From the Rector
Last week, I gave a bit of background on the prophets we’ve been reading at Eucharist recently. Please see that article on the “newsletters” section of the website if you missed it. Today, I thought I’d share just a bit more about the prophet Hosea.
First of all, the name “Hosea” means salvation. It is closely related to Hoshea, which is a variant of Joshua, which is translated into Greek as Jesus. What might this tell us about the relationship between this story in Hosea and the story of our salvation?
The story of Hosea is really about the people’s unfaithfulness, God’s righteous judgment, and God’s persistent love. As I mentioned last week, the people of the Northern Kingdom of Israel had betrayed their relationship with the God who led them out of Egypt, who had made a covenant with them that he would be their God and they would be his people. Again and again, people sinned. That, in itself, wasn’t necessarily a problem. There were ways to make atonement for sin. The issue was not that the people were committing sinful acts, but that they had rejected the covenant altogether. They had turned to the worship of other gods, and sought political alliances instead of relying on God’s grace and guidance.
Hosea’s relationship with Gomer is meant to mirror the relationship of God with Israel. In the beginning of the book, God tells the prophet to take for himself a “wife of whoredom,” and her infidelity represents the unfaithfulness of the people. Some of the children she bore may not have even been Hosea’s children at all (hence the names he gives to them, “Not loved,” and “Not my people.”) Whether that’s true or not, Hosea is rightly angered and hurt by Gomer’s betrayal. Yet when she runs away to another man, he seeks her out and pays good money to bring her home… much like God pays a steep price, in offering God’s own Son for the restoration of relationship with God’s covenant people.
Anglicans tend not to spend much time talking about judgment. But it’s important to recognize that judgment is a reality, and a necessary one, at that. God’s forgiveness doesn’t eliminate judgment entirely—right and wrong still matter, and actions still have consequences. A faith that says, “There are no spiritual consequences for my actions,” is preaching cheap grace—grace that requires nothing of us, and therefore offers us little in return. A righteous God cannot ignore Israel’s betrayal. Their actions have spiritual consequences—a separation between themselves and God that they have created. These consequences are manifest in the exile. God is not punishing the people. The exile is a prophetic living out of their spiritual reality.
Yet God’s love for the people continues. Their unfaithfulness has hurt God deeply, as God’s love has not been returned. But God loves them anyway. What they will find, through the exile, is that God is with them even in a foreign land. And God will not only bring them home, but will ultimately give God’s own Son as a means of reconciliation.
Blessings, Mother Terry+