Grounds for divorce
Commentary
The images of adultery and divorce may strike close to home for some of the people in
our pews. I know that in my congregation, for example, these are touchy topics. As a
preacher, I dare not treat them casually, for they represent the hurtful reality for a number
of my people.
Yet those are the images presented to us by the prophet Hosea, and they set the stage for a sermon that is good news. Even as we tiptoe through the difficult matters of infidelity and divorce, therefore, we do so with the ease and confidence that come from knowing that, in the end, we are proclaiming good news.
The poignant proposition is this: what sort of love, hope, and happy plans do we have when we get married? We make our promise "for better, for worse," but the practical reality is that we fully expect this marriage to be "for better." After all, if we honestly expected that it was going to be "for worse," we wouldn't choose to marry this particular person.
But for some poor souls, it does turn out for worse. All of us have seen it. Some of us have experienced it. The happiness of the wedding day turns bitter over time. The high hopes have been deflated. The happily-ever-after plans have been wrecked. And that early, innocent love has been mistreated and cheated.
Think of that spouse, whose trust has been betrayed and whose heart has been broken. While the one has lived out the vows faithfully and lovingly, their spouse has sought pleasure, intimacy, and love with someone else. Perhaps with several others. And now what is the abandoned spouse to do?
This was Hosea's plight.
And, more to the point, this was God's plight.
We are disinclined to view God in the role of a victim. After all, he is all-knowing and all-powerful: how much of a victim can he be?
On the other hand, consider God's essential attribute. While we affirm that God is all- knowing, scripture never presumes to say, "God is knowledge." And while we understand that he is all-powerful, scripture never baldly claims, "God is power." And yet, there is such a statement made about his essential nature. John writes, simply, "God is love" (1 John 4:8).
If he was only all-knowing or all-powerful, he wouldn't be easily victimized. But he is also all heart, and that leaves almighty God surprisingly vulnerable. And that's where we find him in our Old Testament lection today.
Hosea 1:2-10
The composer introduces the central motif in the very first measure: "take for yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom." This is not the stuff of needlepoint hangings in the church parlor, but it is the stuff of Hosea. And it is a part of what we preach this Sunday.
Many of the folks in our pews do not know the story of Hosea. For so many American churchgoers, the extent of their biblical knowledge has not grown significantly since the eighth grade. We can count on their being familiar with the kinds of characters and stories that we teach to children -- Noah, Daniel, David, and Jesus -- but Hosea is not part of most children's Sunday school curriculum. They may arrive this Sunday morning without any prior knowledge of Hosea's story -- and his story will surprise them.
To hear God instruct someone -- a prophet of God, no less -- to marry an unfaithful wife is surprising. To hear God instruct that unpromising couple to have children is surprising. And then, a few verses later, to hear the grim names God assigns to those children is also surprising.
A broader familiarity with the Old Testament prophets in general would help. For within that larger corpus, we see the frequency of the technique we sometimes refer to as "symbolic act." On numerous occasions, God calls his prophets not merely to say something but to do something. And the doing, every bit as much as the saying, carries a message. Indeed, in some instances, it carries a longer lasting message -- as in a marriage or the name of a child.
While the marriage instruction is a surprising one at first blush, we ultimately discover the beauty and pathos of it. It is a symbol of God's experience. And, in turn, it becomes a symbol of God's love and faithfulness. In this poignant drama, Hosea is thanklessly cast in the role of God, and so he must find a whore to marry, who will adequately play the part of God's awful bride, Israel.
That Hosea remains lovingly devoted to unfaithful Gomer is a testament to the God he represents. For while we categorize Hosea among the judgment prophets, it is inestimably important that the great symbolic act required of the prophet was to marry an unfaithful woman, not to divorce her. By the standards of Old Testament law, we suppose that Hosea could have arranged for Gomer to have been executed for her infidelity. But he did not. And so, while we may at first flinch at God's strange instruction to marry a whore, we see the great beauty of it in the end.
Meanwhile, there are those unfortunate children's names.
I expect that we've all known some people along the way whose given names make us wonder what their parents were thinking. I had a friend, for example, whose parents gave him a first name that was identical to his last name. And I have another friend whose mother named him after her favorite brand of cigarettes.
The names that some parents give to their children are pretty questionable. And the names that God gives to these children of Hosea and Gomer seem dubious, too.
The third child's name, Lo-ammi, is particularly striking, for it articulates in reverse the traditional covenant. Back in the days of the patriarch Abraham, God established a covenant that involved Abraham's yet-unborn descendants. They would be the Lord's people, and he would be their God. But now, here, the Lord seems to undo all of that. "You are not my people and I am not your God," the Lord declares in explanation of Lo- ammi's name. It's a brutal message.
It is not, however, the final word.
Our selected reading is a fair sampling of the prophet Hosea, for it includes all the elements and motifs we see elsewhere in the book: the story and symbolism of the prophet's personal experience; the failures and faithlessness of the people; the dilemma of God; the prediction of judgment; and the hope of God's deliverance.
That latter element is not prominent in our selected text, but it is there, and that is appropriate. Right on the heels of the devastating "Lo-ammi" message, the Lord offers a very bright light at the end of the tunnel. He promises that "the number of the people of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which can be neither measured nor numbered" -- a promise reminiscent of what he had promised both Abraham and Isaac centuries earlier (Genesis 15:5; 26:4), and nearly identical to promises that he had made to Abraham and Jacob (Genesis 22:17; 32:12). And then he marvelously changes the verdict, from "you are not my people" to "children of the living God."
Colossians 2:6-15 (16-19)
Paul's letter to the Colossians is almost unique within the Pauline corpus. We have eight letters from Paul addressed to the Christians in specific cities, but only the letters to the Romans and to the Colossians are written to cities where Paul himself was not the founder of the church.
In the case of the epistle to Rome, the primary purpose is to introduce himself to a place and a people he hoped to visit. In the Colossians' case, however, Paul was writing to correct an error, to address a problem with heresy in the church.
That is certainly something Paul does elsewhere. But it's different here. When he writes to correct the Corinthians, the Thessalonians, or the Galatians (though Galatia was a region, not a single city), he is writing to his own people. There is a parental quality to the relationship, and therefore to the tone of what he says. But the Colossians are a different case. These are somebody else's children that Paul is endeavoring to correct, and so the tone and approach are different.
The problem with heresy -- that is, false teaching within the church -- is a common one in the New Testament. It is a central issue in the letters to Galatia, Colossae, 2 John, and Jude. And it is also a prominent issue in the letters to Corinth, 1 Timothy, Hebrews, and 2 Peter. In addition, the issue is a primary feature in several of the seven letters with which the book of Revelation begins.
For so many of our churches today, however, the whole matter seems long ago and far away. We live in a culture where open-mindedness, dialogue, and diversity are commended as absolute goods. To shut out of the church a voice, a perspective, an opinion seems, today, like a step backward. It is closed-minded -- unenlightened. We have turned "dogmatic" into an insult.
Accordingly, we might be dismissive of Paul's concern. He urges the Colossians, "See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit." But to a generation that prizes open-mindedness, and which cut its teeth on investigation and experimentation, his counsel sounds unnecessarily cautious -- overprotective -- even paranoid.
On the other hand, we see from the very beginning -- from Eve and the serpent in the Garden of Eden -- the significant impact of deceit. The serpent did nothing to Eve physically or economically; he had no coercive power over her. He just talked. She listened. And she was, indeed, taken captive.
Furthermore, the doctrine at stake in Colossae was nothing less than what the people believed, understood, and affirmed about the person and work of Christ. Evidently they had come to believe that he was less than he was, and that he did less than he did. And that put the Colossians in a very dangerous position, indeed.
Within the context of our pluralism, we may feel discouraged from making bold truth claims about Jesus Christ. If we are so categorical, after all, we may offend someone else by the implication that their belief (or unbelief) is wrong.
But Paul's example, posture, and approach is that of an unapologetic proclamation of the uniqueness and supremacy of Christ. And this, for Paul, is not a peripheral matter. It is not a little thing where people of good will go their own way, affably agreeing to disagree. No, this doctrine stands at the heart of the gospel. And it is, for us, a matter of life and death.
Luke 11:1-13
This chapter from Luke's gospel provides us with a marvelously ordered teaching of Jesus. And if we wanted to devote this Sunday's sermon -- or a month of Sunday sermons! -- to the subject and experience of prayer, this passage would be enough to sustain us.
The teaching comes out of a specified context. Jesus had been praying, and it seems that his example prompted a curiosity -- a spiritual appetite -- among his disciples. And so they asked him, "Lord, teach us to pray."
We should stop at this point to note all the things that the disciples did not ask Jesus to teach them to do. We have no record of them asking Jesus to teach them how to heal; how to cast out demons; or how to walk on water. If we had been in their shoes, wouldn't we have taken such a route? The things that the disciples did not ask Jesus how to do makes this request all the more remarkable.
Jesus responds to their request this way: "When you pray, say...."
Now let us imagine that the scroll was torn, smudged, or missing at precisely this point. Uninformed by any sense of canon, certain cable television networks seem to be endlessly fascinated by what they provocatively label as "lost books" of the Bible or "other gospels" about Jesus. But let us use their technique for a moment at this juncture. Invite your congregation to imagine how we would feel if our best texts indicated that Jesus' disciples asked him to teach them how to pray, and that he answered, but that we have no existing record of that answer. How much would we speculate about the answer Jesus gave? How deeply and sincerely would we wish that we knew or could find Jesus' response to that fundamental request?
Well, we do know his answer. We know it well! Indeed, we may know it so well that we treat it lightly and overlook its value and significance. His answer is the prayer we know as the "Lord's Prayer." In my church, we pray it every single Sunday. But it is so familiar that we may not cherish it the way that we would if it were a new (and authentic) discovery.
So the occasion gives rise to a teaching on prayer. And that teaching begins with a model: the Lord's Prayer.
Next, Jesus turns from the model prayer to the model pray-er. It's a medium-length parable that presents us with a portrait of audacity. What neighbor has the nerve in the first place to go knocking on his friend's door at midnight? And, having been initially rebuffed, what manner of numbskull keeps knocking?
At first blush, we may want to dismiss this fellow as obnoxious and incorrigible -- grateful that we don't have to live next door to him. But Jesus holds him up as exemplary. He is Saint Persistent, and he teaches us how to pray. And notice what, specifically, he teaches us: to be bold in asking, to persevere without being discouraged, and perhaps even not to take "No" for an answer.
The parable is followed by a promise. One of Jesus' most familiar teachings of all is this ask-seek-knock sequence. And in that teaching, he offers his followers a guarantee that our persistence in prayer will pay off in the end.
Finally, Jesus concludes the teaching in the same place where he started it: namely, with our Father. He famously appeals to the human fathers in his audience, using their imperfect parenting as a starting point for understanding how our heavenly Father deals with us. And so, just as he teaches us, in the first words of the model prayer, to address God as "Father," he reminds us here of the good implications of that role and relationship.
Last of all, we should note that, if you are given to alliterative sermons, perhaps the message from the gospel lection could be presented in this way: person, prayer, paragon, promise, and paternal providence. The disciples are prompted to learn how to pray because of the personal example they see before them in Jesus. He teaches them a prayer. He presents them with a paragon to emulate (the knocking neighbor). He follows the parable with a promise about the rewards of our faithful persistence. And then he reminds us that our confidence is in the generous heart of our perfect Father.
Application
In David's famous prayer of confession (coincidentally in the wake of his committing adultery), he says to God, "Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment" (Psalm 51:4).
God is justified in his sentence. That is to say, he has a right to judge and to condemn us, for we are guilty. Or, in the imagery of Hosea, God has grounds for divorce.
The Lord presents himself as a husband in the book of the prophet Hosea. A cuckolded husband. A heartbroken husband. And he, like the prophet who represented him, had ample grounds to divorce his horrible wife, Israel.
Yet, through it all, what he really sought was reconciliation. What he was most eager to do was forgive. He preferred redemption over rejection. And in that example, we find several messages for our people.
First, for those who have been hurt, we may encourage them to find solidarity with God. He knows their experience and their pain, and they are invited to identify with him.
Second, as we are invited to identify with God in our pain, we are also invited to imitate him. To prefer forgiveness over vengeance is to follow his lead.
And, finally, there is for all of us the good news of God's love. For while some of us are in the position to identify with God and Hosea, all of us are in the position to identify with Israel and Gomer. We have all been unfaithful to him somewhere along the way, and so his patience with us, his durable love, his desire to be reconciled, and his willingness to forgive are very good news, indeed.
Alternative Application
Luke 11:1-13. "Lord, Teach Us To Be Annoying." Who taught you how to pray?
For a lot of the people in our pews, if they were taught at all, it was by their parents. And while it may not have been very deep or detailed, it was instruction. Traditionally, it probably included kneeling, hands folded, eyes closed, and head bowed.
Such an image of prayer may help to encourage reverence, and that has great merit. But that model is so far removed from what Jesus himself presented when he was teaching his disciples how to pray.
Far from the conventional posture of reverence, Jesus' image of good praying is an almost obnoxious figure. As we observed above, he presumes to go knocking on his neighbor's door at midnight. And then, when that neighbor understandably tries to send him away, he won't go. Rather, he perpetuates his audacious and inconsiderate approach, knocking relentlessly until his sleepy neighbor finally responds and provides.
Reverence is good, to be sure. But let not our reverence camouflage vices -- prayer shortcomings like timidity, reluctance, doubt, and resignation. If our parents taught us to be respectful when we come to God, bless them for it. But we are encouraged by Jesus himself to go a step further when we come to God: that is, to come to him boldly, unapologetically, and persistently. After all, "For everyone who knocks, the door will be opened."
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 85
Cynicism is in vogue these days. Perhaps it's never gone out of style. It just seems that in many a church circle these days there is a cynical wind, which attempts to blow out the candles of hope. Someone will get an idea. The response will be, "We tried that thirty years ago and it didn't work. What makes you think you can succeed?" Someone will get excited. The snide observation is a put down in thin disguise. "Calm down won't you? You make me tired." Someone will be found praying, and the cynic will whisper, "Do you really think anyone is listening?" Cynicism like this poisons the waters of hope and chokes the breath out of the body of Christ.
But faith overcomes cynicism. Holy Spirit optimism drowns out persistent negative energy. And the intentional naïveté that comes with trusting God will prevail over all odds.
Psalm 85 displays this kind of faith and spirit. It emanates this kind of naive trust. There is no doubt here. There is no quarter given to naysayers or strutting narcissists. Here there is only certainty. Beautiful, clear, wonderful.
God will speak peace to the people. There is no hedging of bets here. All our money's on God's voice, and we can hear it now. God's salvation is at hand! Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet! Righteousness and peace will kiss each other!
No hint of cynicism or doubt here! Here only the clear waters of trust and certainty run and gurgle like a spring-fed stream. It's probably best to remember, too, that the words of this psalm were not likely penned by someone who was living in a bed of roses. Such trust didn't come from a full belly or an easy life, but from the trials of life that put our faith to the test. The call to renew faith and trust can be heard in this psalm. Such certainty and clarity are things of beauty, giving life and sustenance in a world of cynicism and doubt.
Make no mistake about it. Such certainty and clarity are not intended to woo the faithful from the need for critical thinking and sober judgment. The need for these will never wane. But in these days of "post-modern" thought, where the "de-construction" of all things is the rage, a little certainty won't hurt. A clarity just might help.
Yet those are the images presented to us by the prophet Hosea, and they set the stage for a sermon that is good news. Even as we tiptoe through the difficult matters of infidelity and divorce, therefore, we do so with the ease and confidence that come from knowing that, in the end, we are proclaiming good news.
The poignant proposition is this: what sort of love, hope, and happy plans do we have when we get married? We make our promise "for better, for worse," but the practical reality is that we fully expect this marriage to be "for better." After all, if we honestly expected that it was going to be "for worse," we wouldn't choose to marry this particular person.
But for some poor souls, it does turn out for worse. All of us have seen it. Some of us have experienced it. The happiness of the wedding day turns bitter over time. The high hopes have been deflated. The happily-ever-after plans have been wrecked. And that early, innocent love has been mistreated and cheated.
Think of that spouse, whose trust has been betrayed and whose heart has been broken. While the one has lived out the vows faithfully and lovingly, their spouse has sought pleasure, intimacy, and love with someone else. Perhaps with several others. And now what is the abandoned spouse to do?
This was Hosea's plight.
And, more to the point, this was God's plight.
We are disinclined to view God in the role of a victim. After all, he is all-knowing and all-powerful: how much of a victim can he be?
On the other hand, consider God's essential attribute. While we affirm that God is all- knowing, scripture never presumes to say, "God is knowledge." And while we understand that he is all-powerful, scripture never baldly claims, "God is power." And yet, there is such a statement made about his essential nature. John writes, simply, "God is love" (1 John 4:8).
If he was only all-knowing or all-powerful, he wouldn't be easily victimized. But he is also all heart, and that leaves almighty God surprisingly vulnerable. And that's where we find him in our Old Testament lection today.
Hosea 1:2-10
The composer introduces the central motif in the very first measure: "take for yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom." This is not the stuff of needlepoint hangings in the church parlor, but it is the stuff of Hosea. And it is a part of what we preach this Sunday.
Many of the folks in our pews do not know the story of Hosea. For so many American churchgoers, the extent of their biblical knowledge has not grown significantly since the eighth grade. We can count on their being familiar with the kinds of characters and stories that we teach to children -- Noah, Daniel, David, and Jesus -- but Hosea is not part of most children's Sunday school curriculum. They may arrive this Sunday morning without any prior knowledge of Hosea's story -- and his story will surprise them.
To hear God instruct someone -- a prophet of God, no less -- to marry an unfaithful wife is surprising. To hear God instruct that unpromising couple to have children is surprising. And then, a few verses later, to hear the grim names God assigns to those children is also surprising.
A broader familiarity with the Old Testament prophets in general would help. For within that larger corpus, we see the frequency of the technique we sometimes refer to as "symbolic act." On numerous occasions, God calls his prophets not merely to say something but to do something. And the doing, every bit as much as the saying, carries a message. Indeed, in some instances, it carries a longer lasting message -- as in a marriage or the name of a child.
While the marriage instruction is a surprising one at first blush, we ultimately discover the beauty and pathos of it. It is a symbol of God's experience. And, in turn, it becomes a symbol of God's love and faithfulness. In this poignant drama, Hosea is thanklessly cast in the role of God, and so he must find a whore to marry, who will adequately play the part of God's awful bride, Israel.
That Hosea remains lovingly devoted to unfaithful Gomer is a testament to the God he represents. For while we categorize Hosea among the judgment prophets, it is inestimably important that the great symbolic act required of the prophet was to marry an unfaithful woman, not to divorce her. By the standards of Old Testament law, we suppose that Hosea could have arranged for Gomer to have been executed for her infidelity. But he did not. And so, while we may at first flinch at God's strange instruction to marry a whore, we see the great beauty of it in the end.
Meanwhile, there are those unfortunate children's names.
I expect that we've all known some people along the way whose given names make us wonder what their parents were thinking. I had a friend, for example, whose parents gave him a first name that was identical to his last name. And I have another friend whose mother named him after her favorite brand of cigarettes.
The names that some parents give to their children are pretty questionable. And the names that God gives to these children of Hosea and Gomer seem dubious, too.
The third child's name, Lo-ammi, is particularly striking, for it articulates in reverse the traditional covenant. Back in the days of the patriarch Abraham, God established a covenant that involved Abraham's yet-unborn descendants. They would be the Lord's people, and he would be their God. But now, here, the Lord seems to undo all of that. "You are not my people and I am not your God," the Lord declares in explanation of Lo- ammi's name. It's a brutal message.
It is not, however, the final word.
Our selected reading is a fair sampling of the prophet Hosea, for it includes all the elements and motifs we see elsewhere in the book: the story and symbolism of the prophet's personal experience; the failures and faithlessness of the people; the dilemma of God; the prediction of judgment; and the hope of God's deliverance.
That latter element is not prominent in our selected text, but it is there, and that is appropriate. Right on the heels of the devastating "Lo-ammi" message, the Lord offers a very bright light at the end of the tunnel. He promises that "the number of the people of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which can be neither measured nor numbered" -- a promise reminiscent of what he had promised both Abraham and Isaac centuries earlier (Genesis 15:5; 26:4), and nearly identical to promises that he had made to Abraham and Jacob (Genesis 22:17; 32:12). And then he marvelously changes the verdict, from "you are not my people" to "children of the living God."
Colossians 2:6-15 (16-19)
Paul's letter to the Colossians is almost unique within the Pauline corpus. We have eight letters from Paul addressed to the Christians in specific cities, but only the letters to the Romans and to the Colossians are written to cities where Paul himself was not the founder of the church.
In the case of the epistle to Rome, the primary purpose is to introduce himself to a place and a people he hoped to visit. In the Colossians' case, however, Paul was writing to correct an error, to address a problem with heresy in the church.
That is certainly something Paul does elsewhere. But it's different here. When he writes to correct the Corinthians, the Thessalonians, or the Galatians (though Galatia was a region, not a single city), he is writing to his own people. There is a parental quality to the relationship, and therefore to the tone of what he says. But the Colossians are a different case. These are somebody else's children that Paul is endeavoring to correct, and so the tone and approach are different.
The problem with heresy -- that is, false teaching within the church -- is a common one in the New Testament. It is a central issue in the letters to Galatia, Colossae, 2 John, and Jude. And it is also a prominent issue in the letters to Corinth, 1 Timothy, Hebrews, and 2 Peter. In addition, the issue is a primary feature in several of the seven letters with which the book of Revelation begins.
For so many of our churches today, however, the whole matter seems long ago and far away. We live in a culture where open-mindedness, dialogue, and diversity are commended as absolute goods. To shut out of the church a voice, a perspective, an opinion seems, today, like a step backward. It is closed-minded -- unenlightened. We have turned "dogmatic" into an insult.
Accordingly, we might be dismissive of Paul's concern. He urges the Colossians, "See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit." But to a generation that prizes open-mindedness, and which cut its teeth on investigation and experimentation, his counsel sounds unnecessarily cautious -- overprotective -- even paranoid.
On the other hand, we see from the very beginning -- from Eve and the serpent in the Garden of Eden -- the significant impact of deceit. The serpent did nothing to Eve physically or economically; he had no coercive power over her. He just talked. She listened. And she was, indeed, taken captive.
Furthermore, the doctrine at stake in Colossae was nothing less than what the people believed, understood, and affirmed about the person and work of Christ. Evidently they had come to believe that he was less than he was, and that he did less than he did. And that put the Colossians in a very dangerous position, indeed.
Within the context of our pluralism, we may feel discouraged from making bold truth claims about Jesus Christ. If we are so categorical, after all, we may offend someone else by the implication that their belief (or unbelief) is wrong.
But Paul's example, posture, and approach is that of an unapologetic proclamation of the uniqueness and supremacy of Christ. And this, for Paul, is not a peripheral matter. It is not a little thing where people of good will go their own way, affably agreeing to disagree. No, this doctrine stands at the heart of the gospel. And it is, for us, a matter of life and death.
Luke 11:1-13
This chapter from Luke's gospel provides us with a marvelously ordered teaching of Jesus. And if we wanted to devote this Sunday's sermon -- or a month of Sunday sermons! -- to the subject and experience of prayer, this passage would be enough to sustain us.
The teaching comes out of a specified context. Jesus had been praying, and it seems that his example prompted a curiosity -- a spiritual appetite -- among his disciples. And so they asked him, "Lord, teach us to pray."
We should stop at this point to note all the things that the disciples did not ask Jesus to teach them to do. We have no record of them asking Jesus to teach them how to heal; how to cast out demons; or how to walk on water. If we had been in their shoes, wouldn't we have taken such a route? The things that the disciples did not ask Jesus how to do makes this request all the more remarkable.
Jesus responds to their request this way: "When you pray, say...."
Now let us imagine that the scroll was torn, smudged, or missing at precisely this point. Uninformed by any sense of canon, certain cable television networks seem to be endlessly fascinated by what they provocatively label as "lost books" of the Bible or "other gospels" about Jesus. But let us use their technique for a moment at this juncture. Invite your congregation to imagine how we would feel if our best texts indicated that Jesus' disciples asked him to teach them how to pray, and that he answered, but that we have no existing record of that answer. How much would we speculate about the answer Jesus gave? How deeply and sincerely would we wish that we knew or could find Jesus' response to that fundamental request?
Well, we do know his answer. We know it well! Indeed, we may know it so well that we treat it lightly and overlook its value and significance. His answer is the prayer we know as the "Lord's Prayer." In my church, we pray it every single Sunday. But it is so familiar that we may not cherish it the way that we would if it were a new (and authentic) discovery.
So the occasion gives rise to a teaching on prayer. And that teaching begins with a model: the Lord's Prayer.
Next, Jesus turns from the model prayer to the model pray-er. It's a medium-length parable that presents us with a portrait of audacity. What neighbor has the nerve in the first place to go knocking on his friend's door at midnight? And, having been initially rebuffed, what manner of numbskull keeps knocking?
At first blush, we may want to dismiss this fellow as obnoxious and incorrigible -- grateful that we don't have to live next door to him. But Jesus holds him up as exemplary. He is Saint Persistent, and he teaches us how to pray. And notice what, specifically, he teaches us: to be bold in asking, to persevere without being discouraged, and perhaps even not to take "No" for an answer.
The parable is followed by a promise. One of Jesus' most familiar teachings of all is this ask-seek-knock sequence. And in that teaching, he offers his followers a guarantee that our persistence in prayer will pay off in the end.
Finally, Jesus concludes the teaching in the same place where he started it: namely, with our Father. He famously appeals to the human fathers in his audience, using their imperfect parenting as a starting point for understanding how our heavenly Father deals with us. And so, just as he teaches us, in the first words of the model prayer, to address God as "Father," he reminds us here of the good implications of that role and relationship.
Last of all, we should note that, if you are given to alliterative sermons, perhaps the message from the gospel lection could be presented in this way: person, prayer, paragon, promise, and paternal providence. The disciples are prompted to learn how to pray because of the personal example they see before them in Jesus. He teaches them a prayer. He presents them with a paragon to emulate (the knocking neighbor). He follows the parable with a promise about the rewards of our faithful persistence. And then he reminds us that our confidence is in the generous heart of our perfect Father.
Application
In David's famous prayer of confession (coincidentally in the wake of his committing adultery), he says to God, "Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment" (Psalm 51:4).
God is justified in his sentence. That is to say, he has a right to judge and to condemn us, for we are guilty. Or, in the imagery of Hosea, God has grounds for divorce.
The Lord presents himself as a husband in the book of the prophet Hosea. A cuckolded husband. A heartbroken husband. And he, like the prophet who represented him, had ample grounds to divorce his horrible wife, Israel.
Yet, through it all, what he really sought was reconciliation. What he was most eager to do was forgive. He preferred redemption over rejection. And in that example, we find several messages for our people.
First, for those who have been hurt, we may encourage them to find solidarity with God. He knows their experience and their pain, and they are invited to identify with him.
Second, as we are invited to identify with God in our pain, we are also invited to imitate him. To prefer forgiveness over vengeance is to follow his lead.
And, finally, there is for all of us the good news of God's love. For while some of us are in the position to identify with God and Hosea, all of us are in the position to identify with Israel and Gomer. We have all been unfaithful to him somewhere along the way, and so his patience with us, his durable love, his desire to be reconciled, and his willingness to forgive are very good news, indeed.
Alternative Application
Luke 11:1-13. "Lord, Teach Us To Be Annoying." Who taught you how to pray?
For a lot of the people in our pews, if they were taught at all, it was by their parents. And while it may not have been very deep or detailed, it was instruction. Traditionally, it probably included kneeling, hands folded, eyes closed, and head bowed.
Such an image of prayer may help to encourage reverence, and that has great merit. But that model is so far removed from what Jesus himself presented when he was teaching his disciples how to pray.
Far from the conventional posture of reverence, Jesus' image of good praying is an almost obnoxious figure. As we observed above, he presumes to go knocking on his neighbor's door at midnight. And then, when that neighbor understandably tries to send him away, he won't go. Rather, he perpetuates his audacious and inconsiderate approach, knocking relentlessly until his sleepy neighbor finally responds and provides.
Reverence is good, to be sure. But let not our reverence camouflage vices -- prayer shortcomings like timidity, reluctance, doubt, and resignation. If our parents taught us to be respectful when we come to God, bless them for it. But we are encouraged by Jesus himself to go a step further when we come to God: that is, to come to him boldly, unapologetically, and persistently. After all, "For everyone who knocks, the door will be opened."
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 85
Cynicism is in vogue these days. Perhaps it's never gone out of style. It just seems that in many a church circle these days there is a cynical wind, which attempts to blow out the candles of hope. Someone will get an idea. The response will be, "We tried that thirty years ago and it didn't work. What makes you think you can succeed?" Someone will get excited. The snide observation is a put down in thin disguise. "Calm down won't you? You make me tired." Someone will be found praying, and the cynic will whisper, "Do you really think anyone is listening?" Cynicism like this poisons the waters of hope and chokes the breath out of the body of Christ.
But faith overcomes cynicism. Holy Spirit optimism drowns out persistent negative energy. And the intentional naïveté that comes with trusting God will prevail over all odds.
Psalm 85 displays this kind of faith and spirit. It emanates this kind of naive trust. There is no doubt here. There is no quarter given to naysayers or strutting narcissists. Here there is only certainty. Beautiful, clear, wonderful.
God will speak peace to the people. There is no hedging of bets here. All our money's on God's voice, and we can hear it now. God's salvation is at hand! Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet! Righteousness and peace will kiss each other!
No hint of cynicism or doubt here! Here only the clear waters of trust and certainty run and gurgle like a spring-fed stream. It's probably best to remember, too, that the words of this psalm were not likely penned by someone who was living in a bed of roses. Such trust didn't come from a full belly or an easy life, but from the trials of life that put our faith to the test. The call to renew faith and trust can be heard in this psalm. Such certainty and clarity are things of beauty, giving life and sustenance in a world of cynicism and doubt.
Make no mistake about it. Such certainty and clarity are not intended to woo the faithful from the need for critical thinking and sober judgment. The need for these will never wane. But in these days of "post-modern" thought, where the "de-construction" of all things is the rage, a little certainty won't hurt. A clarity just might help.
