The Inhospitality of Sodom
For most of us, hospitality brings to mind the welcoming in or entertainment of family and friends. Or we think of the hospitality industry – hospitals, hotels, restaurants, etc. But what did it look like in the early days of our shared humanity? If we examine some of our oldest records, specifically the ancient Hebrew narratives referred to as the Old Testament, we see that it was far more than having friends over or care and provisions offered from a facility with dollar signs attached.
According to those who spoke on behalf of the god whom these writings credit with creating the heavens and earth and everything within, showing hospitality was intentional, engaging, and not an option. This god, according to these writings, I will argue, destroyed an entire town for their inhospitality.
During the 2nd millennium B.C.E., several peoples had come to settle in the Fertile Crescent from virtually all directions. Canaan was indeed “the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites.” Exodus 3.17
A social stratum of people who lacked citizenship
Throughout the documents of the 2nd millennium are numerous references to the ‘apiru’ or the ‘habiru’ – an inconspicuous people scattered through Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Syria, Canaan, and Egypt. The term referred to a social stratum of people who lacked citizenship in the established nations of the Near East. The ‘habiru’ were wanderers or outsiders living on the fringes of society. This term is most likely the same as the term ‘biro’ in the ‘biro’ or Hebrew text (the Old Testament). Not that all ‘ibri’ are descendants of Abraham, later to be known as Israelites, but that Abraham and his descendants were identified with this larger body of ‘gypsies.’ Genesis 14.13.
Abraham and his family of nomads were regarded as sojourners in the midst of the established peoples of Canaan. These sojourners, or ‘gerim’, were defenseless and often their very lives depended upon the hospitality of the established host. And when these nomads became established, they were instructed to love and care for those who had no place to call home.
Leviticus 19.33-34
33 When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien.
34 The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
Remember, these were not societies with an embedded mindset that introduces razor wire at the borders, and separating children from their families. Rather, there was an element of shared trust initiated over the table fellowship between a host and their guest because there was always the potential for the roles to be reversed.
We even see a strand of this running through the 23rd Psalm. It is indeed, perhaps among other things, a hymn of trust, (for You are with me) with metaphors of dependence upon Yahweh for the three essentials – food, drink and protection. He sets a table, and the Psalmist is assured shelter in the House of Yahweh for days without end.
“Don’t call me, I’ll call you”
Over time, Israel adopted a ‘don’t call me, I’ll call you’ approach to Yahweh. They never hesitated to call out to Him in their time of need, but refused to welcome His inconvenient call through strangers in times of comfort. The time would come however, when Yahweh will come again, and this time through another homeless stranger. He will be very inconvenient.
This stranger, Jesus of Nazareth, would organize the poor and oppressed and send them out with a message of good news, and a warning: “If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet. I assure you that on the Judgment Day, God will show more mercy to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah than to the people of that town!” Matthew 10.14-15.
Jesus’ warning, however, loses its relevance to Sodom if we are to adopt the popular and anti-gay soothing theory that Sodom’s great sin was homosexuality.
In order to assert that the sin of Sodom was homosexuality, one has to clear some significant hurdles. It is striking, for example, that although Sodom is mentioned in about two dozen different places in the Bible (other than Genesis 19 where the story is first told), in none of these places is homosexuality associated with the Sodomites. When Ezekiel says, “Look! This was the guilt of your sister Sodom…” unless he was uninformed or lying, what follows must be accepted as his god’s diagnosis
Ezekiel 15. 49-50 New American Standard: 49”Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had arrogance, abundant food and careless ease, but she did not help the poor and needy. 50Thus they were haughty and committed abominations before Me. Therefore I removed them when I saw it.”
Sexual sins
There is no mention of any type of sexual sins. As far as the ‘abominations’, the translation begins the statement with ‘Thus they’, or in other words, ‘As a result, they…’ which indicates the abominations are related to the sins just listed. One wouldn’t say, “The sins of that city were high taxes, no public transportation, terrible roads, and a losing football team, and as a result, they committed homosexual acts.” At the very least, these abominations are coupled with their ‘haughtiness’ or ‘arrogance.’
The story itself has significant hurdles to clear, in addition to a problematic preface. How is it that the god who’s eyes are in every place, observing both the evil and the good (Proverbs 15:3), and looks to the ends of the earth, and sees everything under the heavens (Job 28:24), needs to send a couple of angels dressed in flesh to investigate a situation that had to be brought to his attention?
The story itself seems to hinge on the interaction between all the men in town and Lot standing at the door. And the claim that the great sin of Sodom was homosexual acts, zeros in on this crowd of men calling out to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may know them.” It is incorrect to assume that the word, יָדַע – ‘to know’ is referring to a physical engagement. Out of 943 occurrences in the Old Testament, the word indicates such a sense only 10 times. In the current context, it is far more logical to understand that these men wanted to know who these strangers were. How likely would it have been for every single male, both young and old in this town, to have been gay and so desperate as to immediately come running for Lot’s guests all at once. And even if the term is to be understood in a sexual sense, surely the abomination would not be having sex with the same gender as much as the assault of a brutal gang-rape.
The abomination contest
And why, if this were the case, would Lot think that offering his daughters to a town full of gay men, appease them? And surely forcing your daughters out into the square to be gang-raped by a town full of men, gay or not, would win the abomination contest.
And at the end of the day, if we are to circumvent logic, Ezekiel makes it clear that homosexual (likely life-ending), gang-rape is so less a sin than being arrogant and unconcerned about the poor and needy, that it’s not even worth putting on the list.
This argument isn’t intended to resolve the question of how/if the Bible addresses homosexuality, but rather to take the story of Sodom off that witness stand, and redirect it towards the likelihood that this god destroyed an entire town for their inhospitality and lack of concern for the poor and needy. And this would make complete sense when one reads the warnings from Jesus of Nazareth. His ‘squad’, coming into these homes and towns, would be the poor, needy and ‘sinners’ that were routinely dismissed by those living in comfort.
Neither is this argument intended to instruct. Regardless of one’s opinions on biblical texts – actual god-inspired writings, or just people grasping hold of an imaginative hope and purpose, no one should be rendered under their authority unless by choice.
The hope is that it will dilute the argument of those who insist on using this narrative to prove and push their religious convictions into codified law for everyone. But it is also intended to bring forward the history of how our shared humanity from 4 millennia away, have embraced and emphasized the moral rightness of caring through hospitality for the alien, the poor and needy.
Those with nowhere to go.
