Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Today’s Invitation
Today we invite you to explore the power of scorched earth practices through city homelessness sweeps; engage the story of Sodom and Gomorrah as one, not about homosexuality, but about oppression; and embody a different logic with the help of Palestinian poet Mohammed El-Kurd and People’s Arms Embargos.
Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Reading 1
So YHWH said to Abraham, “The outcry
against Sodom and Gomorrah is terrible, and
their sin is so grave that I must go down and
see for myself. If they have done what her cry
against them accuse them of, I will destroy
them. If not, I need to know that, too.”
While the travelers walked along toward
Sodom, Abraham remained in YHWH’s
presence. Then Abraham drew closer and
said, “Will you sweep away the innocent
with the guilty? Suppose there were fifty
innocent people in the city; would you wipe
out the place, rather than spare it for the sake
of the fifty innocent within it? Far be it from
you to do such a thing, to make the innocent
die with the guilty! Should the innocent and
the guilty be treated the same way? Heaven
forbid it! Should the Judge of the earth not
act with justice?”
YHWH replied, “If I find fifty innocent
people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the
whole place for their sake.”
Abraham spoke up again: “See how I
presume to speak to my Sovereign, though I
am only dust and ashes! What if there are
forty-five innocent people? Will you destroy
the whole city for the lack of those five?”
“I will not destroy it,” YHWH answered, “if
I find forty-five there.”
But Abraham persisted, and said, “What if
only forty are found there?”
YHWH replied, “For the sake of the forty, I
will not destroy it.”
Then Abraham said, “Let not my Sovereign
grow impatient if I go on. What if only thirty
are found there?”
YHWH replied, “For the sake of the thirty, I
will not destroy it.”
Still Abraham went on, “Since I have thus
dared to speak to my Sovereign, what if
there are no more than twenty?”
“For the sake of the twenty, I will not
destroy it,” YHWH answered.
Abraham persisted: “Please, do not be angry
if I speak up this last time. What if there are
only ten there?”
“For the sake of the ten,” YHWH replied, “I
will not destroy it.”
Responsorial Psalm
Response: O God, on the day I called for help, You answered me.
I thank You, Adonai, with all my heart; / I sing praise to You before the gods.
I bow down in front of Your Holy Temple and praise Your Name.
R: O God, on the day I called for help, You answered me.
Because of Your constant love and faithfulness,
Because You have shown that You and Your commands are supreme.
You answered me when I called to You; / with Your strength You strengthened me.
R: O God, on the day I called for help, You answered me.
Even though You are so high above, / You care for the lowly,
Even when I am surrounded by troubles, / You keep me safe.
R: O God, on the day I called for help, You answered me.
You will save me by Your power, / You will do everything You have promised me.
Adonai, Your love is constant forever. / Complete the work that You have begun.
R: O God, on the day I called for help, You answered me.
Reading 2
In baptism you were not only buried with
Christ but also raised to life, because you
believed in the power of God who raised Christ
from the dead. And though you were dead in
sin and did not have the Covenant, God gave
you new life in company with Christ,
pardoning all our sins. God has canceled the
massive debt that stood against us with all its
hostile claims, taking it out of the way and
nailing it to the cross.
Gospel
One day Jesus was praying, and when he
had finished, one of the disciples asked,
“Rabbi, teach us to pray, just as John taught
his disciples.”
Jesus said to them, “When you pray, say,
‘Abba God, hallowed be your Name!
May your reign come.
Give us today
Our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins,
for we too forgive everyone
who sins against us;
and do not let us be subjected
to the Test.’”
Jesus said to them: “Suppose one of you has
a friend, a neighbor, and you go to your
neighbor at midnight and say, ‘Lend me
three loaves, because friends of mine on a
journey have come to me, and I have
nothing to set before them.’
“Then your neighbor says, ‘Leave me alone.
The door is already locked and the children
and I are in bed. I cannot get up to look after
your needs.’ I tell you, though your neighbor
will not get up to give you the bread out of
friendship, your persistence will make your
neighbor get up and give you as much as
you need.
“That is why I tell you, keep asking and you
will receive; keep looking and you will find;
keep knocking and the door will be opened
to you. For whoever asks, receives; whoever
seeks, finds; whoever knocks, is admitted.
What parent among you will give a snake to
their child when the child asks for a fish, or
a scorpion when the child asks for an egg? If
you, with all your sins, know how to give
your children good things, how much more
will our heavenly Abba give the Holy Spirit
to those who ask?”
The Inclusive Lectionary © 2022 FutureChurch. All rights reserved.
The inclusive language psalms:
Leach, Maureen, O.S.F. and Schreck, Nancy, O.S.F., Psalms Anew: A Non-sexist Edition
(Dubuque, IA: The Sisters of St. Francis, 1984).
Used with permission.
Explore
The Power of Scorched Earth Practices
This morning some tents that were set up in the city square where I live got swept, and one person even got arrested. People were only allowed to grab the things they could hold, or move far enough away from the garbage truck owned by the parks department so it wouldn’t be thrown away. It’s the third time the cops have showed up over the past four days to this part of town. It’s the most centrally located place in town. It has the easiest access to services, some trees that provide cover from the elements, and a library with a bathroom close. For a handful of unhoused people it seems the best place to sleep out, especially if you have trouble getting around, are disabled, or have no storage and are forced to keep everything you own on your person. There was a “Homeless Services” worker present who was running around yelling at people and handing out the contact information for the nearest hellscape called a shelter. I wonder what would have happened if someone sat there and was Abraham to the service worker and said “if four of these tents had innocent people in them would you not sweep the square?” “If three of these tents…” “If two of these tents…” “If one of these tents was filled with an innocent person would you not sweep the square?” I have to be honest, I do not think it would have worked.
The tents are gone now. The sweep logic of the city was fulfilled. There was no merciful God in sight. But also, perhaps the analogous scene painted above points to a stark reality and a stupid way of looking at extracting value from the story. Is mercy what is needed here? Is innocence the test of a right to simply exist? Is this even the model painted further on in the “Our Father” of the Gospel? Do we not live in a “scorched earth” world? How nice it would be to have Abraham’s influence!
As the modern nation-state alliance of Israel and the United States continues forward with a scorched earth policy in Gaza (and the West Bank, South Lebanon, and Syria), as the United States opens up national forests and roadless lands for logging and clear cutting, as neighborhoods across the US are left eerily empty in fear of ICE raids, as the Welaunee forest is clear cut for Cop City, and pipelines leave a scarred and scorched Earth behind, I cannot help but feel that actually what I want to end is even the ability to go scorched Earth. Getting those able to conduct such destruction to be merciful just doesn’t seem to work. Oh, international law, you upheld such wonderful promises!
So we ask the Abraham question to those with the ability to go scorched earth; those with their bunker buster bombs, their drone warfare, and their AI border surveillance systems. Perhaps we should also ask those liberal status-quo Christians around us a slight inverse of that question: “If just one person was killed for the American project would that be enough to revolt?” “How about two?” “How many people enslaved and put on the trail of tears makes this project still worth it?” “How about a million in Iraq, two hundred thousand in Palestine?” “How about the whole world?”
I will admit I have some slight hesitation in finding comfort in a divine power that could (perhaps even more emphasis on “would”) go “scorched earth,” but I also feel the desire. In fact, I find myself praying for it. It seems to be staring in our face that any prayer of downfall for the fascist world order involves quite a bit of destruction. How I pray for the bombs to stop falling, to stop being able to be made. How I prayed that the cop cars just couldn’t arrest our friend that day. That the handcuffs stopped working.
I wonder if this is where the dichotomy within the readings, and within God is quite symbolic of our pursuits for a better world. Maybe the forgiving and utopic faith of the Our Father in the Gospel, and the God willing to destroy the wicked if needed, create some sort of dialectic. Is this is how the world is made, how history is made? Things are created, things are destroyed, things are brought back to life, made anew, and destroyed again. Things are destroyed to create, and things are created to destroy? Maybe it would just be nice if the destruction just wasn’t so overwhelming. If it wasn’t funded so much more, and wasn’t winning.
Charlie Enuf
Engage Catholic Social Teaching
There have been so many different explorations into the story of Sodom and Gomorrah and the display of mercy and bargaining done by Abraham – explorations into the exact sin or wickedness that the people of Sodom and Gomorrah; the grave and serious history of homophobia that has come from this reading and the passages surrounding it. We have the explorations done by many biblical scholars that have disproven that homophobia is coming from this larger story (perhaps most well-known by John Boswell): it was the exploitation and oppression (via sexual rape) of marginalized people and their treatment of strangers. I find it interesting though that our context is forcing me to reflect on the reality of complete destruction and to question whether God’s own methods are oppressive. Perhaps we are just sick of anyone being able to go scorched earth?
I found myself immediately reflecting and earnestly wishing for complete and total disarmament. Wouldn’t it be better if no one could go scorched earth to begin with, both through the annihilation of the weapons and powers that make that sort of destruction possible, and through the social relationships that uphold those punishments and reactions as just? Would it have been better and more long-lasting for God and Abraham to destroy the standing social relations and the power of the men of Sodom and Gomorrah that allowed them to be so wickedly inhospitable and violent? Is annihilation truly the best condemnation?
Would the world not be better if the United States and Israel’s Zionism was not upheld by trillion dollar militaries? Thousands of nuclear bombs (many of which are illegal by international law)? Is it not the combination of force and the hegemonic control over international law that the colonial and imperial logic (read here Zionism) of Israel and the United States that allows them to do everything with such impunity? Rid them of it all!
I am now reminded again of our friends who were swept (read: violently evicted) on the town square. After all, all they are asking for is a world that is forced to use cooperation over force. They want everyone in the city to have rights, say, and control over where they live and how they live. They wish they didn’t live in a world where the movement of real estate and capital forced them out of their apartments. Or worlds where court convictions automatically lead to homelessness. Where the death of a spouse forced you to sleep in a tent. They wish people couldn’t just get rights to land because they have the capital and the standings with the banks to buy them. They wish we all had to live in a world where people could not win arguments or displace others by force, but instead that we had to democratically cooperate and build the city together.
And this is exactly what they do. The person who got arrested was known as the leader of the upper square. He makes sure people keep their areas clean, that people know what resources are where, and that people are respecting each other. This is why he was targeted, they say. I am sure he doesn’t do it perfectly. I am sure he [messes] up. But even when he [messes] up 15 people aren’t displaced. People’s lives aren’t upended. They aren’t perfect victims. Simply, they are people deserving of rights to their land.
A Contemplative Exercise
What do the readings make you feel?
What characters and aspects do you find your mind focusing on?
What is the relation between the destruction in the first reading and the prayers in the Gospel reading?
A Community
I’d invite you to get connected to groups in your area that are working for a People’s Arms Embargo, some or many of which may be in coalition here. It is clear that because of the United States, and many NATO countries, there will not be a governmental arms embargo stopping the Israeli military from committing genocide in Gaza, and increasingly in the West Bank.