VIII.

Did I mention circumstances the other day?  I hoped for the past couple of days to add a few more thoughts to our considerations on this passage, but “circumstances” just got in my way.

IX.

A few days ago as Linda and I were talking about this passage and I mentioned how I basically ignored “Lot’s wife” in my initial post both of us started thinking about her and out of that discussion I want to share a couple of thoughts.

X.

We read, “… Lot’s wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.”

On Monday I asked what might have held Lot so much to Sodom that he bargained with the messengers who were determined to get him out of town and away from the coming devastation?

Family ties?  Other family members’ ties to Sodom?

What did Lot’s wife look back to see?  Did she hear something? Or, did she think she needed one last look at the life she was being pulled away from?  Did she want one last memory of Sodom in her mind she could hold on to?

And did Lot know how much his wife (and daughters maybe?) wanted to stay at their home in Sodom.  Was Lot bargaining because of his love for and attachment to his family. I know you understand I am not saying love for family is wrong.  It is not wrong; it is demanded in our very nature. But might there be a call strong enough that we are asked to make a change in family dynamics, family residence?   There was for Lot. And he struggled with it. Give him credit for listening to the call. And give us credit to know how hard sometimes life can be, especially “family life.”

XI.

As Linda and I talked about Lot’s wife looking back, Linda mentioned it made her think of how sometimes at churches folks can talk about “how it use to be.”

Have you heard those conversations?  Maybe you have taken part in them on one side or the other?  For instance, “we use have pews full … when so-and-so was pastor … when we had two services every Sunday … when we had a monthly fellowship meal … when we didn’t have the distraction of so many businesses being open on Sunday ….”  

What can you add to the list?

Or we look back to how we see society has changed and long for the time before the changes.

I guess we need to acknowledge there is a good way to look back and a bad way to look back.  If we look back to learn from the past or to rejoice in the good times and good memories that seems productive.  But we look back to be held in place by our ties to the past, or to be so tied to it we can not look forward and move forward to a new day, then that is not so good.

What do you think?  Where is the line crossed from the past being a path to the future and a means of holding us in place so we cannot move to our futures?

XII.

I closed on Monday with the question of how might you and I respond the next time God’s grace comes; God’s call is put before us.

Let me put that differently – What do we do now, every day, to prepare ourselves to notice God’s grace in each day?  What do you do each day to make sure your eyes are so open, they do not miss God’s grace, God’s call as it comes before you?  How do you pay attention?

What do you see, hear, feel, know today?

Let me know how it goes with you.

See you next week.

charles

{ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est}