Br. James Koester

Hosea 11:1-11

I must confess to being caught off guard early last week when I looked at the lessons appointed for today. Much can be and has been said (including, I noted, by me!) about the readings from Colossians and Luke. What caught me off guard was that I was immediately drawn, not to either of the New Testament lessons, but by the lesson from Hosea. It’s not something I would normally be drawn to, after all, Hosea is sometimes referred to as the prophet of doom. Jokes aside, doom and gloom are not my natural tendencies. I usually try to see the best in people and situations, and not the worst.

Hosea, on the other hand, who lived and wrote about 800 years before the life of Jesus was constantly predicting doom for the people of Israel. And he had reason to do so. For decades the political, social, cultural and religious life of Israel had been in decline. Its kings were corrupt. Its inhabitants were immoral. Its priests had turned away from the worship of God. In all the land there [was] no faithfulness or loyalty and no knowledge of God….[1] It was no wonder then, prophesied Hosea, that the thief breaks in and the bandits raid outside.[2] It all came to a bitter, crushing end in 722 BC when the Kingdom of Isreal was defeated and occupied by the Assyrians setting in motion the Assyrian occupation when tens of thousands were forcibly removed from their homeland and resettled throughout the Assyrian Empire.

This is the context of our lesson from Hosea, and while the Assyrian conquest of Isreal has not yet happened, it will do so within a few years of Hosea’s prophecy, and he is saying that the defeat and occupation will be God’s judgement and punishment for their faithlessness and disloyalty.

But listen to what else Hosea says, and this is what caught me off guard:

When Isreal 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… My people are bent on turning away from me…How can I give you up…? How can I hand you over…? I will not execute my fierce anger…for I am God and no mortal…I will not come in wrath…They shall go after the Lord…and I will return them to their homes.[3]

What caught me off guard was God’s abiding compassion for his covenant people, despite their past behaviour. I will not come in wrath says the God whose name is love, for God is love.[4] It is this divine love for God’s people which is eternal, unchangeable, and ever present that caught me off guard. Inspired by the teaching of Father Benson, we say something like this in our Rule of Life.

Father Benson has taught us that the call of God … is continuous, abiding and progressive.  Continuous, because in the communion we enjoy with God … the voice of the Spirit never ceases to call us into deeper union.  Abiding, because the wisdom of God, communicated to us …, is absorbed into our hearts never to perish.  Progressive, because God’s voice will come to us in the future ever new, calling us to fresh opportunities, and bringing gifts beyond what we know now.[5]

The struggle of course is to be faithful to our vocation to listen. As St. Benedict, says, [listen] my [child], to the teachings of a loving father, and incline the ear of your heart.[6] But this is no easy task, and Father Benson knows it. God never ceases to speak,[7] Father Benson tells us, and yet as God speaks, He requires us to listen. The voice [of God] is of no value to those who are deaf. And God speaks, to how many, alas, who never hear Him!… We must take care, then, to really listen attentively, listen devoutly, listen obediently, listen gratefully[8].

The problem for Hosea, and I believe for us, and certainly for Father Benson, is that many have stopped listening. The paradox is that while we may have stopped listening, God has not stopped speaking. God has not stopped loving. As Hosea reminded them, no matter what, the people of Isreal were (and I should add are still) God’s covenant people. [You] shall be my people, and I will be your God.[9] The same is true for us. Even when we stop listening, even when we are deaf to God’s voice, even when we find God’s voice calling us to things impossible to contemplate, we remain God’s people, grafted into the one vine through the waters of Baptism, and the call and covenant of God is continuous, abiding and progressive; eternal, unchanging, and ever present.

We live in a transactional world. That is truer today than perhaps ever before. The current occupant of the White House has, for good or ill, been described as a transactional president, whose mode of operation is if you do this, I will do that. But God’s covenant love is not transactional. It is transformational. God desires to transform us. You shall be holy, for I am holy.[10]

It is this transformational love of God which Hosea points us to, which Jesus proclaims from the cross, for God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him,[11] and which Father Benson teaches when he says, [self] melts away and the new life [of God] takes possession of it. It lives, yet no longer is itself, for it is taken quite into this divine life and joy.[12]

I was caught off guard earlier in the week, because I was not expecting Hosea to remind me how deeply God loves us and desires us to be transformed: And we all, with unveiled faces, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.[13] Yet here we are, even when deaf to God’s word, God is not deaf to the cry of the covenant people of God.

What I wasn’t expecting last week, was for Hosea to remind me of that so profoundly.

[1] Hosea 4:1c

[2] Hosea 7:1b

[3] Hosea 11:1111

[4] 1 John 4:8

[5] SSJE, Rule of Life, Life Profession, chapter 39

[6] Rule of Benedict, Prologue

[7] Benson, Richard Meux, The Religious Vocation, Of the Call of God, page 69.

[8] Ibid, page 71

[9] Ezekiel 36:28

[10] 1 Peter 1:16

[11] John 3:16-17

[12] Benson, page 79

[13] 2 Corinthians 3:18