I will always remember meeting a returned Navy fighter with his innocent significant other. He and I shared a lot of unspoken words with our eyes as we acknowledged we “know” Pattaya, and she innocently smiled and stood by. The irony of her innocence and his knowledge stirred in the pit of my stomach along with deeply disturbing flashback I'd had that morning, as I observed a lot of Christian and even Mennonite people enjoying a parade.
So often the church is checked out, while evil is raging wild in “Sodoms” near or far. We can choose to live in the country, and live in a bubble that feels secure. A bubble can make it easy to forget that there is a spiritual battle going on.
While listening to a sermon on Lot and
Abraham, the mention of Sodom kept taking me back to a certain
street where I have a lot of memories, and lot invested. They say there are drugs being sold in broad daylight now, and that it becomes a red light district on Saturday nights. I have friends who moved off this street because there was drinking going every night outside their apartment all night long, and the poor 'fresh off the boat' mama was rightly freaked out with her brood as her husband went to work 3rd shift. My Sodom has
a bunch of innocent children, who granted the right environment,
could be just as well behaved and angelic as the best. They tell me
stories about Daddy gambling, affairs between another girl's mom and 'my' girl's dad or that they saw the murdered man, “and blood was
coming out.” They know about drugs and things more then most adults
do. I could write volumes of stories from this block. I understand why it would be hard for Lot to leave because there
are friends caught in the middle of the mess, and we don't want to leave them
behind. God is the God of this city and street as well. I am reminded
to not tell my God how bad my Sodom is, but to tell Sodom how big my
God is.
Abraham interceded for Sodom, and while
he probably never knew what the outcome of his prayers was, angels
did show up to help Lot get away. We may never know how our prayers
made a difference, and most of the time, it probably feels like it
doesn't, but that isn't truth. Even Lot's prayers and his distraught
feelings about what he saw going on around him in Sodom made a
difference. All prayers make a difference, and I am challenged to pray more for the messes I know.
As the end of the world comes, Sodom will multiply and you might find yourself living closer to it then you ever dreamed possible. Don't let it scare you, or scar you. Lift your eyes up, and in faith, believe like Abraham. God will rescue you just like Peter says about righteous Lot. We don't often think of Lot as a good guy, but did you catch that he is called righteous Lot? God allows the almost scandalous in. If people look at you like you are loose cannon, God just might be calling you righteous.
For those of you who like your "safe" bubble, I like living on the edge of Sodom for one reason. It keeps me well aware there is a battle going on, and it keeps me on my toes. I seek His face more because the people of 'my' Sodom and I NEED Him. Sometimes the drama of Sodom is too much, and I like to go to the green spaces outside the city, but if I didn't have a sea of multi ethnic faces with desperate stories as a regular part of my life, where would I be?
Instead of being on defense only, why not go on offense and join us on the edge? We live on the fringe, for sanity's sake. If you want to jump all in, we can tell you where to buy a house.
After all, God's the God of it all. This city. This street. These people. And He is greater then all the volumes of horrific epistles that could be written. How big is your God in your mind?
Like C.S. Lewis once said, "He is not safe. But He is good." As one of my favorite teachers says, "We don't go because it's safe. We go because we're called." And one last quote to clinch the argument is that the "safest place to be is in the center of God's will."
Go touch your world, because you judged Him to be greater then anything that evil could create havoc with.
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