This text was delivered as a sermon at First United Church in Ottawa on August 10, 2025. It builds on the behavioral covenant of the congregation.
Back when I worked for the church and did youth ministry, I had made it my practice to always use the lectionary reading that was scheduled for any Sunday that I was leading or offering a reflection. It’s a practice that I’ve largely kept up through the years, even though I don’t lead worship with any regularity. For me, I have found that forcing myself to stick to scripture readings that were assigned forces me to think about the history and traditions differently, and often opens up new paths to follow and consider.
I will admit that I was challenged by this commitment, for today.
The lectionary for August 10, 2025, the ninth Sunday after Pentecost, offered two different readings from the Hebrew scriptures. We just heard one. The other was the conversation between Abraham and God, in which Abraham complains that he has no children, and God promises Abraham that his descendants will be as numerous as stars. This part of the story is referenced again in today’s suggested reading from Paul’s letter to the Hebrews. Paul lifts up Abraham’s willingness to travel to a new land as an example of trust and faith, and implies that Abraham’s reward of numerous descendants is the kind of reward we should expect for faithfulness.
I don’t really like the transactional interpretation of that story. Have faith, get reward. For me, that’s never been a compelling argument.
So instead, I decided to go with the opening of Isaiah, which leads off with a condemnation of Sodom and Gomorrah. This isn’t the actual narrative of the destruction of the two cities, but it is hard to understand this vision and prophetic cry that starts Isaiah’s ministry without a basic understanding.
So… here’s a quick recap:
God’s heard bad things about Sodom and Gomorrah. According to Isaiah, the people of the cities are very good at a performative kind of religion — providing sacrifices and holding festivals and maybe a lot more, but something fundamental is missing. No specific transgression is mentioned, but Isaiah’s vision lays out what is needed: cease to do evil; learn to do good; seek justice; rescue the oppressed; defend the orphan; plead for the widow. I guess they weren’t doing those things.
So anyway, we have Sodom and Gomorrah being wicked, and not in the good sense.
In the prelude to the story, which takes place just after the previously mentioned conversation between God and Abraham, God debates whether to tell Abraham about the planned destruction of the two cities. In recognition of the covenant they have just formed, God decides to bring Abraham in on it. Abraham, is a compassionate man, and starts haggling with God. They start with an agreement that if Abraham can find 50 good men, the city will be saved, but with careful twists of logic and flattery, Abraham gets that number down to just 10. All in vain, it would turn out.
God sends angels to test Sodom. They arrive at the house of Abraham’s nephew, Lot, who had chosen to settle there in an earlier chapter. Lot welcomes them in, and starts preparing supper. Suddenly, all the men of the city surround the house, demanding that Lot send out the strangers so that they can abuse them. Lot, being a gracious host, refuses to put his guests at risk.
I’ll take a quick aside here to acknowledge that the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is often highlighted as a condemnation of homosexuality. One of the key issues with that interpretation — apart from it being simply wrong — is that in trying to protect the strangers, Lot offers his own daughters to the crowd to, and I quote, “do with as you please”. Apparently gang rape of young women is perfectly okay to people who would see this story as anti-gay.
It isn’t okay, and this isn’t a story about sexuality. This is a story about xenophobia.
The crowd declares that Lot himself is a foreigner, so he has no right to criticize or judge how they act. They try to force their way inside his house. Thankfully, Lot has a couple of all-powerful angels inside. In what would make a great sketch comedy, the angels turn the townspeople blind so that they can’t find Lot’s door, and Lot and his daughters are saved.
The next morning, fire and sulfur rain down on the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Remember how Isaiah interpreted what was being asked of the two cities? Cease to do evil; learn to do good; seek justice; rescue the oppressed; defend the orphan; plead for the widow.
We can add another: be welcoming.
Survival, in biblical times, was entirely dependent on community. No fish one day might mean relying on a neighbour or family member to provide a meal. Homes were built through collective labour. Child rearing was a village task.
We fool ourselves, today, by pretending that our survival isn’t dependent on community. Or maybe we’re fooled by an industrial-capitalist system that hides our interdependence by creating an illusion of self-sufficiency and demanding our consumerism and our isolation. However, humans need community.
Not having access to community means vulnerability. The most vulnerable, in biblical times, were refugees and travelers. Doing good, seeking justice — these are things that require that we recognize the vulnerability of the newcomer, and offer welcome. The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is a condemnation of inhospitality.
I am disturbed by what seems to be a growing inhospitality and xenophobia within North American politics and public conversation. Canada has rolled back its targets for immigration, and is increasing border security. International students are being blamed for a housing crisis and youth unemployment, which should be more appropriately seen as structural issues caused by years of government neglect and market failure. The United States is embroiled in a major campaign to detain and deport people, often without any evidence that any rules or laws were broken. And, just this week, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, more colloquially called ICE, posted a recruitment ad that read “serve your country; defend your culture”.
These are all expressions of xenophobia and, more specifically, white supremacy. We are collectively embracing the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah.
This is not justice for the vulnerable. This is not doing good. This is not what a loving and compassionate God would want of us. God expects us to welcome the stranger.
That’s not necessarily easy. How can we be welcoming?
I’m very aware of my status as a middle-aged white man as I open this conversation. I’m not always — or probably even often — good at being open to strangers. It’s not that I don’t try, or that I don’t want to, with all my heart. It’s altogether too easy to live inside the comfortable bubble of privilege — specifically, the privilege of having myself reflected as the dominant authority by a white-supremacist culture. The learning I continually have to do is to identify and actively refute my subconscious assumptions about who people are, and what they might be bringing into community with me.
That said, I still think I have input to make. Maybe I’m just being a typical arrogant white man. I hope not. In any case, you’ve let me have the microphone, so you’re going to get to judge for yourself.
One of the privileges I have had, in my life, is to work at First United Church, and to be in constant contact with people who were way smarter and way wiser than I could ever hope to be. One of those people was Sharon Hawkins. In 2001 or 2002, I got to work with Sharon and others in articulating a behavioural covenant for First United. That behavioural covenant still hangs in the hallway downstairs, and I’ve printed it as a reflection in this service.
I believe that this behavioural covenant holds almost everything we need to do to shape a welcome.
It starts with the assumption of equality.
From the first word, white supremacy, cultural superiority, dominance, and hierarchy are all denied. We recognize the inherent value that every single person has to our community.
Respect — the second point in our behavioural covenant — is the word that is almost invariably the first called out in any brainstorm I have ever led about group standards and norms, whether in the church, my workplace, or other learning circles. Respect is somehow understood by everyone to be essential to community life, but I really like the way our behavioural covenant connects respect with safety. Safety is fundamental to participation.
I also want to affirm that respect is not just about the other, but also respecting ones self and ones own truth. The language in our covenant moves from “themselves” to “our”. Respect is given and received to create safety for all.
Creating that sense of safety also allows us each to deconstruct the walls that we may have built to protect our sense of worth and self. Too often we enter conversations not to hear, but to defend. When we form a community marked by equality and respect, we can allow ourselves to listen differently. Being open to understanding the words and meanings expressed by someone who is different from ourselves — and lets be honest, every single person in this world is different from ourselves — being open to all those people who are different from us opens us up to learning and growth.
Have you ever regretted learning and growth? I haven’t. Sometimes it’s a painful process, but I always appreciate the transformation I receive. Be open to becoming something new!
And commit to community. Our liberation is joined with each other. Our lives and our community is not a zero-sum game, where one has to lose for another to win. Inclusive solutions and collectivity move us together into possibilities that enhance life for all of us.
The last point in the behavioural covenant is the one that I have rarely seen expressed in other community standards. I believe it is also transformative. I remember hearing a preacher, many years ago, talking about the creation myth and the idea that we are each formed in the image of God. They asked, how would our world be different if we recognized the image of God in one another. “Hey, look, there goes the image of God”. “Whoa, you’re a startling image of God. Amazing”. “Make way for the image of God!”
All joking aside, recognizing the spiritual integrity and passion in one another drives our openness and solution-seeking to a new level that is defined by encompassing love and care for the other; a place that Justice is no longer an option or a nice-to-have, but is inherent to our interactions and our life together.
When Justice is inherent, welcome exists.
None of this comes easily. It takes practice. As a congregation we have declared this behavioural covenant for over two decades, and we still need reminders. Still, twenty-some years later I am still profoundly impacted by these words and the vision of life that they call us to, and I give thanks for the prophetic visions of our ancestors in the faith.
Our world and our church are changing. Change is unsettling, and threatening. In times of change, it is tempting to reinforce our internal walls and close down our communities in a misguided search for safety and stability. The irony is, those very actions increase our isolation and weaken our communities, making us even more vulnerable. The antidote is to be radically welcome.
I believe we have a starting point. It probably isn’t complete — I have learned enough to know that my vision is limited by the culture I wear. But, with a bit of humility, and a lot of equality, respect, openness, collectivity, and spirituality, we will learn and grow. And I guarantee you, we won’t regret it.
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