Faith

Rejecting all that is good – Tuesday, 14th Week in ordinary time – Hosea 8:4-7,11-13

When we compare yesterday’s reading from chapter 2 and today’s reading in chapter eight, we notice a shift in the mood of the prophet Hosea. From restitution Hosea returns to the theme of Israel’s infidelity. The Assyrians are now at the gate (metaphorically speaking) and even now Israel is insincere; they have rejected all that is good and broken God’s covenant.

Once again, Israel (also called Ephraim in Hosea) has her sins stacked up high. Before a detailed charge is brought up against them, a summary of their sins is presented. Israel who has set up rulers and princes against the Lord, and were steeped in idolatry make a claim to ‘know’ God (8:2). The text is so reminiscent of Matthew 7;22-33 where Jesus says  “Many will say to me in that day, Lord Lord, have we not prophesied in your names, cast our demons in your name and done wonders in your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew your, depart from me, you who are evil.” 

 So what are the specifics of the charges? We are told that the kings of the northern kingdom ascend the throne but clearly this is not the mind and will of God. This passage refers to the dynastic upheavals of Israel’s declining days. Between the death of Jeroboam II and the fall of Samaria to the Assyrians, a matter of some 25 years, there were four separate dynasties on the throne and as many murdered kings. In fact, after Jeroboam II there were five kings in 13 years and three of them took power violently. These kings were certainly not God’s choice! In this there is a lesson to learn; those who follow their own wisdom in the choice of leaders inevitably get what they deserve. We have seen this play out so often in the world. What happens if someone gets into positions in government, someone who acts out like Hitler? Make no mistake, Hitler did not seize powers, he was elected by a democracy. Someone who is power hungry and full of pride seeks not the good of God but wants to become God himself and Israel had perfected this art through its kings. 

Spread the love ♥
       
Continue Reading
Faith

Take for your wife a harlot – Monday 14th week in ordinary time – Hosea 2:14,15b-16,19-20

The name Hoshea means “salvation.” It comes from the same Hebrew root (hoshea) as the names Joshua and Jesus. Throughout the book, Hosea will show us that salvation is found in turning to the LORD and away from our sin. The book of Hosea deals with a heart broken and faithful God who has to communicate a heart felt message to a fickle nation. God will put Hosea in the place where he feels what God feels and it won’t feel good.

Hosea is read as a minor prophet and is the first of the 12 minor prophets. It is minor only because of the size of the book, not because of superiority but because of brevity. It consists of 14 chapters. The book can be divided into two parts. The first three chapters are about Hosea’s life and then the last eleven chapters are about his prophetic ministry to Israel. Israel which was the northern kingdom had just two prophets; Amos and Hosea. While the book is primarily  a message to the northern kingdom of Judah there is also several warning to Israel in the South. Hosea’s ministry spanned approximately the years 750 to 720 B.C. 

Hosea begins to prophecy a little after Amos prophesied to the people of the North and a few years before Jeroboam II, king in the northern kingdom began his reign as sole ruler. We are told in Hosea 1:1 that the kings in the South were Azariah also called Uzziah (792 BC), Jotham (740 BC), Ahaz (732 BC) and Hezekiah (716 BC). During the time that Hosea was preaching in the North, Isaiah was prophesying in the south in 755 BC and Micah in the year 750 BC. The northern kingdom is a short time away from captivity. We know that Hoshea, the king in the north will fall with to the Assyrians in 723 BC. The southern kingdom will fall in 150 years. 

Preaching and teaching from the prophets is already difficult.The task becomes all the more complicated when the prophets use language and metaphors that conflict with modern sensibilities about gender, marriage, and sexuality. God ask Hosea to take a wife of harlotry named Gomer (Hosea 1:3) and children who will be born to her of prostitution. This was to be a metaphor, a way of comparing a faithful God as mirrored by Hosea and Gomer his wife, a prostitute, to mirror the unfaithful nation of Israel. The metaphor requires its ancient audience to sympathize with God as a long-suffering and offended male and condemn Israel as an undesirable and inherently rebellious woman. Within the metaphor, God disowns the chosen people for their sins: “you are not my people, and I am not your God” (1: 9).

Hosea will have three children by Gomer all of who are born of prostitution. Their names will give us an indication of the wrath of God towards his people. The first to be born was a boy named Jezreel whose name means ‘scattered’, as Israel would soon be scattered in exile by a conquering Assyrian army. A daughter was then born and she was name Lo-ruhamah; meaning, no longer be pitied or no mercy. Finally, a son, whose name  Lo-ammi means  Israel will no longer be God’s people and God will no longer be their God.

Yet in all of this Hosea 1:10- 2:1 has a promise for future restoration. Though God has promised judgment, the days of judgment won’t last forever. After judgment, there will come a day of prosperity, increase, and blessing. Our text of today focuses on that promise of restoration. God begins this promise with a decision to allure Gomer into the wilderness and by extension Israel back.  The last place one would expect to be allured into is the wilderness, but then again it was in the wilderness that God forged Israel into a nation.

God desired that this fractured relationship with his people be healed even though he himself was not the cause of this estrangement.  God looked forward to the day when this relationship would be genuinely restored with His people. He desired an intimate love-relationship with His people. He desired to form a covenant with Israel not just a contract. A covenant (berit in Hebrew) is a relationship of love between two parties, outlining what is required from each party.  In a relationship between two parties of unequal power, the more powerful person usually dictates the terms of the covenant.  It is Yahweh who initiates the covenant between himself and Israel and he is more than generous to Israel in the terms laid down.

He asks that on the day of restoration, Israel would call him ‘husband.’ This loving term within a spousal relationship would replace the tyrannical relationship shared with Baal who demanded a fear based relationship of master and servant. In Hebrew, the name “Baal” comes from the word “master” and the two words sound alike. God wanted a love-based, commitment-based relationship with His people not one based on fear.

This change in relationship will result in the change of  all relationships and a transformed earth. There will be peace ecologically and peace politically. The restored relationship will never be broken again for it will be a relationship restored on justice, kindness and mercy. 

Spread the love ♥
       
Continue Reading
Faith

Would there be enough evidence to convict you as a Christian? – 13th Sunday in ordinary time – Lk 9: 51-62

The journey to Jerusalem will not be free of trials either for Jesus or the Christian. We are told that Jesus “set His face to go to Jerusalem” and since the Samaritans and Jews could never know a day without hatred for each other, Jesus who in this Gospel has come for all also faces rejection from all. Yet to the wrathful thoughts of revenge that pass by the lips of the ‘sons of thunder’ against the Samaritans, James and John find themselves rebuked by Jesus for their behaviour. 

Jesus sets upon himself to teach the twelve what the cost of discipleship entails. He does this with the help of three hyperbolic proverbs (Chreiae or brief sayings in Greek).  The function of a proverb is to help people make sense out of life, to show how the world coheres, e.g., spare the rod and spoil the child. In this pericope Jesus uses HYPERBOLE or EXAGGERATION to jolt the listeners out of their staid ways of ordering their universe and to view existence from an entirely new angle, that of discipleship in response to the kingdom of God as preached by Jesus. (JBC)

Many have tried to understand these three proverbs literally and treated them as though they must be lived exactly as said by Jesus. To do that would be foolishness, to say the least, for the intention of Jesus is clear;  that nothing should come in the way of a disciple once he or she has said her yes to the kingdom.

Spread the love ♥
       
Continue Reading
Faith

Israel REBOOTED – Saturday, 13th week in ordinary time – Amos 9:11-15

Run but you can’t hide….
Chapter 9: 1-10 is one of the strongest rebukes against Israel. It almost sounds like a lover spurned whose threats of vengeance are real. God is going to strike the capitals of the temple and allow them to fall on the people of Israel shattering their heads and those who survive this horrific calamity will die by the sword. Israel could run, but they could not hide from God and His judgment

The sword gives way to the trowel…..Israel rebooted
Yet verse 11 is an abrupt change from the strong message of rebuke and judgment. The transition from verse 10 to verse 11 is the most surprising in the entire book. The sword of judgment gives way to the trowel of reconstruction. For a while, it seemed that the reason for divine judgment was God’s revenge but that was not so. The only way to usher in a restored order was to destroy all that was not from God and God’s heart was set on rebooting Israel. God now promises to raise from the fallen nation a new people for Himself (Amos 9:11-12) and return the people to the land (9:13-15).

Repaired, raised and rebuilt…..
Long before the time of Amos, the northern kingdom of Israel rejected the royal house of David. Yet God had made a promise to King David, “Your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever; your throne shall be established forever” (2 Samuel 7:16). If God was going to destroy the people of Israel how would this promise come to fulfilment? It is to answer this dilemma that Amos delivers the final word of God. Israel will be sifted, repaired, raised, rebuilt as in the days of the united kingdom and not as a northern kingdom.

fruit comes from unexpected places….
Amos described how miraculous and amazing God’s blessing and restoration would be.
When God releases blessing and restoration, fruit comes from unexpected places. Normally, grapevines don’t grow well on mountains or high hills, but in the days of Israel’s restoration even the mountains shall drip with sweet wine and all the hills shall flow with it.

The prophet Amos ends the book on a note of high hope, looking forward to a day of great prosperity and abundance in Israel. Under the reign of Jeroboam II, they had material abundance, but it was not in the LORD. God promised to restore them to prosperity from Him and in Him.

Not an idle threat….
While God promised restoration and looked forward to the day when Israel would never again be pulled up from the land, Israel first had to torn down. Amos had warned the people about the threat of captivity and exile. That threat was fulfilled in 538 B.C., 200 years after Amos prophesied.

From apathy to action….
Zerubbabel returned to the land from Babylon with a group to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem (Ezra 1-6). He and the prophet Haggai stirred the people from apathy to action.
This small remnant that did return from exile rebuilt the city walls and the temple and it thrived right up to the time of Jesus.

Spread the love ♥
       
Continue Reading
Faith

Don’t let the sun go down on me – Friday, 13th week in ordinary time – Amos 8:4-6, 9-12

The text of today takes on the fourth in a series of five visions that Amos is shown by God himself. (7:1-3, 7:4-6, 7:7-9, 8:1-3 and 9:1-4) In today’s vision, Amos returns to his familiar theme of justice, decrying those in Israel who made their money from the unjust treatment of the poor and vulnerable. This theme of justice falls in line with the eighth century prophets; besides Amos, Isaiah and Micah were also in one accord about the Lord’s demand for justice.

This desire for justice will meet with indifference on Israel’s part and finally God’s wrath. Only a few years after Amos’ prophecies, the Assyrians will win a decisive battle against Israel and will force the ten tribes of Israel into exile in Assyria. Amos chapter 8 makes clear (along with many other passages) that Amos saw God’s judgment against Israel as a fait accompli, a course of action that was already underway; one that was impossible to reverse.

So what got Amos so riled up on this occasion? Amos, in verses 4-6 confronts the hypocrisy of a ‘prayerful people’ who desire to hit the fast forward button on the Sabbath day so that it would come to an end quickly and then get down to the business of cheating their neighbours. It is important to remember that the Sabbath day was not first-and-foremost a day created exclusively for worship but a day of rest. As a day of rest, the sabbath was meant to bring about a sense of justice to all of society and not just to the property owner; but also “your ox and your donkey, and your livestock, and the resident alien in your towns” (Deuteronomy 5:14). Yet, people longed for the justice-establishing Sabbath to be over, so that they could return to exploitation.

By Amos’ time the Sabbath was seen as a day of worship and while the heart should have been resting with God the mind was restless to make money, that too dishonestly. Deuteronomy 25:15 stipulated “You shall have only a full and honest weight; you shall have only a full and honest measure.” In Amos’ day, untrustworthy market places were contributing to a sense of injustice.

Such was their desire to make money that we are told they ‘buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals’. In short they were enslaving people in debt and spared no one; even those who owed only a pair of sandals. Cheating the poor who were already living on the edge financially had the potential to push them over the edge.

Spread the love ♥
       
Continue Reading