Hosea 1:2-10
Proper 12 (17) - Year C
Hosea 1:2-10 or Genesis 18:20-32
What group of people would you love to see wiped away? Does is bear on your political life? religious life? economic life? love life? Presumably their demise will elevate your understanding to the normative.
You may be convinced that there aren't even two people, much less ten, in said group that are worth anything. It may even be that when you really step back and look, there's not a one for whom you would withhold wrath. Genocide is mine, saith the Lord.
Yet, and what a wonderful word that is, "Yet", even from such a derided and defeated people will come a reversal - that which was deemed of no value, becomes, in the words of a popular commercial, "priceless".
This pushes on us. Even as we experience poisonous parents we yet anticipate a time beyond our continual testing of one another. In that anticipation we find again the opportunity to lift our curse and to provide a blessing.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/july2004.html
Hosea 1:2-10 or Genesis 18:20-32
How great is the outcry! How great the sin! The inhospitability! The injustice! How tempting to pull it all up, even if it take any elseway opportunity with it.
How important it is to remember Gomer, as well as Hosea, and their children who become more than their beginning! In so doing we hear G*D engaging G*D with an internal dialogue between discontent and promise.
We hear echoes of G*D's self-reflection through the vehicle of Abraham -- "Shall I go into Sodom and know her children as my own? Is pity and adoption my hallmark, or not? If one of my own goes astray, will I take out my loss on others?"
It is so tempting to have our fantasy -- you are not mine! -- cemented for all time. It is so blessed to have this same fantasy redeemed in real life.
- - -
it takes two to whore around
whether that be macro
with G*D and Sodom
or micro
any two Gomers and Hoseas
then we freeze-frame a moment
and name it abomination
not you
not mine
not any
forgetting a first word
is not a last word
yes, you
yes, me
yes, all
so look again
in your bag of tricks
for not only the old
familiar approbation
but a new beginning
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_07_01_archive.html
Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14 or 2 Samuel 23:1-7
Psalm 132:1-18 or Psalm 93
Revelation 1:4b-8
John 18:33-37
So, who are you? We need to listen to other's perception of us. There will be some truth there. It will give us a clue about who we have been, are, or might yet become.
For this to be most helpful it is good to have some idea that we are fulfilling a meaningful interaction with the other and with a community larger than our immediate community. With this larger perspective we can take other perceptions and not battle them. Sometimes we can even claim them (probably to the consternation of those who were trying to get our goat).
I am who I was born to be. This is a deep truth each of us have access to. When we do connect with it, it is amazing what power is set free within and through us.
Here is an empowering exercise. Stand in front of a proverbial mirror and say aloud, until it is firmly stated, "For this I was born – to testify to wholeness." Stating this truth continues our completion and emboldens us to assist others to arrive at a similar spot for themselves. This is leadership.
- - -
where did I come from
alpha
where am I going
omega
right now I'm between
mu and nu
I am glad to be here
me and you
for this I was born
for this I will die
in the meantime
we enjoy between times
we are and were
and are yet were-ing
to a new witness
all are loved free
look up and down
jump and kneel
remember and anticipate
amen and amen
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_11_01_archive.html
If you were to look at your family, congregation, community, nation, world - to what image would you compare them that would identify a blockage keeping them from where they might be, were that not present? For Hosea it was a distraction of where their eye landed without their even being aware of it. G*D called everything that wasn't focused on G*D, whores. A convenient digital response of all or nothing.
We do have problems with sexuality in general. Some later interpreters of Gomer denied she was promiscuous before or during her marriage with Hosea. The New Interpreter's Dictionary notes, "Augustine argued that she abandoned her life of harlotry before her marriage; Jerome claimed that her marriage to Hosea remade her "chaste." Luther stated that she was a pure woman who only took on the name of "harlot" as a metaphor."
Regarding their daughter, Lo-ruhamah or No-Mercy, The Message reveals this as a reality of G*D, "I've run out of mercy." In G*D's image, we all run out of mercy. What happens then? Can mercy be transferrable - when one runs out of mercy another can re-infuse them with it? Can we be merciful until mercy returns to G*D?
Well, there is a whole story to go, but for now we need to hear Jesus re-telling Hosea's story right after his teaching of prayer. Is the giving of forgiveness directly tied to the reception of such? If G*D holds back mercy, will mercy be learned?
Again, what image would you use to compare the various parts of your life, given that they could be so much more were it not for that particular impediment? Is whoredom or idolatry still the way to talk about the self-imposed limits? What other options are open to you? As we image our response, we are given a glimpse into where our call might be.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010/07/hosea-11-10.html