The Cords of Human Kindness

November 10^th, 2019          “The Cords of Human Kindness”          Rev. Heather Jepsen

Hosea 11:1-9

         Well friends, it is good to be back in the pulpit and writing sermons again to share with you.  Special thanks to everyone who filled in while I was away, we are lucky to have such bountiful resources here in our congregation.  Prior to my surgery, we were busy following the narrative lectionary which is the overarching story of God’s relationship with God’s people.

         Our last chapter of the narrative lectionary was the story of Ruth and Naomi which Henry Croes read as a secondary text the Sunday before I left.  We have obviously missed a few readings since then so I want to catch up on the story a bit.

         While I was gone David was anointed king.  The people of Israel had longed to be like the other countries around them and asked God to give them a king.  God warned them that a king would inevitably grow selfish but they were unable to hear that truth.  Through the lineage of David the kingdom becomes divided.  That is where our first reading for today comes in. 

         The son of Solomon, Rehoboam is a foolish and selfish king.  Both David and Solomon set up oppression in the kingdom utilizing systems of slave labor.  The God who frees slaves from out of Egypt is not happy about the Israelites creating a slave system.  Rehoboam continues in this foolish and selfish path.  Jeroboam challenges him for leadership and the kingdom is split into the northern and southern countries, sometimes called Israel and Judah.

         The sin continues as the people begin to worship other gods.  Both David and Solomon married brides outside the faith and set up altars to their wives’ gods within the kingdom.  By the time we get to Jeroboam and Rehoboam the practice is rampant.  The Israelites are more likely to worship Baal then the God of their salvation.  In the reading that Mike shared from 1 Kings, Jeroboam sets up two golden calves for the people to worship declaring that these are the gods who brought them out of Egypt.  The writer is clear that this is a sin as the people go up to these high places and worship their false gods.

         So while we have been away from the story, the faith of the Israelites has faltered.  We have gone from the days of the people receiving the 10 commandments on the edge of the Promised Land, to a people who subject their neighbors to slavery and who worship foreign gods in the image of golden calves.  What began as a love story is now a huge and total mess.  We can only imagine how God’s heart breaks at the ruin God’s chosen people have become.

         Enter today’s reading from the book of Hosea.  Hosea is a prophetic book and scholars know very little about its origins.  We suspect it was written to the northern kingdom, Israel, in the time when Jeroboam II reigned around 750 BCE.  So basically this is written shortly after the events we just caught up on.  The kingdom is divided, the people are unjust, and they worship other gods.

         The book of Hosea is very complicated and mostly awful.  It’s a really negative story about God’s love for God’s people and has been rightly criticized by feminist scholars.  Read it sometime and you and I can have a discussion about the whole thing.  Luckily for us today, we are focused on the one piece of good news in Hosea.  Our reading, from Chapter 11 is a testament to God’s love for God’s broken and hurting people.

         Here in Hosea we find a God in conflict with God’s self.  This God has loved these people from the beginning.  “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.  The more I called them, the more they went from me; they kept sacrificing to the Baals and offering incense to idols.”  Here we have a picture of a parental God who has raised a nation the way a parent raises a child.  And like so many parents today have experienced, this child has gone astray and followed after the wrong things.

         In the next stanza God declares how God has continued to provide for the people, even from afar and even though they don’t even know it is God who offers them care.  “Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them.  I 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.”

         It’s beautiful poetry describing the intimacy of parental love and care.  And yet, the nation of Israel has gone astray, they have rejected God’s love and broken God’s heart.  And so God is rightfully angry which we read about in the next stanza.  “They shall return to the land of Egypt, and Assyria shall be their king, because they have refused to return to me.  The sword rages in their cities, it consumes their oracle-priests, and devours because of their schemes.  My people are bent on turning away from me.  To the Most High they call, but he does not raise them up at all.” 

         This is a God who is fed up and who is ready to punish the people.  But right away in the next verse we find a heart in conflict.  “How 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.  I 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.”

         What an amazing testament to divine love.  Here is a God who is righteously angry.  A God who set down laws and made a covenant, all of which has been broken.  Here is a God who deserves justice and who would be righteous in meting out punishment.  But God cannot do it.  God’s compassion outweighs God’s divine anger.  And moreover, it is this compassion, it is this deep deep love that makes God God.  All others would come in wrath, but as God says, “I am God and no mortal”.  Only God could muster this level of love and compassion.  Only God could be this faithful.

         I am not a fan of the book of Hosea, but I love this story of a God who is known not for righteous punishment but for love and mercy, and I find multiple pathways to connect this ancient prophet’s writings with our own lives today.

         First of all, I am drawn to this idea of the cords of human kindness.  In the second stanza of the reading, God declares that God has offered care to the people of Israel but that they did not know it was God.  God declares that God has led them with cords of human kindness and with bands of love.  I can’t get enough of how beautiful this is! 

As a person who did not grow up in the church I find here a description of my personal experience.  For many years I did not know God, and yet God cared for me.  How?  Through the generous caring of other people, through the cords of human kindness.  God cares for us through the actions of our neighbors and friends, and we show the love of God, the bands of love, when we offer care for those in our midst.  These cords of human kindness, the way we are when we care for each other, whether we declare our faith or not, are the manifestation of God in our world.  When God takes up God’s children in God’s arms, God does it through us, with these very arms, with these very hearts, with these cords of human kindness.  It’s a powerful and beautiful image.

         Hosea’s story of God’s grace and compassion is manifest at our communion table today.  We know that God will welcome the people of Israel back with love, and we know that they will continue to break God’s heart.  And yet God loves these people, loves this world so much, that God tries again in the form of Jesus Christ.  In Jesus we glimpse this God who rejects divine anger and righteous punishment and chooses instead love and compassion, even if it means dying on a cross. 

         When we celebrate in November we always practice what we call Harvest Communion which is sharing the elements together around a table.  Reminiscent of a family thanksgiving, this is another opportunity to celebrate this God of compassion as we demonstrate the cords of human kindness, passing the elements to each other as a family around the table.  This is God in our midst, and these are the bonds of love.

Finally, this is the stewardship season, and in the next few weeks I’m going to address the ways that we respond to God’s faithfulness.  The people of Israel are unfaithful, and they break God’s heart by following after idols.  We too are tempted to worship the competing gods of our own day.  But it doesn’t have to be that way. 

Making a commitment to sharing our time, our energy, and our money with the church and its mission is a way we show our faithfulness to this God of love.  It is a way that we respond to the love and grace we have experienced in this community.  And it is the way that we empower this community to continue the mission and ministry of love in this world.  We can’t be the cords of human kindness, spreading the love of God in our world, if we don’t have the baseline resources to keep this church going.  We respond to God’s faithfulness with faithfulness of our own.

         And so today we catch up on the story of God’s love for God’s people.  Like us, the people of Israel have wandered astray and have worshipped the competing gods of their time.  In righteous anger God declares that God will destroy the nation, only to be moved by the compassion in God’s own heart to relent.  God loves the people of Israel, and us, and God’s compassion far outweighs God’s desire for punishment.  Through the cords of human kindness, God has reached out to each of us throughout our entire lifetimes.  And through our own acts of kindness, we show the bonds of God’s love in the world around us. 

         As you go out into the world this week I encourage you to be on the lookout for the cords of human kindness.  Where do you see the love of God manifest in our world?  I want to also encourage you to consider the ways in which you might respond to that love, and express your faithfulness to God, be it in making a stewardship commitment to the life of this church, or be it in acts of God’s kindness wherever you may find yourself.  Thanks be to God for who God is, one who chooses to come to us in love and not wrath.  Amen.