"for I am God"--Pentecost + 9, August 11, 2019

Sermon for SMHP, Year C, Proper 13, August 11, 2019

Hosea 11:1-10

          When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. ²The more I called them, the more they went from me; they kept sacrificing to the Baals, and offering incense to idols. ³Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them. ⁴I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love. I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them and fed them. ⁵They shall return to the land of Egypt, and Assyria shall be their king, because they have refused to return to me. ⁶The sword rages in their cities, it consumes their oracle-priests, and devours because of their schemes. ⁷My people are bent on turning away from me. To the Most High they call, but he does not raise them up at all.

               ⁸How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. ⁹I will not execute my fierce anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath. ¹⁰They shall go after the Lord, who roars like a lion; when he roars, his children shall come trembling from the west. ¹¹They shall come trembling like birds from Egypt, and like doves from the land of Assyria; and I will return them to their homes, says the Lord.

          This lesson comes at a fortuitous time.

          For months now, several of us have been meeting most every Sunday to talk about forgiveness.  I recommend it highly.

          Specifically, we’ve been studying a book by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his daughter Mpho, called The Book of Forgiving.  The Tutu family has urged us to be on a fourfold path toward healing through forgiveness.

          I know a lot of us are a bit suspicious of appeals to forgiveness.  Forgiveness can be a tool for complacency and even complicity in evil.  For years, women and children were told to endure abuse at the hands of those more powerful than they, and to strive toward forgiveness, when what they needed was justice.

          But this book has not been that sort of appeal.  It has been a studied look at how we can choose to reset or release relationships that have been damaged by our own or someone else’s misdeeds.

          And why should we trust Desmond Tutu to bring us that message?

          Well there’s this.  His 1984 Nobel Peace Prize for his work against South African apartheid.  His presidential medal of freedom.  His close friendship with another of the most respected men in the world, the Dalai Lama.  That friendship led to collaboration on another book, appropriately titled The Book of Joy.

          But even more importantly, Desmond Tutu is afforded gravitas to speak about forgiveness because of this:  When the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was formed in post-Apartheid South Africa, President Nelson Mandela asked Tutu to chair it.  The commission is an exemplar for how to apply the principles of honesty, forgiveness, and reconciliation in order to move forward together.

          The system of Apartheid had brutalized people of color, especially black people, in South Africa for decades.  When world pressure and a moderate leader finally brought that system down, there was a collective holding of breath, to see what the Finally Free South Africans would do to those who had held them down with violence and political action.  And instead of a retributive system which sought simply to punish those who had been part of the evil, great leaders like Mandela, Tutu, and Sisi Khampepe sought to create a commission which would offer restorative justice.  Reparations were made to victims, and some perpetrators went to jail, after telling the truth about their deeds.  Many others were given amnesty, or allowed to work toward a more just national union in order to atone for what they had done.

          The Truth and Reconciliation Commission did exactly what its name implied:  It got to the truth and it fostered reconciliation…in a place as deeply divided as it could have been.

          And it is no accident that the architect of its success was the giggling Archbishop of Johannesburg, Desmond Tutu.  Many people were pessimistic about the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.  We are conditioned to expect vengeance, especially when crimes are heinous.  Would this touchy-feely process of testimony, amnesty, and forgiveness really bring healing to a nation so scarred by racist violence?

          I think it is fair to say that we ought to be paying attention to the answer to that question, don’t you think?

          And the answer is yes.  The Truth and Reconciliation Commission brought healing, forgiveness, reconciliation, and that was due in no small part to its chair. 

          Desmond Tutu believes in forgiveness, because Desmond Tutu believes in God, in very tangible ways.  Desmond Tutu understands God in ways few have, in what can only be called a prophetic way.  Tutu speaks of God in the way that Isaiah did, Amos did, Hosea did.  As someone who has truly understood God’s commands—someone who learned through them who God is. 

          It turns out that it is entirely possible to claim faith in God, Yahweh, Allah—and have little understanding of who God is.

          Tutu understands.  When asked about heaven, he replied, “We may be surprised at the people we find in heaven. God has a soft spot for sinners. His standards are quite low.” 

          That’s the sort of understanding of God that allows one to embrace sinners, to broker truth and reconciliation in a real way.

          Which brings us, finally!, to Hosea, and our lesson for this morning.  I was starting to wonder myself if I was ever going to get there.

          Hosea is an interesting book.  It seems that Hosea was an interesting prophet, too.  He seems to have gone to the Amos School of Prophetic Speech.  He doesn’t pull any punches.  If you read this book too quickly, you could come away thinking that God has given up on Israel.  The primary metaphor in this book is the wronged spouse, the one who has suffered under an unfaithful partner.  Look at verse seven in today’s lesson:  “My people are bent on turning away from me. To the Most High they call, but he does not raise them up at all.”

          There will be punishment for this people, God declares.  They will suffer at the hands of the Assyrian Empire, which does, in fact, happen.

          The punishment is laid out in lavish terms.  Right before our reading for today is this: [slide]

You have ploughed wickedness,
   you have reaped injustice,
   you have eaten the fruit of lies.
Because you have trusted in your power
   and in the multitude of your warriors, 
¹⁴ therefore the tumult of war shall rise against your people,
   and all your fortresses shall be destroyed,
as Shalman destroyed Beth-arbel on the day of battle
   when mothers were dashed in pieces with their children. 
¹⁵ Thus it shall be done to you, O Bethel,
   because of your great wickedness.
At dawn the king of Israel
   shall be utterly cut off. 

          Youch!  Not exactly Truth and Reconciliation, is it?

          But listen to the end of our reading for today, to hear the heart of God beating in love.

          Verse 8 and following:

          ⁸How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. ⁹I will not execute my fierce anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.

          Admah and Zeboiim are two of the five “Cities of the Plain” which were destroyed along with their sisters Sodom and Gomorrah.  Recall that in last week’s lesson, we heard Abraham advocating on behalf of Sodom, trying to remind God that God’s name is mercy. 

          This lesson, from later in our relationship with God, shows how God’s commitment to humanity is growing.  God did destroy the Cities of the Plain, but once again we see God’s regret.  The people of Israel will be punished, but not destroyed. 

          All of this is interesting.  It’s fun to watch God fall in love with humanity.  But what is most important in this lesson, and what the great prophets—Isaiah, Micah, Jesus, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Desmond Tutu—what all of those prophets have learned and taught about God—is the simple phrase in verse nine.

          “I will not execute my fierce anger,” says the Lord, “I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.”

          God forgives and reconciles because God is God.  The end of God’s journey of relationship with us—Creator to Created—is mercy.  Mercy is the name of God and mercy is the very being of God, forged in relationship to a people who can be stubborn, foolish, and even violent…but who can also learn truth, forgiveness, and reconciliation, especially as they know and love God.

          As our relationship with God has grown and deepened, God has tended toward mercy.  And as a people, we have tended toward war.  But there have always been those among us, the great prophets in our midst, who have called us toward the heart of God.  Who have reminded us that God’s name is mercy, and that no matter what we have done, God forgives us.

          And then they call us, just as God has called us, to be people of truth and reconciliation.  To forgive and love and serve because we are God’s.  Because God has loved and forgiven us. 

          God forgives because God is God.

          We forgive, and seek reconciliation, because we are God’s.  And we are forgiven.

          Or, in the words of Desmond Tutu:

“In the end what matters is not how good we are but how good God is. Not how much we love God but how much God loves us. And God loves us whoever we are, whatever we’ve done or failed to do, whatever we believe or can’t.”