Sermon Series, Readings from the Minor Prophets — Hosea 2:2–7, 16–20; 11:1–9; Revelation 19:1–9a
I have this recurring dream. It takes place now, in 2021. But I’m back in college, in Alma, Michigan, where I had my first try at school. I took a long time to grow up and become the brilliant, successful, charming and entirely too humble person you know and love today. I failed out of Alma College. I spent a semester in the workforce, and then decided to go back and finish my music degree. Then I failed out a second time.
In the dream, I am 41, with my master’s degrees and career and all that. But for some reason, I’ve decided to go back to finish that old degree in music. It’s time to register for classes. I’m in the music building, wandering the halls, looking for the orchestra director. I was studying orchestra music, see, and so the orchestra is important to my degree. But I can’t find him. Every time I enter an office, I’ve just missed him. I think I see him down the hall, but he turns a corner and is gone.
Finally, I hear them rehearsing. I grab my clarinet and go to take my place. But the chairs are all full; I can’t find an empty one to pull up. My advisor signed me up for the class! Why can’t I join?
I wait by the conductor until he finally sees me and stops the rehearsal. “Aaron!” he exclaims. “It’s good to see you! It’s been years! What are you doing here?” I explain, and ask where he’d like me to sit. And he says, sometimes sadly, sometimes angrily, “There’s no room. This orchestra is for real students. You had your chance. These seats are for someone else.”
The dream usually ends with me wandering the music building, wondering what to do with my life, looking for a piano that works, not finding one. (Or sometimes, looking for a bathroom that works, but only finding rooms with pianos in them. Usually my bladder wakes me up from that one.)
The Israelites believed that they had a special relationship with God, that although he cared about everyone, he loved them best. It’s a sentiment echoed, in some ways, throughout the history of the Church. We’ve often referred to the Church as the “Bride of Christ,” taking imagery especially from the book of Revelation, the “Marriage feast of the Lamb” in today’s reading. As we read the minor prophets in the weeks ahead, however, we’ll notice that this special relationship doesn’t only mean a special love. It also means a special responsibility.
The prophet Hosea defines that responsibility as faithfulness. He demands to know, if we are married to God, then why do we, in his metaphorical language, behave like a prostitute, seeking other lovers. It’s an ugly metaphor, one designed to shock us into understanding how terrible our infidelity to God really is.
Our first reading today is a courtroom scene, outlining divorce proceedings. God has put his people on trial, and argues that while he provided everything we need, we are unsatisfied, and go looking elsewhere for more. The results are obvious: Punishment, public shame, I divorce you forever. God will abandon his people, and find a new one.
Historically, the Church has proclaimed this as well. That was once our attitude toward Judaism. They were God’s people, but by rejecting Jesus, God rejected them, found a new people, built the Church. This is terrible theology, and we do not believe this anymore, thank God. Aside from how cruel that is to the people God first loved, through whom God first proclaimed salvation, who even gave birth to our savior… well, it’s awfully dangerous to us, too. After all, if God could abandon his first people, then he could certainly abandon us. It sounds like, if we want God’s love, we had better work hard to keep it.
Hosea’s message is very different. When he gets to the end of the divorce proceedings, God proclaims: “I will marry you all over again.” It is well within God’s rights—and very much in line with the world’s logic—to get rid of his people. But he refuses. God will not do so. God remains faithful forever.
In our responsive reading, from Hosea 11, that is brought into even starker relief. This time, Hosea’s metaphor is a parent and child. God adopted his people Israel when they were in Egypt, brought them out, rescued them. God raised Israel, carried him in his arms, taught him to walk. But when Israel could finally walk, they walked away from God.
So God says they will be sent back to Egypt, back to slavery, cast away from him, never to be be lifted up again. Except…
Except immediately, in the same breath: “Oh, how can I give you up?” It’s not only that this divine parent cannot abandon his wayward child; he can’t even punish them. It hurts too much. “My heart lurches within me. It causes me pains of compassion.” God should let go. God cannot let go.
This is, at heart, what Jesus is about. Surprise: Such grace in the Old Testament! God’s people—then and now—are unfaithful. But God is not as fickle as we are. God cannot be unfaithful to us, even if he tried. In fact, his faithfulness and love is expansive; it does not get rid of people, but takes on more. God remains faithful to the Jewish people today, and is faithful to us as well. I would say, too, he is faithful to Muslims, and others, perhaps all humanity, all creation—though that is an opinion, not official doctrine. Don’t hear me wrong; I am Christian for a reason. But I also know that God can’t help but love more and more.
There was a time in my life when I felt immense guilt and shame over those old college failures. It used to be a painful thing for me to attend a concert; I moved my clarinet from apartment to apartment but refused to touch it. But today, none of that is true. Even when that old dream pops up, I know it’s about worries for the future, not guild for the past.
This afternoon, the Exeter Community Band will play at Grand View Manor in Fleetwood, and thanks to Eileen and Paul H——, I will be there with them, clarinet in hand, delighting in the playfulness of the concert and the way we are bringing joy and life to the residents there. Our concert this year is full of silliness, and I love it. I can love it. Because while I was unfaithful again and again, God was not. God continues to lift me up and sustain me and bring new life to me. It’s not that I have a second chance; I have a seventy times seven chances, and many far beyond. And the next time I will, for whatever reason, fail myself or my family or my world or my God, God will be there to insist that our relationship is still valid, that I am still loved, that I can be healed.
Humanity is full of shame, shame that keeps up trapped in despair, away from the abundant life God wants for us. As we look to the future of our Church and our lives, we might do well to wonder what shame our community carries. And how we might cooperate with God to, not abandon that community, but rebuild our relationship, a relationship that will last, and that will bring people out of shame into new life.