"A Love Stronger than Justice"

Texts: Hosea 11:1-11

Some of you know that in July I became an uncle twice more, bringing my total number of nieces and nephews back in Washington state to five. Samuel was born to my stepsister Gretchen and her husband Greg, their third child, and just this week my stepbrother Curtis and his wife Heather had their first, a boy named Oliver. It’s been a good month for my father and stepmom as the grandchildren just keep piling up.

I was back in the Northwest for the Fourth of July this year, before Samuel and Oliver joined us, and the whole family was gathered for a cookout where, of course, the main focus was on the three members of the next generation in existence at that time. For perhaps six hours, they frolicked in kiddie pools showing, unlike their parents and uncle, no signs of boredom or exhaustion. Joanna and Elijah and Maile all running through their repeated routine of sharing and stealing toys, splashing and seeking refuge, all under the very watchful eyes of their respective parents.

It is these parents—siblings I grew up with—that struck me most that day. How can it be that these people—as immature and impatient and annoying and selfish as they were back when we were kids (and thank goodness I wasn’t any of those things!)—how can they be parents? And such good ones?

But they are! My sister Brenda, famously impatient and easily offended as a child, now manages to address her 1-year-old’s every need with skill and good humor. My stepsister Gretchen, the youngest of us all, now has her third funny, smart kid. And while he only has one week as a parent under his belt, it’s pretty obvious that my stepbrother Curtis, not always focused as a younger man, has found a new priority and an unwavering object of attention.

Being a parent, most of the time, just does that. It changes a person. They look at the little bundle of flesh and blood, the one that makes loud noises and awful smells, that in time causes untold destruction and gut-wrenching heartache … and they love him or her. Love their face, love their hands, love their voice, love their heart. It’s not that the child can do no wrong, or that there isn’t anger and punishment. It’s just that at the end of the day, they don’t really know what else to do but love.

*

We continue our journey through the prophets of the Old Testament, and this is our last week with one of the so-called "minor" prophets. They are called minor not because they are unimportant, but because their books are so much shorter than the major prophets—Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel. Many of these minor prophets don’t even get included in the lectionary—that three-year cycle of readings we often use. In traditional practice, they are all included on one scroll, "The Twelve" and so often Joel and Obadiah and Nahum and Habakkuk and Zephaniah fade into the background, only occasionally to be rescued by Sunday School curricula (as with Jonah and the big fish), or by the songwriters who take words from Micah about "what the Lord requires of you" and set them to music.

So it is a rare treat that we have a second reading from the prophet Hosea this week … and if you were here last week, you’ll know that it’s probably a good thing we do. Hosea is an especially vivid prophet, called (as Matt put it last week) to not only speak the Lord’s word with words but with his life. The imagery we heard last week came in the first chapter of the book where we are asked to see God as husband and Israel as wife—a wife who is also a prostitute. And that isn’t the word the prophet uses for her. He is commanded, in fact, to marry such a woman, to experience firsthand the anguish God feels loving an unfaithful people.

Since that chapter, Hosea has delivered page after page of judgment and condemnation, doom and gloom. There are, interspersed, words of hope, but they tend to be fleeting, as the prophet stumbles across more that the people of Israel’s northern kingdom have done that is displeasing to the Lord. Their primary offense is idolatry; they have set up worship to the Ba’als, the native gods that they found when they moved into the promised land in the first place. They can’t seem to shake this dependence on things other than God. They keep wanting to cover their bases, to try out other options, to do what is easy rather than what is right.

And now, Israel is suffering the consequences. It is 733 B.C. or so, poor leadership and unwise alliances have left the people at the mercy of the neighboring kingdom of Assyria, which is about to sweep in. And the prophet has pointed to the idolatry—to the immorality and faithlessness, the lip service they give to the Lord while they chase everything unrighteous—as the reason. They have only themselves to blame, but it will be their enemies in war who do them in.

There have been a variety of images the prophet has turned to in these last nine chapters. God is like a bird-catcher and the people like birds without any sense. God is like a doctor, and the people like a sick patient who just can’t seem to get better. God is like a persistent moth, a fiercely protective lion, a strong cypress tree, a renewing springtime shower. Israel is a cake that won’t rise, an overgrown vine, a band of robbers, an empty cup. But there is no image more compelling than those we heard today.

God and Israel. Steadfast, ungrateful. Angry, clueless. Forgiving, free. God is a loving parent and God’s people, a rebellious child.

*

Children, it is said, have an innate sense of justice. I know I did. I was the kid in the family most likely to utter those famous words that every child speaks—words that parents did not teach them, but are in there somewhere anyway, "That’s not fair!" Sound familiar? Kids tend to feel quite strongly that things should go a certain way, and often they are right: Actions should have consequences. People should be treated the same.

But there is a curious lesson that it seems like all parents teach about this particular understanding, about this strong sense of justice. And if you as a parent, or perhaps your parents, were anything like mine, the answer this lesson was delivered in a single pithy response, each and every time. "That’s not fair?" It was automatic. "Nothing’s fair." Now go to bed. Nothing’s fair, now give me the toy. Nothing’s fair, put the Easter egg back in your sister’s basket.

Children are born believing in justice, and for some reason, parents feel the need to undermine it. And thank God they do.

Israel doesn’t display much commitment to justice, much concern for fairness—it is usually God who is just. But today we are seeing God the loving parent, and Israel the rebellious child. And like loving parents everywhere, we witness a God who even knowing what the people deserve, cannot bring himself to allow it. The child who runs into traffic may deserve to be hit, but the parent tries to stop it. The child who chooses the trouble-making friends may deserve to hit rock bottom, but no parent would willingly watch their child go there. The child who wrecks the car deserves to be grounded until he’s 25, but the parent probably will give another chance.

Parents don’t always give their children what they deserve. That doesn’t mean they spoil them or let them get away with things. It’s just that the response doesn’t have to be proportionate to the actions. There is no eye for an eye with your kids. There can’t be. Because love wins out.

And so God looks at Israel—the people who have worshiped other gods and debased themselves with disobedience. God knows that they have made their own bed and will soon lie in it. But God loves them too much to leave them there. Yes, there will be hardship ahead for God’s people, deserved and self-inflicted. "The sword rages," it "consumes" and "devours," the "people are bent on turning away" (Hosea 11:6-7). But God can’t even speak the whole scene of destruction without turning away like a parent who after doling out punishment closes the door of their room and weeps. Like a father who thinks back to holding the child’s hands as he takes his first steps. Or like a mother who remembers lifting the infant to her breast. The parent weeps:

"How can I give you up?...

How can I hand you over? …

My heart recoils within me;

My compassion grows warm and tender …" (v. 8)

And then the most remarkable thing happens. Justice goes out the window. No. I won’t do it. "I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst" (v. 9). Justice is justice. But love is stronger. And this can’t be Israel’s end. My people were not chosen for destruction. They were chosen for life. One day, they will come home.

*

You and I convince ourselves that our sins are not so great as the eighth-century northern kingdoms. The gods we worship are less obvious. The immoralities we practice less obscene. You and I face very little threat from earthly enemies, the forces that stand waiting to overtake us are not national but social, not military but mental. Many of us have already been spirited away to the Assyria of doubt and shame and indifference, or run as refugees to the Egypt of fleeting pleasure and false comfort. We have brought it on ourselves. We deserve it.

But the word of our loving parent is this: This is not the end. It is not where God will leave us. God can’t. Love won’t permit it. And the Lord of Love rears back and roars—and all can hear. And the sound is irresistible. You and I, sinners everywhere, come trembling back. And returning, we find our home is in the promised land with our Lord, where there is always a place for us, and the thirsty are satisfied, and the hungry are filled with good things. Heed the call. Come home. Sit up to the Table. Step again into the Parent’s arms of love. Amen.