Beyond Things

Hosea 11:1-11; Psalm 107:1-9; Colossians 3:1-11; Luke 12:13-21

What This Message Is Not About

It would be so easy to preach this week’s Scriptures as a pointed stewardship lesson, that God blesses us with so many things that we should be ready to give everything to God, and by the way, we have a mortgage on the building, so, you know, be generous....right.  Give as you feel led, but that’s not what I’m going to talk about today.

Instead, let me talk a bit about parenting.  After all, the Gospel story starts off with a sibling dispute over the inheritance--something that causes a great deal of pain in families.  And you can definitely hear the parent in God’s voice speaking throughout the passage in Isaiah.

Let’s Talk About The Kids

My family and I went back to our old neighborhood this week, and pretty soon all the parents were hanging out talking about our kids--sharing both the joys and the frustrations.  Many of you know that banter.  And I wonder, what if God talked about us the way we talked about our kids?  How would that sound?  “Oh, you know, Adam and Eve, they were so cute and agreeable at first, but then they made a total mess out of my garden--so I put up a gate to keep them out of there--but then they just went out and made even bigger messes, I can barely keep up with it all!”

Well, God does often talk about us as though we were God’s children, because we are.  And we really hear that today in the reading from Hosea.  We hear how God raised us up like a child, and such vivid imagery:  I taught them to walk, I held them in my arms, I healed their injuries, I lifted them like infants to my cheek, I fed them.  Can’t you just see that?

And yet, that relationship was mired in pain.  For as much as God tended and nurtured the children, they ran away from God, and found themselves increasingly mired in trouble, and wouldn’t turn back and seek help, they put their trust in powers, like powerful political alliances (aka “friends”) that would ultimately betray and destroy them.

Hosea:  The Perfectly Dysfunctional Family

I noticed that several folks commented (but nobody complained!) that some of the usual Bible readings were absent last week while I was away.  Part of the reason for that was they were kind of doozies.  The upshot of the story was that God commanded the prophet Hosea to marry a prostitute, and then have a couple of kids which he was supposed to name, “Not My People” and “No Pity.”  Well, ouch.  God’s point in this was to create a totally dysfunctional family, where there is no love, no mercy, and no fidelity, to serve as a metaphor for what had gone wrong in the relationship between God and God’s people.  Granted, this didn’t go over well: mostly because it was weird, and also, as far as God’s people knew, it was a time of relative prosperity.  Everything was going great, so, what’s the big deal?  In reality, things were about to go horribly wrong in ways even they could see: As the scripture reads, the sword rages in their cities and they are in danger of returning to captivity and repression.

When Things Go Horribly Wrong

I think most of us have known situations where a child has been raised lovingly, and still somehow ends up down a wrong path that leads to their destruction.  Perhaps the most frequent metaphor today would be drug addiction [CBS This Morning 8/5/13 reported on the new heroin epidemic].  But there’s any number of things that could happen, that are truly frightening.  And for those of us who are parents, we may wonder if there is any reason we would ever abandon one of our children, or even kick them out of the house.  Perhaps ultimately, and realistically speaking, if the child was endangering the others who lived there, to protect the rest of the family, we might have to say, “you can’t come home right now.”  Now, I don’t want to ever think about any of that happening to my kids--who are rascals, but they’re also so young and innocent right now--but it might.  I can parent to the best of my ability, but I realize that even as a pastor, my family and my children are not immune to the ills of this world.

And that’s where we hear and understand God speaking through the prophet Hosea in today’s reading.  [Insert your own children’s names here] and you begin to get the picture of God, this brokenhearted parent, worried sick:

“How can I give you up, ____________?  How can I hand you over, ________?  

[Insert your own name here] and you begin to get the picture of God, this brokenhearted parent, worried sick.

Insert the name of anyone whom you love deeply, and you begin to get the picture....yes, I think we can begin to tap into those feelings and relate.

The good news is, even when we have done things to break God’s heart, God doesn’t write us off.  God instead chooses compassion and continues to invite the rebellious child home.

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It’s Not About the Little Things

Sometimes, our relationships are painful, but nothing huge and tragic has caused it.  Sometimes, things just ‘get in the way’ of our relationships.  Not just material things, like the inheritance dispute between the brothers in the Gospel story, but things, you know, stuff that happens, and builds up, and forms into walls and barriers between us that are so hard to tear down, without tearing each other down in the process.

Granted, it’s easiest not to let those walls get built up in the first place--to handle the issues while they’re small, and not let them blow up into big things.  When those little things get blown up, then we know the relationship is in trouble.  After all, even churches die, not because they ran out of people to invite, but because they got caught up fighting over little things like the carpet and blew all their energy, and pffft, there they went.

Who among us doesn’t have a relationship we wish could be better?  Who among us doesn’t have words or mistakes we wish we could take back?  

All these human divisions, God seeks to break down, bridge, or transform.  We’ve talked in the past few weeks about those walls of animosity between Jews and Samaritans--folks who were really two sides of the same coin; and today Paul speaks to us of Greek and Jew, slave and free, barbarian and Scythian (and who are those guys anyway--we’ve forgotten, because the division didn’t really matter)!  God is inviting us to not let those little things--and they are really little things, that we make into big things--stand in the way of love.

Beyond Things

So let’s talk about that Gospel verse again, but in a non-traditional way.  Maybe it’s not such a bad thing to build bigger barns--or churches, for that matter.  Really it’s hoarding, or at least not sharing, that is the problem.  We have a beautiful new facility, and God does call us to share it--to share our sanctuary, share our classroom space, even our lawn, and not keep it to ourselves.  Things will probably get dinged up a bit in the process, and we’re going to need two things:  a good-sized can of touch-up paint, and a load of graciousness.  After all, it isn’t really our building, but God’s.  When we can overlook the little things, and use wisely the big things we have been given, all of our relationships, and all of us individually, are deeply blessed.  God wants for us far more than we can imagine.  Thanks be to God!

Prayers this Week:

For all who struggle with addictions; mental health concerns; and for all who are facing abuse of any kind.

For those who come to harm when working in far-off places.

For our Sikh brothers and sisters as they remember the shootings in their sacred space one year ago.

For our PCUSA friends who are gathered at the Big Tent conference in Louisville, KY this weekend.

For all who are traveling

For all who are ill or injured

For those who are dying, and for those who are grieving

For peace in our world

Lyrics for the Lectionary:

When reading the Scriptures this week, consider the following:

A Thousand Years, Christina Perri (Hosea)

Somebody That I Used to Know, Gotiye (Hosea)

Paradise, Coldplay (Hosea, Luke)

How To Save A Life, Fray (Hosea)

Feel the Tide, Mumford and Sons (Psalm)