The Very Heart of God
Rev. Judy Currier
September 7, 2008
When my son Larry, was about 4 years old he and I were down in the basement of JC Penney’s where the children’s clothes were sold. I was intent on selecting some new clothes for his ever-growing body, and turned around and he was gone. It is every parents’ nightmare. As I frantically searched for him, I saw him climbing up the stairs. I shouted to him to stop, wait for me! He grinned and took off… shooting up the stairs and heading for the front door, and one of the main intersections of town, as fast as his little feet would carry him. Fortunately, a woman coming in the entrance saw what was happening and scooped him up and held him until I got there. When I said, "Why did you run away? Didn’t you hear mommy calling you?" He said, "I don’t know. I just wanted to."
I remembered this incident when I read today’s scriptures from Hosea. As you listen, hear a God speaking as a loving parent; compassionate, angry, confused, forgiving, but a loving God trying to understand these stiff-necked people.
Hosea 11:1-9: "When Israel 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; they kept sacrificing to the Baals, offering incense to idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love. I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them and fed them.
They shall return to the land of Egypt, and Assyria shall be their king, because they have refused to return to me. The sword rages in their cities, it consumes oracle-priests, and devours because of their schemes. My people are bent on turning away from me. To the Most High they call, but he does not raise them up at all.
How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, 0 Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me, my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger; I will not again destroy Ephram; for I am God and not mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath."
What a picture of God! When Israel was a child, I loved her, and called her out of bondage in Egypt, at her birth called her my own daughter. Yet the more I called after her, the faster she ran away from me. Running away from me! Imagine!
Whenever you hear someone say that the Old Testament God is a vengeful God, you show them this passage! Hosea boggles the mind. He is one of the earliest prophets. But he, in a way, is the most modern, because he uses intimate imagery to convey his message. In the first part of the book he uses his broken marriage to model the broken relationship between Israel and God. And in this passage he uses the imagery of parent and child. It is so simple, it is also universal. All people can identify with a rebellious child. Our empathy and understanding of the anguished parent takes us into an intimate place with God. With the simplest of stories we come close to the mind of God.
Can’t you almost hear the parental God saying, "After all I have done for you, you run away from the one who gave you life! Who taught you patiently to walk! Who lifted you up and tended your wounds when you fell! Who soothed your fears and kissed your cheeks! Who provided food and shelter for you. In Hosea’s text we can almost hear the frustration and anger which many of us as parents, or friends of parents have felt, "OK, then, fine! Live with the consequences of your actions! Let you be taken back into hostile territory, you’ll live with violence and terror; it will be an oppression on your head!"
In this passage we hear a drama between God and us that is not acted out history, it is acted out in the very heart of God. Hosea leads us to hear God meditating on God’s relationship with us, "I will punish them. They will be captured by other nations." Then we hear God questioning God self and changing God’s mind. We hear a God caught by love; a God who loves us. We hear a compassionate God.
How can I give you up? They know not the danger ahead. My heart bursts with the thought of losing him. No. I will keep calling to her. I will run after him. I will pick him up and love him no matter what!"
Hosea is speaking to each of us, all who have wandered away. Scattered on our own, ending up in deserts, hungry, thirsty, running toward dangerous places, hazardous intersections, falling on our faces, trying to stand on bruised, trembling knees. Then we cry out, only to feel lifted by powerful arms, our cheek kissed, our wounds healed, by the One who always loves us, always pursues us, who cannot bear to give us up. And why do we run from this One? Why flee from the One who more than any other loves us? Why turn our backs and run toward any other God? Like Larry we too say, "I don’t know, I just wanted to."
But God is rejected. What does it feel like to be rejected? To have that four-year-old say, "NO!" and run the other way? To fall in love and find that person rejects our love. Faithless. Hosea tells us about the judgment of God because of our faithlessness. The immediate human response is anger, revenge.
So I will send them back to Egypt. The focal point for Israel’s history was the escape from slavery and flight from Egypt. God says, "I will send them back." Hosea would have us learn God’s ways. God is God and not human and, that is not the way to reconciliation. Read again: "How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? My heart recoils within me, my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger; for I am God and not mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath." Hosea would have us learn God’s kind of love.
In the movie, The Music Man, the outrageous, rascally conman, Professor Harold Hill, who has left behind a trail of broken hearts and empty pocketbooks, comes finally to River City and face to face for the first time with the unblinkingly honest and steadfast love of Marion the Librarian, who says to him, "Run! The mayor, and the police, and the people are all after you." To which he can only respond, "I’ve always run, but for the first time my foot got stuck in the door." He is caught by love.
Maybe you have been surprised by someone’s love for you; caught quite by surprise. Maybe someone took the time to know you, really know you deep down? Who cared enough to tell you when you were behaving badly, or throwing your best away? You learned what love is and you found out you couldn’t walk away.
Being loved teaches us love. We can be caught by God’s love for us. "We love because God first loved us."
We can have compassion because God is compassionate toward us.
We can learn a compassion that remains constant when we are disappointed by family members.
We can learn a love that forgives betrayal.
We can learn compassion that gives others a time to grow or heal.
We can learn a love that makes us unafraid to know the truth, and to tell it in the appropriate places.
We can learn a compassion in which we can risk wounding, and try for reconciliation with our estranged brother or sister, son or daughter, neighbor or friend.
Such love is difficult for us to fathom, reason, or explain, but, we can experience it. We can experience it when we let ourselves be totally dependant on God. We can experience such love when we recognize the face of the one we are approaching as the one we have been searching for all along. Hosea reminds us, God loves us, not because we are loveable, but because God is love.
God’s nature is love. We can depend on that love as the source of our life.
The church of Jesus Christ was born out of the passion, and compassion, of God for humanity. If we are to be faithful to our creator, we must let our hearts be gentled by God’s love for us and allow our hearts to express that in a love for all of God’s creation. If we are to be God’s agents for mercy and justice in the world, we must allow ourselves to be caught and nourished by God’s compassion. A compassion that began here at the communion table and, by God’s grace, runs through all our lives.
Read this poem by Helen Kromer:
"The Word"
I open my mouth to speak
And the word is there,
Formed by the lips, the tongue,
The organ of voice. Formed by the brain,
Transmitting the word
By breath.
I opened my mouth to speak
And the word is there,
Caught by the organ of hearing, the ear.
Transmitting the thought to the brain
Through the Word.
Just so do we communicate -
You and I: the thought
From one mind leaping to another,
Given shape and form and substance,
So that we know and are known
Through the Word.
But let me speak to my very small son
And the words mean nothing,
For he does not know my language.
So I must show him: "This is your foot,"
I say; "It is meant for walking."
I help him up. "Here is the way to walk!"
And one day, "walking" shapes in his brain
With the word.
God had something to say to [us]
But the words mean nothing,
For we did not know [God's] language.
And so we were shown: "Behold the Man,"[God] said. "This is the image, the thought
In my mind - [Humankind] as I mean [you] to be, loving and serving.
I have put Him in flesh. Now the Word
Has shape and form and substance
To travel between us.Let Him show forth love
Until one day "loving" shapes in your brain
With the Word."Come. Receive.
From For Heaven's Sake: A Musical Revue Book and lyrics by Helen Kromer, Music by Frederick Silver. (Boston: Baker's Plays, 1963) pgs. 18-19