NRS Genesis 11
27 Now these are the descendants of Terah. Terah was the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran was the father of Lot. 28 Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chaldeans.
31 Terah took his son Abram and his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram's wife, and they went out together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan; but when they came to Haran, they settled there.

NRS Genesis 13
5 Now Lot, who went with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents, 6 so that the land could not support both of them living together; for their possessions were so great that they could not live together,
7 and there was strife between the herders of Abram's livestock and the herders of Lot's livestock. At that time the Canaanites and the Perizzites lived in the land.
8 Then Abram said to Lot, "Let there be no strife between you and me, and between your herders and my herders; for we are kindred. 9 Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself from me. If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if you take the right hand, then I will go to the left."
10 Lot looked about him, and saw that the plain of the Jordan was well watered everywhere like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, in the direction of Zoar; this was before the LORD had destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. 11 So Lot chose for himself all the plain of the Jordan, and Lot journeyed eastward; thus they separated from each other.

NRS Genesis 14
10 Now the Valley of Siddim was full of bitumen pits; and as the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, some fell into them, and the rest fled to the hill country. 11 So the enemy took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their provisions, and went their way; 12 they also took Lot, the son of Abram's brother, who lived in Sodom, and his goods, and departed.
13 Then one who had escaped came and told Abram the Hebrew, who was living by the oaks of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshcol and of Aner; these were allies of Abram. 14 When Abram heard that his nephew had been taken captive, he led forth his trained men, born in his house, three hundred eighteen of them, and went in pursuit as far as Dan.

NRS Genesis 19
6 Lot went out of the door to the men, shut the door after him, 7 and said, "I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. 8 Look, I have two daughters who have not known a man; let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please; only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof."
9 But they replied, "Stand back!" And they said, "This fellow came here as an alien, and he would play the judge! Now we will deal worse with you than with them." Then they pressed hard against the man Lot, and came near the door to break it down.
17 When [the angels of the Lord] had brought them outside, they said, "Flee for your life; do not look back or stop anywhere in the Plain; flee to the hills, or else you will be consumed." 18 And Lot said to them, "Oh, no, my lords; 19 your servant has found favor with you, and you have shown me great kindness in saving my life; but I cannot flee to the hills, for fear the disaster will overtake me and I die. 20 Look, that city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one. Let me escape there-- is it not a little one?-- and my life will be saved!" 21 He said to him, "Very well, I grant you this favor too, and will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken. 22 Hurry, escape there, for I can do nothing until you arrive there." Therefore the city was called Zoar. 23 The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar. 24 Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the LORD out of heaven; 25 and he overthrew those cities, and all the Plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.
26 But Lot's wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.
30 Now Lot went up out of Zoar and settled in the hills with his two daughters, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar; so he lived in a cave with his two daughters. 31 And the firstborn said to the younger, "Our father is old, and there is not a man on earth to come in to us after the manner of all the world. 32 Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, so that we may preserve offspring through our father." 33 So they made their father drink wine that night; and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; he did not know when she lay down or when she rose. 34 On the next day, the firstborn said to the younger, "Look, I lay last night with my father; let us make him drink wine tonight also; then you go in and lie with him, so that we may preserve offspring through our father." 35 So they made their father drink wine that night also; and the younger rose, and lay with him; and he did not know when she lay down or when she rose.
36 Thus both the daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father. 37 The firstborn bore a son, and named him Moab; he is the ancestor of the Moabites to this day. 38 The younger also bore a son and named him Ben-ammi; he is the ancestor of the Ammonites to this day.

A 1969 Volkswagen Beetle almost destroyed me; or at least, I thought so at the time. It was late May 1977 and on the first of June I would begin my internship at Grace Lutheran Church in New Orleans. Since Carolyn would be teaching, we needed another car for me to get around in, and that's when I found this ad in the Baton Rouge Morning Advocate: "1969 VW Beetle. Clean. Well-maintained. $600 cash." I called the number in the ad and arranged to meet the guy that afternoon, which gave me time to get by my parents' to borrow the $600 cash. The car had 143,000 miles on it, but the tires were good and the owner had installed a really first-rate AM/FM Stereo Cassette Deck with big speakers up front and in back, and immediately I fell in love. It didn't have air-conditioning, but I mean how hot can it get in Louisiana in June, July, August, and September? Anyway, it would be fall before long, and did I tell you it had this really boss AM/FM Stereo Cassette Deck that you could really crank? He had the papers, I had the $600 cash, and so began a year-long reign of terror.

First, it was the brakes. Then, the head gasket blew. Then, it was the clutch. And of course, when they pulled the clutch, the transmission fell apart. I knew I was in trouble when I called the repair shop and the guy on the other end paused before saying, "Let me let you talk to my service manager." And I kid you not, as he was handing off the phone, I heard someone say, "This guy's gonna have a heart attack when he hears this." I got rid of that car as soon as I got it out the shop, and of course, I then bought something equally horrible, but that's another story. However, as a postscript I should add, that AM/FM Stereo Cassette Deck never gave me a single problem.

I know. I should have known better. When the guy gave me his well-worn copy of the "Idiot's Guide to VW Repair," I thought he was just being nice. I could've run it by a mechanic to let him have a look at it. I could've asked my dad. But no, I was in a hurry. I had people to see and places to go and I was young. If anybody had said that to me at the time, they would have gotten an earful of rebuttal from me, but I was young. It was a cool car, it looked good, it was only $600 cash, and it had that great stereo. So, well, I lived, barely, and eventually learned, if ever so painfully.

Today's/tonight's bad boy and bad girl of the Bible are Lot and his unfortunate wife Mrs. Lot. Although there's no biblical record of Lot ever purchasing a '69 VW Beetle, we know that Lot got off to a rough start in life. Lot was Abraham's nephew whose father, Abraham's brother Haran, died while Lot was still a child. When Terah, the family patriarch, decided to move from their hometown in Ur of the Chaldeans, he took with him his son Abraham, his daughter-in-law Sarah, and grandson Lot, whose mother had either also died or was just left behind. Without a mom or a dad, Lot was more or less adopted by his Uncle Abraham, who took full responsibility for him after the death of Lot's grandfather Terah. They did a lot of moving around in those early years: first, of course, to Canaan, then to Shechem, to the hill country east of Bethel, toward the Negeb, to Egypt, then back to the Negeb. Maybe because Lot's life was so chaotic and unsettled, I get the feeling that maybe Abraham doted on the boy, setting him up and perhaps overindulging him to compensate for all of those early losses.

So not surprisingly, by young adulthood Lot was already a wealthy man, sharing with his uncle grazing land that they soon outgrew. Since conflict was already breaking out between their herdsmen, Abraham graciously offered his favorite nephew the choice of whatever land he wanted to settle and spread out on. According to Genesis 13,
10 Lot looked about him, and saw that the plain of the Jordan was well watered everywhere like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, in the direction of Zoar; this was before the LORD had destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. 11 So Lot chose for himself all the plain of the Jordan, and Lot journeyed eastward; thus they separated from each other. 12 Abram settled in the land of Canaan, while Lot settled among the cities of the Plain and moved his tent as far as Sodom.

Ooh! Bad, bad choice! Sure, it looked good. I mean, actually, it looked like paradise on earth. It was well watered and fertile and prosperous, but it was Sodom and Gomorrah, for God's sake. It was the moral cesspool of the universe. It had a spiritual stink to it that rose to high heaven. This was the place so depraved, so degenerate that God would have no choice but to rain down upon it hellfire and brimstone. But here was exactly the place Lot chose to hang his hat and call home.

How could he be so stupid! How could he be so blind! You might as well ask, How could a smart young guy like Mike Button go off and buy a 69 VW Bug! With 143,000 miles on it! Forget the stereo, forget the $600 price tag, it was a piece of junk! But you couldn't have told me that without getting a fight from me, and I bet you couldn't have told Lot about Sodom and Gomorrah without getting maybe a kick in the shins or a knot on the head.

Right off the bat, Lot's new home landed him in harm's way. Besides being an ethical sinkhole, the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah also happened to be on the front lines of a regional war. When the city of Sodom was overrun, Lot was kidnapped and taken away to Hobab, north of Damascus, where he was held for ransom. Marshalling an army of elite fighters, Abraham came to the rescue, saving Lot and giving his nephew one more chance to share in the blessing of Abraham. But no; Lot instead returned to Sodom where things went from very bad to very much worse.

Things, in fact, got so bad that the Lord appeared in Sodom in the guise of two men come to save Lot and his family from the coming destruction. Not knowing that they were the angels of the Lord, Lot extended to the men the hospitality of his home, washing their feet, preparing a feast, and bedding them down for the night. But before night falls, the sick, sorry men of Sodom, both young and old, are at Lot's door demanding that they have their sexual way with Lot's guests. Now at this point you think Lot would catch on that maybe he's moved into a really bad neighborhood and he should get the heck out of Dodge. But instead Lot says to the mob:
"I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly.
8 Look, I have two daughters who have not known a man; let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please; only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof." (Genesis 19)

"My brothers!" Lot calls these would-be rapists his brothers! And to these brothers he's willing to sacrifice his own daughters? Even when the mob rushes him and tries to break into his house, Lot still doesn't get it. The angels of the Lord strike the rabble blind, but when these same angels tell Lot to get his family together and head for the hills, he dawdles. When they force the issue, even then Lot whines and complains and begs to stay in the little neighboring town of Zoar. The angels relent, but as Lot finally gets his wife and daughters out of Sodom, even then his wife can't help but look back, with disastrous consequences.

I guess it's just another one of those human things. We make a terrible decision and we keep trying to make it right. We throw good money after bad, and all the while only getting deeper and deeper in more mess from which we don't have a chance of extricating ourselves. Is it just youth? Or is it pride? Is it just plain stubbornness, or the arrogance that we can make right whatever wrong we commit? Whatever it is, it's not faith.

In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.