February 27, 2000
Very few of us really know the story of Hosea, and very few of us really know what on earth this reading is all about (the Hebrew names of those two children, for instance). But it's an important lesson because it contains some important messages for us today.
Hosea was one of the minor prophets (a minor prophet because his book was shorter than Isaiah's). In the eighth century B.C., the situation was that the northern kingdom was being over run by the Assyrians. Hosea was sent to them as a warning, as a prophet, to declare that God was calling them to fidelity. They were worshiping idols and gods of other nations. They were making alliances with other armies to protect them, all of which were opposed to the one God. They were not a faithful people.
To make the point in a very obvious way, Hosea was to marry, as the first chapter says, a "wanton, a harlot, a woman who would not be faithful to him in marriage. He was to marry this woman as a example of God's relationship with Israel, Hosea being the spokesman for God at the time and Israel being a "wanton" nation, chasing off after other gods and being unfaithful to the one God.
Hosea's wife had two children. Lo-ruhammah means "not loved." Isn't that a great thing to name your child? Loammi means "not my people," another wonderful name for a child.
So, this family of infidelity, lovelessness and rejection forms a living example of where Israel's northern kingdom was before God in the 8th century. A depressing picture, but the good news contained in there are three promises from God that are very clearly spelled out in the scripture.
One is that God will strive and strive until Israel is finally faithful, just as Hosea is to do with his wife. God will always be faithful and call his people to fidelity — that's a good news point. The promises toward the end passage, as you note, is that Lo-ruhammah will no longer be unloved but loved, that God will love the unlovable; and Lo-ammi will be his people. God will bring the estranged people into his family and make them his people.
Perhaps that helps in understanding what Hosea is saying to us today, or God is saying to us through Hosea. Nothing has changed in God's ways in 28 centuries. He still calls us to fidelity. He still loves us when we believe that God could not possibly love us and that no one else could either. He still includes us in the family and household of the faithful, even when experiencing total estrangement, either from other people, from the community or from God. And so the good news from Hosea across 28 centuries is that God's ways have not changed. The bad news is that our ways have not changed either. We are still the same: unfaithful, unlovable and estranged.
Eight centuries after Hosea, John the Baptist comes onto the scene preaching repentance — to prepare the way of the Lord in the wilderness. He does it in the trans Jordan River, on the eastern side of the Jordan River because it is a physical symbol of separation, but it is also the wilderness of the heart and the soul. To prepare God's way in the wilderness of the soul, John, as the Pharisees did, called people to fasting and prayer.
We have to remember that fasting is not giving up food for 40 days and 40 nights, or forever, or even for a day. Fasting, in its most ancient form, is eating just enough food to become alert, but not enough to become sleepy. As we come ever closer to the season of Lent, we are reminded that fasting and prayer is being especially alert and especially attuned to the coming presence of God; to try to place ourselves in God's presence and being alert enough that we don't miss it.
Jesus comes on the scene and he doesn't fast. Jesus says, "I do not fast because the preparation time is over. The kingdom of God is not going to come, the kingdom of God is already here! While the bridegroom is at the wedding feast, we can't fast; it's time to feast. There will come a time, however," he says, "when the bridegroom is gone and that will be another appropriate time to fast and pray that we may remain alert and not miss the kingdom of God."
At the time of John's and Jesus' sojourn on the face of the earth, we are reminded again that nothing changed in God's way in the eight centuries from the time of Hosea to the change of the era with coming of our Lord. God is continuing to call his people to fidelity, he continues to love us as Jesus loved the unlovable, he continues to bring us into his family and into his near presence as Jesus did to the outcasts with leprosy, the outcasts of adultery, the outcasts of sinfulness, outcasts of blindness, even to the outcasts of death in Lazarus. God continues to do what he has always done.
The bad news was that people haven't changed much either in the eight centuries from Hosea to Jesus. In the teachings of Jesus, he says to us that the kingdom has come very near, he says to us that the kingdom of God is present. It is already here in our presence, but it is also in the future. Jesus puts us in a kind of "both/and" situation where he says the reign of God is perfect, that God's lordship over creation is perfection, but we are not. And so God has not changed. We are called to be changed.
We live with one foot in each world; or as Augustine would say, "With one foot in the city of God and one foot in the city of man." We are "both/and" people. As Martin Luther would say another 1500 years later, "We are at once justified, made righteous before God, and yet sinners." The good news is that God is more powerful. We are being brought into his perfection even while we remain sinners, and God willing, become less and less of sinners as time goes by.
Jesus says we are to do two things. We value the old, like an old favorite coat. When the elbows wear out, we put a good patch that won't shrink when the coat is cleaned. We mend it, we take care of it because it is a favorite. You probably have one like that in your closet. We value the old things, like this worship service which is sort of an ancient thing to do; the old music that touched us as children and grounds us in the depth of our roots as adults. We do that with honor and respect because we don't want to ruin them, just as with the story of the coat.
We also do new things in joy and anticipation of the future. We celebrate the presence of Christ in new ways and in joyful ways and move ever closer into the kingdom of God, just as placing new wine into new wine skins that are still supple and expansive so as the new wine ferments the wine skin will expand with the fermentation. Old wine can be put into old wine skins because it does not need to expand; we do not want to ruin them, they are still good wine skins. We make new ones for the new wine.
So Jesus says to balance our lives because while we haven't changed much in 28 centuries. God hasn't either. The point to focus on, as we read these scriptures today, is the way of God; to embrace the way of God with hope; to embrace them with fidelity; to embrace them with gratitude. For most of us, our appreciation of the love of God is made more pointed by an honest recognition that we have not earned it — that it has been given to us is a tremendous gift, in spite of the fact that we don't deserve it.
Hosea, Paul, Jesus and John, all bid us today to embrace the promise of God, the promise that he will care for us, show mercy to us and remove our sins. That while we are yet sinners, we are called to step boldly into his presence where he can care for us and restore us and love us. Because while nothing much has changed in our ways, the good news is that nothing at all has changed in God's ways.
Amen
The Rev. Dr. Robert Certain
rgcertain@stmargarets.org
February 27, 2000