Lot's Wife

Genesis 19:15-24

            When morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Get up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or else you will be consumed in the punishment of the city.”  But he lingered; so the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and left him outside the city.  When they 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.”   And Lot said to them; “Oh no, my lords; 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.   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!”   He said to him, “Very well, I grant you this favor too, and will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken.   Hurry, escape there, for I can do nothing until you arrive there.”  Therefore, the city was called Zoar.   The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar.
             Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out   of heaven: and he overthrew those cities, and all thePlain, and all the inhabitants of the cities and what grew on the ground.  But Lot’s wife behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

For years, I have wondered why the Lord turned Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt.   It seems to be an incredibly severe punishment for such a human and understandable behavior.  Who among us hasn’t looked back when we were leaving someone or something behind?   It seems almost as though we need to look back to have some kind of closure.   Yet, the angels were very clear: “Do not look back.”

Now, as I re-read the scripture, it doesn’t really say that the Lord turned Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt.  It says, “But Lot’s wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.”   Why on earth would that happen?   A fundamentalist might say “Because the Lord said it would.”  Perhaps that’s true.   However, I think there is a deeper, yet elegantly simple reason.   It is impossible to move forward if you are looking back.

When the Lord called Lot and his family to leave Sodom and Gomorrah, He was not only trying to save them from the physical destruction of the cities, He was also saving them from a destructive and deeply sinful culture.   He was calling them into a new life of trust in Him.   This type of call is difficult for anyone.   Lot himself struggled with leaving everything behind.  Yet, in the end, he managed to do it.  Sadly, his wife did not.  She needed to hold onto what was left behind and it immobilized her.

The underlying truth of this story has as much meaning for us today as it did for the people who experienced it thousands of years ago.  In our lives, we are often called to leave the old life behind, to grow and to move into a new life.   Sometimes this change takes the form of a new job, moving to a new city or state, getting married or having a child, to name a few things.   Other times the change comes in the form of a conversion experience, or simply an understanding that we have to allow ourselves to let go of our old behavior and to grow.   However, it is impossible for us to be successful in this transition if we do not let go of the past completely and, with trust in the Lord, move forward into the unknown.   Anyone who has experienced this knows how hard it is to do and how extremely difficult it is not to look back to see where we have been.   However, if we cling to the past, like Lot’s wife, we too will become immobilized.