Sojourning in Sodom

At least once a week desperation drives Paul and I to go shopping. "Desperation," I say, because we so often feel like we are venturing out into Sodom. It’s nearly guaranteed we will hear things we don’t want to hear and see things we would never ask to see. We sometimes remark to each other on the way home: "Life wasn't like this when we were kids." To some extent that is true. Social custom once dictated certain behavior patterns—we called them "manners" or "common courtesy"—which have all but vanished in recent decades. It sometimes takes an hour (or two) after shopping in Sodom for the lingering sense of malice and hopelessness to retreat from our souls.

We live in dark times, of that there is little doubt. Are they getting darker? Perhaps they are, or perhaps  the darkness is just getting more public. But one evening after putting away the groceries acquired in Sodom I settled in for some devotional reading and was reminded that times have been dark and getting darker for a very long time.

In 1738, before America was a nation, Jonathan Edwards, the colonial pastor now famous for his 1741 sermon Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God, preached a very different kind of sermon to his New Haven, Connecticut congregation: Heaven Is a World of Love. It was the conclusion to a sermon series on 1 Corinthians 13, often referred to as the “love chapter.”  He preached it to a church that, after experiencing a revival, had sunk right back into the petty rivalries and malice that had characterized them before their supposed repentance. In this final message, Edwards dwelled extensively on an aspect of heaven, that I had not previously given much thought to: “[t]he most excellent and perfect behavior of all the inhabitants of heaven toward God and each other.” A big part of what will make Heaven so heavenly for those of us who spend eternity there is that every one of us will perfectly reflect the love and character of Christ to each other. From these reflections, Edwards calls his listeners to draw some conclusions:

Is not what we have heard of that blessed world enough to make us weary of this world of pride, and malice, and contention, and perpetual jarring and jangling, a world of confusion, a wilderness of hissing serpents, a tempestuous ocean, where there is no quiet rest, where all are for themselves, and selfishness reigns and governs, and all are striving to exalt themselves, regardless of what becomes of others, and all are eager after worldly good, which is the great object of desire and contention, and where men are continually annoying, and calumniating [making false and defamatory statements], and reproaching, and otherwise injuring and abusing one another—a world full of injustice, and oppression, and cruelty—a world where there is so much treachery, and falsehood, and fickleness, and hypocrisy, and suffering, and death—where there is so little confidence in mankind, and every good man has so many failings, and has so much to render him unlovely and uncomfortable, and where there is so much sorrow and guilt, and sin in every form.

"Truly this is an evil world . . . It is in vain for us to expect that it will be any other than a world of sin, a world of pride and enmity and strife, and so a restless world. And though the times may hereafter be mended, yet these things will always be more or less found in the world so long as it stands. Who, then, would content himself with a portion in such a world? What man, acting wisely and considerately, would concern himself much about laying up in store in such a world as this, and would not rather neglect the world, and let it go to them that would take it, and apply all his heart and strength to lay up treasure in heaven, and to press on to that world of love? What will it signify for us to hoard up great possessions in this world; and how can the thought of having our portion here be pleasing to us, when there is an interest offered us in such a glorious world as heaven is, and especially when, if we have our portion here, we must, when the world has passed away, have our eternal portion in hell, that world of hatred, and of endless wrath of God, where only devils and damned spirits dwell?

“We all naturally desire rest and quietness, and if we would obtain it, let us seek that world of peace and love of which we have now heard, where a sweet and blessed rest remaineth for God's people. If we get an interest in that world, then, when we have done with this, we shall leave all our cares, and troubles, and fatigues, and perplexities, and disturbances for ever. We shall rest from these storms that are raging here, and from every toil and labour, in the paradise of God. You that are poor and think yourself despised by your neighbours and little cared for among men, do not much concern yourselves for this. Do not care much for the friendship of the world; but seek heaven, where there is no such thing as contempt, and where none are despised, but all are highly esteemed and honoured, and dearly beloved by all. You think you have met with many abuses, and much ill-treatment from others, care not for it. Do not hate them for it, but set your heart on heaven, that world of love, and press toward that better country, where all is kindness and holy affection.*

It might surprise you to hear “Christian” New England in the days of our founding fathers described in such dark terms. But there are no Christian nations, only Christians—God’s heavenly people scattered as lights throughout the nations of this present darkness. And as Edwards predicted, nearly 300 years later neither the darkness of the world nor the call of the Christian have changed.

So what does it look like for a Christian to “press on to that world of love”? And how do we “set [our] heart on heaven, that world of love”?  When we focus on Christ and the love he has shown us, when he is our greatest treasure, everything about us begins to change. If you belong to Christ, you are a new creature (2 Cor 5:17) with a new homeland. Your “citizenship is in heaven” (Php 3:20). You “desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one” where God “has prepared for [you] a city” (Heb 11:16).

Brothers and sisters in Christ, this world is not our home. We are a heavenly people sojourning in Sodom, glowing with the character of Christ, lights in the darkness, commissioned to take the grace and love of our Savior to our enemies. Yes, many will recoil from the light of Christ in us. Some will do all they can to extinguish it. We should expect this, not rail against it. In fact, our light shines most brightly when we love those who hate us, because that is how Christ loved us. Before God “granted [us] repentance that leads to life” (Acts 11:18) we were the enemy. We hated God. We rejected his authority and spurned his love.  “[B]ut God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” and “while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son” (Rom 5:8, 10). Remembering our own recalcitrance and God’s great mercy gives us a humility that enables us to honor everyone (1 Pt 2:17), to refuse to misrepresent our gracious Savior by bullying, slandering, or reviling the natives of our former homeland, knowing that even if our lovingly proclaimed Gospel does not win them, there is nothing more to be done but to keep on living and loving like our Savior until we reach that world of love.

* Jonathan Edwards, Charity and Its Fruits, preached in 1738