Sunday, July 27 – Genesis 18:20-32, Colossians 2:6-15 [16-19], Luke 11:1-13
Have you ever been to a carnival fun house? The kind where different mirrors change how you look? Or have you ever looked through a hundred-year-old window where the glass is a little wavy, and everything outside looks wavy too?
Well, the truth is, when we look at biblical text, we are always looking through a lens that has been shaped by our time, our culture, our upbringing, and our personal experience. There is no clear view of scripture without human distortion. Full stop. So the question we need to ask ourselves is this: Through what lens will we look at the text?
Our readings today offer us an extraordinary opportunity to reflect on another question too: What kind of God do we believe in? I’d like to suggest that the kind of God we believe in depends on the lens we use to look at the text.
Is God a distant, unchanging ruler who lays down the law and judges from afar?
Or is God intimately present, moved by compassion, love, and relationship?
This is not just a theological curiosity—it affects everything. How we view God affects how we pray, how we relate to others, how we judge ourselves, and how we live in the world.
I’ve spoken before about my own struggles with toxic images of God.
For a long time, I carried a picture of God as a stern, judgmental overseer—ready to deny my needs if I wasn’t “good enough,” slow to love. It wasn’t until I began to release those images, to allow myself to see God through the lens of Jesus, that my faith deepened and became something grounded in love and acceptance rather than rejection.
Our readings today from Genesis, Colossians, and Luke speak directly to this shift in understanding.
Let’s start with Genesis 18, where Abraham stands before God and negotiates—yes, negotiates—for the lives of the people in Sodom. The story is almost comical. Abraham starts by asking God if God would really destroy the city if there were 50 righteous people living there. Then 45? 40? 30? 20? 10? And God keeps reconsidering, saying yes, yes, yes to Abraham\’s requests.
This isn’t the image of a God who is immutable, impassive, or unmoved. This is not the God of Greek philosophy who cannot be affected by the world. This is a God who listens. A God who can be moved. A God in relationship.
God is not some distant, all-powerful emperor dictating outcomes. God is present, responsive, and, dare I say, vulnerable—willing to engage in dialogue, willing to change course.
That is a powerful image of God.
It’s a God of connection, not coercion.
It’s a God who works with us, not against us.
And yet, the very next chapter of Genesis—the infamous story of Sodom and Gomorrah—has been used for centuries as a weapon. Often cited as a condemnation of homosexuality, it has been labeled one of the Bible’s “clobber verses.” But if we read it carefully—and through the right lens—we see something different.
Ezekiel 16:49 tells us clearly what the sin of Sodom was: “They were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.”
It wasn’t about sexuality. It was about inhospitality, abuse of power, and disregard for the vulnerable.
And let’s not miss this: Lot, who is later called “righteous,” offers up his own daughters to be raped by the crowd of men. He later fathers children by those same daughters. And this guy is the righteous one?
Again, we’re being invited not to accept this text at face value, but to question it—not to discard it, but to engage it, wrestle with it, and interpret it through the lens that Jesus gives us.
Because here’s the truth: We human beings are often tempted to see God the way we see power. We’re drawn to strength, to judgment, to winners and losers. We love the movie ending where the bad guys get what’s coming to them. And too often, we project that onto God.
But Paul warns us against this in Colossians. He writes:
“See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition… and not according to Christ.”
And then he gives us the good news: “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.”
In other words, if you want to know what God is really like—look at Jesus.
Not at the philosophers.
Not at the televangelists.
Not even at the problematic parts of scripture without discernment.
Look at Jesus. The fullness of God lives in him.
And what does Jesus show us? He shows us a God of radical love.
A God who welcomes sinners, heals the broken, and lifts up the lowly.
A God who eats with the outcasts.
A God who is not afraid of being misunderstood if it means someone finds healing.
In Luke 11, when the disciples ask Jesus how to pray, he doesn’t give them a complicated theological formula. He says, “When you pray, say: Father…” The word in Aramaic is Abba, which is a much more intimate word, something more like “Daddy.” And he goes on to describe a God who listens, who responds, and who gives good gifts to those who ask. In the Gospels, Jesus says,
“Ask, and it will be given you.” “Seek, and you will find.” “Knock, and the door will be opened.”
This is not a God of cold detachment. This is a God of open arms.
This is a God who says: I see you. I hear you. I love you.
So the question we’re left with today is this: Through what lens will we view God? Will we see God through the lens of fear, judgment, and power?
Or will we choose the Jesus lens—a lens of love, humility, and relationship?
If God is like Jesus, then God is not just above us—God is with us.
And not just with us, but for us.
So, friends, I invite you today to release any toxic images of God you may still carry. Let them go. They are not worthy of your trust or your devotion.
And instead, turn your heart to the God who listens to Abraham…
The God who fills Jesus Christ…
The God who says to you today: “Ask, seek, knock… and I will answer with love.”
