The Lust of Lot

In this week's sermon, we looked at the story of the separation of Abram and Lot. The story is one which foreshadows the coming history of Israel, as well as reflects on what has happened in the previous chapters of the book of Genesis. The story also involves another exile (see the previous post for a discussion on that subject).

The story of the separation of Lot from Abram is a foreshadow of the coming history of Israel, in that Israel will often chose to leave their one true love (God) and go after the sinners of the world. In this sense, the lust of what the other nations have is a rejection of the blessing that God has offered. Lot's "looking" at the land is a desire to obtain something outside of what God has offered. 

The story also reflects back on the dangers of disobedience, and how such disobedience leads to exile. As you will recall from the reading, Lot looked at the land and it is described as appearing as the garden of the Lord. The phrase, the garden of the Lord, is there to take us back to Genesis 3, where we read the story of the fall of man. In that story, the garden is perfect in every way, yet the woman (and man) chose to look at the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and see its fruit as desirous. Such a desire causes them to disobey God and to be exiled from the garden. Mankind rejects the goodness of God for sin because of the lust of their eyes. 

In the same way, when Lot "looks up" and see the plain of Jordan, his desire is for self, and the rejection of Abram, who is a archetype of a father in this story.  

Ultimately, the story teaches many different lessons; however, one of them is to not see the grass on the other side as greener, but to realize the blessing you have in your life in God.