Pentecost 8 Year C

The book of Hosea contains an amazing variety of metaphors for God and humanity including in our reading last week, the metaphor of marriage that dominates the first three chapters. In today’s reading we have further use of metaphor, seeking to explore truths about God, about humanity, and about the divine-human relationship. The beginning of our reading depicts God’s care for Israel in tender language:

I took them up in my arms,
but they did not know that I healed them.
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.

In these words, we have an image of parental delight, devoted care, tender love; the parent lifting their beloved child to their cheek in that most gentle skin to skin contact that is so vital for young children’s developing sense of self and self-worth.

But Israel’s response to God’s devotion is rebellion, turning to other deities and worshiping them. The deep pain that God feels at this rejection is made more comprehensible to us because we can relate to and understand the pain of a parent at their child’s rejection, whether we are parents ourselves, or have witnessed those we know growing into parenthood.

In this passage, God’s response feels somewhat confused: there is anger, and a desire for retribution, but this is counterbalanced with the expressed longing to reach out in love and compassion. God’s relationship with humankind involves emotional risk. The choice to love is the choice to open oneself to pain.

So we hear God’s thoughts:
How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim, for I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.

Too often, Christians characterise the God of the Hebrew Bible as being a God of wrath, who frequently allows their anger to dictate their actions. The very phrase, ‘the wrath of God’ is so powerful as to perhaps cause us to retreat or recoil, for this God, the scriptures tell us, destroys people and nations; is a power hungry deity who demands obedience and love, and will punish those who disobey or ignore these demands.

The second step often taken by Christians is to contrast this angry vengeful God we think we find in the Hebrew Bible with the peaceful and loving God we think we find in the New Testament, almost as if they are separate Gods. In fact, neither stereotype gives an accurate or complete picture of who God is; each offers an impoverished incomplete image of God.

Today’s passage from Hosea, is a wonderful proclamation of the forgiving, loving nature of God within the Hebrew Bible. God is tender and gentle and just cannot stop loving the children of God, no matter how many times and how violently God is rejected and replaced by false idols.

Listen again to these words of God in our reading from Hosea this morning:

When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more I
called them, the more they went from me; they kept sacrificing to the other gods, and offering incense to idols. Yet it was I who taught them to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them. 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.

How can I give you up? How can I hand you over? How can I destroy you? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger; I will not again destroy you; for I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.

There we encounter the God of the Hebrew Bible. A God caught in the gears of parental love and parental anger. And when faced with the choice between abandonment of the people, or faithfulness, God chooses the demand of faithfulness. Any oversimplified characterisation of God as angry and full of wrath is blown away by this passage in Hosea, and this is the same God incarnated in Jesus, and discovered in the Gospels.

In this morning’s gospel we heard the parable of a rich man with abundant fields who runs out of storage space for all his crops, and so, many would say wisely, he builds larger barns so that the crops will not be wasted and he will have security in years to come. But in the parable God calls him a fool! A fool! What is his foolishness?

It is this; complete self centredness and a belief that his wealth can give him security. There is only one person present in all his deliberations … himself. ‘What should I do? … I will do this: I will build larger barns … I will store all my grain and my goods … I will say to my soul.’ This man idolises wealth and security, believing that he can create security for his future, so that he can relax, eat, drink, be merry for the rest of his life. Through wealth, he believes, he can have a long life free from worry.

Our idols may not be gods like Baal, but money and security can so easily become the idol to which we become devoted.

And there may be others. Other things which I place high up the ladder of importance in my life that can draw me away from God.

Now, my idols will be different from yours, and I’m not going to lay all my weaknesses out for you to judge! But here’s one dilemma that I face right now, that impacts on my being either turned towards, or away from, God.

My phone right now is, well, full of character! It often decides a phone call has been going on too long, and cuts me off. It often refuses to open at all. To be honest, it drives me mad! And so others keep saying I should get a new phone, but which one?

So imagine … there is a good phone on offer at a really good price. It would be great. But I know it is produced in factories where people, people invisible to me in far away countries, are exploited. I know it uses materials mined by children impacting on their health, and polluting the local water supply.

I know when I’m turning away from God, because of the internal conversation that goes something like this.

Voice 1 ‘Oooof … I feel unsure about buying this phone. What about that article I read about this company? Their human rights record is terrible, and the environmental harm is shocking. And what about those children, the child labour’

Voice 2 ‘Oh stop worrying Janet! You think too much! It’s bigger than you. Forget it! Just click on it and buy the phone! You know you want it! And you deserve it!’

So I do. And there we go. In that click I’ve batted God out of the picture. God, that inner voice, that speaks truth in my conscience. God who leads me to feel discomfort or disappointment in myself, that is not so neatly covered up by the sleek packaging, and the thrill of the purchase. What a fool…

The rich farmer is a fool not because he is wealthy or because he saves for the future, but because he lives only for himself, and believes that he can secure his life with his abundant possessions, he thinks his security is all down to him.

But (thank goodness) our lives (and our deaths) are not ours to control. We rebel against this truth because we want to be in charge of our lives. Yet this truth is actually good news. Our future is secure beyond all measure.

To paraphrase Hosea, God says to all of us, O my people, I have loved you since you were a child. I have raised you up. You turn away from me. But how can I turn away from you? How can I give you up? I will not come in anger or in wrath. I will come in love to take you home.

Amen.