The Hazards of Assimilation

My conversation with the Lord went something like this: "Genesis 19? Seriously, Lord, do I have to? Nobody will notice if I just... you know... skip over it, move on to chapter 20. It'll be fine. Maybe I'll do 19 and 20 together and blur right over 19 with a bare-bones sentence."

Since this blog post is about Genesis 19, guess Who won that debate?

This chapter is heartbreaking. There's no other word for it. I'm feeling shattered this morning over it. Which surprises me; it's not like I didn't know the story. I'm well familiar with it, all parts of it, even that horrific scene at the end.

But I had a new thought today that I had never considered before, and I'll tell you about it.

Let me set the scene first:

Abram and his nephew Lot have arrived on the scene many years before this chapter takes place. Combined, their flocks and herds are so sizeable that they decide they need to split up. They stand on a hill and look out over the valley where Sodom and Gomorrah and a few other smaller towns are. Abram gives Lot first pick. "Where do you want to set up housekeeping?" (Or, more literally, tent-keeping).

In the valley, greenery tempted Lot, and so he chose to pitch his tents there. We've followed Abraham's story up to this point, now it's Lot's turn.

Lot doesn't get a... lot... (heh, and groan) of mentions in the narrative, but the ones he does get are fairly significant. 

First mention: Terah (Abram's father) takes his whole family, Lot included, to Canaan, but before he gets there, he settles in Ur of the Chaldeans. Ur of the Chaldeans, in case you didn't know, was Babylonia before it became Babylonia. Babylonia, according to the book of Daniel, was a place of exorbitant self-worship. The original sin, the original idol seen already in the Garden of Eden: Self, is what Babylon was known for.

So, young Lot is brought up in such surroundings. Self-fulfillment, self-gratification, anything that is thought of and desired, Lot, the grandson of wealthy Terah, likely had.

That's not to say he wasn't brought up with good principles. 2 Peter 2:7 describes Lot as a righteous man. But his surroundings were so. very. tempting.

Second mention: Lot chooses his valley and settles there. In Genesis 13:12-13, "Lot lived among the cities of the plain and pitched his tents near Sodom. Now the people of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the Lord."

The Scripture doesn't mince words: Sodom is not the place in which a righteous person should assimilate with the culture. Sodom is a wicked city, and Lot, primed from his days in Ur of the Chaldeans, may have thought: "It's not so bad." Maybe he thought he could do some good there. Be a light. Help people. Maybe he said: "The Lord has called me to Sodom to minister..." (All speculation, of course.) At any rate, Lot allows himself to feel at home, and he pitches his tents near the city, for, you know... easier access to the benefits and glitter and bling that comes with it.

Third mention: Attack! A bunch of kings go to war against a bunch of other kings (the king of Sodom included), and in the brouhaha, Lot and his possessions get carried off as "spoils of war." After which, super-fly Uncle Abram musters his own men and goes after the captors, fighting and winning, and returning Lot back to where he came from. At the king of Sodom's request, Abram releases the people he rescued (Lot included), though he refuses to accept any monetary gain from the king of Sodom's hand.

One wonders exactly what Abram's relationship with his nephew is at this point. Abram is the rescuer, but there is no mention of visits between the two. Abraham intercedes with the Lord for "ten righteous in the city" (likely considering Lot and his family) in chapter 18, but again, there's no mention of communication with his nephew. Why? What happened? I wonder if the wiser Abraham has warned Lot of his surroundings, and Lot doesn't take it so well. There seems to be tension there.

Fourth mention: The first verse of chapter 19 shows us that the cultural assimilation is complete. "Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city" (where, traditionally, leaders of cities sat, judging and settling disputes and typical legal matters). In verse 3, we find that Lot has moved in to Sodom. He's left his tents, he's bought a house. In verse 9, the men of Sodom accuse Lot of "wanting to play the judge." "'Get out of our way,' they replied. 'This fellow came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to play the judge!"

I don't need to go into the nitty-gritty details, so here's a summary: Two of the angels who had met with Abraham earlier that day are now in Sodom, preparing to destroy it. They've planned to spend the night in the city square, but Lot, knowing the wickedness of the people in the city, invites them into his house to eat and spend the night, in order to protect them. The men of the city collect in front of Lot's house and demand that Lot allow them access to the men to rape them (shudder). Lot, horrifically, offers his daughters to the men instead allowing them access to the angels.

I'm pausing here to say: I wish this had never happened. It's vile. It makes me sick to my stomach. The men of Sodom are just horrible, but Lot's substitute offer is just as bad. Cultural assimilation has caught up with him. He has become one of them. The principles he'd been taught bring him distress and conflict, but in the middle of pressure, he caves. A lifetime of allowing himself to take on the qualities of his surroundings has caught up with him. He is no longer a chameleon; he is actually the real thing.

You know what I think? I think Lot's daughters, huddled inside the house with the angels and with their mother... hear what their father says. And I think it's quite possible that after the initial, choking fear that their father will do what he's promised the men... smoldering resentment and anger build in their hearts, and... come out later. I'll get to that in a minute.

The angels rescue Lot for Abraham's sake, because of intercession, because Abraham has pleaded with the Lord. Lot doesn't want to leave. He stays and stays and stays, even when things are absolutely desperate. I can hear the time-bomb ticking away in the background, like when you're watching a thriller movie, and you're shouting at the people on the screen, RUN! GET OUT OF THERE!

Genesis 19:16 says: "When [Lot] hesitated, the [angels] grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the Lord was merciful to them." The angels tell Lot to run to the mountains for safety, but Lot, still dragging his chains of desire for the city, protests, asking to go to a "nearby town" called Zoar, possibly so he can head back "home" when it is all over. It seems, even at that point, he doesn't have a clear concept that God is going to obliterate the city.

The angels allow it, and they part company. Lot runs, his daughters run, Lot's wife runs... but hesitates. When the fire and brimstone open up and bury her home, the city in which she has likely grown up... she looks back with longing.

R-Rated Paragraph for Traumatic Imagery: I'm no scientist, so I looked up some information about this event and about volcanoes. According to a couple of sources, the valley is brim-full of salt deposits, and the combustion that occurs in the ensuing fire and lava possibly envelop Lot's wife in a quickly-gathering shell of salt, and it is likely she melts to death inside the shell. 

The story fades to black. 

Until the mountain scene that, again, I have no need to spend time describing in detail, except to say that Lot's two daughters get their dad drunk and proceed to conceive children with him. And I wondered if this was not only instigated by the daughters' desire to have children... but as revenge for that horrifying moment when their father said: "Here, take my daughters instead." Lot's daughters have grown up in Sodom; they are as yet unmarried (though up to this point, engaged), but they know the basic physiological sequence of events that needs to happen in order to have children, so one wonders if they are given that knowledge in Sodom.

The daughters know how to manipulate the system, because they have lived so long in it. They know how to make things happen in the way that the world has taught them, and they use it for their own ends.

By this point, if you're not nauseated, maybe you should be. The absolute destruction of Lot's promising life in the clan of a powerful chieftain such as Terah, associated by blood with a respected and charismatic leader such as Abraham... should have had a much better ending.

But it didn't. 

I mentioned at the beginning of this post that something new hit me today that I had never before thought of, and it was this: Why didn't Lot run to Abraham?

Abraham lived close enough to Sodom to see it from near his tent. The angels had reached Sodom not long after they had left Abraham. It would not have been that difficult for Lot to run back to his uncle. So what made him choose Zoar, the little town where he fled? What made him move from Zoar into the mountains with only himself and his daughters as company? Why, Lot? Why didn't you turn back to the man who had protected you, given you a home before?

The only thing I can think of is shame. Lot has spent so many years living closer and closer to sin until he is subsumed by it, that he can't face the clear, questioning gaze of his uncle who walks closely with the Creator God, with the Righteous Judge.

Lot is covered with shame, and in shame, his legacy continues with the Moabites and the Ammonites, his own progeny by his daughters.

I admit, I seriously struggled with this story this morning, connecting it to today and how I live. Do I assimilate with my surroundings? 2 Corinthians 6:17 says: "'Therefore, come out from [unbelievers] and be separate,' says the Lord." And Jesus himself, speaking to Pilate just before His death says: "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place."

We are servants of Christ, and in that way... we are separate from the world. We live in this world where God has placed us, but we must not allow ourselves to get caught up in the ways of the world. Y'all, I know how to manipulate the system. If I chose to, I could move right into downtown Sodom, because I've seen enough to realize how it all works.

Be separate. Romans 12:2 is an urgent call to this: "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is: His good, pleasing, and perfect will."

But not until we're transformed. Not until we set our gaze on the mountains (Psalm 121:1), rather than the worldly, blinding glitter of the city.

Let's remember that today. Today is a day where many, many people are placing their hope in a worldly system. Let's not be so culturally assimilated that we do the same. Our hope and our help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth (Psalm 121:2)!