us God, and make us more capable of welcoming others.

And no matter how many times we fail, whether it’s at forgiving others or at showing radical hospitality or anything else, Jesus teaches us to be shamelessly persistent[3] in our prayer, to keep returning to the fountain of all mercy and goodness. We need only to ask and it will be given us. We need only to seek and we will find it. We need only to knock and we will see that God is waiting to welcome us back in every time. My friends, no matter how much we give, God is willing to give more. No matter how much we love, God loves more. May our response always be to give as God gives us, to welcome as God welcomes us, and to love as God loves us, no exceptions. Amen.

[1] See Robert Alter’s translation of Genesis.

[2] Centuries after this story takes place, the Prophet Ezekiel compares the city of Jerusalem right before the Babylonian conquest to Sodom. He wrote, “This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy (Ezek. 16:49).

[3] The Greek word translated “persistent” is ἀναίδεια, which literally means shamelessness.