Hosea 1: 1-10 (links validated 7/3/22)
Quick Locator
| Readings | Related Pages | Resources | Information |
|
|
New Resources
Sermon Starters (Proper 12C)(2022)
In her book Speaking of Sin, Barbara Brown Taylor has a chapter that bears the rather startling title, “Sin Is Our Only Hope.” It seems an oddly perverse title and yet Brown Taylor makes a good point. After all, if we look around us in life, we see so much that is painful. We see children abused and spouses cheated on. We see corporate greed and wanton pollution of God’s beautiful earth. We see people who have fried their brains with cocaine and drunk drivers who run down children playing hopscotch on a sidewalk. We see suicide bombings that reduce precious human bodies, the very temple of God’s Spirit, to so many severed limbs and organs. If there is no such thing as sin–and what’s more, if there is no God who can declare a definitive judgment on what is sinful–then there is no hope that anything can be salvaged. Sin is our only hope because if sin exists, then so does sin’s opposite...
Resources from 2019 to 2021
God Offers Hope
Yesterday, my husband and I saw a local community theatre production of the haunting musical The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Based on the animated Disney movie, it features the same songs and several new ones. The story line is similar but darker, pitting dogmatic, cruel piety against those who need God’s love and care the most. There is no truly happy ending where all is resolved and everyone is safe and sound. At the end, the characters sum up the story like this: “The world is cruel / The world is ugly / But there are times / And there are people / When the world is not / And at its cruelest / It’s still the only world we’ve got / Light and dark / Foul and fair.”...Sermon Starters (Proper 12C)(2019)
The use of the marriage analogy to highlight the seriousness of idolatry might not work in some churches, because of the variety of marriages in our culture today. Think of the TV show, “Modern Family,” with its traditional marriages, second marriages, and same sex marriage. And proponents of open marriage or polygamous marriage might not get the shock of adultery. On the other hand, you might use the condition of modern marriage as a foil to talk about the marriage between Hosea and Gomer, and by extension between Yahweh and Israel.Picturing the Relationship
The story of Hosea and Gomer. Is it a romance? A cautionary tale? A tragedy? Is Gomer abused by Hosea (and God...see Hosea 2)? Is she an excellent stand-in for Israel as sinners? We know she is voiceless in the text. But so is Hosea. God is the one who speaks and directs in this text (Hosea 1:2-10). Artists have historically seemed to revel in the opportunity to paint Biblical texts that read as...salacious. Joseph and Potiphar's wife. Delilah's treachery and betrayal of Samson. David and Bathsheba. Is the point of these texts that they can be R-rated?...
Resources from 2013 to 2018
Proper 12C (2016)
In his book, Peculiar Treasures, Frederick Beuchner has a typically delightful way of describing Hosea’s children’s names. He calls them “queer names like Not-pitied-for-God-will-no-longer-pity-Israel-now-that-it’s-gone-to-the-dogs so that every time the roll was called at school, Hosea would [score] a prophetic bull’s eye in absentia.â€Children of the Living God
Henri Nouwen tells the story of an old man who used to meditate and pray every morning under a big tree on the bank of the Ganges River in India. One morning, after he had finished his prayers, he saw a scorpion floating helplessly in the water. As the scorpion was washed closer to the shore, the old man reached out to rescue the drowning creature. As soon as he touched it, however, the scorpion stung him.
The old man jerked his hand back quickly, but moments later he again reached out to save the scorpion. Again the scorpion stung, this time badly enough with it’s poisonous tail to cause the man’s hand to bleed, and his face to grimace in pain.
At that moment, a passerby saw the old man struggling with the scorpion and shouted, “Hey, stupid old man, what’s wrong with you? Only a fool would risk his life for the sake of an ugly, evil creature. Don’t you know it’s the nature of a scorpion to sting? Don’t you know you could kill yourself trying to save that ungrateful scorpion?”
Looking into the stranger’s eyes, the old man calmly replied, “Yes, I know, my friend. But just as it is the scorpion’s nature to sting, it is my nature to try and save.”
Resources from the Archives
Proper 12C (2010)
("In her book Speaking of Sin, Barbara Brown Taylor has a chapter that bears the rather startling title, 'Sin Is Our Only Hope'. It seems an oddly perverse title and yet Brown Taylor makes a good point. After all, if we look around us in life, we see so much that is painful. We see children abused and spouses cheated on...")