17th Sunday of Ordinary Time, C July 27, 2025
Fr. Alexander Albert St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville
Couldn’t even find 10 people, could he? Abraham, I mean. God promises not to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah if there are just 10 innocent people in it. But they were destroyed. There’s even some archaeological evidence of where those cities were and what happened. Even if this story was just fictional morality parable, the point would be the same: Sodom and Gomorrah were so evil that they couldn’t come up with 10 innocent people. What does that mean for us?
Well, a common interpretation is that Abraham shouldn’t have stopped at asking for 10 people. He should have gone all the way down to one. Really, even just one more step to 5 people might have worked. When the angels came to visit Lot, they try to save Lot, his wife, his two daughters, and his future son-in-laws – 6 people. But Abraham didn’t ask for that and God didn’t grant it and Sodom was destroyed.
With the Gospel lesson about perseverance in prayer – Jesus literally tells us to annoy God until we get what we need – that’s a good way to take this passage. Perhaps Abraham should have kept asking and things would have turned out differently. Don’t stop praying!
At the same time, just because that’s true doesn’t mean it’s the only thing to learn here. Thousands of people lived in those cities, but less than 10 of them were innocent. Perhaps innocence is not as easy to as we like to think. Our first instinct is to hear that, nod along, and say to ourselves “yeah, lots of wicked people out there,” but really it should force us to question just how sure we are of our own innocence. If innocence is really that rare, what makes me so sure I have it?
The number one response I get from people when I ask them about sin and repentance is “I’m a good person, I haven’t killed anybody.” But scripture acknowledges that even the just man falls seven times and history is full of saints who openly acknowledged themselves as sinners. Far too many people think they’re innocent simply because they haven’t bothered to reflect on their life long enough to recognize their own sins. The fact that not even 10 people in a whole city were innocent is a wake-up call. Don’t presume you’d make the cut!
At the same time, I don’t want to burden you with unnecessary fear. Some fear of hell is good, but to avoid extremes, let me say this: if you do a good examination of conscience every day and go to confession regularly, then don’t be afraid that some super-secret hidden sin that will catch you off guard. God will reveal your sins to you with clarity. If you’re sincere in striving for holiness, he will convict you with precision. The point I’m making here, however, is that most people are not sincerely seeking holiness. Most people do not regularly do an examination of conscience and then carelessly assume they’re innocent. If that’s you, take this story to heart and take a closer look at your sins.
There’s another slightly different point to be made with this story, though. Abraham should have prayed more, yes. Innocence is not all that common, true. The last thing we should consider is this: put your faith in God, not in righteous people. What do I mean?
Maybe Abraham should have bargained for a lower number, but maybe his problem was that he based his request on the innocence of human beings in the first place. It’s not like we can blame Abraham for Sodom’s destruction. He worked hard at prayer to get an incredibly generous offer from God. Just 10 people to save a whole city? Come on, that should be easy! It was Sodom that failed on their part. But maybe that was the problem, that the deal relied on human beings in the first place. Even the 6 good people that are in the city fall short in pretty bad ways. Lot offers to give his own daughters to the lustful, violent mob. His future sons-in-law refused to leave the city. His wife is so attached to that evil city that she winds up getting turned into a pillar of salt.
Don’t get me wrong, there are righteous people in the world. Innocence might be rare, but it’s not impossible. We should be glad for the gift of knowing and loving and working with righteous people. But even the innocent and the righteous will let us down if we trust in them instead of God. We need good and holy people in our lives, but they cannot replace God. No human being can save you except Jesus Christ, who is also God. A holy parent? Great, but they cannot save you. A holy friend? A true treasure; still can’t save you. A holy pope? You’d be surprised at the mistakes holy popes have made and no, they can’t save you either. A holy pastor? God willing, may all pastors become holy, but if you count on them, they will fail you. I would not call myself a holy pastor, but even if I were, let me tell you that I will let you down. I cannot save you. Only Jesus Christ can.
Why bring this up? Why talk about the discouraging idea that we can’t fully count on even the best people around us? Because I want you to pray all the more. I want you to count on God all the more. I want you to understand why God sometimes does not give us what we ask for.
Yeah, sure, we all know examples of people praying for money or power or other superficial stuff and not getting it because it’s not good for our souls. In my experience, where people really struggle with faith in the power of prayer is when their prayers for people go unanswered. The single man or woman who prays desperately for a spouse, the parent who intercedes daily for a wayward child, the lonely priest or nun who begs for a truly trustworthy friend, the countless people who storm heaven with prayers for someone afflicted by a life-threatening disease… These are all good things to pray for. You should pray for them and do not stop. Ask, seek, knock, annoy God all day every day with these kinds of prayers… many of them will be answered the way you want… or at least close enough for you to see what God is up to.
Sometimes, however, we need to take another look at Jesus’ closing analogy. “What father among you would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish?” What if a child asks his father for a poisonous snake? Does a good parent give something evil to their child just because they ask? No. The reality is that, sometimes, even though we’re asking for something good like a spouse, friend, child, or healing, God has something better in store. Sometimes, God knows that we’d put that thing above him. Every Catholic should have righteous people in their lives that they can count on… up to a point. Sadly, some Catholics count too much on the goodness of other human beings and, when those people fall short, they let human failure cost them their faith in God.
God’s ways are mysterious and I often do not understand why he refuses me the good I ask for. But I strive to trust him more than I trust my own opinion on what’s best. I still pray, mind you, but I have to believe there’s a reason he holds back something I think is perfectly good for my soul. Maybe I just need to pray better, pray more… and I’ll try. But yeah, it helps to remember that – like Abraham – we must not rely even on righteous people more than we rely on God.
Pray for the stuff you want. Pray for the stuff you need. Pray for the people you love and want to love. God designed us to need stuff and each other, so pester him with prayer for what we need. Only, do not forget what we must ask for and count on above all else. Jesus says, “how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?” So, what is the one thing God will always give us if we ask him? Himself.