Outgrowing the Oldest Theology

Genesis 18 & 19

The Untitled, Open-Ended Study Bible

Sunday June 28, 2026

The Rev. David R. Collins

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Today in the Untitled, Open-Ended Study Bible we are going to deal with the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, which like many of the stories so far in Genesis, is not what people say it is.

The Bible itself knows this.

We’ll get into the Bible’s own commentary on what the sin of Sodom really was tonight as a part of our Clobber Passages study, but even just reading it as it stands, anyone should be able to see that the sexuality that is described here has about as much to do with two people of the same gender who love each other and want to spend their lives together as the story of the rape of Tamar has to do with two people of different genders who love each other and want to spend their lives together. One is a story about love. The other is a story about a mob that hates and wants to humiliate foreigners.

What we do have here is another great example of the Bible as a quilt made of fragments. Fragments are those special memories that you carefully preserve. They are especially easy to spot with the stories that seem out of place in a narrative. And quilting is how the fragments are placed next to each other for contrast, or to make a point. The hand of the editor is sometimes really obvious, and other times not so much. Here it is pretty obvious I think.

Scholars say that the fragment of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19 is much older than the story of Abraham and the Lord under the oaks of Mamre in chapter 18. I’m sure that more than a few PhD’s have been defended about why and how 18 came to precede 19, but for our purposes today, just take the scholar's word for it and come along.

And really, we can all put on our junior Bible scholars hats and notice for ourselves just in the text itself what feels more ancient about Genesis 19.

It’s the vibe.

It runs on the oldest theology in the world. Older than the Bible. Older than Israel. Every culture that has ever existed has carried some version of the idea that the wicked get what's coming to them. God — or the gods — punish the guilty. Fire fall on bad city. Good man get out. This is just how the most primitive parts of ourselves want the universe to work. You don't need a holy text to believe it. It's in your imagination.

Don't pretend you don't have a list. I have a list. We all have a list.

And the list doesn't feel wrong, does it? That's the thing. The oldest theology doesn't feel like a primitive instinct we should be embarrassed about. It feels like justice. It feels like the world finally working the way it should. The wicked getting what's coming to them scratches where I itch. Remember that feeling. We're going to come back to it.

If you haven’t read it in a while, here’s the quick version of Genesis 19.

The Story of Sodom and Gomorrah

Two angels show up in Sodom. Lot is sitting at the city gate, which is ancient near eastern for "important person," and he insists they stay with him. They say no thanks, we'll just sleep in the square. He insists. Which is the right move, as it turns out.

That night, every man in the city (and the text is very specific, every man, young and old, the whole city, nobody sat this one out) surrounds the house and demands that Lot send his guests out so they can assault them. This is not a love story. This is a mob trying to humiliate and dominate strangers by the worst means available. The ancient world used sexual violence as a weapon of power.

Lot, using women as things... another primitive trait that we are still struggling to break free from, offers his daughters instead. The angels spare everyone the consequences of that offer by striking the whole crowd blind.

Then the angels tell Lot to get everyone out. Now. His sons-in-law think he's joking. Lot himself is moving so slowly that the angels physically grab him and his family by the hand and drag them out of the city. Then, and I love this, Lot negotiates with the angels about his escape route. He’s like, “Uhhh. I really don’t like camping. Could I go to this nice little town over here instead?” Sure, fine, just go.

Fire and brimstone. Lot's wife looks back and becomes a pillar of salt. And here's your first ancient detail: there is an actual pillar of salt that people have pointed to for centuries. The story explains a real thing in the landscape.

And do you know what the salt pillar is next to? The Dead Sea. The most lifeless body of water on earth. Nothing lives in it. Salt formations everywhere. The ground around it smells of sulfur. The story and the landscape fit each other like a hand in a glove. Whether one caused the other or the landscape inspired the story, they've been they've been inseparable for thousands of years. That's what the oldest stories do. But this one still isn’t done. It gets weirder.

Lot ends up camping in the cave any way, with his two daughters. His daughters, apparently convinced they are the last people on earth (the town they fled to is right there, but okay) get their father drunk on consecutive nights and become pregnant by him. And the text tells us these two sons become the ancestors of the Moabites and the Ammonites. Israel's neighbors and frequent adversaries.

This is ancient polemic.

It's a mythic story that says, “you know where those people came from right?”

Now, if the scribes had editorial standards anything like ours, this story would have been cut a long time ago. If it was shared on social media it would have a big old “Community Note” underneath. But the editor didn't sanitize chapter 19. Couldn't. Wouldn't. These fragments are too old to touch.

So instead of changing the story, a different story comes right before it, and connects to it. One that instead of asking questions like "why is this salt pillar here" and "why are the people we hate so terrible?" asks whether the satisfaction we feel when the wicked get what's coming to them is actually justice.

Whether the power to destroy something is the same as the right to destroy it.

Whether the oldest theology is the truest, or just the starting point.

The tradition that gave us these stories never confused those things. That's what makes it different from the religious voices that frightens me today. The ones who look at power and call it God's blessing. The ones who look at destruction and call it God's judgment. The ones who take a story about a gang rape and use it to tell LGBTQ folks they aren't welcome in the kingdom of God.

This tradition kept asking. Kept arguing. Put the hard question right next to the satisfying answer and refused to let either one go.

That's the story I really want to dig into today.

It starts like this:

Genesis 18

The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. 2 He looked up and saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them and bowed down to the ground.

Keep in mind that Abraham is a very old man and when he looks up and sees these three strangers, he runs to meet them. Not walks. Then he bows, and immediately starts talking about what he can bring them. Water. Bread. Rest. Come, sit under the tree. Let me take care of you.

Lot will do something similar in chapter 19. He urges the visitors to come inside, but it’s because he knows what his city does to strangers. And the men of his city run too, but they run like a horde of zombies to devour strangers.

Abraham doesn't run because he's afraid of what happens if he doesn't. He runs out of love.

So he asks Sarah to make cakes and a servant to roast a calf and he brings it all to them and stands, and watches while they eat and drink, refilling their cups himself, and serving them more cheese and meat.

Then they bless him and Sarah, saying that when they return, Sarah will have had a baby, Sarah hears this and laughs, and the baby that does indeed finally come for Sarah will take his name from that moment. Isaac means laughter, But that’s a story for another day.

16 Then the men set out from there, and they looked toward Sodom, and Abraham went with them to set them on their way.

17 The Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, 18 seeing that Abraham shall become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? 19 No, for I have chosen him, that he may charge his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.”

God says he has chosen Abraham so that Abraham will keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice. Not one or the other. Both. They’re a set.

Righteousness means having a clear conscience in relationship with God, with your neighbor, with the world.

Justice means not just caring about the protection of the vulnerable, and what actually happens to the poor when the systems get going. But putting your body in the way to make sure they’re okay.

And notice the verb. Not believing in righteousness and justice. Not affirming them. Doing them. God doesn't say Abraham will hold the right theology. He says Abraham will practice something. That distinction is going to matter enormously in about thirty seconds.

20 Then the Lord said, “How great is the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah and how very grave their sin! 21 I must go down and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me, and if not, I will know.”

22 So the men turned from there and went toward Sodom, while Abraham remained standing before the Lord.

Standing in God's Way

I like to imagine Abraham standing in God’s way with that look on his face a person gets when they’re trying to will up the courage to say something that part of them is screaming for them not to say, but they just have to.

Because in general, you don’t correct a king. Or argue with a general. And you absolutely do not tell God that God has it wrong. But that’s what Abraham is about to do.

But first, he just stands there.

And he's not the only one.

The editor who placed chapter 18 in front of chapter 19 is standing there.

Every prophet who looked at the rubble and said 'this isn't the whole story' is standing there.

Every LGBTQ+ person who read this text and knew in their bones that it wasn't about them is standing there.

And anyone in this room who has ever looked at the way the world doles out suffering and thought “that can't be right” is standing there too.

So here is Abraham, one man, about to tell the God of the universe: you cannot do this and still be you.

23 Then Abraham came near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? 24 Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will you then sweep away the place and not forgive it for the fifty righteous who are in it?

25 Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?”

"Far be it from you" is too polite. The Hebrew word means profane. Contaminated. Abraham isn't expressing a preference. He's making an accusation.

And the accusation isn't about fairness. Abraham isn't saying it would be unfair to destroy the innocent along with the guilty, though it would be. He's saying it would be beneath God. That a God who operates this way is a diminished God. A smaller God than the one Abraham knows.

Abraham disputes with God about the meaning of God's Godness. Not about this one decision. About what it means to be God at all. The argument is theological before it's moral. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?

That's not a question. That's a reminder. You are who you are. Act like it.

26 And the Lord said, “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will forgive the whole place for their sake.”

27 Abraham answered, “Let me take it upon myself to speak to my lord, I who am but dust and ashes. 28 Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?” And he said, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.”

29 Again he spoke to him, “Suppose forty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of forty I will not do it.” 30 Then he said, “Oh, do not let my lord be angry if I speak. Suppose thirty are found there.” He answered, “I will not do it, if I find thirty there.”

31 He said, “Let me take it upon myself to speak to my lord. Suppose twenty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it.”

32 Then he said, “Oh, do not let my lord be angry if I speak just once more. Suppose ten are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.”

33 And the Lord went his way, when he had finished speaking to Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place.

The negotiation ends. God leaves. Abraham goes home. And chapter 19 happens anyway, because it turned out that every last person there deserved it.

But in the real world, that is never the case. The innocent always suffer alongside the guilty. More than the guilty. More often. You know this. You've seen it. The fire does not discriminate the way we want it to.

Which is exactly why Abraham's argument matters so much.

And why it didn't end with Abraham.

Because we have seen what one innocent life can do. We have seen the cross. We have seen God absorb the fire instead of raining it down. We have seen the new mathematics of chapter 18 carried all the way to its conclusion …that one innocent man, executed by the oldest theology, broke it open from the inside.

We live on the other side of that. Which means we don't just have Abraham's argument to stand on. We have the cross and the resurrection. The proof that the guilty going down is not the last word. That no one has to get what we think they deserve. That if there ever was a place like Sodom, there is no such place now.

So we don't just stand up for the innocent caught in the crossfire. We stand up for the guilty too … not to excuse what they've done, not to protect them from accountability, but to insist that destruction is not ours to rain down. That no human being gets written off as beyond the reach of truth and justice.

The oldest theology wants the fire.

It wants the guilty to go down and stay down and take everyone near them with them.

The gospel says that's not how this works. Not because hateful people aren't hateful. But because we are not the ones who get to decide who burns.

And notice how Abraham makes his argument.

He doesn't walk up to God and say, I know what you really are. He walks up and says, I know what you're supposed to be. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?

He appeals to the ideal. He holds God accountable to God's own best self.

That's the move. Not assuming the worst about the one you're confronting. Not leading with the accusation, but leading with the standard.

You said you were this.

You claimed to stand for that.

I'm holding you to it.

That's how we talk to governments. That's how we talk to institutions. That's how we talk to churches that have used this text as a weapon against the people in this room.

Not you're corrupt and I always knew it.

But you told us you were for justice.

You said you believed in human dignity.

You claimed to represent something.

We're holding you to it.

That's not naive. Abraham wasn't naive about Sodom.

It's just a harder, braver, more faithful way to stand in the fire. The Judge of all the earth will do what is just. Abraham believed it before he saw it.

So do we.

Amen.