Let's Make A Deal!

I'm not necessarily much of a bargain hunter. It's not that I don't like saving money, but I don't have that killer instinct to find the perfect coupon or notice when the price label says "$0.53/Oz" instead of "$0.62/Oz". 

Sometimes stock photos are weird...

What I have not tried my hand at is bartering. I wonder how I would do at it.

I'll say I would not do nearly as well as Abraham in this passage from Genesis that was supplied to me by this week's lectionary (and yes, it is still lectionary month!).

Basically, God's got it in for Sodom and Gomorrah and Abraham was not ok with it. 

"Will you really sweep away the innocent with the guilty? What if there are fifty innocent people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not save the place for the sake of the fifty innocent people in it? It’s not like you to do this, killing the innocent with the guilty as if there were no difference. It’s not like you! Will the judge of all the earth not act justly?”

"*Sigh* Ok, I guess you have a point. If you can find 50, then I'll back off."

"Hey, I know I'm just a pile of dirt here, but what if I can only scrape up 45?"

"I guess if that's the best you can do, 45 is ok."

"... Maybe 40?"

"Fine. 40"

All the way down to 10!

Ten it is.

That's an incredible bargain! What a deal!

That says a lot about Abraham's ability to charm, but I love what it says about God. 

God hears Abrahams pleading and God's mind changes. Multiple times. God heard pleas for justice and relented in God's punishment. God's dialogue with Abraham shows a responsive God. This vision of God is echoed in the Luke reading for this week (Double lectionary!): 

And I tell you: Ask and you will receive. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you. Everyone who asks, receives. Whoever seeks, finds. To everyone who knocks, the door is opened.

Jesus is describing a God who listens, who provides, who relents. Sometimes even when God listens things don't turn out the way we'd like (Sodom and Gomorrah really couldn't find 10?), but the comfort comes not in the certainty of answers, but in the promise that we are heard. Sometimes that's what we need, to be heard. 

As we journey, we pray together. And as we pray we know that even when we don't see how God's answers our prayers we at least know that they have been heard and held as precious.

Peace,

Jeff

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