Sunday, July 8, 2018
The
great 20th century American poet Langston Hughes writes in his autobiography,
I was saved from sin
when I was [almost] 13. But not really
saved. It happened like this. There was a big revival at my Auntie Reed’s
church. Every night for weeks there had
been much preaching, singing, praying, and shouting, and some very hardened sinners
had been brought to Christ, and the membership of this church had grown by
leaps and bounds. Then just before the
revival ended, they held a special meeting for children, ‘to bring the young
lambs to the fold,’ [they said].
That night I was
escorted to the mourner’s bench with all the other young sinners.
My aunt told me that
when you were saved you saw a light, and something happened to you inside! And Jesus came into your life. … She said you
could see and hear and feel Jesus in your soul.
I believed her.
So I sat there calmly
in the hot, crowded church, waiting for Jesus to come to me.
The preacher preached
… [and then said] “Won’t you come? Won’t
you come to Jesus? Young lambs, won’t
you come?” And he held out his arms to
all us young sinners there on the mourners’ bench. The little girls cried. Some jumped up and went to Jesus right
away. But most of us just sat there.
A great many people
came and knelt around us and prayed. The
whole building rocked with prayer and song.
Still I kept waiting
to see Jesus.
Finally all the young
people had gone to the altar and were saved, but one boy and me.
He said to me, “I’m
tired o’sitting here. Let’s get up and
be saved.” So he got up and was saved.
I was all alone on the
mourners’ bench. The whole congregation
prayed for me in a mighty wail. And I
kept waiting serenely for Jesus, waiting, waiting – but he didn’t come. I wanted to see him, but nothing happened to
me. Nothing!
It was getting really
late. I began to be ashamed of myself,
holding everything up so long. So I
decided that maybe to save further trouble, I’d better lie and say that Jesus
had come, and get up and be saved. So I
got up.
That night, I cried in
bed alone, and couldn’t stop. I was
crying because I had deceived everybody in the church. I hadn’t seen Jesus, and now, I didn’t
believe there was a Jesus anymore, since he didn’t come to help me.
What poor young Langston Hughes
didn’t know is people deceive the church all the time. Some of those huddled around him crying,
praying, shouting, and singing that night probably hadn’t seen Jesus either, at
least not in the way he hoped he would.
Some people do. I believe visions
happen. I can’t predict when. I don’t think visions of the Holy Spirit are
conjured up, or happen because the one praying is earnest enough. Some people speak in tongues. Some don’t.
Some hear the voice of God. Some
don’t. Some see visions. Some don’t.
However, God is not only talking to
some people. Those who don’t see visions
and don’t hear God’s audible voice and don’t speak in tongues are not ignored
by God. God speaks to them in other
ways. At some point we take a step in
faith trusting that on God’s time and in God’s way, God fills in the gaps.
A crucial step in moving toward God
in faith is repentance. We have to be
able to truly see our own sins and the effect of those sins. It doesn’t help to talk about sin in the
abstract. For us to be convicted in the
heart, we have to be specific. Marriage
infidelity; greed; sexual promiscuity; gossip; rage; substance abuse; neglect
of the poor; racism; violence; hoarding and not sharing; objectification of a
people group; these are cagtegories of actual sins that we commit. These sins hurt people. When we see that our actions reveal that our
hearts are turned against God and against others, then, we are positioned to
have a change of heart.
That’s repentance – a change of
heart. We turn from the damaging things
we do, the hateful words we say, and the ungodly thoughts in our minds. We turn
from this path that leads away from God.
We turn back to God. That’s
repentance.
Twelve-year-old Langston Hughes
thought he knew what God was supposed to do at the revival. He didn’t deal with
things in his own life. He was trying to
live up to the expectations of others.
Our faith happens in community, but our decision to turn to Jesus has to
be ours, based on God’s dealing with us.
The people around him had a limited view of how Jesus speaks. When salvation didn’t come in the way he
thought it would, a crisis of faith followed.
How do you think God speaks and
acts? Is your sense of God limited to
the things you hear this church, or heard in the church in which you grew
up? Whatever you believe about God, know
this. God is bigger than what we can
possibly know. God is unpredictable. We
don’t know how God will speak or where or when God will directly intervene in
the world. So, the the best way to live
is expectantly, in constant prayer, and in raw honesty.
In Hosea’s day, the nation of Israel
did not expect God to intervene in their affairs. That’s why they could worship
God and at the same time, go through religious ceremonies for other, false
gods. They could practice true religion
and idolatry at the same time because they didn’t think it mattered. The rich and powerful of the nation, the
religious leaders – they did not think what they did in worship made any
difference. They did not believe God
would answer their prayers. They
certainly did not expect God to allow Assyria to overrun the nation and take
them into permanent exile. They did the
opposite of living expectantly, in constant prayer, and in raw honesty.
When the leaders and the priests
stopped helping the people find their way to God, God raised up a prophet –
Hosea. “Love a woman who … is an adulteress”
God told the prophet. Hosea writes that
he bought a woman for 15 shekels, a second time purchasing her at that price. That was the price one would pay for a slave.[i] Hosea had already married the prostitute
Gomer, but now in chapter 3, she with another man, and God tells Hosea to bring
her back home. This shows how God will
bring back to himself an unfaithful people.
Our modern ears find it offensive
that a wife would be purchased and we should.
Ancient practices included evil gender inequality that should be
eradicated from society. Yet in order to
hear the Good news of God, we take the ancient world for what it was and we
rejoice that God worked with people in that context just as God works with us
in ours.
Hosea declares of Israel that though
they belonged to God, they loved “other gods and raisin cakes.” The eating of raisin cakes in Hosea’s day was
typical of fertility cult activity. It
would be like someone today claiming to follow Christ, but at the same time
insisting they have to go to a séance to be in touch with the spirit world, or
insisting they have to strictly observe the rules of Ramadan in order to be
holy. It’s like hedging your bets. I’ll
dabble in all the religions hoping one of them will save me.
Trying every single one is the same
as being faithful to none. Constant
prayer happens within the bounds of true faith in God. What Israel did and what many people do
amounts to treating God as an object to be manipulated. Living expectantly means we believe God will
do something, but we can’t possibly know until God does it. Poor, young Langston Hughes suffered from
failed expectations because those expectations came from human ideas, not from the
mind of God. What ties the constant
prayer and the expectant living together is raw honesty. And this is costly.
The amount Hosea paid for the woman was
high – 30 shekels. A poor man, which
Hosea might have been, could barely afford such a sum. What he received for this exorbitant fee was
an unfaithful wife. The cost to God was
even higher. God had created humankind
in God’s image, but in the first 11 chapters of Genesis, we see the first
humans throw off God’s creation vision and turned away from the God who created
in love. God in turned sought to redeem
his rebellious children by working through one people – the descendants of
Abraham, the people of Israel. Now in Hosea,
we see God’s people turning away from God.
He will take them back knowing their unfaithfulness.
The first repentance that happens is
God’s. God turns from wrath to
mercy. And we know that God paid the
ultimate price – the death of his son Jesus Christ on the cross. For God to
turn from punishment and wrath to forgiveness and new life for us cost God
everything.
The raw honesty that leads to
repentance is also costly for us. We
have to look at ourselves and we feel the pain our sins bring. The Israelites built their identity around
the institution of monarchy. Hosea declares
that when they return to the Lord, “they will remain many days without king or
prince, without sacrifice or pillar” (3:4).
Repentance includes tearing life down and starting over. They will rediscover what it is to belong to
God and they will forfeit the life they built when they were unfaithful.
One of the difficulties that comes
with the sins we commit is the pleasure.
A part of us finds great enjoyment in the excess or the illicit acts or
the sense of power that comes in our rebellion against God. We sin because we like the way it makes feel;
temporarily; until we experience the destruction that comes. But that momentary good feeling makes it hard
to believe life is better when we turn away from the sin. We can’t believe God’s way is the better
way. To step to God is a step in
faith.
The high point of Hosea’s message is
verse 5. “Afterward the Israelites shall
return and seek the Lord their God.”
That returning comes after the pain of betrayal, after a period of God’s
anger, and after a sense of loss. Hosea
says “they shall come in awe to the Lord and to his goodness in the latter
days” (end of v.5). The word awe can
either mean ‘terror’ or ‘profound respect and reverence.’ Here it means both. Having been confronted with the absolute devastation
that comes with sin, the people trembled as they returned to God.
What they discovered was God’s open
arms – his “goodness.” We see the
ultimate example of this in the New Testament after the crucifixion. Resurrection comes next. The risen Jesus appears to Peter. Peter in all his shame has to face Jesus
after having denied him. However,
instead of chastising Peter, Jesus restores him. Like the Israelites, Peter’s terror gives way
to reverence and love and he is restored to good relationship with God in
Christ.
That’s the end of repentance. If you and live like we expect God to act in
our lives, our spiritual sense will be heightened. If you and I pray constantly, our attention
will be toward God. If you and I are
completely honest with ourselves, we will see our sins and the damage they
cause. We will be broken. Broken, we turn away from the sin and toward
God seeking His forgiveness. And He
gives it in abundance.
As Hosea says, after that, we return
to God and see His goodness. We discover
that life lived in relationship with God is the best life one could hope
for.
I won’t promise an audible voice or
a vision of Jesus the way Langston Hughes’ grandmother did. Her intentions were right, but because she
confined God to the box of her own experiences, he ended up faking a
conversion. His heart was not
stirred. I won’t make any promises I
can’t guarantee.
I’ll share what I believe. I believe that if we live in expectation, in
constant prayer, and in raw honesty, then we will want something better from
life. And if at that point, we turn from
sin to God, seeking Jesus Christ, God will welcome us. After that comes new life – the best life we
can have. It’s costly to get there, but
it’s worth the price.
AMEN
[i]
Elizabeth Achtemeier (1996), New
International Bible Commentary: Minor Prophets I, Hendrickson Publishers
(Peabody, MA), p.31.
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