The Good Book- S is for Salt- Rev. Wendy McCormick
The Good Book: S is for Salt
Rev Wendy McCormick
June 2, 2024
Genesis 19:15-17, 24-26
A third grade Sunday school teacher recruited a friend to sub for her on a particular Sunday. The friend is an accomplished educator and very good with kids but, it should be noted, she is not a Bible scholar or otherwise seminary trained. She was just happy to help out. She presented the story of Mary and Martha as the lesson plan laid out, and all was going swimmingly until one of the children raised a hand and asked, “But when were they supposed to cook the dinner?”
If you remember that little story from Luke about the two sisters hosting Jesus in their home, you may recall that the takeaway is generally that Mary has done the good thing by sitting at the feet of Jesus listening to him teach, while Martha has done the not-so-good thing by working in the kitchen and missing out on face time with Jesus.
When were they supposed to cook the dinner? Such a good question. No answer in the story. No answer in the curriculum. “Um, I guess they were supposed to do it later,” stammered the substitute teacher, making a mental note never to teach Sunday School again.
Only God knows how many moments like this have happened in churches through the centuries . . . a really good question with no answer because the sermon or the Sunday school lesson has no room for really good questions as it barrels forward to its object lesson. Be like Mary. Pay attention in Sunday School. In too many cases, children – and later adults – were chastised for asking questions. Just the facts, ma’am.
Over the next few weeks, we will consider some Bible stories and characters that raise good questions, that invite exploration and imagination without easy answers and certainly without object lessons. The object lesson approach to our faith and to our scriptures is, well, not faithful. Not helpful. It does a huge disservice to the scriptures. It leads thinking people to walk away.
But as you have probably noticed in the few short months we’ve been together, I am something of a crusader for biblical faith, for plumbing the depths of these amazing stories about a God who continually seeks out a relationship with humankind, who intimately understands the challenges and complexities of being human, and who always wants more and better for us. Pages that invite a spiraling deeper or a peel the onion approach, coaxing us to return again and again.
Our summer series called The Good Book, takes its lead from a little book by Professor Anna Carter Florence at Columbia Theological Seminary, called A is for Alabaster. Professor Florence has written 52 very short chapters on Bible stories and characters that may be lesser known or misunderstood or condemned to the dreaded object lesson. Her book offers one little story for each letter of the alphabet from the Old Testament and one for each letter from the New Testament. Today we consider S is for Salt, the story of Lot’s wife from Genesis chapter 19.
If you know this story at all, you probably know that Lot’s wife, whose own name we do not know, turns into a pillar of salt as she and her family are fleeing the fiery destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. If you know a little more, you’ve probably heard that they were instructed by God not to turn back as they were fleeing, but she turned back and so, well, salt. Perhaps you heard that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed for being cities filled with unspeakable sin, often said to be sins of sexual immorality.
This story never makes it into the lectionary, and it isn’t much in Sunday School lessons. One reason is that the full story is two chapters long, and it’s complicated. It’s really about Abraham’s negotiation with God, to save a remnant from Sodom and Gomorrah, his relative Lot and family, much as Noah and his family were saved from the flood. These two chapters show the tension between the faith of Abraham and the waywardness of humanity. Those who delve into these two chapters discover that the sin of Sodom was not specifically sexual but a general disorder of a society organized against God. There is definitely a lesson about hospitality in the story, as the hospitality Lot shows to strangers is pretty important to God’s decision to take Abraham’s advice and save the remnant.
The pillar of salt is a tiny detail at the end of the story, and like the destruction of the cities, it could be as etiology -- or explanation story. Some Bible stories, like many ancient myths, are told to explain something – why is there a rainbow? Why is that big pillar of salt over there? The fiery destruction of the big city might have explained a devastating earthquake, for which parts of the middle east are well known, or maybe a serious volcanic eruption that destroyed an otherwise thriving city. Professor Walter Brueggemann, perhaps the most important Old Testament scholar of the past 50 years, gives just one sentence to the pillar of salt detail in his commentary on Genesis: The reference to Lot’s wife is a comment upon a notable salt deposit, perhaps by the Dead Sea. Etiology. Explanation story.
Makes sense. But the little detail about Lot’s wife took on a life of its own. Countless generations learned that what all this is about is that Lot’s wife was naughty. Like Eve and Mary Magdalene and who knows how many other bad girls. She was naughty. She looked back. And look what happened to her.
Why did she turn into a pillar of salt? Because she turned back. And the story says they were told not to turn back. In other words, she disobeyed.
But why did she disobey? Why did she look back? When was Martha supposed to make the dinner? As Dr Florence points out, when our children disobey, we almost always ask them why. You were not to leave the yard. Why did you leave the yard.
Because the dog got out, because my little sister’s ball went over the fence, because Grandma was pulling into the driveway. So many possible answers besides, because I felt like it and your rules are dumb.
The point is we ask.
But when it comes to the centuries of judgment against poor Ms Lot, she was such a ready object lesson about disobedience, we just never asked, never wondered, why did she look back?
Come to find out, all sorts of poets – many of them women – have speculated in verse about Lot’s wife and the very interesting question of why she might have looked back:
1889 –1966
And the just man trailed God's shining agent,
over a black mountain, in his giant track,
while a restless voice kept harrying his woman:
"It's not too late, you can still look back
at the red towers of your native Sodom,
the square where once you sang, the spinning-shed,
at the empty windows set in the tall house
where sons and daughters blessed your marriage-bed."
A single glance: a sudden dart of pain
stitching her eyes before she made a sound . . .
Her body flaked into transparent salt,
and her swift legs rooted to the ground.
Who will grieve for this woman? Does she not seem
too insignificant for our concern?
Yet in my heart I never will deny her,
who suffered death because she chose to turn.
And part of “Lot’s Wife” by Kristine Batey, in a little magazine called Jam Today:
. . . . While her husband communes with God,
she tucks the children into bed.
In the morning, when he tells her of the judgment,
[that is, God's decision to destroy the city]
she puts down the lamp she is cleaning
and calmly begins to pack.
In between bundling up the children
and deciding what will go,
she runs for a moment
to say goodbye to the herd,
gently patting each soft head
with tears in her eyes for the animals that will not understand.
She smiles blindly to the woman
who held her hand at childbed. . . .
On the breast of the hill, she chooses to be human,
and turns, in farewell--
and never regrets
the sacrifice.
Natalie Diaz’s poem is called “Of Course She Looked Back”
You would have too.
From that distance the shivering city
fit in the palm of her hand
like she owned it.
She could’ve blown the whole thing –
markets, dance halls, hookah bars –
sent the city and its hundred like a kiss.
She had to look back. . . .
. . . She wondered had she unplugged the coffee pot?
The iron? Was the oven off?
Her husband uttered Keep going.
Whispered, Stay the course, or Baby, forget about it. She couldn’t . . . .
Why did she look back? Why might anyone in her situation? To say good-bye. To take a last look at so many memories. To witness what was happening to her friends and neighbors. To close a chapter and be able to move on.
The story doesn’t say. We can imagine, we can guess, we can speculate, but we cannot “know.” We simply can’t take one idea and decide it’s THE explanation, THE right answer.
But that’s just what church history and tradition have done. Assumed and taught that she was a bad person. A disobedient person
What if we join the poets and think how many other reasons there could be.
And the truth is if we don’t ask why, if we don’t wonder why, then we assume why – just like assuming that child was bad for leaving the yard, without pausing to ask what the reason might be -- we assume she was bad, that her motives were bad, that she deserved punishment.
Which begs the question how often do we assume we know about all kinds of things? About the limited information we have about what’s happening in the world? About people who are different from us? About people who are close to us?
When I was first introduced to the wonderful Bridges Out of Poverty training and curriculum that Ellen Clark has been teaching us, it blew my mind. Because it cracked open my assumptions, previously unquestioned, learned as fact much as we learned Lot’s wife was bad. Those of us who did not grow up in generational poverty have been handed a lot of assumptions about those who did and do. Bridges Out of Poverty grew from people asking questions about those assumptions and suddenly learning all kinds of things. When somebody from generational poverty doesn’t meet a particular expectation, like showing up on time for work, we might just assume she is lazy disrespectful, entitled, addicted. Certainly, we have government policies that make those kinds of assumptions. And those of us from middle class backgrounds tend to learn these assumptions as if they are fact. But the assumptions tend to be wrong. For example, lack of reliable transportation is a much more likely reason someone doesn’t show up on time than laziness, disrespect, entitlement or addiction.
When a friend or colleague or fellow church member doesn’t return my call or my email, do I assume that person doesn’t care or doesn’t like me or isn’t reliable? Or do I try to assume nothing and ask a question or two. The same is true with people who are different from us. What if we were to try to assume nothing and ask a question or two.
And so with the Bible. It has so, so much to offer us, but we miss out when we assume we know. It’s especially hard with the stories we think we know to come to them fresh and look at what they really say and don’t say and then notice, wonder, ask. Our questions of the Bible are not just encouraged, but necessary. The questions that come from imagination and curiosity and an openness to exploration lead to richer faith and a deeper relationship with these ancient and timeless scriptures. For most of us, it’s been drilled into us that all questions have right or wrong answers and that the Bible is a rule book filled with right answers. Imagination need not apply. But genuine engagement with these pages shows that the Bible like life itself has very little that is so black and white.
Jesus told stories and took actions that made people curious and led them to imagine a better world, to ask questions about the way things were, questions without easy answers. His entire ministry encouraged curiosity and imagination and questioning assumptions.
So questions like when were they supposed to make the dinner . . . . and why might she have looked back . . . . and who benefits from us thinking this poor woman whose name we don’t even know is just a really bad person . . . . such questions put us in good company, make us more understanding as humans, and I daresay draw us closer to the scriptures and to the God who meets us there. Amen.
Chapters in “A is for Alabaster”, by Anna Carter Florence, published in 2023 by Westminster John Knox, provide the source and inspiration for this sermon series.
