"Up" is not the only heavenly direction
Commentary
Annual meetings, whether for a business corporation, a nonprofit agency, or a local congregation, usually yield official resolutions. These documents outline a concern that is then addressed with a "Therefore, be it resolved...." The resolution calls for a course of action to respond appropriately to the situation. Some of these actions involve signing up, turning on, moving out, focusing in, rising above, getting beneath, hunkering down, pushing through, facing off, aiming toward and away from -- potentially heavenly directions all.
The Bible is God's record of resolutions in dealing with humanity. Although there are many different instances throughout the Bible when God expressed his resolve regarding a specific situation, the essential resolve of God is to love his entire creation, reaching out and drawing in. God's resolve to love shapes our resolve to love not only God, but also one another.
Hosea 11:1-11
One of the most beloved images of God in the Bible is that of a parent. Jesus prays to his heavenly Father. Paul often refers to God as Father (for example, Colossians 1:3 and 1 Thessalonians 3:11-13). Deuteronomy compares God to a mother eagle hovering over her young (Deuteronomy 32:11). And Hosea speaks God's word to the people in terms of the parent-child relationship: "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son" (11:1).
Yet, despite this love, the family relationship was strained, like all earthly families are, with rebellion. Just as teenage youth tune out their parents, the people of Israel would not listen to the voice of God. They went after what intrigued them at the time (11:2). There is a line in the hymn "Borning Cry" by John Ylvisaker, which expresses this well: "in a blaze of light you wandered off to find where demons dwell."
Just like children can take their parents' care for granted, not even noticing all that is being done for them out of love, so too the people of God in Hosea's time were oblivious to the many ways God provided for them. Being taught to walk righteously, being healed, supported and fed, the people had every reason to be grateful to God -- but they were not. Instead, they "wandered off." They listened to the siren sounds of other gods, distracted by subtle, sweet lies.
For this there would be discipline, a hard love resolved to purge the sin, yet save the sinners (11:8-9). Verse 8 alludes to the war of kings (Genesis 14:1-12) as an example of what God does not want to have happen. Just as Abram provided deliverance then, God would restore his children to their family inheritance after the discipline. It is true that the northern kingdom, as such, was obliterated, never to resurface on the map of history. However, Judah was the salvaged remnant. And of course, the gentile Christians were later grafted onto the tree of God's pleasant planting, as the New Israel, the church, inheriting the promises of God through the Messiah who had come and in whom they believed (Romans 11:17-24).
Note the anguish of God in being true to his holiness as well as his compassion. His holiness calls for judgment, such as that regarding his rebellious people: "They are appointed to the yoke, and none shall remove it" (11:7). The Assyrian conquest was decisive, as the archaeological and historical records reveal. Still, God's compassion calls for a word of hope (11:11), which was indeed extended to Judah (Assyria's intrusions were thwarted short of the total devastation that the northern kingdom was subject to) and by further extension, to the New Israel, the church.
God's resolve to love even his rebellious children would bring him to express his righteousness through Jesus the Christ, who would endure the wrath of sin for our sake and release his compassion of forgiveness, which would open the way for life abundant and life eternal.
Colossians 3:1-11
One of the ways we structure our language is through directional metaphors. "Wake up." "He sank into a coma." Spatial orientations such as up, above, over carry with them a more positive, desirable connotation than down, under, low. It is better to have one's health at its peak, than to drop dead. It is better to come in than to wander off, as the people of Hosea's day did. So, it is no accident that Paul would use such an expression as "seek the things that are above" (3:1). He, then, goes on to use a different image of clothing -- "put off ... put on" -- to talk about the character of the Christian life (the quality of which Hosea would have loved to see in his day and for his people!).
The resurrection of Jesus and our participation in it introduces us into the superior life, the stronger life, the godly life. Paul describes the character of that life in 3:12f. In our text for today, he identifies those things that are antithetical to such a life. It reads like a dirty laundry list: fornication, covetousness, malice, slander, foul talk -- to mention just a few. The list is suggestive, not exclusive. Such clothing is not becoming for a Christian. It is to be put off, not in the sense of a time-delay ("Don't put off till tomorrow what you can do today"), but in the spatial sense of putting away from one that which should not be near, neither to the body nor to the soul.
Paul's premise is that Jesus has been raised from the dead and that that resurrection has the power to change the life of the believer. "If then you have been raised with Christ" is not a quandary; it is an appeal to reason. Paul takes believers in Christ Jesus and walks them into the next step with Jesus. The life that was lived for us will now shape the life that will be lived for him.
One can imagine Paul leading a tour through the Christian home, as it were. He has already shown us the washroom (Colossians 2:12; baptism). Now, he is showing us the laundry room where our Christian apparel is made presentable. In this matter of dress, we are all subject to the same standards, for Christ is "all and in all" (3:11). By the power of his new resurrected nature, he gives believers a new nature that is continually being shaped in his likeness (3:10).
Luke 12:13-21
Jesus talks a lot about money and its relationship to spirituality. He takes a coin and distinguishes what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God. A widow's mite impresses him more than the apparent generosity of the wealthy. A field with buried treasure gives him occasion to talk about the value of the kingdom of God. When profit motivates the provisions for offerings in the temple, he gets quite physical in his outrage. It should come as no surprise, then, that someone would ask him to settle a matter of inheritance. Jesus knew the tradition of Deborah (Judges 4:4-5) and Solomon (1 Kings 3:16-28) and might have been tempted to take pride that he should be considered worthy of judging a matter of such importance. This was not a trick question, like so many of those by the Pharisees and scribes. This was a genuine request to arbitrate a very sticky issue.
Jesus goes to the heart of the matter: covetousness. To what extent will one go to get what one considers a right belonging? That one would come to the Lord to resolve the matter is a good first step. But, then, one must be ready to take the step in the direction Jesus indicates. Despite Jesus' protests to the contrary, he is the appointed judge in all matters of sin. Covetousness is a sin that strikes at the heart of commandments nine and ten. Covetousness will easily come between the bonds of family, certainly between friends, and without mercy between strangers. Jesus answers the request with a parable that points the hearer to seek the things that are above. That means, one will only discover true wealth and the inheritance that endures when one becomes rich toward God.
To be rich toward God ultimately leads one into a lifestyle of generosity. The wisdom imparted to those who value "things above" is that this is the only way to find peace, satisfaction and contentment among things down below.
Application
There is a weakness in every human-divine analogy. It can never be a 100 percent correlation. The analogy of parenting is no exception. We would be sorely mistaken if we thought that God must act like the best concept of parenthood we have.
In teaching positive discipline these days, it is common to hear about "lap talks" for toddlers, "time-outs" for preschoolers, and "revoked privileges" for grade-schoolers. There is a progression of dealing with errant children, in order to redirect them to the proper behavior. Of course, it gets more difficult the older and the bigger the children get. Ask the parent of any teenager or young adult who still lives at home. It is understood that there is a limit to the extent to which parents can go in disciplining their children. Spanking has become a "no-no" in our abuse-sensitive age. And grosser forms of restraint, severe corporal chastisement and even threat of death are outright illegal -- for human parents.
But, we would be remiss if we subjected God to such standards from below. God, from above, is free to exercise his divine right to deal with his creation in any manner so chosen, for God is God. Jesus warned his disciples to fear him who could (not necessarily would, but could!) not only kill the body but also cast it into hell (Luke 12:4-7). He was not talking about the devil here. God is not subject to our human standards or expectations. From the beginning God was entirely and eternally free to do what God chooses to do! The wonder of God's self-revelation through Jesus is that God has clearly chosen the sovereignty of compassion over the sovereignty of holiness as the essential core of divine being. God's holiness is still present and will also find expression; yet, when we look at the larger picture of unfolding history, we see the unmistakable stamp of compassion upon his creation and upon his people.
When we hear such words as Hosea's today, we should frame them in a personal, existential context, so that they address us now. Otherwise it is too easy to take an objective and distant view that focuses on an historical, political and social analysis of God's Word and misses the dynamic, ever-present urgency for every new day. When we examine our own lives in light of God's Word (even as addressed to his people in the eighth century B.C.), where do we experience ourselves educated, healed, loved, supported, fed -- touched by the compassion of God? Where do we experience ourselves yoked and chastised, judged by the holiness of God?
Not only our personal lives, but also our collective cultural life, need to be attentive to God's Word. As a dramatic comparison regarding the changing standards of our society, compare the early television sitcoms of the '50s, when spouses could not sleep in the same bed, to the sitcoms of today when couples on first dates are going to bed together ... when Elvis' hips could not be shown on the screen to when sexual intercourse is displayed. In this and many other ways, it could be said that behavioral expectations are much lower. Some may talk about how good it is that there is a growing tolerance for what is acceptable behavior, given the variety of human predilections. Others would say that we have become a more crass, rude and value-vacant society.
Christians need to ask constantly the question, "What do I wear today?" The answer has public consequences. The "clothes" that we put on will reveal to the world how Christ is "all and in all" in us. What behavior, what personal expressions will embody the new nature that is consistent with Christ-likeness?
How can we best love our community, our culture, our nation? Christian congregations around the country can be like a public address system, interlinked and blaring out for all to hear: there is a better way to live, and together we must set our minds on things that are far above our current standards of morality. Imagine what it would be like if the church actually spoke forth the character of the redeemed life and embodied it not just as a congregation of people but also as individuals scattered throughout the community.
The Christian call (see Philippians 3:14) is to rise above what may pass as acceptable human standards and live by virtue of the standards that Christ sets for us and commands us to imitate, as he does in John 15:12f. Ethics is not an optional addendum to the Christian faith, but a critical and necessary expression of it. How Christians live their lives is an expression of Christ in them. When Paul says "Christ is all and in all," he is expressing the power of the risen Christ to change the believer inside and out. He himself experienced this and reflected upon it over and over (Acts 26:4-13; Romans 7:7-25; Galatians 1:11-17; Philippians 3:4-11).
Many wealthy Christians are involved in a group called Responsible Wealth. Its purpose is to advocate tax fairness, a living wage and also initiate responsibility-oriented shareholder resolutions. Made up of people who are in the top 5 percent of income earners in America, Responsible Wealth is resolved to love the society into a more equitable system that will benefit others, even at the expense of some of their own advantages. (See Sojourners Magazine, January-February 2001, "What's Right With This Picture?") These folks take seriously Jesus' words that warn against covetousness.
In our consumer culture with its aptitude for acquisition, it is necessary to discover how to value earning power in a free market economy and how to discern the godly purpose for which it is to be used -- which is not the self, but to meet the needs of others and thereby serve and glorify God. One's true treasure, then, does not become the abundance of possessions or the ability to acquire them, but the kingdom of God, the rule of God in all aspects of one's life (Matthew 6:33; Matthew 13:44-46; Luke 10:25-37).
In this way, one becomes rich toward God, the most heaven-bound of directions.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Hosea 11:1-11
Last Sunday we dealt with the opening chapter of Hosea's ninth century B.C. prophecy. Now we are concerned with one of the last chapters in that book. It is probably one of the most heart-rending and yet encouraging prophecies in the whole of prophetic literature.
In the first four verses of our text, we find the Lord God musing to himself, thinking over the past that he has had with his covenant people Israel. "When Israel was a child," he murmurs, "I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son."
Few persons realize that in the books of Jeremiah and Hosea, the Israelites are spoken of as God's adopted son (cf. Jeremiah 3:19), just as later the davidic king is also adopted by God (cf. 2 Samuel 7:14; Psalm 2:7). We distinguish the unique sonship of Jesus Christ by confessing that he is God's only begotten Son. But the Lord adopted the Israelites as his own when he delivered them out of bondage in Egypt, way back there in the time of the exodus. And so the love that God bears for his chosen, and yet disobedient, people is the love of a Father for his son (cf. Exodus 4:22-23; Jeremiah 31:9, 20; Luke 15:11-24). Contrary to the stereotype that we sometimes have of the Old Testament, God is from the first Israel's loving Father (cf. Isaiah 63:16; 45:9-11; Malachi 1:6; 2:10). And in our text for the morning, we sense the depth of that love.
God remembers how he taught Israel, his son, to walk, the baby clinging to his finger for support, as all babies do. When the child stumbled or grew tired, God swept him up in his arms, and put his cheek against the boy's (such is the correct meaning of the text of v. 4). And daily God stooped down to feed the child -- a Father patiently spooning nourishment into the infant's mouth.
But as the son grew to adolescence and settled in the land of Canaan, he became a disobedient son, ignoring his Father's call to come home, and soon the grown son was associating with the wrong crowd, wandering after other friends and lovers in the form of the fertility gods and goddesses of the land (v. 2), and seeking out friends in alien lands like Egypt and Assyria and courting and imitating their ways (v. 5).
Thus, with his painful reverie at an end, through the prophet's words, God decrees the destruction of his faithless people by the armies of the Assyrian Empire (v. 7). Having broken the yoke of God's loving guidance (cf. Jeremiah 2:20; 5:5; Matthew 11:29-30), Israel will be subjected to the enslaving yoke of Assyria (v. 7).
But then, the Lord God examines his own heart (v. 8), and sobs over his faithless people's destruction. He knows within his great heart and soul that he cannot give up his adopted son forever. Anger and destruction are not his essential nature. Love is, and he cannot destroy his son whom he loves. He is not like human beings, whose anger harms and whose vengeance takes its toll. He is God and not man, holy -- that is, totally unlike all earthly things and beings.
The dismaying fact, good Christians, is that the 10 northern tribes of Israel were invaded by the armies of Assyria in 722 B.C., subjected to the yoke of that ruthless empire, carried into exile in 721 B.C., and disappeared forever from history. Was God's love overcome by his anger after all, so that he gave up his people? What of the promises in Hosea that the Lord would restore his people in the future? (cf. 2:14-23; 3;1-5; 14:4-7) What of that love that would not let Israel go? And so what of his love for us, who are also his beloved children, adopted as his own in our baptisms? Will he come to destroy us also for our faithlessness?
We know God will not do so if we read the continuation of the story. In Matthew 2:15, the Gospel writer takes the first words of our text for the morning and applies them to our Lord Jesus Christ. He recounts that Mary and Joseph had to flee to Egypt to escape from Herod. But then Matthew says, "This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, 'Out of Egypt I have called my son.' " A new Israelite, a new Jewish child comes forth from the hand of God. And this time, he is not an adopted son; he is the only begotten Son of the Father. As he matures, he is never a disobedient son, but always does his Father's will, even when it costs him his life on a cross. And though he is put to death by my sin and yours, God never deserts him, but raises him from the grave to manifest the Lord's steadfast and never-failing love for us all, his children.
In other words, in Jesus Christ God begins once more with Israel, now embodied in the person of our Lord. Everything Israel was meant to be, Jesus Christ becomes -- and more. And his Father's love never turns from him. As a result, by faith in Jesus Christ, by living in him and by walking in his Spirit, we know that God's love will never turn from us either. Our life is hid in Christ with God (Colossians 3:3). Christ is all we were meant to be -- and more. And as we live in Christ, God's love for his Son is poured out upon us. Indeed, in Christ Jesus, God sheds his love abroad for all of his children everywhere. Life in Christ. Yes, that is life in the love of God forevermore.
Lutheran Option -- Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23
The temptation of the preacher in dealing with this text is to apply it immediately to our society and to point out the vanity and folly of our society's scramble after material wealth and a luxurious standard of living. In doing so, we preachers are liable to become those scolds who know very little about economics and the market, but who take the familiar route of issuing a generalized damnation of materialism -- an all too familiar avenue taken by the pulpit. We thereby denigrate the honest labor of our people and the God-given gift of work. Most Americans are hard-working, middle-class people, whose productivity is the envy of the world.
Moreover, it is not materialism as such that is criticized in this passage. Indeed, the verses that follow our text recommend that each one find enjoyment in his or her work and the food and drink that it produces (vv. 24-25). Rather, Ecclesiastes sets human endeavor in an eternal setting.
In this book, the Preacher sets out to make a series of experiments, to see if Wisdom theology is correct. That theology holds that the one who lives by the orders that God has set into his creation finds the good life, whereas the one who defies the ways that nature and human beings customarily act ends up in disaster. But Ecclesiastes goes beyond that, in a thorough-going critique of Wisdom's view.
We may exercise all of the wisdom possible, living in accord with all of the natural laws of nature and society, he says, but that does not ensure a good and successful life, because everyone dies. And at the end, a fool who comes after us may squander everything that we have worked for (vv. 12-14) -- a familiar result in some families. In death, we are no different than the foolish and evil person (1:16; 9:2-3). Death turns all of our efforts into vanity. Nothing endures. And it is better simply to enjoy what we have on earth while we have it -- our work, our food, our spouse and family, the beauty of the earth (3:11), prosperity (10:19), wise and proper government (10:16-17), and above all else, the gift of life itself (9:4).
In short, Ecclesiastes asks the question, What is it that endures? And its answer is Nothing. "All is vanity." The book knows that everything is under the rule of God, but it is sure that we cannot find out what God plans or what he will do (3:11-12), so we should just take life as we find it, and be satisfied. To be sure, there is a certain gratitude in the book, and a call to enjoy the good gifts that God has given us. But nothing lasts, and death is the final fate of all.
We therefore should always set Ecclesiastes in the context of the New Testament, as our biblical canon does. Because of God's revelation of himself and of his work through Jesus Christ, we know several facts. We know that God endures beyond all the transitory nature of this world (cf. Psalm 90:1; Isaiah 51:6) We know that God is working toward his kingdom come on earth, when all the good that we do is gathered up and brought to perfection (cf. Philippians 1:6). We know that faith, hope and love abide (1 Corinthians 13:13). And we therefore know, as Paul writes, that we should be "steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord (our) labor is not in vain" (1 Corinthians 15:58).
The Bible is God's record of resolutions in dealing with humanity. Although there are many different instances throughout the Bible when God expressed his resolve regarding a specific situation, the essential resolve of God is to love his entire creation, reaching out and drawing in. God's resolve to love shapes our resolve to love not only God, but also one another.
Hosea 11:1-11
One of the most beloved images of God in the Bible is that of a parent. Jesus prays to his heavenly Father. Paul often refers to God as Father (for example, Colossians 1:3 and 1 Thessalonians 3:11-13). Deuteronomy compares God to a mother eagle hovering over her young (Deuteronomy 32:11). And Hosea speaks God's word to the people in terms of the parent-child relationship: "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son" (11:1).
Yet, despite this love, the family relationship was strained, like all earthly families are, with rebellion. Just as teenage youth tune out their parents, the people of Israel would not listen to the voice of God. They went after what intrigued them at the time (11:2). There is a line in the hymn "Borning Cry" by John Ylvisaker, which expresses this well: "in a blaze of light you wandered off to find where demons dwell."
Just like children can take their parents' care for granted, not even noticing all that is being done for them out of love, so too the people of God in Hosea's time were oblivious to the many ways God provided for them. Being taught to walk righteously, being healed, supported and fed, the people had every reason to be grateful to God -- but they were not. Instead, they "wandered off." They listened to the siren sounds of other gods, distracted by subtle, sweet lies.
For this there would be discipline, a hard love resolved to purge the sin, yet save the sinners (11:8-9). Verse 8 alludes to the war of kings (Genesis 14:1-12) as an example of what God does not want to have happen. Just as Abram provided deliverance then, God would restore his children to their family inheritance after the discipline. It is true that the northern kingdom, as such, was obliterated, never to resurface on the map of history. However, Judah was the salvaged remnant. And of course, the gentile Christians were later grafted onto the tree of God's pleasant planting, as the New Israel, the church, inheriting the promises of God through the Messiah who had come and in whom they believed (Romans 11:17-24).
Note the anguish of God in being true to his holiness as well as his compassion. His holiness calls for judgment, such as that regarding his rebellious people: "They are appointed to the yoke, and none shall remove it" (11:7). The Assyrian conquest was decisive, as the archaeological and historical records reveal. Still, God's compassion calls for a word of hope (11:11), which was indeed extended to Judah (Assyria's intrusions were thwarted short of the total devastation that the northern kingdom was subject to) and by further extension, to the New Israel, the church.
God's resolve to love even his rebellious children would bring him to express his righteousness through Jesus the Christ, who would endure the wrath of sin for our sake and release his compassion of forgiveness, which would open the way for life abundant and life eternal.
Colossians 3:1-11
One of the ways we structure our language is through directional metaphors. "Wake up." "He sank into a coma." Spatial orientations such as up, above, over carry with them a more positive, desirable connotation than down, under, low. It is better to have one's health at its peak, than to drop dead. It is better to come in than to wander off, as the people of Hosea's day did. So, it is no accident that Paul would use such an expression as "seek the things that are above" (3:1). He, then, goes on to use a different image of clothing -- "put off ... put on" -- to talk about the character of the Christian life (the quality of which Hosea would have loved to see in his day and for his people!).
The resurrection of Jesus and our participation in it introduces us into the superior life, the stronger life, the godly life. Paul describes the character of that life in 3:12f. In our text for today, he identifies those things that are antithetical to such a life. It reads like a dirty laundry list: fornication, covetousness, malice, slander, foul talk -- to mention just a few. The list is suggestive, not exclusive. Such clothing is not becoming for a Christian. It is to be put off, not in the sense of a time-delay ("Don't put off till tomorrow what you can do today"), but in the spatial sense of putting away from one that which should not be near, neither to the body nor to the soul.
Paul's premise is that Jesus has been raised from the dead and that that resurrection has the power to change the life of the believer. "If then you have been raised with Christ" is not a quandary; it is an appeal to reason. Paul takes believers in Christ Jesus and walks them into the next step with Jesus. The life that was lived for us will now shape the life that will be lived for him.
One can imagine Paul leading a tour through the Christian home, as it were. He has already shown us the washroom (Colossians 2:12; baptism). Now, he is showing us the laundry room where our Christian apparel is made presentable. In this matter of dress, we are all subject to the same standards, for Christ is "all and in all" (3:11). By the power of his new resurrected nature, he gives believers a new nature that is continually being shaped in his likeness (3:10).
Luke 12:13-21
Jesus talks a lot about money and its relationship to spirituality. He takes a coin and distinguishes what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God. A widow's mite impresses him more than the apparent generosity of the wealthy. A field with buried treasure gives him occasion to talk about the value of the kingdom of God. When profit motivates the provisions for offerings in the temple, he gets quite physical in his outrage. It should come as no surprise, then, that someone would ask him to settle a matter of inheritance. Jesus knew the tradition of Deborah (Judges 4:4-5) and Solomon (1 Kings 3:16-28) and might have been tempted to take pride that he should be considered worthy of judging a matter of such importance. This was not a trick question, like so many of those by the Pharisees and scribes. This was a genuine request to arbitrate a very sticky issue.
Jesus goes to the heart of the matter: covetousness. To what extent will one go to get what one considers a right belonging? That one would come to the Lord to resolve the matter is a good first step. But, then, one must be ready to take the step in the direction Jesus indicates. Despite Jesus' protests to the contrary, he is the appointed judge in all matters of sin. Covetousness is a sin that strikes at the heart of commandments nine and ten. Covetousness will easily come between the bonds of family, certainly between friends, and without mercy between strangers. Jesus answers the request with a parable that points the hearer to seek the things that are above. That means, one will only discover true wealth and the inheritance that endures when one becomes rich toward God.
To be rich toward God ultimately leads one into a lifestyle of generosity. The wisdom imparted to those who value "things above" is that this is the only way to find peace, satisfaction and contentment among things down below.
Application
There is a weakness in every human-divine analogy. It can never be a 100 percent correlation. The analogy of parenting is no exception. We would be sorely mistaken if we thought that God must act like the best concept of parenthood we have.
In teaching positive discipline these days, it is common to hear about "lap talks" for toddlers, "time-outs" for preschoolers, and "revoked privileges" for grade-schoolers. There is a progression of dealing with errant children, in order to redirect them to the proper behavior. Of course, it gets more difficult the older and the bigger the children get. Ask the parent of any teenager or young adult who still lives at home. It is understood that there is a limit to the extent to which parents can go in disciplining their children. Spanking has become a "no-no" in our abuse-sensitive age. And grosser forms of restraint, severe corporal chastisement and even threat of death are outright illegal -- for human parents.
But, we would be remiss if we subjected God to such standards from below. God, from above, is free to exercise his divine right to deal with his creation in any manner so chosen, for God is God. Jesus warned his disciples to fear him who could (not necessarily would, but could!) not only kill the body but also cast it into hell (Luke 12:4-7). He was not talking about the devil here. God is not subject to our human standards or expectations. From the beginning God was entirely and eternally free to do what God chooses to do! The wonder of God's self-revelation through Jesus is that God has clearly chosen the sovereignty of compassion over the sovereignty of holiness as the essential core of divine being. God's holiness is still present and will also find expression; yet, when we look at the larger picture of unfolding history, we see the unmistakable stamp of compassion upon his creation and upon his people.
When we hear such words as Hosea's today, we should frame them in a personal, existential context, so that they address us now. Otherwise it is too easy to take an objective and distant view that focuses on an historical, political and social analysis of God's Word and misses the dynamic, ever-present urgency for every new day. When we examine our own lives in light of God's Word (even as addressed to his people in the eighth century B.C.), where do we experience ourselves educated, healed, loved, supported, fed -- touched by the compassion of God? Where do we experience ourselves yoked and chastised, judged by the holiness of God?
Not only our personal lives, but also our collective cultural life, need to be attentive to God's Word. As a dramatic comparison regarding the changing standards of our society, compare the early television sitcoms of the '50s, when spouses could not sleep in the same bed, to the sitcoms of today when couples on first dates are going to bed together ... when Elvis' hips could not be shown on the screen to when sexual intercourse is displayed. In this and many other ways, it could be said that behavioral expectations are much lower. Some may talk about how good it is that there is a growing tolerance for what is acceptable behavior, given the variety of human predilections. Others would say that we have become a more crass, rude and value-vacant society.
Christians need to ask constantly the question, "What do I wear today?" The answer has public consequences. The "clothes" that we put on will reveal to the world how Christ is "all and in all" in us. What behavior, what personal expressions will embody the new nature that is consistent with Christ-likeness?
How can we best love our community, our culture, our nation? Christian congregations around the country can be like a public address system, interlinked and blaring out for all to hear: there is a better way to live, and together we must set our minds on things that are far above our current standards of morality. Imagine what it would be like if the church actually spoke forth the character of the redeemed life and embodied it not just as a congregation of people but also as individuals scattered throughout the community.
The Christian call (see Philippians 3:14) is to rise above what may pass as acceptable human standards and live by virtue of the standards that Christ sets for us and commands us to imitate, as he does in John 15:12f. Ethics is not an optional addendum to the Christian faith, but a critical and necessary expression of it. How Christians live their lives is an expression of Christ in them. When Paul says "Christ is all and in all," he is expressing the power of the risen Christ to change the believer inside and out. He himself experienced this and reflected upon it over and over (Acts 26:4-13; Romans 7:7-25; Galatians 1:11-17; Philippians 3:4-11).
Many wealthy Christians are involved in a group called Responsible Wealth. Its purpose is to advocate tax fairness, a living wage and also initiate responsibility-oriented shareholder resolutions. Made up of people who are in the top 5 percent of income earners in America, Responsible Wealth is resolved to love the society into a more equitable system that will benefit others, even at the expense of some of their own advantages. (See Sojourners Magazine, January-February 2001, "What's Right With This Picture?") These folks take seriously Jesus' words that warn against covetousness.
In our consumer culture with its aptitude for acquisition, it is necessary to discover how to value earning power in a free market economy and how to discern the godly purpose for which it is to be used -- which is not the self, but to meet the needs of others and thereby serve and glorify God. One's true treasure, then, does not become the abundance of possessions or the ability to acquire them, but the kingdom of God, the rule of God in all aspects of one's life (Matthew 6:33; Matthew 13:44-46; Luke 10:25-37).
In this way, one becomes rich toward God, the most heaven-bound of directions.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Hosea 11:1-11
Last Sunday we dealt with the opening chapter of Hosea's ninth century B.C. prophecy. Now we are concerned with one of the last chapters in that book. It is probably one of the most heart-rending and yet encouraging prophecies in the whole of prophetic literature.
In the first four verses of our text, we find the Lord God musing to himself, thinking over the past that he has had with his covenant people Israel. "When Israel was a child," he murmurs, "I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son."
Few persons realize that in the books of Jeremiah and Hosea, the Israelites are spoken of as God's adopted son (cf. Jeremiah 3:19), just as later the davidic king is also adopted by God (cf. 2 Samuel 7:14; Psalm 2:7). We distinguish the unique sonship of Jesus Christ by confessing that he is God's only begotten Son. But the Lord adopted the Israelites as his own when he delivered them out of bondage in Egypt, way back there in the time of the exodus. And so the love that God bears for his chosen, and yet disobedient, people is the love of a Father for his son (cf. Exodus 4:22-23; Jeremiah 31:9, 20; Luke 15:11-24). Contrary to the stereotype that we sometimes have of the Old Testament, God is from the first Israel's loving Father (cf. Isaiah 63:16; 45:9-11; Malachi 1:6; 2:10). And in our text for the morning, we sense the depth of that love.
God remembers how he taught Israel, his son, to walk, the baby clinging to his finger for support, as all babies do. When the child stumbled or grew tired, God swept him up in his arms, and put his cheek against the boy's (such is the correct meaning of the text of v. 4). And daily God stooped down to feed the child -- a Father patiently spooning nourishment into the infant's mouth.
But as the son grew to adolescence and settled in the land of Canaan, he became a disobedient son, ignoring his Father's call to come home, and soon the grown son was associating with the wrong crowd, wandering after other friends and lovers in the form of the fertility gods and goddesses of the land (v. 2), and seeking out friends in alien lands like Egypt and Assyria and courting and imitating their ways (v. 5).
Thus, with his painful reverie at an end, through the prophet's words, God decrees the destruction of his faithless people by the armies of the Assyrian Empire (v. 7). Having broken the yoke of God's loving guidance (cf. Jeremiah 2:20; 5:5; Matthew 11:29-30), Israel will be subjected to the enslaving yoke of Assyria (v. 7).
But then, the Lord God examines his own heart (v. 8), and sobs over his faithless people's destruction. He knows within his great heart and soul that he cannot give up his adopted son forever. Anger and destruction are not his essential nature. Love is, and he cannot destroy his son whom he loves. He is not like human beings, whose anger harms and whose vengeance takes its toll. He is God and not man, holy -- that is, totally unlike all earthly things and beings.
The dismaying fact, good Christians, is that the 10 northern tribes of Israel were invaded by the armies of Assyria in 722 B.C., subjected to the yoke of that ruthless empire, carried into exile in 721 B.C., and disappeared forever from history. Was God's love overcome by his anger after all, so that he gave up his people? What of the promises in Hosea that the Lord would restore his people in the future? (cf. 2:14-23; 3;1-5; 14:4-7) What of that love that would not let Israel go? And so what of his love for us, who are also his beloved children, adopted as his own in our baptisms? Will he come to destroy us also for our faithlessness?
We know God will not do so if we read the continuation of the story. In Matthew 2:15, the Gospel writer takes the first words of our text for the morning and applies them to our Lord Jesus Christ. He recounts that Mary and Joseph had to flee to Egypt to escape from Herod. But then Matthew says, "This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, 'Out of Egypt I have called my son.' " A new Israelite, a new Jewish child comes forth from the hand of God. And this time, he is not an adopted son; he is the only begotten Son of the Father. As he matures, he is never a disobedient son, but always does his Father's will, even when it costs him his life on a cross. And though he is put to death by my sin and yours, God never deserts him, but raises him from the grave to manifest the Lord's steadfast and never-failing love for us all, his children.
In other words, in Jesus Christ God begins once more with Israel, now embodied in the person of our Lord. Everything Israel was meant to be, Jesus Christ becomes -- and more. And his Father's love never turns from him. As a result, by faith in Jesus Christ, by living in him and by walking in his Spirit, we know that God's love will never turn from us either. Our life is hid in Christ with God (Colossians 3:3). Christ is all we were meant to be -- and more. And as we live in Christ, God's love for his Son is poured out upon us. Indeed, in Christ Jesus, God sheds his love abroad for all of his children everywhere. Life in Christ. Yes, that is life in the love of God forevermore.
Lutheran Option -- Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23
The temptation of the preacher in dealing with this text is to apply it immediately to our society and to point out the vanity and folly of our society's scramble after material wealth and a luxurious standard of living. In doing so, we preachers are liable to become those scolds who know very little about economics and the market, but who take the familiar route of issuing a generalized damnation of materialism -- an all too familiar avenue taken by the pulpit. We thereby denigrate the honest labor of our people and the God-given gift of work. Most Americans are hard-working, middle-class people, whose productivity is the envy of the world.
Moreover, it is not materialism as such that is criticized in this passage. Indeed, the verses that follow our text recommend that each one find enjoyment in his or her work and the food and drink that it produces (vv. 24-25). Rather, Ecclesiastes sets human endeavor in an eternal setting.
In this book, the Preacher sets out to make a series of experiments, to see if Wisdom theology is correct. That theology holds that the one who lives by the orders that God has set into his creation finds the good life, whereas the one who defies the ways that nature and human beings customarily act ends up in disaster. But Ecclesiastes goes beyond that, in a thorough-going critique of Wisdom's view.
We may exercise all of the wisdom possible, living in accord with all of the natural laws of nature and society, he says, but that does not ensure a good and successful life, because everyone dies. And at the end, a fool who comes after us may squander everything that we have worked for (vv. 12-14) -- a familiar result in some families. In death, we are no different than the foolish and evil person (1:16; 9:2-3). Death turns all of our efforts into vanity. Nothing endures. And it is better simply to enjoy what we have on earth while we have it -- our work, our food, our spouse and family, the beauty of the earth (3:11), prosperity (10:19), wise and proper government (10:16-17), and above all else, the gift of life itself (9:4).
In short, Ecclesiastes asks the question, What is it that endures? And its answer is Nothing. "All is vanity." The book knows that everything is under the rule of God, but it is sure that we cannot find out what God plans or what he will do (3:11-12), so we should just take life as we find it, and be satisfied. To be sure, there is a certain gratitude in the book, and a call to enjoy the good gifts that God has given us. But nothing lasts, and death is the final fate of all.
We therefore should always set Ecclesiastes in the context of the New Testament, as our biblical canon does. Because of God's revelation of himself and of his work through Jesus Christ, we know several facts. We know that God endures beyond all the transitory nature of this world (cf. Psalm 90:1; Isaiah 51:6) We know that God is working toward his kingdom come on earth, when all the good that we do is gathered up and brought to perfection (cf. Philippians 1:6). We know that faith, hope and love abide (1 Corinthians 13:13). And we therefore know, as Paul writes, that we should be "steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord (our) labor is not in vain" (1 Corinthians 15:58).
