Remembering Even When it Hurts: Proper 13: Hosea 11

When my son was about 7, he had the habit of not locking up his bicycle when he went to see one of his friends. One day, when I noticed his unlocked bike at a friend's apartment, I decided to teach him a lesson. I took his bike back to our apartment. A few minutes later, I came back outside and saw him wailing, literally wailing. To this day, I remember the stab I felt in my heart. Why should I have put myself, my son's father, in the place of a thief just to teach him a lesson? Some years later, I wrote him a letter while he and his church youth group were in Scotland on a pilgrimage. In that letter, I brought up my worst moment as a parent, and asked for his forgiveness. When his plane landed, and we all hugged and made our way home, he said that, actually, he had forgotten the incident.

Of course, some of the things he does remember about our relationship are things that I have forgotten. That's how it always seems with human parents and human children. An offhand comment by a parent about money lingers on in the child who remains fearful about money long after the offhand remark that sparked it. Selective memory, on both sides, is a powerful and sometimes destructive force in the parent-child relationship.

But the God revealed through the prophet Hosea has no selective memory. God remembers everything, which explains the agony that God feels in his heart. "When Israel was a child, I loved him like a child, and called him out of Egypt." God saw a child reduced to back-breaking slavery, a child whose only value to his Egyptian owner was the use that could be made of him, until worn down, that slave child would be replaced by another slave child seized by the Egyptian empire. And so God the loving Father called this child out of Egypt. And like a mother who encourages her toddler, "It was I who taught Israel to walk. It was I who pampered them, sweeping my children up into my arms."

But on this day, God is suffering from a broken heart. For his child has much more than a selective memory. Israel has completely forgotten the father/mother who gave him his life: "The more I called them, the further away they went. They offered their sacrifices to Baal, whom they thought would give them rain. And they burned incense to carved images of their own making and called them gods." This is what Hosea saw in the northern kingdom of Israel, where 10 of the 12 tribes of Israel lived. He saw that the people of the LORD had turned away from the God who had brought them out of Egypt. Instead, they were trying to appease the local gods of the earth, the rain, the crops, as though enough sacrifices to them would give them a good harvest in the spring.

And rather than trusting in the LORD for their security, Israel kept trying to appease the bigger, more powerful empires of the region: Assyria to the north, Egypt to the south. Idolatry at home, lack of trust in the LORD's protection abroad: The LORD kept calling, and his children kept running. So why not leave them to their fate? Let the sword rage against the cities of Israel, break down the gates of their fortresses and devour their children. Let the cities of Israel be like Admah and Zeboiim, whose destruction was as total as that of Sodom and Gomorrah. After all, actions must have consequences. Injustice must be punished, or else justice is a meaningless word, and the LORD who claims to be the world's righteous judge might as well admit that his justice has no power to back it up.

God seems pretty committed to seeing his justice done. But suddenly, the sword reaches his heart. "How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I surrender you, O Israel? My heart recoils at the thought of your destruction. Yes, my anger burns within me. But at the same time, compassion warms my heart with the memories of better days, and the hope that they will yet return." What are we to make of a God who, like every other parent, can't seem to figure out whether to hug his child or throttle them? Isn't God supposed to be beyond human passions? If God can be so hurt by our actions, then how can God be all-powerful?

"I will not execute my burning anger," God says, precisely because, "I am God, and not human, The Holy One among you." Because God is all-powerful, he is not bound by the man-made rule of an eye for an eye. Because God is all-knowing, his love is never blinded by anger. God will never forget the love he has invested in us. And looking forward to the future, God will always leave the door open to forgiveness, redemption and new life. To us sinners standing under judgment, God's grace may sometimes sound like the roar of a lion as we face the truth of ourselves and our sin. But the Lion will not devour us.

What beautiful images Hosea was inspired to give us of our God. There's just one complication. Perhaps in Hosea's lifetime, certainly not long after his inspired prophesying, the worst that could happen did happen. Assyria swept down into Israel, brought the northern kingdom to an end, and created the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. Everything that God seems to say he wouldn't do ended up happening. Did God forget them? What hope of return can there be for the Lost? Unless they were never really lost.

The public TV science series NOVA once had a program on the Ten Lost Tribes. From southern Africa to Japan, you find peoples who claim to be descended from the Lost Tribes. They have customs that are unlike their African or Asian neighbors, but are consistent with the customs of Israel. Unlike their polytheistic neighbors, they worship one God. In the case of the Lemba tribe in Zimbabwe, DNA testing actually links them to the Jewish people. And so have the scattered children of Israel carried in their memories their faith in the one God, the LORD, who has always remembered his children.

Closer to home, our own children have scattered, or will do so eventually, of their own accord. But the children of Israel carried their God in their memories, and our children will carry the best parts of us in their memories. Kingdoms will crumble and fall. But wherever God calls us, we take with us the best of what God has given us. And we look forward in hope and anticipation. With a roar, our God calls us home, as he called the Lost Tribes, to homes they could never have imagined on their own; but homes they are. And so, let us go with trembling in the direction from which the roar comes. None of us knows what that home looks like. But the God, who taught us to walk together in faith, knows what our home looks like. And what a beautiful home it will be.