The Last Word (Proper 13C; Hosea 11:1-11; August 4, 2013)

The Last Word

Proper 13C

Hosea 11:1-11

August 4, 2013

Rev. John M. Caldwell, PhD

First United Methodist Church

Decorah, Iowa

It’s a familiar enough scene to anyone who has been a parent (or had one).  You can picture it: It's late on Saturday night, say about 12:30.  The kid (who has an 11:00 curfew) is still out—no phone call, no special permission asked, nothin’.  The kid—who can text at sixty words per minute with her left hand, find her favorite song on her iPod with her right, and chatter with her friends all while driving down Water Street—is not answering her cell phone. 

The parents are beside themselves. Where could she be?  Why hasn't she called?  Their minds are working overtime.  They are seeing all kinds of images of their child, none of them good.  They're imagining her in an accident.  They're imagining her in jail.  They're imagining her lying in a ditch somewhere, the victim of a crime.  They're imagining her kidnapped.  Those terrible stories you read in the paper and see on the evening news—they all start this way, you know, with a missed curfew.

If the phone does ring, their hearts pound, their minds race.  Is it her?  No.  Is it the police? the hospital?  No.  Then get off the phone!!!

And then, a quarter to one, she comes waltzing through the door without a care in the world.  All of that tender concern vanishes in a nanosecond.  Where have you been?  We've been worried sick about you, just sick.  Go to your room; you can come out when you leave for college!!

In Hosea's oracle, Yahweh is fed up.  Israel has not simply broken its curfew.  It’s been thoroughly delinquent.  Israel has not kept covenant with its God.  It has worshiped other gods: gods of production and progress and power.  It has ignored all that makes for a human and humane society.  A humane society needs to protect the poor with fair trade practices.  Instead Israel has decided that anything goes and “Devil take the hindmost!”  A humane society needs to put a brake on the greed of the rich.  Instead Israel has set no limit on the accumulation of wealth by the rich and the dispossession of the poor.  A humane society needs a plan to meet the need that everyone has for rest and renewal.  Israel has decided to pursue production, progress and power, twenty-four/seven.

It has broken the Torah, refused to walk in the way of Yahweh, and for what?  So that a few folk could indulge in conspicuous possession.  So that Israel could be a bit player in international politics.  All the while they have pretended that they were good followers of Yahweh.

Sure, the king led the people in keeping the festivals.  He did it studiously, since they made the king look good.  But the name of Yahweh had become cheap.  Yahweh could be represented to stand for anything.

The latter part of the eighth century bce was not a good time for the relationship between God and Israel, and God was fed up.

Our passage begins with Yahweh remembering all that Yahweh had done for Israel, all that Yahweh had given to Israel.  But the more God gave, the more Israel deserted Yahweh for other gods: the gods of production and progress and power.  The heart-breaking thing was that Israel did this in spite of the fact that God has acted as a tender mother to them:

…it was I who taught Ephraim to walk,

I took them up in my arms…

I led them with cords of human kindness,

with bands of love.

I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks.

I bent down to them and fed them.

Is there a tenderer picture of God’s loving kindness in all of the Bible?  The Hebrew word for this picture is חֶסֶד, but it’s a word that is nearly impossible to translate.  “Loving kindness” seems so inadequate for the depth and visceral quality of God’s love for Israel.

God remembers all that God has done for Israel.  But remembering all the things that we have done for someone who has disappointed us is not a way get past our anger.  It doesn't work for God, either. 

“So, Israel doesn't want to be my people?  Fine, they can have it their way!  The covenant can be revoked.  Israel can go back to Egypt where I found them or they can be conquered by Assyria.  It makes no difference to me which.

“They want gods of production and progress and power?  They can serve those gods as slaves in captivity or as slaves in exile.  Their country will be conquered, their cities ravaged.  Since they do not want to follow me, I will no longer attend to them, hear their prayers, or answer when they call.”

Here is anger's fantasy of revenge, revenge for all the hurt, all the pain, all the anguish a parent feels when the child they love is bent on destroying themselves.  Yahweh imagines the broken covenant dissolved—“It was a stupid idea, anyway,  being the covenant God of this wayward people.” 

When the covenant people is destroyed that will be an end to Yahweh's anguish.  The covenant people surely deserves it, all of it.  They deserve...  They...

God knows what Israel deserves.  And God is angry enough to destroy them, angry enough to let them destroy themselves.

But, somehow, God just can’t do it, can’t turn tempting fantasy into horrible reality.  Now that they’re out there, now that God has said those terrible words out loud, God just can't go through with it, can’t pull the trigger.

How can I give you up, Ephraim?

How can I hand you over, O Israel?

How can I make you like Admah?

How can I treat you like Zeboiim?

In the end, Israel is God's child.  Judgment and mercy went to war in God's heart and mercy won.  Mercy always wins.  Always.  Always.

This, friends, is the fundamental fact of our lives.  It is the truth at the heart of the universe.  It is the foundation of our shared life.  It lies at the center of our mission.  It is the motivation for all our ministries.  Whatever our call, whatever our vision, at the center of it, upholding it, moving through it, permeating it, is the mercy of God. 

This is the bedrock of our faith.  I don’t know of anyone who has put it better than Bishop Palmer who likes to say it this way:  “God loves you and there’s nothing you can do about it!”

This is the news at the heart of the universe.  It’s news that’s so good we can’t possibly keep it to ourselves.  It’s news that’s so good we have to let it spill over into our lives and into everything we say and do and think and feel.  It’s news that’s so good we have to share it in our deeds and, yes—God help us!—even in our words:  “God loves you and there’s nothing you can do about it!”

This is the experience of ancient Israel in the testimony of the prophet Hosea, it is our own experience in the heights and depths of our own lives and it’s our message to everyone who will listen, from Decorah to Postville to Potrerillos: “God loves you and there’s nothing you can do about it!”

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