Seeking spiritual fulfillment
Commentary
Spiritual questing seems to be the theme that holds together the three lessons for today. The first reading reveals God's people as faithless, "whoring after other gods," to use the traditional idiom. Behind this indictment is the chilling realization that the people of Israel have not found the covenant to be satisfying. Though God seems to have been abundantly generous, they have desires for something else. Perhaps it was the taste of that forbidden fruit long ago. Whatever it is -- they have deep within them a lust for something the covenant does not appear to include, for something that God does not intend to provide. It's not a hunger exactly -- more like a craving for what is unnecessary, but attractive. The letter to the Colossians reveals that even those made new in Christ still experience this longing, and Paul does his best to redirect them to what really matters. In Luke's Gospel, Jesus encourages us to ask, to seek, and to knock, but not indiscriminately. We might not want every door we encounter to open, though we might think we do and be greatly peeved when one of them remains stubbornly shut. Like Paul, Jesus directs our attention to what (or who) God does give and encourages us to trust that this is enough.
Hosea 1:2-10
Today and next week we have readings from the book of Hosea. This prophet was active during the latter half of the eighth century B.C. He witnessed the decline of the northern kingdom of Israel and its ultimate destruction by the Assyrian empire. All this he attributed to the nation's unfaithfulness. The two metaphors -- introduced already in today's reading -- that are used repeatedly for Israel throughout this book are "the adulterous spouse" and "the rebellious child."
In ancient Israel, prophets often delivered their messages through symbolic actions as much as through words. Jeremiah wore a yoke around his neck (Jeremiah 27:1-3) and Isaiah went about naked for three years (Isaiah 20:3). It is in this vein that Hosea performs his most memorable and shocking action: he marries a harlot. The action is done for its symbolic value alone. There is no hint of remorse or desire to reform on Gomer's part -
- despite the attempts of some Sunday school guides to turn this narrative into an ancient version of Pretty Woman. Hosea does not fall in love with Gomer and marry her in spite of her checkered past. For one thing, it's not just her past, but her present. Gomer is a harlot and remains a harlot even after Hosea marries her. Furthermore, he doesn't marry her in spite of her status but because of it. And he's not in love with her. He's trying to make a point to Israel through this symbolic action. That's what prophets did.
Think of the scandal! Hosea was "a man of God," married to a whore. Normally, a good law-abiding Israelite would be expected to dismiss (= divorce) his wife if she were unfaithful to him even once. How could he, a man of God, take such a woman knowingly as his wife? How could he stay married to her, knowing what she was? The entire nation must have been appalled. But highlighting scandal was precisely what Hosea wanted to do. For, he claimed, the covenant relationship between God and Israel had become just as scandalous, just as appalling as his marriage to Gomer.
There are admittedly problems with reading this story today. Pity for the plight of prostitutes (which appears, historically, to have begun with Jesus) and awareness of the solidly patriarchal cast of the book are likely to arouse sympathy for Gomer in a way that the prophet did not anticipate. There are valid points to be found in such resistant readings, but they miss the text's intention, which has nothing to do with prostitution or marriage or male-female relationships per se. Rather, the prophet wants the audience for his parable to realize the shocking inappropriateness of being God's people in name only.
The theme continues with the naming of three offspring. Message-names are common in Isaiah also (see Isaiah 7:14; 8:3; 62:4). The first child is named Jezreel to recall the place where God used Jehu to put a violent end to former evil in Israel (2 Kings 9-10). The second child is called Lo-ruhammah, which means "She has found no pity," and the third child is called Lo-ammi, which means "Not my people." Again, we should not worry over the troubles these kids might have found being saddled with such monikers. The symbolic act continues: these children symbolize what a faithless relationship with God produces: bloodshed, condemnation, loss of identity.
The final verse, at last, offers a little hope. In this image, the most undeserving and faithless spouse remains a spouse nonetheless. The rebellious and possibly illegitimate children remain children nonetheless. The relationship between God and Israel is scandalous, but still it continues.
Colossians 2:6-15 (16-19)
The passage begins and ends with an appeal to trust in Christ as the all-sufficient Lord of the Universe. Opposed to such trust is what Paul (or the one who writes in his name) calls "human traditions" or "philosophies" regarding "elemental spirits of the universe" (v. 8). Just what these were is not absolutely clear, but the cosmopolitan setting of Colossae would have afforded many options: astrology, magic, mystery religions, and varieties of Greco-Roman paganism. Paul's warning is generic, a blanket condemnation of anything other than Jesus Christ that claims to control our lives.
It is curious now to note how German scholarship regarded texts like this around the middle of the twentieth century. Biblical warnings against the occult were considered quaint and just a tad embarrassing, since in the modern age no one takes such superstitions seriously anymore. But now, in America at the end of the twentieth century, the text seems like it could have been written just for us. Astrology and magic are alive and well, supplemented by fascination with pyramids, crystals, and practically anything that seems exotic. The "elemental spirits of the universe" are a lot sexier than "religion as usual."
But Paul does not pit traditional religion against New Age spiritualism. He pits Jesus Christ against both. Look at verse 16. He groups sabbath observance, food laws, and participation in religious festivals with the occult practices "disarmed" by Christ (v. 15). Now he is hitting closer to home. Whether the Colossians were of Jewish or pagan background, they need to realize the power and meaning of their baptism. It trivializes everything else.
In our churches today, we have Christians who are tantalized by exotic spirituality, who are constantly looking for something new to fill out whatever appears to be lacking in their current religious experience: Maybe if I try fasting, maybe if I speak in tongues, maybe if I supplement Christianity with scientology ... maybe I can satisfy this longing. In most of our churches, we also have Christians who are tied to tradition, who think the way to preserve or recover spiritual sustenance is to keep things as they are -- or restore them to what they were. Any innovation, from new communion practices to inclusive language, may seem like a threat to their spiritual heritage. Sometimes, I think, these people remember a time when religion meant more to them than it does now and they sincerely believe that if religion could just be the way it used to be, it would still mean just as much as it did.
Paul sees through all the psychological trappings of our dissatisfaction and declares, "All these things (traditions and innovations) are but a shadow ... the substance belongs to Christ" (v. 17).
Luke 11:1-13
It is only in Luke's Gospel that Jesus' disciples ask him to teach them to pray (v. 1). He does so not only by giving them the model prayer presented here (vv. 2-4) but also by his own example and by instructions and exhortations throughout the book. Luke's Gospel portrays Jesus at prayer far more than any of the others: nine times as compared to five in Mark, three in Matthew, and two in John. Jesus offers three parables on prayer, one of which is in today's text (the others are in 18:1-8 and 18:9-14). He is frequently represented as encouraging his disciples to pray (18:1; 21:36; 22:40).
The version of the Lord's Prayer found here is shorter than the more familiar version in Matthew 6:9-13. It lacks the lines "Thy will be done" and "Deliver us from evil." Both biblical versions lack the doxology ("For thine is the kingdom ..."), which was added by the early church for liturgical purposes. Even in its abbreviated form, however, the passage reveals the sorts of things for which we should pray: the glory of God, the triumph of God's rule, and that we may be sustained, forgiven, and protected by God. This is completely compatible with the final verse of the text, which assumes the purpose of prayer is to receive the Holy Spirit. Luke does not here envision a one-time gift of the Spirit (such as our Pentecostal friends may want us all to receive), but believes the constant goal of prayer is not to receive things from God but to receive God's own self. Or, to put it differently, the Holy Spirit is God's one answer to all of our prayers. Whatever we ask for, whatever we seek, whatever door we want opened ... God gives us the Spirit and that is sufficient. We see here a connection between the role Luke attributes to the Spirit and that which Paul attributes to Christ in the second lesson. Both are "the substance" of which our apparent interests and desires are mere shadows. Both are gifts of God in a literal sense -- not just gifts from God but gifts of God. God is both Giver and Gift.
The parable in 11:5-8 needs to be read in light of all that surrounds it. It is not a blanket promise for answered prayer or a strategy for how to manipulate God into doing what we want. I like to think the tale has an origin in Jesus' own memories of rural peasant life. Imagine him as a child in Nazareth. After dark, his father Joseph gathers the entire family -- Mary, Jesus, James, Joses, Jude, Simon, the daughters, and probably the more valuable of their animals -- into the one-room home (it measured, perhaps, twelve feet square). The only opening was closed and bolted and, of course, there was no light. Somehow, everyone went to sleep, piled on top of each other. Now, suddenly, someone comes knocking at the door: a neighbor who wants Joseph to get up, open the door, light a lamp, wake up all the children, and find him some bread that he can offer a guest who has come to visit. Now the Bible says Joseph was a righteous man (Matthew 1:19), but it's probably safe to say he wasn't favorably disposed to this sort of thing. Still, Jesus remembers, he got up, grumbling, and he helped out this rude pest.
Let's say that happened. Years later, Jesus could recall such a story and tell it for the amusement of an audience who had neighbors like that themselves. So what was the point? Jesus, I think, is gently mocking our perceptions of God. "Is that the way God thinks of us?" he implores his audience to consider. No. God loves to give to us. But, well, maybe sometimes we do come with stupid requests. God takes care of us either way.
The strategy -- if we must call it that -- for spiritual fulfillment is to ask for what God wants to give, to seek the substance, to knock on the doors that lead to life. God loves to give, but God wants to be the Gift as well as the Giver.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Hosea 1:2-10
We are a whoring nation, are we not? And our harlotry is not only spiritual, so that we worship all sorts of deities besides the Lord. Our harlotry is also physical. Ours is a sex-saturated culture. Our magazines, our advertisements, the newspapers in our supermarkets all concentrate on sex and sexual attraction. Every romantic encounter on television automatically leads to bed. Pre-marital and extra-marital affairs are taken for granted. Our schools hand out condoms; our college students live on campuses rife with promiscuity. And often the center of our attention are those Hollywood and television "stars" who live together or have children together without a thought of getting married. We are absorbed with sex, even in our churches, and most of it is harlotrous and adulterous.
The result is that we are not too shocked when the Lord commands the prophet Hosea to "Go, take to yourself a wife of harlotry and have children of harlotry, for the land commits great harlotry by forsaking the Lord" (v. 2). But in our sex-saturated situation, perhaps we need to listen carefully to this story about the call of the prophet Hosea that comes to us from the eighth century B.C. northern kingdom of Israel.
Hosea is commanded by God to marry a "woman of harlotry." What does that mean? In Hosea's time, when Israel was shot through with the worship of the fertility gods or baals of Canaan, it means that the prophet was commanded by God to take as his wife a woman who had served, either once or frequently, as a so-called sacred prostitute at the worship site of Baal.
In baalistic religion, it was believed that various baal-gods "impregnated" the land, the mother goddess, with rain, causing it to bring forth produce. Similarly, the baal gods were understood to be the source of fertility in human beings. So by enacting the "marriage" of baal by means of sexual intercourse with male and female prostitutes at the cult site, worshipers thought to coerce the baal, by sympathetic magic, to bring forth fertility in both human beings and the land. In short, baal was believed to be the source of life, and worshiping him assured his devotees that they would have the good life.
The view is not too different from our modern belief that sex is the most important thing in our lives. If you don't have sex, our young people have been taught, you can't be a whole person. And if sex life in a marriage isn't good, well then you should abandon the marriage. A lot of people look to sexual intercourse for the source of the good life. But of course the real source of the good life -- of abundant life -- is God, isn't he? And that is the message that Hosea, by his sacrifice, is commanded to convey to his people.
Hosea suffers under the prophetic role given to him, as all the prophets suffer. After he marries the harlot Gomer, he watches the three children that she bears to him playing in the courtyard. But only one of the children is said to be his. And the Lord commands him to give the children awful names: "Jezreel" (v. 4), the name of the place where the earlier king Jehu had fostered the worship of baal (2 Kings 10:29-31); "Not pitied" (v. 6), the sign that the Lord would no longer have any pity or mercy on his apostate people, but instead would send them into exile; and finally, "Not my people" (v. 9), the most ominous name of all. When God made a covenant with Israel at Mount Sinai, he had told them, "I will be your God and you will be my people" (Exodus 6:7; Leviticus 26:12, et al.). Now God declares to Israel that they have destroyed his covenant bond with them, and they no longer belong to him. The covenant is abandoned, and God will no longer be with Israel as their God, for he now divorces them as his people.
Hosea's marriage and the naming of his children are prophetic "signs" to whoring Israel. Not only do they announce information, but they also begin God's action of judgment upon his whoring nation, a judgment which finally ends in the Assyrian exile of Israel in 721 B.C. and her disappearance from history. When God divorces his whoring wife Israel, she is as good as dead.
Should we not wonder, then, what God's future is for our whoring society, for a people that no longer knows faithfulness to God's commands about sex and marriage and who therefore no longer are faithful to our Lord? Running after the temptations, the thrills, the daring of unbridled sexuality, have we run away from our God? And therefore will God say to us, "You are not my people?" Have we lost his care for us, his pity and mercy, his forgiveness, and his abundant life? Indeed, have we lost the resurrection and its eternal life beyond the grave?
The editors who assembled the oracles of Hosea made a pattern of alternating Hosea's judgment oracles with passages concerning salvation. The lectionary therefore has attached verse 10 to our reading. But verses 10-11 are separate pronouncements, given much later in Hosea's ministry, and indeed, never fulfilled during Hosea's lifetime. The eighth century kingdom of Israel goes into exile, and it dies. If the preacher uses verse 10, he or she should be aware of those facts of history. It is not until the birth of Jesus Christ that God's promises of salvation in Hosea's book are realized (cf. Matthew 2:15).
Lutheran Option, Genesis 18:20-32
This passage follows immediately on last Sunday's text, in which the three men appeared at the door of Abraham's tent in Mamre, and one of them, the Lord, promised the aged Abraham and Sarah a son. Now the question of the sin of Sodom is taken up in a marvelous conversation between the Lord and Abraham.
Abraham is not particularly interested in saving Sodom, that legendary symbol of sin which was located at the southern tip of the Dead Sea. (The site is now under water.) Nor does Abraham show any concern for his nephew Lot, who dwells in Sodom. Rather, the patriarch engages in a theological conversation with his God.
Abraham, like so many of us, is interested in the justice of God. God has revealed to Abraham that he is going to destroy Sodom (cf. vv. 17-19). But Abraham wants to know if righteousness counts more with God than does unrighteousness. If God finds fifty righteous in Sodom, will he spare the whole city on their account? Surely, the Judge of all the earth would not destroy them (v. 25)! Abraham has his own conception of what God should be like, and God patiently puts up with Abraham's questioning -- perhaps with a smile on the divine face.
Abraham does have some awareness of his own boldness. "Behold, I have taken upon myself to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes," he says (v. 27). Such humility is fitting for a conversation with God. But that does not deter Abraham's boldness. If God finds 45, or forty, or thirty, or twenty, or just ten righteous persons in Sodom, will God spare the city for their sake? How much does righteousness weigh on the scales of God's justice?
But it is not justice that the Lord talks about in this passage. It is mercy. And for the sake of ten righteous persons in Sodom -- or for the sake of one righteous man named Jesus Christ -- God will not come to destroy us. Christ's righteousness on the cross and his victory at the resurrection atone for all our sins, and God counts us justified through faith in our Lord. An incredibly merciful, patient, loving God wills for us life instead of death.
If we should want a just measurement in the scales of God of all that we have done, not one of us would deserve life, because each one of us has sinned. And "the wages of sin is death, but the free gift" -- totally undeserved, totally a gift of grace -- "is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans 6:23).
Hosea 1:2-10
Today and next week we have readings from the book of Hosea. This prophet was active during the latter half of the eighth century B.C. He witnessed the decline of the northern kingdom of Israel and its ultimate destruction by the Assyrian empire. All this he attributed to the nation's unfaithfulness. The two metaphors -- introduced already in today's reading -- that are used repeatedly for Israel throughout this book are "the adulterous spouse" and "the rebellious child."
In ancient Israel, prophets often delivered their messages through symbolic actions as much as through words. Jeremiah wore a yoke around his neck (Jeremiah 27:1-3) and Isaiah went about naked for three years (Isaiah 20:3). It is in this vein that Hosea performs his most memorable and shocking action: he marries a harlot. The action is done for its symbolic value alone. There is no hint of remorse or desire to reform on Gomer's part -
- despite the attempts of some Sunday school guides to turn this narrative into an ancient version of Pretty Woman. Hosea does not fall in love with Gomer and marry her in spite of her checkered past. For one thing, it's not just her past, but her present. Gomer is a harlot and remains a harlot even after Hosea marries her. Furthermore, he doesn't marry her in spite of her status but because of it. And he's not in love with her. He's trying to make a point to Israel through this symbolic action. That's what prophets did.
Think of the scandal! Hosea was "a man of God," married to a whore. Normally, a good law-abiding Israelite would be expected to dismiss (= divorce) his wife if she were unfaithful to him even once. How could he, a man of God, take such a woman knowingly as his wife? How could he stay married to her, knowing what she was? The entire nation must have been appalled. But highlighting scandal was precisely what Hosea wanted to do. For, he claimed, the covenant relationship between God and Israel had become just as scandalous, just as appalling as his marriage to Gomer.
There are admittedly problems with reading this story today. Pity for the plight of prostitutes (which appears, historically, to have begun with Jesus) and awareness of the solidly patriarchal cast of the book are likely to arouse sympathy for Gomer in a way that the prophet did not anticipate. There are valid points to be found in such resistant readings, but they miss the text's intention, which has nothing to do with prostitution or marriage or male-female relationships per se. Rather, the prophet wants the audience for his parable to realize the shocking inappropriateness of being God's people in name only.
The theme continues with the naming of three offspring. Message-names are common in Isaiah also (see Isaiah 7:14; 8:3; 62:4). The first child is named Jezreel to recall the place where God used Jehu to put a violent end to former evil in Israel (2 Kings 9-10). The second child is called Lo-ruhammah, which means "She has found no pity," and the third child is called Lo-ammi, which means "Not my people." Again, we should not worry over the troubles these kids might have found being saddled with such monikers. The symbolic act continues: these children symbolize what a faithless relationship with God produces: bloodshed, condemnation, loss of identity.
The final verse, at last, offers a little hope. In this image, the most undeserving and faithless spouse remains a spouse nonetheless. The rebellious and possibly illegitimate children remain children nonetheless. The relationship between God and Israel is scandalous, but still it continues.
Colossians 2:6-15 (16-19)
The passage begins and ends with an appeal to trust in Christ as the all-sufficient Lord of the Universe. Opposed to such trust is what Paul (or the one who writes in his name) calls "human traditions" or "philosophies" regarding "elemental spirits of the universe" (v. 8). Just what these were is not absolutely clear, but the cosmopolitan setting of Colossae would have afforded many options: astrology, magic, mystery religions, and varieties of Greco-Roman paganism. Paul's warning is generic, a blanket condemnation of anything other than Jesus Christ that claims to control our lives.
It is curious now to note how German scholarship regarded texts like this around the middle of the twentieth century. Biblical warnings against the occult were considered quaint and just a tad embarrassing, since in the modern age no one takes such superstitions seriously anymore. But now, in America at the end of the twentieth century, the text seems like it could have been written just for us. Astrology and magic are alive and well, supplemented by fascination with pyramids, crystals, and practically anything that seems exotic. The "elemental spirits of the universe" are a lot sexier than "religion as usual."
But Paul does not pit traditional religion against New Age spiritualism. He pits Jesus Christ against both. Look at verse 16. He groups sabbath observance, food laws, and participation in religious festivals with the occult practices "disarmed" by Christ (v. 15). Now he is hitting closer to home. Whether the Colossians were of Jewish or pagan background, they need to realize the power and meaning of their baptism. It trivializes everything else.
In our churches today, we have Christians who are tantalized by exotic spirituality, who are constantly looking for something new to fill out whatever appears to be lacking in their current religious experience: Maybe if I try fasting, maybe if I speak in tongues, maybe if I supplement Christianity with scientology ... maybe I can satisfy this longing. In most of our churches, we also have Christians who are tied to tradition, who think the way to preserve or recover spiritual sustenance is to keep things as they are -- or restore them to what they were. Any innovation, from new communion practices to inclusive language, may seem like a threat to their spiritual heritage. Sometimes, I think, these people remember a time when religion meant more to them than it does now and they sincerely believe that if religion could just be the way it used to be, it would still mean just as much as it did.
Paul sees through all the psychological trappings of our dissatisfaction and declares, "All these things (traditions and innovations) are but a shadow ... the substance belongs to Christ" (v. 17).
Luke 11:1-13
It is only in Luke's Gospel that Jesus' disciples ask him to teach them to pray (v. 1). He does so not only by giving them the model prayer presented here (vv. 2-4) but also by his own example and by instructions and exhortations throughout the book. Luke's Gospel portrays Jesus at prayer far more than any of the others: nine times as compared to five in Mark, three in Matthew, and two in John. Jesus offers three parables on prayer, one of which is in today's text (the others are in 18:1-8 and 18:9-14). He is frequently represented as encouraging his disciples to pray (18:1; 21:36; 22:40).
The version of the Lord's Prayer found here is shorter than the more familiar version in Matthew 6:9-13. It lacks the lines "Thy will be done" and "Deliver us from evil." Both biblical versions lack the doxology ("For thine is the kingdom ..."), which was added by the early church for liturgical purposes. Even in its abbreviated form, however, the passage reveals the sorts of things for which we should pray: the glory of God, the triumph of God's rule, and that we may be sustained, forgiven, and protected by God. This is completely compatible with the final verse of the text, which assumes the purpose of prayer is to receive the Holy Spirit. Luke does not here envision a one-time gift of the Spirit (such as our Pentecostal friends may want us all to receive), but believes the constant goal of prayer is not to receive things from God but to receive God's own self. Or, to put it differently, the Holy Spirit is God's one answer to all of our prayers. Whatever we ask for, whatever we seek, whatever door we want opened ... God gives us the Spirit and that is sufficient. We see here a connection between the role Luke attributes to the Spirit and that which Paul attributes to Christ in the second lesson. Both are "the substance" of which our apparent interests and desires are mere shadows. Both are gifts of God in a literal sense -- not just gifts from God but gifts of God. God is both Giver and Gift.
The parable in 11:5-8 needs to be read in light of all that surrounds it. It is not a blanket promise for answered prayer or a strategy for how to manipulate God into doing what we want. I like to think the tale has an origin in Jesus' own memories of rural peasant life. Imagine him as a child in Nazareth. After dark, his father Joseph gathers the entire family -- Mary, Jesus, James, Joses, Jude, Simon, the daughters, and probably the more valuable of their animals -- into the one-room home (it measured, perhaps, twelve feet square). The only opening was closed and bolted and, of course, there was no light. Somehow, everyone went to sleep, piled on top of each other. Now, suddenly, someone comes knocking at the door: a neighbor who wants Joseph to get up, open the door, light a lamp, wake up all the children, and find him some bread that he can offer a guest who has come to visit. Now the Bible says Joseph was a righteous man (Matthew 1:19), but it's probably safe to say he wasn't favorably disposed to this sort of thing. Still, Jesus remembers, he got up, grumbling, and he helped out this rude pest.
Let's say that happened. Years later, Jesus could recall such a story and tell it for the amusement of an audience who had neighbors like that themselves. So what was the point? Jesus, I think, is gently mocking our perceptions of God. "Is that the way God thinks of us?" he implores his audience to consider. No. God loves to give to us. But, well, maybe sometimes we do come with stupid requests. God takes care of us either way.
The strategy -- if we must call it that -- for spiritual fulfillment is to ask for what God wants to give, to seek the substance, to knock on the doors that lead to life. God loves to give, but God wants to be the Gift as well as the Giver.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Hosea 1:2-10
We are a whoring nation, are we not? And our harlotry is not only spiritual, so that we worship all sorts of deities besides the Lord. Our harlotry is also physical. Ours is a sex-saturated culture. Our magazines, our advertisements, the newspapers in our supermarkets all concentrate on sex and sexual attraction. Every romantic encounter on television automatically leads to bed. Pre-marital and extra-marital affairs are taken for granted. Our schools hand out condoms; our college students live on campuses rife with promiscuity. And often the center of our attention are those Hollywood and television "stars" who live together or have children together without a thought of getting married. We are absorbed with sex, even in our churches, and most of it is harlotrous and adulterous.
The result is that we are not too shocked when the Lord commands the prophet Hosea to "Go, take to yourself a wife of harlotry and have children of harlotry, for the land commits great harlotry by forsaking the Lord" (v. 2). But in our sex-saturated situation, perhaps we need to listen carefully to this story about the call of the prophet Hosea that comes to us from the eighth century B.C. northern kingdom of Israel.
Hosea is commanded by God to marry a "woman of harlotry." What does that mean? In Hosea's time, when Israel was shot through with the worship of the fertility gods or baals of Canaan, it means that the prophet was commanded by God to take as his wife a woman who had served, either once or frequently, as a so-called sacred prostitute at the worship site of Baal.
In baalistic religion, it was believed that various baal-gods "impregnated" the land, the mother goddess, with rain, causing it to bring forth produce. Similarly, the baal gods were understood to be the source of fertility in human beings. So by enacting the "marriage" of baal by means of sexual intercourse with male and female prostitutes at the cult site, worshipers thought to coerce the baal, by sympathetic magic, to bring forth fertility in both human beings and the land. In short, baal was believed to be the source of life, and worshiping him assured his devotees that they would have the good life.
The view is not too different from our modern belief that sex is the most important thing in our lives. If you don't have sex, our young people have been taught, you can't be a whole person. And if sex life in a marriage isn't good, well then you should abandon the marriage. A lot of people look to sexual intercourse for the source of the good life. But of course the real source of the good life -- of abundant life -- is God, isn't he? And that is the message that Hosea, by his sacrifice, is commanded to convey to his people.
Hosea suffers under the prophetic role given to him, as all the prophets suffer. After he marries the harlot Gomer, he watches the three children that she bears to him playing in the courtyard. But only one of the children is said to be his. And the Lord commands him to give the children awful names: "Jezreel" (v. 4), the name of the place where the earlier king Jehu had fostered the worship of baal (2 Kings 10:29-31); "Not pitied" (v. 6), the sign that the Lord would no longer have any pity or mercy on his apostate people, but instead would send them into exile; and finally, "Not my people" (v. 9), the most ominous name of all. When God made a covenant with Israel at Mount Sinai, he had told them, "I will be your God and you will be my people" (Exodus 6:7; Leviticus 26:12, et al.). Now God declares to Israel that they have destroyed his covenant bond with them, and they no longer belong to him. The covenant is abandoned, and God will no longer be with Israel as their God, for he now divorces them as his people.
Hosea's marriage and the naming of his children are prophetic "signs" to whoring Israel. Not only do they announce information, but they also begin God's action of judgment upon his whoring nation, a judgment which finally ends in the Assyrian exile of Israel in 721 B.C. and her disappearance from history. When God divorces his whoring wife Israel, she is as good as dead.
Should we not wonder, then, what God's future is for our whoring society, for a people that no longer knows faithfulness to God's commands about sex and marriage and who therefore no longer are faithful to our Lord? Running after the temptations, the thrills, the daring of unbridled sexuality, have we run away from our God? And therefore will God say to us, "You are not my people?" Have we lost his care for us, his pity and mercy, his forgiveness, and his abundant life? Indeed, have we lost the resurrection and its eternal life beyond the grave?
The editors who assembled the oracles of Hosea made a pattern of alternating Hosea's judgment oracles with passages concerning salvation. The lectionary therefore has attached verse 10 to our reading. But verses 10-11 are separate pronouncements, given much later in Hosea's ministry, and indeed, never fulfilled during Hosea's lifetime. The eighth century kingdom of Israel goes into exile, and it dies. If the preacher uses verse 10, he or she should be aware of those facts of history. It is not until the birth of Jesus Christ that God's promises of salvation in Hosea's book are realized (cf. Matthew 2:15).
Lutheran Option, Genesis 18:20-32
This passage follows immediately on last Sunday's text, in which the three men appeared at the door of Abraham's tent in Mamre, and one of them, the Lord, promised the aged Abraham and Sarah a son. Now the question of the sin of Sodom is taken up in a marvelous conversation between the Lord and Abraham.
Abraham is not particularly interested in saving Sodom, that legendary symbol of sin which was located at the southern tip of the Dead Sea. (The site is now under water.) Nor does Abraham show any concern for his nephew Lot, who dwells in Sodom. Rather, the patriarch engages in a theological conversation with his God.
Abraham, like so many of us, is interested in the justice of God. God has revealed to Abraham that he is going to destroy Sodom (cf. vv. 17-19). But Abraham wants to know if righteousness counts more with God than does unrighteousness. If God finds fifty righteous in Sodom, will he spare the whole city on their account? Surely, the Judge of all the earth would not destroy them (v. 25)! Abraham has his own conception of what God should be like, and God patiently puts up with Abraham's questioning -- perhaps with a smile on the divine face.
Abraham does have some awareness of his own boldness. "Behold, I have taken upon myself to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes," he says (v. 27). Such humility is fitting for a conversation with God. But that does not deter Abraham's boldness. If God finds 45, or forty, or thirty, or twenty, or just ten righteous persons in Sodom, will God spare the city for their sake? How much does righteousness weigh on the scales of God's justice?
But it is not justice that the Lord talks about in this passage. It is mercy. And for the sake of ten righteous persons in Sodom -- or for the sake of one righteous man named Jesus Christ -- God will not come to destroy us. Christ's righteousness on the cross and his victory at the resurrection atone for all our sins, and God counts us justified through faith in our Lord. An incredibly merciful, patient, loving God wills for us life instead of death.
If we should want a just measurement in the scales of God of all that we have done, not one of us would deserve life, because each one of us has sinned. And "the wages of sin is death, but the free gift" -- totally undeserved, totally a gift of grace -- "is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans 6:23).