When the Angels Come to America, Will They Find Ten Righteous People?

Header image of people walking in the city

This is a sermon that I preached on Sunday, 7/28/19, at Berkeley Friends Church. The scripture readings for this sermon were: Genesis 18:20-32, Colossians 2:6-19, Luke 11:1-13. You can listen to the audio (beginning with the scripture readings; the sermon begins at 6:30). Or, keeping scrolling to read my manuscript. (The spoken sermon differs from the written text)

Listen to the Sermon Now

As Jesus was praying in a certain place, his disciples approached him, and asked him: Lord, teach to pray, just like John taught his disciples. Jesus’ response, according to Luke, was extremely simple and straightforward. It started like this:

Father, hallowed be your name.

God is so far beyond anything we know or can understand. The God of Jesus, the God of Moses, the God of Abraham. The God of the desert. The God who said, “let there be light!” and the Big Bang happened. The God who hovered over the waters at the beginning of time. Let his name be holy.

Let his name be holy. His face, his character, his inward being – God is holy, set apart. God is different from us, unique. God is different from us in kind, not merely degree. God is not like the gods of the ancient world. He is not Zeus or Baal or Hera or Asherah. The God of Jesus is not a bigger, stronger, wiser human being. This is the God of the Big Bang and the garden, the God of Mount Sinai and the Tent of Meeting – this God is wholly and utterly other.

Let his name be holy. Let him be set apart, one-of-a-kind. Let us recognize that we are creatures and he is creator. Let us appreciate the profound difference between us and him. And let us realize that this difference is not a source of alienation, but rather a source of joy. Give thanks that God is not like us.

God is set apart, holy, different from us. Our creator is not blinded with our ways of seeing the world. He is not ensnared in our selfishness. And that’s why he can liberate us from the darkness we find ourselves in.

Your kingdom come.

That liberation, Jesus calls a kingdom. An empire. A reign, a rule, a tangible relationship of obedience that knits our lives together in the most holy, awesome, and powerful love of God.

Jesus says: This is my father’s world, and his reign is coming. Pray for it to come, and soon. Pray for the joy, justice, and liberty that the kingdom of God will bring. Pray for the transformation of our world to look like God intends. Pray for peace. Pray for love. 

Pray for the kingdom of God, that it would quickly overcome the counterfeit kingdoms of this world. Human hierarchies and economies. Petty personal ambitions and towering corporations. Nuclear armed nation-states and oppressive religious authorities.

Your kingdom come, Father God. Your kingdom come, humble Lord Jesus. Your kingdom come, Spirit of God, descending on the world as in the beginning.

Give us each day our daily bread

We. Are. Helpless. We breathe because God gives us breath. We see because God said, “let there be light!” We eat because the Spirit hovered over the waters and called forth all the living things in the sea, on the earth, and in the air.

Just like every living thing, we depend on God for the basic nutrients we need to get through a single day. Those of us who live in this agricultural, industrial, and high-technological civilization easily fool ourselves into imagining that we are in control. We believe that we make our own way in this cosmos. That we are lords of the earth. But we are wrong. We are like hungry, half-blind, infant children crying out for mother’s milk.

Give us each day our daily bread, God. Feed us. We’re helpless without your love.

And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.

Whoa now. Whoa now. “Forgive us our sins, for we forgive everyone indebted to us.” I don’t know about you, but I was a lot more comfortable with this prayer Jesus is teaching us, back when I could limit it to the ways I should be thinking about God and relating to God. But what’s this about people? What’s this about forgiving everyone who owes me? 

That’s not how our economy works! I can’t just go around forgiving everyone’s debts. I need to get paid! I need to eat! My family needs to eat! How are we going to get by without demanding that our debtors pay what they owe us?

Give us each day our daily bread.

Oh right. God provides. God is the source. He is the giver of every gift. He is powerful, and loving, and in control. But we have to surrender. Because we’re not in charge.

Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.

Your kingdom come

This is the only way, the only way this is going to happen. God’s kingdom has to come. His way has to be lived out here, now, right here in late capitalist North America. Because I can’t do this otherwise. I can’t forgive those who are indebted to me if the kingdom isn’t going to come. I can’t surrender my security and safety in the money economy, if I don’t know that there’s another economy I can take part in. I need God’s kingdom. I need this kingdom to come if I’m going to pray this way.

And do not bring us to the time of trial.

That’s what this all sounds like. Trial. Testing. Challenge. Renouncing the world that is right in front of our eyes, in favor of a new world being born. A world of waving trees, moving with the breath of God. A world of teeming oceans and flying birds. A world of clean water flowing from the city of God. A world of economies powered by love, neighborhoods filled with peace, and streets flowing with justice.

It feels like a time of trial now. It feels like we’ve come to a time of trial. A time when we will be tested. And, if I’m honest with myself, most days I feel like I’m failing the exam. I’m not living up to the measure of the character of Jesus.

So I pray: Don’t bring me to the time of trial, God. I’m not ready. Have mercy on me, I’m not like Jesus yet. Help me to get there, Lord. But don’t bring me to the time of trial. I’m not sure I’ll survive it.

In our reading this morning from the Book of Genesis, we hear about God’s visit to Abraham. It says that Abraham “saw three men standing near him,” and he knew it was the Lord.

And so the visitors ate with Abraham and Sarah. They accepted the couple’s hospitality, and they delivered some very unexpected news. Then the three visitors got up to leave. But before they took off, God decided to share with Abraham what he was about to do, and where the angels were headed. 

God was going to destroy the city of Sodom and its sister city of Gomorrah – two allied cities situated on the Jordan River plain. God was on his way to check Sodom out for himself, and if it was really as bad as he had heard, he was going to level the place.

Sodom and Gomorrah were full of greed and injustice, arrogance and violence. God said to Abraham, “How great is the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah and how very grave their sin! 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.”

So it’s the time of trial for Sodom and Gomorrah. It’s time to put these cities to the test and find out if they’re really as wicked as everyone in the region says they are. 

But then an interesting thing happens. Abraham intervenes with God, pleading for leniency with these cities. It says that Abraham came near to God and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous in the city; will you then sweep away the place and not forgive it for the fifty righteous who are in it?”

Fair enough, says God. If I can find fifty righteous people, I will spare the city for their sake.

Presumably God is about to take off at this point, but Abraham keeps it up. “What about forty-five, Lord? Surely you wouldn’t destroy the city just because five righteous people were missing.”

And God’s like, “OK, sure. Forty five it is.”

“But God…”

“What, Abraham?”

“How about forty?”

“Oh for… OK, fine. Forty.”

“Can I get thirty?”

“Thirty.”

“Twenty?”

“Twenty.”

At this point Abraham is really pushing his luck, but he risks annoying God, for the sake of the few righteous people that might be in Sodom and Gomorrah. “Oh, God, don’t be angry at me for this, but… What about ten? Would you spare the city for ten righteous people?”

And it says that God answered, “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.” And then the Lord went on his way.

Wild, right? What a negotiator! Abraham haggled God all the way down to ten people. There would just have to be ten decent, upright folks in all of Sodom, and they would pass the test.

Lord, do not bring us to the time of trial.

As I suspect that y’all know already, Sodom did not pass the test. When the heavenly visitors showed up in town, they accepted the hospitality of apparently the only righteous man in all of Sodom – Lot. But in the middle of the night, all the other men of the city came and demanded that the guests be surrendered, to be publicly humiliated, abused, and sexually assaulted. Only through the divine powers of the guests were Lot and his family able to escape. And once they did, the whole plain went up in flames. Sodom and Gomorrah had failed the test.

Lord, do not bring us to the time of trial.

Sodom and Gomorrah are legendary for their wickedness, and for their failure to meet the time of trial. And it’s tempting to imagine that these cities were a special case, an amazingly wicked group of people, very different from you and me. Very different from our city, our nation.

But are we? Are we a people of justice? Are we a city of righteousness? Are we a place where God’s kingdom is felt and experienced, where the hungry are fed, the lonely loved, and the stranger welcomed? Who are the righteous men and women of our society? Are there enough of them to deliver us from the time of trial?

Let’s review the prayer Jesus taught to his disciples:

Father, hallowed be your name.

You are different and special, God.

Your kingdom come.

We need you to change us, God. Make us like Jesus.

Give us each day our daily bread.

We depend on you, Holy Spirit, every day. Feed us and guide us.

And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.

Liberate us from our selfishness and addiction to the money economy, God. Teach us to love others like you love us.

And do not bring us to the time of trial.

In his letter to the Colossians, the apostle Paul writes, “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.”

Do not bring us to the time of trial.

Root us in you, God. Grow us into maturity. Make us like Jesus. Create in us clean hearts, oh God, and renew a right spirit within us.

Make us salt and light. Make us the righteous ones that ward off the time of trial from our city, our nation, our planet.

For, as Paul writes:

…when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave all of our trespasses, erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross.

Your kingdom come.

Come, Lord Jesus. Come, Holy Spirit. Transform our lives. Forgive our sins. Use us as a catalyst of liberation, to free those around us from debt, accusation, and fear. Do not bring us to the time of trial, and in your mercy use us to turn away the time of trial for the city where we live.

Sometimes it seems impossible. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that we could make any difference at all in this world so filled with darkness right now. So I leave you with the words of Jesus, who has faced all this darkness and more, and who lives and reigns forever and ever:

So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!

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