by Father Mark Nolette

In last Sunday’s episode from The Adventures of Abraham, we found him sitting in the shade of a tree near his encampment as the day is growing hot.  He sees three men nearby, not coming to him but on a journey elsewhere. Abraham runs to the three men, practically begging them to give him the honor of allowing him to give them food and drink. Abraham knows well that a journey in the hot sun could be perilous.  They would need food and water to survive.  Abraham provides the nourishment.  His guests in turn, promise him that he and his wife Sarah, in spite of their advanced years, would have a son by this time next year.

In this Sunday’s episode, two of the men move on.  The third, now revealed as the Lord, decides to tell Abraham the purpose of this journey.  The people of Sodom have been accused of serious sins.  The Lord means to find out if the accusations are true and then to pass judgment on Sodom.

By this point in the story, we may be asking questions based on our Catholic doctrine about God.  If this is God, wouldn’t He already know about the evils committed in Sodom? Wouldn’t He know what He was going to do? What’s the purpose of His conversation with Abraham in the first place?  If we recall that God is beyond the boundaries of space and time, that raises still more questions for us.  How do we resolve this? Where do we find light to help us?

This story of the Lord and Abraham is similar to many of Jesus’ parables in that  it’s the story as a whole that tells us something important about God and humanity.  The picture that emerges from the entire story is the focus.  All the details are brushstrokes that paint a multilayered portrait that repays our contemplative gaze.

What can we see in this story?

First, we have Abraham, the man of faith. He proved ready, at God’s invitation, to leave everything he knew to walk toward a future that was impossible by any human standard. Abraham, having emptied himself of nearly everything, was open to God in a profound way. God then takes Abraham into His own heart, His own confidence.  Abraham is invited to be a part of God’s own inner conversation, so to speak.  God is not offended when Abraham raises questions.  In fact God seems to want these questions.  In how Abraham responds, he shows himself to be a man after God’s own heart, a Beloved of God.  Abraham speaks what is already in the Heart of God.

Then there is the conversation itself.  Abraham believes that God intends to destroy Sodom for its evils. Abraham objects that God should not treat the innocent and the guilty in the same way. “Lord”, he asks, “if there are fifty innocent people in Sodom, will you still destroy it?” The conversation goes on, until God affirms that if He finds even ten innocent people in Sodom, He will not destroy the city.

This reminds us of Jesus’ parable of the weeds and the wheat.  In that parable, the landowner does not want the workers to uproot the weeds for fear that the wheat will also perish.  Both must grow together until the harvest. We can also recall Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem, and how a Samaritan village would not welcome Him because He was on His way to Jerusalem. Jesus’ disciples wanted to destroy the village for this, but Jesus rebuked them and moved on.

The story in our Abraham saga, then, affirms that God will not destroy willy-nilly because of the sins of the people.  He will offer grace and mercy.  If only ten good people can be found in the city, God will spare it.  In the same way, God does not desire any one of us to perish, no matter what our sins may have been.  If He finds even a small amount of goodness, faith the size of a mustard seed, He will forgive and offer new life.

God’s mercy is not the only part of the story.  There is also God’s justice.  As it happens, God does not find even ten innocent people in Sodom. For the sake of Abraham, God does rescue Lot and Lot’s family before destroying the city.  It is as though Sodom as a whole had rejected God completely.. Yet, it is unclear whether or not Lot is among the innocent or the guilty.  He resists the call to leave Sodom and has to be practically forced out.  His wife is too attached to Sodom and she perishes. Their daughters do not act in an exemplary way, either.  Yet God offered them one more chance.

Let’s return to our story of God and Abraham one last time. God will spare the whole city for the sake of fifty, forty, or even only ten good people. Suppose that there were fifty, forty or even only ten good people in Sodom. They would not be following the example of the others. Their beliefs score poorly on all the Sodomese opinion polls. These few people would be looked down upon, despised, by their neighbors.  Nevertheless, the city’s survival depends on these few holy ones.

Those of you who are autistic or who have some other disability may see yourselves here. You are too often ignored, even despised. Even churches organize their liturgies and their ministries with scarcely a thought to your needs, unless they are forced to do so.  You may have been told, in many ways, that you have little of value to offer.

What if this city… this parish… this country… this world exists only because the Lord loves you so much that he will show mercy on all because of you?