Jeanne Davies
Highland Avenue Church of the Brethren
February 27, 2005
The Third Sunday in Lent
Israel is having a mid-life crisis. In our text this morning, Hosea is preaching to Israel before the destruction and fall of the kingdom due to the invasion of the Assyrians. Hosea predicts this devastation and prophesies that, in fact, much to God’s dismay, the kingdom has already begun to unravel due to the people’s unfaithfulness. Hosea likens the relationship between God and Israel to that of a marriage, but Israel has wandered from her covenant relationship, seeking satisfaction elsewhere.
Some of you are familiar with mid-life crisis, if not from having been through it yourself, then from watching friends and loved ones struggle. It’s a time when we re-examine who we are, why we are, and what we are doing, including a re-examination of our closest relationships. Perhaps we are bored and we long for a more exciting and vital life. Perhaps we have been hurt and we’d like to choose not to be hurt anymore. Perhaps we feel stifled and confined by expectations and we’d like to break out of that box and try something new, something that better satisfies, something that makes us feel more alive. People try new clothes, new cars, new jobs, new relationships.
Israel was attracted by the worship of the Caananite fertility God, Baal. Now who knows why these things happen in mid-life, or any other time. One factor was proximity. Israel dwelt side-by-side with the Caananite people and their customs and religion. Sharing religious practices was probably common at the time—no big deal. And, as we have noted, people get tired, people get bored, people get frustrated. After all, no doubt they worshipped Yahweh, made all the proper sacrifices, and crops still failed, friends still got sick, loved ones still died. Maybe they felt their relationship with God just wasn’t working that well and they were tempted to try something else.
Sometimes we feel like our relationship to God isn’t working that well. We pray, we worship, we plan, we work, and our work still fails, friends still get sick, loved ones still die. As Christians, our relationship to God is inseparable from our relationship to the Body of Christ, the church. Like the life of faith for the people of Israel, our faith is not just a personal, individual affair. But sometimes our relationship to the Body can get worn and tired. Maybe we have been hurt and we’d rather not be hurt anymore. Maybe we feel bored or unfulfilled. Maybe we feel marginalized, unseen and unheard. Church can become a place where we no longer bring our passion but just go through the motions; where we do what we do only out of obligation.
I don’t mean to say that doing things out of obligation is a bad thing. Sometimes a sense of obligation is the only thing that holds good relationships together in rocky times. Comittment to a relationship even through difficult times is a wonderful and holy thing. I also don’t mean that all relationships must be preserved. There are some relationships that are so harmful or dysfunctional that we must walk away. In particular, I would caution against using this scripture to justify staying in a relationship in which one has been physically or emotionally abused. But in good relationships, ones worth preserving, we are called to rededicate ourselves. We are called to revitalization by renewing ourselves and re-engaging in the relationship.
Mother Theresa talked about the struggle to engage in relationship in her book, A Gift from God. She wrote, “Some people came to Calcutta, and before leaving, they begged me: ‘Tell us something that will help us to live our lives better.’ And I said: ‘Smile at each other; smile at your wife, smile at your husband, smile at your children, smile at each other—it doesn’t matter who it is—and that will help you grow up in greater love for each other.’ And then one of them asked me: ‘Are you married?’ and I said: ‘Yes, and I find it difficult sometimes to smile at Jesus.’ And it is true, Jesus can be very demanding also, and it is at those times when he is so demanding that to give him a big smile is very beautiful.”
Frankly, for the amount of effort it takes, it’s a miracle that we still choose to be in relationship with God, with Jesus, with the church, with each other. Why do we do this? I think for many of us it’s because we can’t not be engaged. We are in love… in love with God and in love with God’s people. God woos us back. God allures us. We are drawn back into relationship with God by our own longing and thirst for the sacred, for the eternal, for something bigger and better than ourselves. We are wooed back by a sense of God’s presence with us as we pray, a sense of the Holy Spirit moving in our midst. We are drawn back by the desire to follow Jesus and the opportunity to contribute to God’ work in this world, at PADS, at Soup Kettle, at the Global Holiday Bazaar. We are lured by the opportunity to be transformed into the people we were meant to be, through prayer, Bible study, service and life in common. We continue to search for that valley of love and delight.
Over the years, Israel had plenty of opportunity to question her relationship with God. In our text today, God says that he will woo Israel and speak reassuringly to her, and then lead her into the desert. Whoa! Into the desert? Into a place where water and food are scarce? Into a place where she is tested? Into a place where she is totally dependent on the mercy of God with no other resources? This sounds like a difficult relationship to me.
Sometimes God allures us back into the desert, back into being uncomfortable, back into struggling with ourselves, wrestling with God, and conflict with each other; back into discernment events, back into ministry group meetings, back into awkwardness during coffee hour, back into the soul searching that acccompanies the Lenten season and it’s journey to the cross with Jesus.
I recall a newly divorced father lamenting that by the time he picked the kids up from school, brought them home, made dinner, ate, and bathed the children, it was time for bed and that he never had time to get to the good part. Now, I understand that being a single parent can be lonely hard work, a never-ending job, and I sympathized with wanting some time just to play and relax. But I also reflected that picking your children up from school, riding home with them in the car, eating dinner with them, bathing them, tucking them into their beds at night, those parts are the good parts. Those are the formative times of your relationship. Those are the moments when confidences are shared. Those are the teachable moments when things are quiet and they might actually be listening, or when things are quiet and you might actually be listening.
Love relationships are hard work and we can sometimes wonder when we’re in a relationship, when do I get to the good part? When will God answer my prayer? When will I not be frustrated? When will I not be lonely? When will God’s reign come in the world, in the church, or even in my own heart? Perhaps we can find the good parts in the midst of our struggle and frustration, as well as in the moments of love and delight. The opposite of love, of course, is not hate, but indifference. God asks us for our engagement, a commitment of mind and heart. Will we choose relationship or will we choose to disengage?
In our anthem this morning, Jesus, Lover of My Soul, Charles Wesley urges us to take refuge in God’s presence and great love for us. Now Charles Wesley was a little bit of an oddball. He would become poetically inspired and so carried away that he would stumble around the room, obliviously walk into furniture, interrupt conversations, spout verses of poetry that were forming in his head, turn on his heel and leave. If he was inspired while riding on horseback, he would stop at the nearest friend’s house and bang on the door yelling, “Pen and ink! Pen and ink!” After writing down the verses, he would excuse himself and continue on his way. He wrote nine thousand poems and some of our most beloved hymns. Charles Wesley’s brother, John, rejected Jesus, Lover of My Soul, as being too sentimental. Many find Charles’ hymns too intensely personal. But I believe that we are called to this deep level of personal engagement, this absurd passion, in our relationship with God; to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.
In this passionate marriage, God speaks tenderly and comfortingly to us, of safety and peace in the desert. From this desert, God will give us our vineyards, our fruitfulness. God will make the Valley of Trouble into a door of hope. In this Holy wedding of God and humans, we are promised righteousness, justice, steadfast love, and mercy, faithfully and eternally. These will be the natural consequences of a faithful relationship with God. And even when we break God’s heart, God continues to seek us out, offering courtship, love and marriage. In a committed relationship, our heart breaks and we keep coming back. God is eternally calling us back, back into relationship with the Holy and with each other. Back into a relationship which can be alive, and green and growing, if we give it our passion. May we respond in faithfulness to God’s call. Amen.