Between overdosing on CNN while spending time in Las Vegas and New Orleans, I found myself googling …. Gomorrah. Maybe you can relate.

The story in the 18^th chapter of Genesis is about how many righteous people a city needs before God from closing down the whole show. It’s not 51 or anywhere near a majority! Abraham negotiated God down to 10 but that turned out to be eight too many. The mob shows up to violate the house–led by a dude that makes me think of a certain senator from Kentucky—and the story turns ugly and weird. In Vegas style, the dad offers up his daughters to protect the reputation of a guy. That reminds me of a certain Senator from West Virginia; hard to read with four daughters in our fold. Gomorrah burned, although it is unclear exactly who sinned doing what when. Some say “strange sex,” others blame the violence to vulnerable strangers.  Those sins focus on the Kentucky mob.  Jesus, alluding to the story a thousand years later (Matthew 10:14) did not He knew mobs and expected them to act like mobs. He pointed to the failure of the righteous few to protect the strangers from the mobs. Where the heck were they when Gomorrah teetered on the brink?

It is hard to import Jesus’ words directly into the USA of 2018; likely to make us stupid about both. Jesus didn’t know anything about representative democracy as it has devolved 21 centuries after he retold what was already an ancient story about mobs, sin and the vulnerable. I’m sure he would do very poorly as a candidate in our weirded out system. But on this Sunday after the last week’s smoking mess, I am less inclined to blame the mob than I am those of us who have failed to tend to the norms and values of our culture for the past decades. If the city burns, it’s on us.

Gomorrah is us; timeless because it is about the complicity of people like me who who are merely kind. Every city in human history has had mean and vile mobs who would have their way with vulnerable travelers, happy to violate every institutional norm in the process. The question is whether there is anyone else. The city will die the forces of humanity stop at polite kindness instead of stepping forward to be fiercely protective of the vulnerable.

In the wilds of downtown Las Vegas or the tameness of Winston-Salem, cities perish when good people don’t put themselves in the way of the mob. Apparently, it would only have taken 10 in Gomorrah. Winston-Salem might need several dozen, Las Vegas more. But not 51.

We have enough.

In Las Vegas there are plenty stepping forward, some famous and rich like the founder of Zappos who has invested a third of billion dollars to build a new future in the city. The Sisters of Dignity Health never quit, finding hopeless elders living in the storm drains and the women discarded by the hotel trade. You can meet others in PublicUS, the coolest coffee shop east of San Francisco.

Note that much of the weird religious energy around the Court was about abortion. Four daughters makes me want to protect their rights, so I diverge from those who otherwise look a lot like me (white, older, male, Baptist). We are together around other important issues; no reason for Donald Jr’s thuggish call for war. The NC Baptists who helped push through our new Justice did so holding their nose against the scent of he and his dad. Baptists are deeply involved in the clean-up from Hurricane Florence and never say no to any chance to help the poor. Of course, not! It may be possible to build dialogue with many conservative Christians about resisting the hard-hearted drive of the rich against the widows, orphans and strangers. A certain Senator from Kentucky may have less broad support than he thinks, if we focus on the very broad coalition possible for the poor.

I’m sure we’ll see this coast to coast in our See2See Road Trip. The route, running from San Diego to Wilmington is full of people putting their life on the line for mercy, justice and simply equity. And not in the abstract, but in the communities they live in; the places they call home. If you live along the route, I hope you’ll hold a house meeting, joining Stakeholder Health and 100 Million Healthier Lives in rising up and claiming our role as healers.

Even ten houses would be enough.