[Uucf-bible] God, Abraham, and Sodom

[Martha]

> (1) IN a world sexually charged about issues of sexual orientation, 
> the sin of Sodom (as cross referenced with Ezekiel) was that the city 
> had no care for its neighbors' sufferings.  Modern readers of a 
> certain theological stripe like to downplay this, and read the text 
> through a homophobic lens.

Thank you, Derek.  The Ezekiel verse, to be exact is:
	16:49 “Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: food, and 
prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. things before me; 
therefore I removed them, when I saw it.”

Other related verses might include:

Isaiah 1:9-17 “If the LORD of hosts had not left us a few survivors, we 
should have been like Sodom, and
become like Gomorrah. Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom! 
Give ear to the teaching of our
God, you people of Gomorrah! Bring no more vain offerings; incense is 
an abomination to me. ...Wash
yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from 
before my eyes; cease to do evil,
learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; defend the 
fatherless, plead for the widow.”

Isaiah 3:9-15 Woe to the wicked! It shall be ill with him, for what his 
hands have done shall be done to
him. My people--children are their oppressors, and women rule over them.

Jeremiah 23:14 But in the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a horrible 
thing: they commit adultery and
walk in lies; they strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one 
turns from his wickedness; all of them
have become like Sodom to me, and its inhabitants like Gomorrah."

Matthew 10:14, “And if any one will not receive you or listen to your 
words, shake off the dust from your
feet as you leave that house or town. Truly, I say to you, it shall be 
more tolerable on the day of judgment
for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town.”

Luke 10:10 “But whenever you enter a town and they do not receive you, 
go into its streets and say, 'Even
the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off against you; 
nevertheless know this, that the
kingdom of God has come near.' I tell you, it shall be more tolerable 
on that day for Sodom than for that
town.”

Of the books that did not quite make it into the canon, the Book of 
Wisdom 19:13-14, specifically
identifies the sin of Sodom as one of inhospitality. “...whereas the 
men of Sodom received not the strangers when
they came among them; the Egyptians made slaves of the guests who were 
their benefactors.”

Ecclesiasticus 16:8 suggests the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was pride: 
“He did not spare the people among whom Lot was living whom he detested 
for their pride.”

_The Church and the Homosexual_ by John McNeill is an excellent 
resource on the topic.

Can anyone guide me to the Lectionary you are talking about?  Is it 
online?  What else goes with it?

Martha Osgood
Eugene, Oregon
www.uueugene.org