Better for Sodom and Gomorrah

Last Sunday's lectionary delivered an omission which removed a valuable and timely observation from the proceedings. For those of you who missed it, the Gospel set was Luke 10.1-11, 16-20. What was missing was the bit between verses eleven and sixteen, which is:

"I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town. Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths."

The passage speaks of the sending out of the seventy-two and their response to those who refuse to hear or welcome the 'Good News'. The reference to Sodom and other places is a shame because it brings forth an interesting highlight and a potential summation of where we (the CofE) find ourselves and a potential way forward.

In the OT, Jewish faith, we find blessing and curse as reward (and punishment) for doing (or not doing) 'what is right'. In the NT we find repentance and that alien concept for the Jewish believers, 'Forgiveness'. So different is this that the 'Good News' bringing this was rejected by many. As I understand it, this begat a new strand of Jewish theological and religious living, that sect which we call Christianity. The reference to Sodom illustrates that for them there was no opportunity for 'forgiveness' but those who come later and reject the Good News have brought judgement down on themselves rather than had it imposed as per the nations mentioned.

Just as the revision that is Christianity saw a new strain of theological community, perhaps this is what we need now with those who seek to revise and rethink their own breed of Christianity. In the first stand the reason was forgiveness, in the new strand it is permission to do whatsoever one pleases as long as it pleases us.

Would that those who seek to revise and amend a couple of thousand years of orthodoxy would take the opportunity to move into their own brand of accepting Christianity. they could call it Episcopalian and the remainder could remain 'Anglican.

We could, with a blessing let those congregations who wished to divest themselves of the Anglican take their buildings and leave and permit the same kindness to those who wished to move into Episcopalianism. The end of law suits (which only bring the Church into further disrepute), the unloving ad hominem and bitter rancour as fellowships fragment and wicked words accumulate. The potential to meet in communion where we could and keep our distance where this was not possible.

How sad that in the attitudes and desires that drive us we forget to love one another. Better for Sodom than those who ignore the Lord's call to love one another I would reckon!