Sunday, August 4, 2013

Sermon: Trembling Home


Hosea 11:1-11
Trembling Home
James Sledge                                                                                       August 4, 2013

Nowadays they’re as likely to be on our smartphones or tablets as they are to be in an actual album with real pages, but wherever it is they’re located, most of us have had the experience of thumbing through a photo album. We’ve done a little reminiscing via photographs, have looked back and remembered a time when things were different, when we looked different, when the future perhaps looked different.
Now that both of my children are officially adults, having finished college and gotten jobs, it’s a bit more poignant for me to view pictures of them as babies, toddlers, or children. Different photos can evoke very different feelings, feelings of warmth, joy, and  happiness, as well as feelings of sadness and regret. On the child rearing front, Shawn and I were quite fortunate. We experienced the typical difficulties, but our daughters arrived at adulthood without a huge number of missteps on their part our ours. There were ups and downs, but still, things seem to have turned out pretty well.
On that count I feel quite lucky because I know that is not always the case. Things can and do go horribly awry in the course of raising a child. For those who’ve had such an experience, thumbing through those photos must be a great deal more difficult than it is for me. And when a child or parent has gotten caught up in their bad choices, and when this has led to estrangement, looking back at pictures from before all that, at a time of happiness, of great hope and promise for the future, must be terribly painful.
When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son… it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms… I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them and fed them.
God thumbs through the divine photo album and is distraught. God has loved and tenderly cared for Israel. The picture Hosea paints seems feminine and mothering. God has lavished Israel with affection and done everything a parent possibly could, but Israel has been a rebellions child from the beginning. The more God called, the more they went the other direction. They seemed hell bent on self-destruction and oblivious to all that God had done for them.

All of us have a capacity for self-destructive behavior. All of us do or say things we know we shouldn’t and that we regret almost as soon as we do or say them. I know I get frustrated and even angry at myself in such moments, but I think it is even more difficult to watch one’s own child engage in such behavior and not be able to change it. One Bible commentator says, “The divine response in this text is not unlike that of most loving parents who are never more angry with their children than when they do self-destructive things.”[1]
Looking at Israel and where their foolishness and rebelliousness has taken them; then looking at those photos of a young child who had been so tenderly lifted and held against her cheek, it is more than God can bear. God’s heart is wrenched by feelings of love and anger. The prophet depicts a God literally in anguish.
But out of God’s own inner turmoil, new hope arises. I have long thought them some of the most poignant words in all the Bible. How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel?.. My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. 9I 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.
Of course this does not undo the destruction Israel has brought on itself. Israel will be conquered by the Assyrians just as the prophet has said. But God will create a way home. God will restore and heal and reconcile.
But the image Hosea uses for God’s compassion and reconciliation is surprising. It is no kindly grandparent who pats Israel on the head and says, “Now, now, everything’s okay.” Rather it is a lion whose powerful roar brings Israel back, trembling as they come.
Real reconciliation with God takes more than a forgetting by God. It takes a turning by Israel, or by us. It requires a turning toward God and God’s ways. I requires a turning from trusting ourselves over God. And in the prophet’s picture of this turning, something must happen to shake Israel, a roar that brings them trembling home.
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“Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.” So goes the African-American spiritual. I don’t know that I have ever thought of Jesus on the cross as the powerful roar of a lion, but the apostle Paul does speak of the crucified Christ as the power of God. And so perhaps it’s not so much of a stretch to speak of it as a roar, as the powerful act of a God who will not come in wrath, and who is determined to call us back.
I’ve long thought that Christian understandings of the cross and atonement where God has to punish sin, and only Jesus can pay the price for everyone else, were overly mechanical and formulaic, depicting God as unable to forgive without following certain required steps. Are God’s hands really so tied?
But forgiving and reconciling are two very different things. And the cross vividly depicts both how deeply we humans grieve God’s heart, as well as the length God will go to shake us out of our waywardness and call us back. The cross is not simply about forgiveness. It is about new relationship. It is about the costly work of reconciling, of reaching out to us, even when we have created the breach in the relationship. It is a remarkable act of compassion and commitment to us. And when we truly realize what God does for our sakes, it leaves us trembling.
But more than just tremble, we return. We return to discover who we truly are and what we are truly meant to be. We come and find that we are home, that all the longings and cravings that drive our hectic, stressed out, anxious lives have been lifted, replaced with true peace and fulfillment, peace and fulfillment that the world cannot give.
And as we come trembling home, a prodigal God greets us and welcomes us to the feast. The risen Christ stands as host, waiting to serve us, to feed and nourish us with the grace that transforms and equips us to live as the true children of God all of us are meant to be.
Thanks be to God!


[1] Anna Case-Winters in Bartlett, David L.; Barbara Brown Taylor (2011-06-10). Feasting on the Word: Year C, Volume 3, Pentecost and Season after Pentecost (Propers 3-16) (Kindle Locations 10693-10694). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.

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