GOD NEVER GIVES UP ON US
(Preached on Sunday, August 1, 2004)
I will not execute my fierce anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath. -Hosea 11:9
This is one of the most beautiful and important passages in the entire Hebrew scriptures. It sets forth, in some of the most tender language, the nature of God and of God’s relationship to Israel (and by extension, to all of God’s people throughout the world.) Here is a compelling picture of God as a parent recalling the days of God’s gentle and patient care and training of the infant Israel; here are the pictures of a mother bending down to embrace and suckle her baby; here are the images of a father training his toddler to walk; here are the images of loving parental care, nurture, guidance and protection.
These are images that are so important for us to remember.
But there is more. There are also the images of a brokenhearted parent of a willful, stubborn, rebellious teenager who has turned his back on his mother’s guidance and love, who has snubbed his father’s instruction and protection, who has struck out on his own and is going down the wrong path with the wrong crowd.
What has this ungrateful teenager done?
Hosea was a prophet to the northern kingdom of Israel about 700+ years before the time of Jesus. This kingdom was a separate nation of Jewish people who had broken away from the southern nation of Judah some 200 years earlier, after the death of King Solomon, in a civil war. They had their own king, their own seat of government in Samaria, and their own holy place in Bethel, all separate from Jerusalem. Their society was flourishing and prosperous, with a growing wealthy elite and industrious merchants. But all of this was built on a system of injustice, that was indifferent to God and built on the backs of the poor.
Hosea was a contemporary of the prophet Amos, who also spoke out against what was going on in the northern kingdom of Israel.
Hear his description in Amos 8: “Hear this, you that trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land, saying, ‘When will the new moon be over so that we may sell grain; and the Sabbath, so that we may offer wheat for sale? We will make the ephah small and the shekel great, and practice deceit with false balances, buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, and welling the sweepings of the wheat.’”
God is upset over the way they are conducting business.
The poor were being victimized by the rich.
They were conducting crooked business practices.
The “ephah” was a 40-liter container used to measure out grain and they were shrinking it as much as they could so it was not noticed, but not giving the customer the amount they thought they were buying.
Along with that they were making the “shekel”, a weight placed on the balance scale to determine how much silver was owed for the grain, heavier than it was supposed to be, so that in essence they were overcharging the customers for the lesser amount of grain.
The result was that the poor could not pay for their food and so were ending up being sold into slavery. Plus, they could not wait to get out of church, finished with the regular sacred days and ceremonies when all trading and selling ceased, to make even more money.
This is what has broken God’s heart, according to Hosea.
For God is not just concerned with our spiritual practices and our nice religious rituals, all our prayers and righteous posturing, God desires true loving, compassionate caring for the neighbor from us.
As Hosea puts it in 6:6, “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt-offerings.”
God is concerned with business and economics because they are the practical means of how we show our love for our neighbors.
And God understands that when a nation of people stops caring for all its citizens; when some of the neighbors become expendable; when some of the people become extremely selfish and greedy and care only about their own comfort and luxury and not about the basic needs for food, shelter, health-care, and the self-esteem that comes from a decent job, then that nation is bound for destruction.
Not at the hands of God, for God loves us and never gives up on us, but the true moral fiber of that nation is weakened and it is open to destruction from both without and within.
So what does God do? God sends prophets to warn us in love, to draw us away from a path that leads to destruction.
God never gives up on us, and continues to show us we are going down the wrong path, as any good parent would do.
This past week, Dianne had the daughter of one of her patients relate a beautiful story about her mother. She was a single mother, raising five children alone, working 3 different jobs in the process. One day her teenage son was caught by someone in the neighborhood stealing something. He claimed he didn’t steal it but just found it “lying” around. His mother didn’t believe him and began giving him a real beating right there in the street, to the extent that the neighbors called the police to intervene. When the police arrived, she told them: “I am taking care of this. If I don’t take care of this now, then eventually you will come back someday to get him and probably shoot him and then I will be wearing black. So, let me take care of this now and he will not steal again and then I won’t have to wear black.”
The police walked away. Her son is now 66 years old, and he never again got in any trouble like that while growing up.
She loved him. He was making wrong decisions that were going to lead to his destruction. She did not give up on him but wanted him to learn how to live as a good citizen.
These messages from the prophets Amos and Hosea are hard for us to hear today.
There is a growing gap between the rich and the poor in America, with some suggesting that the middle class is growing smaller and smaller.
One out of five children in the United States, the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth, lives in poverty.
In the years between 1947 and 1973 real family incomes doubled, and in the period since family incomes have basically stagnated and for 60 percent of families have actually fallen.
That’s despite the fact that today workers are working longer hours than they ever have, the American worker is more productive than ever, most families have two wage earners employed in the work force, and the country is richer than it has ever been.
During that same time the average CEO’s after-tax compensation rose by more than 300 percent, adjusted for inflation, while the average worker’s pay fell a shocking 13 percent.
In a stunning reversal of that trend, which made news, the new CEO of American Airlines just refused a 22 percent pay raise because he said it would send the wrong message to the workers who have seen their pay cut in the past two years as the airline struggled.
In addition we continue to see jobs shipped overseas where labor is cheaper; we see older employees increasingly passed over or let go in favor of younger employees who can be paid less or are willing to work longer hours. We see government budget deficits growing, while social service programs to help the weakest among us being cut, and tax cuts being issued which favor the wealthiest.
Painful as messages such as this are to hear, we ought to give thanks that our God cares enough about us to speak the truth to us and to never give up on us.
For just as a parent cannot physically restrain a child to prevent him from self-destruction, even so God will not override our ability to choose and build our lives, even for the sake of those whom we abuse to secure more wealth.
So, we can view this message as an eye-opening reminder to walk the path that leads to love and compassion for all, not just some.
What can we do?
We can pray.
We can be sure we are registered to vote and encourage anyone we know to make sure they are registered to vote, and then make sure we are actively engaged in the political process this year so that we can make informed decisions, not based on what politicians promise in order to help our lifestyle alone, but what they promise that will help the lives of all, especially the poor.
We can join with groups like those wealthy citizens, many people of faith, in Responsible Wealth who are advocating for tax fairness, a living wage for all. This amazing organization is composed of people in the top 5% of income earners in the United States and they are all resolved to love the society into a more equitable system that will benefit others, even at the expense of some of their own advantages.
We can talk with one another about what more we can do to help the poor in our neighborhoods and our county and what more God might be calling us to do to love our neighbor.
As we do all this, we can be thankful for Hosea’s vision of God’s persistent, eternal, consistent love for us.
We can be thankful that no matter how often we fail through foolishness, through wilfulness, through our own pride, greed and selfishness, God does not wipe her hands clean of any of us.
God never gives up on us, but is always there calling our name, seeking to reclaim us as soul mates and set our feet on the path of life.