Introduction
The reading we have just heard from the book of Hosea is a surprising and strong one. For those not familiar with this prophet, the words are rather shocking - not the thing you expect to hear in church on a Sunday evening. So who was this man and why was he so sure about God's anger against the people of Israel? In order to answer these questions, and to work out the meaning of this passage for us today, we need to learn a little bit about Hosea's life and times.
Hosea's Times
Under the great king David, the Kingdom of Israel became large and strong - a force to be reckoned with. His son, Solomon expanded the boundaries of the Kingdom but things went down hill after his death. His two sons split the country into a Northern and a Southern kingdom. The Northern Kingdom was called Israel whilst the Southern one was called Judah. The two parallel kingdoms continued up until the time of Hosea, in the 8th Century before Jesus.
The two kingdoms were not equal, however. Generally, Judah was more stable, but Israel, the Northern Kingdom, was unstable. In Hosea's time Israel was driven apart by a series of coup d'etats. Six kings followed each other in quick succession - the new king usually having assassinated the previous one.
The world in the time of Hosea was dangerous and unstable. The great power in the region was the Assyrian Empire that had designs on Israel. The kings in the North want the Southern Kingdom, Judah, to join in an anti-Assyrian alliance, but King Ahaz in Judah, declined and asked the Assyrians for help. The Assyrians then annexed part of the Northern Kingdom and carted off the leaders into exile.
Hosea foretold the destruction of the Northern Kingdom of Israel - seeing it as proof of God's anger with the people for their unfaithfulness. Hosea condemned two aspects of Israel's life - first the political follies of the continual coups and, secondly, the religion of Israel. Hosea felt that this had been corrupted by pagan practices. Hosea condemned the reliance of Israel on its supposed military might and the empty pomp of its religion.
Hosea's Life
Hosea was more than a passive observer of all these politics and dangers, however. He felt that Israel had been unfaithful to God and his life mirrored this. Hosea is famous for his own personal life. He felt God commanded him to marry a prostitute who was not willing to change her profession and be faithful to him. Gomer, his wife, was unfaithful to him - although they had three children. After a period of separation Hosea managed to woo Gomer back, though the marriage was not re-consummated until some time later. His marriage was a powerful symbol of God's relationship to Israel - which is also unfaithful to God and goes after other gods - prostituting itself, being wooed back and being unfaithful again.
Some feminist scholars have been very critical of the hard language of the book and the frequent references to "whoring" seeing this as being very anti-women. Undoubtedly, Hosea's views were coloured by being married to a prostitute. The "whoring" is also a powerful symbol - designed to be meaningful to the male leaders of society then - of what Israel was doing to its true lord and husband - God.
So What's Hosea On About then?
Hosea is very concerned that the people of Israel are being unfaithful to their true God. The people of Israel had forgotten the claims of God - who claimed to be their Lord and husband. Instead, they had taken to seeing God as just another god in the pagan system. They borrowed some worship customs from these other religions, and often worshipped other gods. Hosea saw this as being unfaithful to God - as whoring around.
In the passage we heard this afternoon we hear Hosea give God's indictment of both priest and people. Hosea says God is angry with the people for their lack of knowledge about God, with the priests for not teaching the people properly and with how the people and the priests have corrupted true religion with pagan practices.
The knowledge of God that Hosea says the people have forgotten the basic knowledge of God's law and morality - and more than knowing them, keeping them. In particular Hosea seems to have in mind the ten commandments as he condemns theft, murder and adultery - all condemned in the ten commandments - and goes on to condemn swearing and lying.
Hosea refers, rather confusingly to our ears, to blocks of wood and a rod. Here he is using abusive descriptions of a wooden idol used in pagan divination. In order to tell the future these items were used. He also condemns the sacred prostitutes who worked in pagan temples. Pagan worship at this time involved sex with a temple prostitute in order to ensure a good harvest.
So What Can We Learn from Hosea?
At first glance all this does not seem to be very relevant to us living so many years later. Besides, the passage is rather strong, even embarrassing - what can we learn from it?
I think there are, however, three similarities between Hosea's situation and ours. In three ways the passage can speak to us.
First, we live, like Hosea, in a society where people have no knowledge of God. Second, like Hosea, the Church is to blame for this lack of knowledge and third, we are tempted to worship other gods like the people in Hosea's time.
Knowledge of God
For Hosea the fact that the people of Israel did not seem to know God - and certainly were not obeying God's commandments filled him with a sense of deep shame and anger. 70% of the nation declared in the 2001 census that they were Christian - yet most of them do not know what it is to be a Christian and don't attend Church. People think they know what Christianity is about - and they don't like it. The fact we often dress in 3rd Century robes, worship in 12th Century buildings, speaking 16th Century English and using 19th Century music does not convey the fact that Jesus is alive today! People want to be spiritual without really knowing God.
The problem with knowing God is that it means we have to change our lives. Knowing God means our priorities change, we start to think differently, we view people differently, we live our lives in a different way and we spend our money differently. Like the people in Hosea's time our people do not have a knowledge of God.
Hosea saw the consequence of this lack of knowledge as being disaster for the country. Our world is full of disasters that could be avoided if we knew God and obeyed the commandments. The pain our lives would be lessened if we did not get ourselves into so many messes that come from making wrong choices. Choices we would have made differently if our knowledge of God was better.
The Church is to Blame!
Hosea squarely, and brutally, blamed the priests and the prophets for not doing their job properly in educating the people. The people were wrong to be unfaithful to God, but the blame for their behaviour lay, so Hosea believed, with the clergy who should have been teaching and leading them.
In our age I believe the same to be the case. In the 19th Century the world was busy reading the works of Charles Darwin and doubting, the traditional way their faith had been explained. They had been told to believe in a literal Garden of Eden where the world, and all that was within it were created in seven days, and now this scientist was talking about evolution and a process of creation lasting millions of years. And what were the most brilliant minds of the church doing? Well the Catholics were busy condemning such nasty things as democracy and human rights and the Anglicans were busy either trying to look like Roman Catholics in their worship or trying to date the Book of Daniel! It is amazing that when the traditional foundations of the faith were being rocked, the minds of the Church were concerned with trivia instead of showing how these new insights could enrich our faith.
Since the 1960s the world has been involved in a revolution over sexuality. For the first time women were given the power to control their own fertility. For the first time vibrant lesbian and gay sub-cultures visibly emerged in the major cities. Changing expectations of the role of women and men meant that the relationships between the sexes were forever changed and the divorce rate grew as people had trouble adapting to the new realities. What does the Church do? Well one section of it gets busy condemning everything in this brave new world - and so is seen to have nothing to say about sex and gender. Instead of engaging with the new realities of life and giving a particular Christian input, the Church condemned all the progress out of hand - and so is ignored. I grew up as a Catholic in the 70s. After the Vatican Council in the 1960s Catholics all over the West expected the Pope to allow Birth Control - after all a commission he had set up to advise him recommended this. However, Pope Paul ran scared and caused a huge crisis be re-affirming the traditional ban. So now, instead of listening to what the Church might have to offer in insights about sex and sexuality, the Church is ignored. In the Church I grew up in every family seemed to have just two children - clearly the parents of my co-religionists were not listening to the Holy Father anymore.
Nowadays we have a generation of people who are not post-Christian - but pre-Christian. It is not that they have rejected the Gospel - they have never heard of it. They are like the people in the Roman world when the Church was born - very spiritual, very interested in religious things but put off by the institutional faiths on offer. They look at the church and see division. Teresa May caused controversy a few months ago when she said at the Tory conference that people saw them as the "nasty party". Now not wanting to comment on the accuracy of her perception - what image does the word "Christian" conjure up in most people's minds? - Intolerant, boring people that will say "no" to everything and condemn everything.
The Church is also to blame for the lack of knowledge our culture has about God because instead of trying to understand and engage with our culture many of the high profile leaders of the church have turned to what, in a different age, would be called heresy. The former leader of the Anglican Church in Scotland, Richard Holloway was feted by lesbian and gay people because he was nice about us, but the books he has published since he left office shows that he does not believe in God in anyway which makes sense in a traditional understanding of Christianity. Before Lent started, I spent a few days at a retreat centre. Whilst there I read the latest book by Bishop John Spong. Spong is a retired bishop of the Anglican Church in America who has also been feted by lesbian and gay Christians - he has even preached at our cathedral in Dallas. However, the God Spong seems to believe in does not have much in common with the God we see in Scripture and affirm in our Statements of Faith. Jesus is stripped of any notion of divinity and is seen as a noble teacher. With friends like these who needs enemies.
How will our people see the power of God and the life-changing encounter with Jesus that we know about, when they see the Church as being boring, irrelevant or denying the truths of our faith? I believe our people deserve better - and that we can provide it.
Worshipping Other Gods
The public in Hosea's day saw the moral bankruptcy of the official religion and went off to the far more interesting services provided by the local Temple. The public in day see the Church as being boring, irrelevant and unsure of its faith and so they go and shop elsewhere. They may not go and worship Ba'al as they did in Hosea's time, but instead our people dabble with alternative religions and the smorgasbord of the New Age movement. Light a candle, meditate a bit - but not for too long as that might be demanding - listen to whales singing, have a colonic irrigation or take up Yoga. All this is done in order to try and meet the spiritual yearning that is within us - St Augustine said that our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God. Yet none of this is true religion, none of this can change or transform our lives. The horoscopes will not free us from our addictions like Jesus can.
My Life is Different because of this Scripture......
Today is the first Sunday in the season of Lent - a time when we prepare for Easter by repenting. Repentance, as I said last week, is not just about saying sorry - important though that is. Repentance is about turning around.
Hosea's words come ringing down through history.
- Do you really
know God?
- Do you really try to keep God's commandments?
- Do you whore around with other religions?
- Are you to blame, at least in part, for the negative perception others have
of faith?
I suspect we can all answer "yes" to at least one of those. But Hosea's warning is not designed to make us feel guilty. Guilt trips don't really get us anywhere in the long run. We are called to repent, to turn around. So how can we show we are, indeed, turning away from such things?
If we don't know God as well as we should, we can join the LIFE group - Living in Faith Everyday. We are working through a course explaining the basics of our faith. If we have trouble keeping the commandments we might want to take up some spiritual reading - like the devotional literature we have prepared for Lent, or by a structured reading of the Bible. If we are tempted to sleep around with other gods, we need to set aside time, each day, to pray. Just as we only maintain healthy human relationships through regular dialogue and talking, so we only maintain a healthy relationship with God through prayer. And do we project a negative image of what it is to be a Christian? Nietzche said that if Christians want the world to believe in the redemption then they should look a little more redeemed! We need to become better at showing how our faith affects our lives - again another reason for joining the LIFE group!
Prayer
Loving God,
We hear the message of your prophet Hosea,
And we are disturbed.
His words are angry and make us uncomfortable.
But part of that discomfort is because we recognise in his words, some of our
own faults.
Help us, Loving God, to know you better.
Help us to understand and keep your commandments.
Help us to develop a regular time of prayer each day - so we are not tempted
to run off with other gods.
And help us to talk about you, our faith and our church in exciting and relevant
ways to those around us.
Amen.
This sermon was first preached in the Metropolitan Community Church of Manchester. Click here for further information.