Hosea, Faithful Prophet and Husband

Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

September 15, 2013

Hosea 3

Hosea, Faithful Prophet and Husband

In the name of Jesus.

I.

There once was a church that had a pastor, who married the town harlot. Everybody in town knew that she slept around and now the local pastor had married her and she was living in the parsonage.

Shocked? Yes, you are. What more shocking is that God told him to do it.

When the Lord first spoke to Hosea, He said this to him:

Go and marry a promiscuous wife

and have children of promiscuity,

for the land is committing blatant acts of promiscuity

by abandoning the Lord.

So [Hosea] went and married Gomer (Hosea 1:2-3a)

God wanted Hosea, His prophet, to preach against the spirituality adultery of Israel. Hosea faithfully proclaimed that above all things God's people were to love God. Instead they played the field and flirted with idols and slept around with other gods.

Hosea preached this, but God wanted him to add actions to his preaching. So He commanded Hosea to marry a woman whom He knew had been promiscuous in the past and would be unfaithful to Hosea in the future.

II.

This is cruel. Especially since kids were involved. Hosea and Gomer had three children together. And God commanded that Hosea give them names that would mark them for the rest of their lives. We're Americans, so our names don't mean anything. But Hosea was ordered to name one of his kids No-Mercy and this girl would live as a breathing testimony that God would no longer have mercy on Israel. He wasn't going to forgive them any longer.

His youngest child was named Not-My-People.

Name him Not My People,

for you are not My people,

and I will not be your God. (Hosea 1:8)

God was being blunt. If you sleep around with other gods, let them try to save you from hell. But they won't and they can't.

III.

But God can and He will. And this is the most shocking part of Hosea's prophecy. After all of Israel's sleeping around, God returns and takes her back. This is symbolized by Hosea's taking back Gomer, as we read in today's Gospel.

Then the Lord said to me, “Go again; show love to a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, just as the Lord loves the Israelites though they turn to other gods” . . . So I bought her for 15 shekels of silver and five bushels of barley. I said to her, “You must live with me many days. Don’t be promiscuous or belong to any man, and I will act the same way toward you.” For the Israelites must live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar, and without ephod or household idols. Afterward, the people of Israel will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They will come with awe to the Lord and to His goodness in the last days. (Hosea 3)

The unsurprising thing here is that Gomer was still Gomer. But see how remarkable the actions of her former husband Hosea, whom she had deserted; he was going to get her back. And it cost him. It wasn't free.

She was one unfaithful woman. And now Hosea switches to the unfaithfulness of the nation of Israel. They had slept around with sacrifices to idols, had worshiped at sacred pagan pillars, had tried to see the future with magical capes, and had prayed to the little idols in their homes. They had thoroughly polluted themselves with other gods. Now their former husband, God Himself, whom they had deserted, was going to get them back. And it cost him. It wasn't free.

IV.

Later in Hosea we read,

After two days He will revive us;

on the third day He will raise us up,

that we may live before Him. (Hosea 6:2)

This passage is a striking reminder how much it cost God to buy us back from our spiritual adultery. The price was His own Son, crucified on the cross and on the third day, raised up from the dead.

In chapter eleven, God promised that He would have compassion on His people.

I will not execute my burning anger;

I will not again destroy Ephraim [My people];

for I am God and not a [mere] man,

the Holy One in your midst,

and I will not come in wrath. (Hosea 11:9)

These verses of promise come buried under verse after verse of wrath and condemnation. But they are there.

In our lives, we confess that we deserve every word of wrath. You rightly confessed that

I have done what is evil and failed to do what is good. For this I deserve Your punishment both now and in eternity.

And then what happens? We speak and then sing for Christ to have mercy on us. And as He promised in Hosea, He speaks tenderly to you (Hosea 2:14) and you'll know Him.

God, our heavenly Father, has been merciful to us and has given His only Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Therefore as a called servant of Christ and by His authority, I forgive you all of your sins in the name of the Father and of the † Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Baptism Drowns Esmeralda

Holy Baptism of Esmeralda

September 8, 2013

Romans 6:3

Baptism Drowns You

In the name of Jesus.

I.

Dearly beloved, tiny Esmeralda is very beautiful and almost completely helpless. Sure, she can open her eyes, but you nurse her. You change her. You dress her. You do everything for her because she's a baby.

When it comes to her soul, she's totally helpless (there's no “almost” about it) because she is a sinner. Sin doesn't care if your a baby or about to die, where you live, where you come from, how much money you have, how smart you are, how well you speak, or even if you can read. From the beginning of life, we rebel against Jesus and pretend that we get to decide what is right and what is wrong. We pretend that we are God.

King David reveals this fact clearly in the Psalms,

“I was guilty when I was born; I was sinful when my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51:5)

The cure to the disease of sin is Jesus and His Sacraments. Though Baptism, Jesus drowned Esmeralda to death because the only way to stop this disease is to kill the patient.

[A]ll of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death[.] . . . we were buried with Him by baptism into death (Romans 6:3-4)

The only way to stop sin before it kills you is to die. So in Baptism Jesus killed Esmeralda . . . and then He brings her back to life. She's still a sinner, but now Christ has created a new person called Saint Esmeralda. She's a saint not because she's done any miracles, but because a miracle has been done to her!

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him, because we know that Christ, having been raised from the dead, will not die again. Death no longer rules over Him. (Romans 6:8-9)

Everyone dies because everyone is a sinner. But since St. Esmeralda has already died and Jesus has already brought her back to life, she can't die again. She might die physically, but it won't be the end. Everyone is going to exist forever; by Christ's gracious gift St. Esmeralda will exist forever in His presence.

Until Jesus calls Saint Esmeralda home, feed her, change her, dress her, walk with her, read to her, pray with her, laugh with her, and enjoy her company. Her life will not be an easy one—whose life is?—but she will not struggle alone. Through the Sacraments of the Church, she will be forgiven and washed clean by God the Holy Spirit.

As a forgiven sinner, she will have crosses to carry as she faces times when she feels alone and even abandoned by Jesus, but her Savior's holy cross will always pull her back to His promise: “I am with you always, until the end” (Matthew 28).

This daily death and rebirth will continue until Time itself stops. Because Jesus has killed, drowned, crucified, and buried St. Esmeralda and has also raised her to new life, she will always live, safe in Jesus' eternal care.

In the name of the Father and of the † Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Feasting With Jesus

I was traveling over the "Work" Day weekend, so I found an excellent sermon by Dr. Norman Nagel. Subsequently, I found this sermon online, which is very similar. Thus not sure to whom I should attribute.

Pentecost 14 - August 29, 2010

Feasting with Jesus

A sermon based on Luke 14:1-14
By Rev. Dr. Art Eichhorn, Ed. D.

Our Gospel lesson for today is disappointing. After all, "Don't make a jerk out of yourself in public" is a piece of wisdom we hardly need to hear from the lips of Jesus. We have Emily Post for that. This piece of wisdom has been around for a long time, as King Solomon wrote in the book of Proverbs: "Do not put yourself forward in the king's presence or stand in the place of the great." You would expect that Jesus could do better than that. Well, actually, He does do better than that. You just have to keep looking deeper into the text until you find more. And there is some strong Gospel at the beginning of the lesson:

"One Sabbath when (Jesus) went to dine at the house of a ruler who belonged to the Pharisees, they were watching Him. And behold, there was a man before Him who had dropsy. And Jesus spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, 'Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?' But they were silent. Then He took him and healed him, and let him go. And He said to them, "Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a well, will not immediately pull him out on a Sabbath day?' And they could not reply to this." (Luke 14:1-6)

Now we see the real Jesus. He accepts an invitation from a man who is certainly no friend of His. The text tells us, "They were watching Him." Jesus, knowing this, acts the same way He always acts. There is a man in need, so Jesus helps him. Do the others think that Jesus did the right thing? They are silent because it is Saturday, the Sabbath. The Pharisees had taken a day of rejoicing in God's good gifts and made it into a performance. They had set numerous requirements that served to show how good of a job they were doing in keeping the Law. They wanted to compare themselves with others and find themselves superior.

There is no point in being superior if you are not going to get recognized for it. Jesus tells what He thinks about showing off one's superiority. Jesus is not very democratic. Here in America, you can sit anywhere. Your seat doesn't show how much you are respected in comparison to someone else. In our text, however, the place where you sit gives your place in the order of honor. There were three couches in a group each holding three people. The center couch is the place to be to be recognized.

Jesus saw what was going on, and He talked about it. It seems at first glance that he is talking on the level of prudent etiquette, and no one is likely to disagree with Him. It's risky to put yourself too far forward because you might get shoved back. It's better to start low, and you will have a better chance of being advanced. But Jesus is up to something more than what lies at the surface. He leads his hearers to the point where humility becomes the instrument of self-advancement.

Jesus has a disconcerting way of peeling off our pious pretenses and disclosing their phoniness. Humility is a game you cannot win. Truly humble people never mention humility as a virtue found in themselves. They are otherwise engaged. Those who draw attention to it in themselves or how hard they are striving to be humble are almost certainly phonies, the opposite of humble.

Some will say that today's text is a lesson on humility given by Jesus. That is to get only the husk, not the kernel. We have been warned against this by being told that Jesus was telling a parable. A parable tells an earthly story alongside the intended heavenly message, the kernel. The parable does its job in bringing that message, that kernel.

The parable is about a marriage feast, which is a traditional way of telling of the Lord's love for His bride, His people. The feast is a celebration of that love, and the bringing of the feast is the Messiah's work. Here Jesus is telling about it - that it is bestowed not according to our calculations of first or last, or high or low, but only of His bounty. Those who are surprised by God's bounty are the truly humble who are not prompted by calculation of their own advancement or reward.

There are all sorts of rewards, all sorts of good things given, but if you target yourself at them as at humility, you will end up with the opposite. The rewards business is God's business, and Jesus runs that business. He runs it the opposite of our calculation. "Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." (Luke 14:11)

Be on your guard against the Tempter should anyone ever tell you how humble you are getting to be. Give him only a mocking laugh. The one thing that the devil just can't stand is to be laughed at, as Martin Luther observes. If you become absorbed in taking your humility seriously, it is Satan who would have you become more earnest, sweating to show how well you can do it. Then you will be a pain not only to yourself but also to those who have to live with you and also to God who wants us to be a joy for one another and for Him.

God dishes out his gifts far beyond our calculations of reward. Faith lives in giving God's gifts as gifts to others, without calculation of return, without us trying to be better than others. "But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you." (Luke 14:13-14) Jesus doesn't blame His host for having friends to dinner. Some of our happiest times are feasting with our friends. But on this Sabbath, contrary to the appearances on the surface, it was not a gathering of friends. They were jealous of where others sat. Jesus was not invited as a friend, but to give them an opportunity to size Him up.

Even before Jesus exposes the deceitfulness and hypocrisy of the group, they demonstrated it by how the man with dropsy was welcomed. The traditional show of piety was to have the door open for the stranger and the poor, which was fine, so long as some stranger in need didn't take this seriously and actually come in. If one did, the host could stare him down. That would make the person feel uncomfortable enough to go away. He surely would not try such a presumptuous thing again. Giving him some food at the bottom place or in the corner could also hasten his departure.

But with Jesus, this is not the case. A summary of the Gospel is that Jesus is the friend of sinners and eats with them. Jesus feasts with Zacchaeus and his crowd, with Matthew and his bunch. The happiness of being at table with Jesus gives us a foretaste of the feast to which we are all invited. Jesus really means it when He leaves His door open. You may doubt your worthiness, but you cannot doubt Jesus and His invitation. And Jesus expects no return, no reciprocation of His love. His love simply helps others. His love sent Him to the cross for our salvation.

At the feast, top-seat people such as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets will be moving over for those who come from all over the place, as we were told in last Sunday's Gospel lesson. "And they shall come from the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God. And behold, there are last which shall be first, and there are first which shall be last." (Luke 13:29-30) We hear this echoing in Jesus' summarizing words in today's text:

 "For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." (Luke 14:11)

God grant His Spirit to work the truth of these words in us to repentance and faith, toward lives freed from sin for feasting with Him, of enjoying one another without calculation of what use or advantage we may get out of them. Such love forgets about trying to be humble, about showing off for others. Our place and who we are and what we are worth does not depend on any of that, but it is given to us by our Lord, who is Jesus, the Good News of forgiveness and salvation. He is our Savior today and at the resurrection.

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