Sodom described in the book of Genesis was a city, notorious to
the extent that even today it is synonymous with sexual promiscuity. Interestingly
God has always placed good people everywhere. Out of the rebellious Babel came
Abraham, the father of faith. God in his own sovereignty decides the exact
places where we should live (Acts 17:26) because He needs the presence of godly
people for the salvation of places. Jesus calls his people as the salt and light
of the earth in Matthew 5. John Stott puts it as “the twin vocations of the
Christian.” Salt preserves. Light gives hope.
A vocation in a city to
be salt and light comes with many responsibilities. The rape laws found in the
Bible gives a hint to the responsibility of a city dweller. It also connects us
to the Delhi-incident. If a woman was raped in a rural area, the people would
execute the man who did it. On the other hand, if she was raped in the city,
they would execute them both (Deuteronomy 22:25-27). Why? There was an
assumption in Israel that the city victims would cry for help, and neighbours
would respond. If there was no response, the first assumption would have been
that she didn’t cry for help. The responsibility of a city dweller is very clear:
presence of neighbours or community is beneficial to the security and salvation
of individual persons.
Look at Sodom again. The city was not destroyed for its sexual
immorality alone. Ezekiel 16:48-50 describes the situation: “As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign
LORD, your sister Sodom and her daughters never did what you and your daughters
have done. Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters
were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They
were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with
them as you have seen.”
Sadly even
within the “less than ten righteous” count, the wife and daughters of Lot fell
to sin again. Such a situation is seen in the lament of God in Jeremiah 5:1 regarding
the city of Jerusalem: "Go up and
down the streets of Jerusalem, look around and consider, search through her
squares. If you can find but one person who deals honestly and seeks the
truth, I will forgive this city”. God is not looking for the presence of ten
righteous in a city to preserve it, but for just one! The presence and power of
one person could have spared Jerusalem.
Abraham
interceded for Sodom. My highlight here however is not the prayer of a Godly
person but the importance of the presence and witness of Christians in a city. Witness over weighs prayer, because God seeks persons who are honest and true in God-tangible ways. It
is said that Nehemiah went to the suburbs and small towns intentionally to
recruit a tithe (one out of ten) of good, capable resource people for
relocation into the city. “Now the
leaders of the people settled in Jerusalem, and the rest of the people cast
lots to bring one out of every ten to live in Jerusalem, the holy city, while
the remaining nine were to stay in their own towns. The people commended all
the men who volunteered to live in Jerusalem.” (Nehemiah 11:1-2) Nehemiah
prayed for the city and worked on it, but then he asked healthy communities to
tithe their human resources into neighbourhoods of need. Nehemiah was honest and true in caring for the needy.
God did not
find ten righteous people in the city of Sodom. He destroyed it. City needs the
presence of Godly people who would preserve it. God needs you in the city he
has placed you to preserve the city from destruction. Look at the alarming statistics
of the cities of the world. God cares for cities. He cared for the city of
Nineveh. “…Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty
thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many
cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?"
(Jonah 4:11). What concerns God, concerns us as well.
Am I a city saviour? A salt? A light? A person concerned for the needs of the people in the city?
