Curate’s sermon 3.8.25: Hosea 11.1-11

‘A woman’s love for us increases the less we love her, sooth to say – she stoops, she falls, her struggling ceases; caught fast, she cannot get away’. This is a quote from Alexander Pushkin’s ‘Eugene Onegin’. I hated Pushkin at school, there was too much of him. There is even a Russian joke about ‘Pushkin’ being an answer to any question. But, years after finishing school, I picked up ‘Eugene Onegin’ and could not put it down. Suddenly, every line was a window into human soul. The quote I have chosen is very well known by any Russian and speaks of a tragic dissonance between people’s feelings, when a man showing less interest in a woman somehow seems more attractive to her. Pushkin’s observation is that we chase what is not available. This may not be a universal rule but I have certainly experienced it! It also does not have to apply to romantic relationships – I have seen people chase friendships and professional partnerships in the same way.
The reading from Hosea shows this unfortunate side of human nature from another angle: just like we chase the unavailable so we also push away that which is good and available. The more someone gives us the less grateful we become; the more they love us, the less we appreciate it.
The book of Hosea, written in the Northern kingdom of Israel during the split between the north and the south, speaks of Israel’s unfaithfulness in the face of God’s kindness, love and care. It seems that the more the Lord shows his love for his people, the less they love him. The Israelites take everything the Lord gives them but do not return even a fraction of this commitment and instead dedicate themselves to the worship of Baal. The people also do not trust God to guide them into the future but instead rely on dangerous political alliances with Assyria and Egypt. This does not end well for Israel that ends up being conquered by Assyria. This state of things, however, is not final. Israel betrays the Lord but the Lord stays true to the covenant he has made with his people. He would not give up, and his mercy is more powerful than Israel’s sin. This is, very roughly, what the whole book is saying.
Chapter 11, which is our Old Testament reading today, is a poem set at the heart of Hosea’s prophecy. In it the Lord speaks with great tenderness of his love for Israel, which in the book is also called Ephraim. Like a father, he taught his child Israel to walk, fed him and brought him up in love. But ‘the more I called them’, says the Lord, ‘the more they went from me’. Even in trouble, torn apart by Assyria, the child Israel would not return to the father. But when the Lord roars like a lion, they will come trembling. The Lord has to show his anger for the people to finally turn to him in fear.
Reading this, I could not help but think of the ways people bring up children and how their love and kindness can be taken for granted and ignored and children grow up spoiled. Among people of my generation, there is an ongoing revelation that something we came up with called ‘gentle parenting’ in fact may not work. In response to our parents’ strictness, many of my peers have decided to bring up their children in the atmosphere of respect, understanding and kindness. There is no punishment and no control and instead a lot of gentle care. I think it is too early to say whether this approach can work well but a lot of parents are now realising that even in simple scenarios when they tell their child to do or not to do something, if they say it nicely, however many times, they are generally ignored, but one frustrated shout means the child is doing exactly as they are told.
It seems an average child and an adult Israelite from nearly 3000 years ago are not that different. Perhaps none of us are!
I have stared wondering whether we are, at least sometimes, like children, who don’t really understand or appreciate it when all is well, when we are spoken to nicely and given good things. It seems that collectively, we only start to take things seriously when they fall apart. Just looking at what is happening around us, it looks like we are not particularly good guardians of peace, happiness and prosperity. We don’t appreciate what is given to us by the good Lord in love, we cry when we lose it, we suffer but still ignore him. And the more He gives us, the more entitled we feel as a society and the more frustrated we are when it’s gone.
Perhaps the Lord is a gentle parent, who wants all the best things for his children and does not believe in the necessity of punishment. Perhaps all of us are the prodigal sons who have to lose everything before finding our way back to the Father. But Hosea tells us that the Israelites did not think anything was wrong even when their land was ravaged by the Assyrians. Do we all really have to wait for the Lord to roar like a lion for us to come to him trembling with fear and why can’t we learn to accept and appreciate His gifts? Why, like children, don’t we listen when He speaks to us nicely?
The answer might be in the book of Genesis and the fact that we were created good but instantly disobeyed the Lord when He asked with kindness and trust. It seems that since then we have been on this cycle of disobedience. I even wonder if, as humans, we have a propensity for self-destruction. Perhaps this is just how things are since the Fall…
This is as far as I got writing this sermon when I met someone incredibly inspiring, who very casually talked me through his amazingly positive life philosophy. I was of course planning to finish this sermon on a hopeful note, echoing Hosea: we may be a mess but the good Lord is always looking after us; he may be weeping seeing what we do to ourselves and to His creation, but he still cares and still loves us and will never abandon us. But my new friend has also reminded me of the goodness that is within us. The answer to the question why we are the way we are is still in Genesis, but the emphasis is different. God created us GOOD, before we disobeyed, and gave us free will, which means we always have the capacity to choose good. Augustine and others remind us that we cannot choose good alone, that we have to rely on God’s grace to be guided towards it and that we make this choice in his strength, not our own. Walter Moberly, a more recent theologian and another friend, has argued that the goodness with which we have been created has not been suppressed or replaced by our sinfulness – it is still there, even if often concealed by sin. And in our goodness, we do have the power to choose well. We may have a gentle parent but we don’t have to be disobedient children. Our gentle parent will always love us and we will always be children in His eyes. And he will always give us good gifts. But this should not make us complacent; instead, it should be an encouragement to make the world a better place, one little step at a time, whatever is in our power. Being a child of God is not an excuse for ignoring His voice, taking His kindness for granted and refusing to work hard; it should instead be an incentive to do more and be more, the best we can be, to give our good Father a cause to rejoice and to save ourselves from the terror of hearing him roar. Amen