Dearest e-votees-
Chances are the sermons you experience this weekend won’t lean too heavily on our appointed text from Hosea.
Our Revised Common Lectionary only visits Hosea just a few times in the 3 year cycle. The most regular and attentive church goers will still only hear just a touch of Hosea in the context of worship.
Perhaps we can give Hosea a more attentive ear and eye at least for today.
Peace,
Karl
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I will return again to my place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face. In their distress they will beg my favor: “Come, let us return to the Lord; for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us; he has struck down, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him. Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord; his appearing is as sure as the dawn; he will come to us like the showers, like the spring rains that water the earth.”
What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes away early. Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets, I have killed them by the words of my mouth, and my judgment goes forth as the light. For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
Chances are the sermons you experience this weekend won’t lean too heavily on our appointed text from Hosea.
Our Revised Common Lectionary only visits Hosea just a few times in the 3 year cycle. The most regular and attentive church goers will still only hear just a touch of Hosea in the context of worship.
Perhaps we can give Hosea a more attentive ear and eye at least for today.
Peace,
Karl
-----------------
I will return again to my place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face. In their distress they will beg my favor: “Come, let us return to the Lord; for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us; he has struck down, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him. Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord; his appearing is as sure as the dawn; he will come to us like the showers, like the spring rains that water the earth.”
What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes away early. Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets, I have killed them by the words of my mouth, and my judgment goes forth as the light. For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
This is a striking passage. God likens the love of the people to morning mist that burns off early. This evokes comparison to the manna that God provided during the sojourn in the wilderness. Every day the dew came and when it evaporated there was God’s provision in the form of a flaky, coriander tasting gift of grace (Exodus 16:13-15 and surrounding passages). Yet in spite of that faithful provision the people’s hope and trust and love burned off in a hurry. God’s love came in the manna and the people’s love left like the dew. It brings to mind how quickly we let our hearts and our souls and our minds and our strengths get turned away from God.
God’s words come from the prophets. God’s judgment and revelation come in the words from God’s mouth. So the people hear and want to respond with offerings or religious practices or outward actions. God wants their hearts. They want to steel themselves to endure the hard moments but God wants the sustained love.
This text from Proverbs 2 uses the same word for knowledge of God that is in our text from Hosea:
My child, if you accept my words and treasure up my commandments within you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; if you indeed cry out for insight, and raise your voice for understanding; if you seek it like silver, and search for it as for hidden treasures—then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.
My child, if you accept my words and treasure up my commandments within you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; if you indeed cry out for insight, and raise your voice for understanding; if you seek it like silver, and search for it as for hidden treasures—then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.
Some days I really want to live out this text in the pursuit of the Lord. Other days that desire burns off like the morning mist. Other days it is hard to know if the dew even made an appearance. But in the midst of our mists the manna still comes.
The reality is that we cannot make the sacrifices and muster the will to do what is required. So God—aka Jesus—came to do what we could not. He is the one who was ultimately torn and killed. It was Jesus who took on death and was raised on the third day. It is Jesus whose love is steadfast and who has the real knowledge of God.
That same Jesus came into this world to reach out to all sorts of folks on the fringes—bleeding women, tax collectors, sinners, dead daughters (just to rattle off those in this week’s gospel) and people with misty faiths like ours. Jesus came to do what we could not and to reach across the breach separating God and us. Jesus comes quoting and fulfilling our text from Hosea. We are freed and invited to know Jesus. As we grow in knowledge of Jesus so too in knowledge of God.
Dear God, give us ears to hear Hosea—hew us and kill us as you see fit. Give us eyes to see Jesus—in those we love and especially in those who are harder to love. Give us hearts to love you—help us be steadfast and ever-deepening in our knowledge of you. Amen.
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