I have
heard it said, over and over by people who don’t attend church, “I am spiritual
but not religious.” In certain Christian
circles, especially some evangelical expressions of the Christian faith, the
mantra goes something like this.
“Christianity is about faith in Christ, not religion.” And, a lot of famous people spout
sanctimoniously this idea: “I don’t believe in organized religion.”
Is religion a bad thing? When
you hear the word, ‘religion,’ what thoughts immediately come to mind? Are those thoughts positive and uplifting and
hopeful, or is religion something not to be trusted, something that’s dark or
manipulative?
Here’s the Merriam-Webster online
definition of ‘religion’, entry #2: “a personal set or institutionalized system
of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices.” I’m happy for each of us to
have our response to the word ‘religion,’ but keep this in mind. In reading the Old Testament, religion is at
the center of the story. Any time we
read the word ‘sacrifice’ or ‘temple’ or ‘priest,’ we’re dealing with the very
center of Israelite life.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ stands on
the life that is established in the Old Testament. Our identity is grounded in who we are in
Christ. So, religion – Biblical religion
– is at the very core of who we are if we want to be God-worshipers and Jesus-followers. And, when the Bible talks about religion, it
means religious practice. Who we are is
seen in what we do.
I am going to paraphrase the
thoughts of Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann as he demonstrates how the
words of the prophets tie together justice and religion.[i]
This connection is one of the primary ways our Sunday morning church practice
connects directly with our Monday-Saturday lives. We think of church giving us a foundation for
morals, but the Bible consistently shows greater concern for justice in society
than an individual’s morality. If we
intend to live out a Biblical Christianity, we will be driven by a hunger for a
right relationship with God and for justice for all people.
Referring to the prophet Jeremiah,
22:15-16, Brueggemann writes that caring for the poor is the same as knowing
God. “He judged the cause of the needy …
is this not to know me?” Jeremiah asks.[ii] Later Brueggemann writes, religion was supposed
to be the way people entered into relationship with God. That’s what religion was supposed to be. However, by the time Hosea came along, religion
had become the place where God was disregarded.
That’s the situation at the
beginning of Hosea chapter 6. The nation
and the temple and the religion centers in the north had all turned away from
God. The poor were exploited. Sexual sin ran rampant. Hypocrisy was at its worst. Priests and rich and powerful people would
come to worship on the Sabbath and then live with no reverence for God or love
for people the rest of the week.
What kind of faith do we have if we
are in church once a week but then the realities of God have no voice in our
lives the rest of the time? This is a
fundamental question.
At the beginning of Hosea 6, the
people are in a desperate state. Because
the people turned away from God and did not trust in God, God allowed invading
armies to threaten and ultimately overrun the nation. Hosea’s prophecy comes shortly before this
catastrophe, but the storm clouds loom.
And so, in desperation, the people say, “Come, let us return to the
Lord.”
Go through those opening verse, Hosea
6:1-3. The people are sorry for their
sins, kind of. They’re more fearful of
the consequences of God’s anger than they are remorseful for how they have hurt
God and exploited the neediest people in society. We ended last week with the close of chapter
5 where God said he would rot them as maggots and rip them apart as lions. Shuddering, they respond with this overture
of sorrowful repentance.
Their words state great faith in
what God will do.
“Come, let us return to the
Lord. … He will heal us. He will revive us; on the third day, he will
raise us up, that we may live before him.
… His appearing is as sure as the dawn; he will come to us like the
showers, like the spring rains that water the earth” (6:1-3).
It’s all true. God does receive us when we turn from
evil. God does desire a deep and lasting
relationship of love with us. The
opening of Hosea 6 is absolutely right, except it is premature. God knows the heart, and what He sees in this
repentance, is words, not changed hearts.
Be
careful about what you wish for; you might get it. If today we want the salvation God has to
offer, we have to be willing to turn to Him completely. Chapter 7 expands on how much God can see the
rebellion that continues to lurk in the hearts of his people even after these
earnest words of repentance.
He
addresses Ephraim in chapter 7, verse 8.
Ephraim was one of the sons of Joseph.
One of the ways of referring to Israel was by referring to specific
tribes among the twelve tribes, and Joseph’s tribes were divided into
half-tribes named for his sons Manasseh and Ephraim. We you read references to Ephraim in the
prophets, think of the most favored among God’s people.
In
Hosea 7:8, describing Ephraim’s weak faith and wavering commitment even as Ephraim
repents of rebellion against God, God says, “Ephraim is a cake not
turned.” In other words, Ephraim is
half-baked. Any time the community of
faith tries to represent God without working for justice, we demonstrated a
half-baked faith. God has no place for
it. In the opening of Hosea 6, the
people beg to be reconciled to God, and it will come, but it won’t be easy.
God
responds “What shall I do with you Ephraim?”
What shall I do with you Judah?
Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes away early”
(6:4). God receives our
confessions. Lord, I am sorry for all the nasty words I said, the bad choices I’ve
made, mean things I’ve done, and the hateful thought I have in my head. I am really sorry Lord. We say that and God hears and loves us, but
God can see us too. God sees us going
right back to all of our sins the minute we finish confessing. The Lord of the Universe, the creator of all
that exists, throws His divine hands up in utter exasperation! “What am I going to do with you,” God ask
furiously.
In
the Bible God displays a full range of emotions. The middle chapters of Hosea are not the most
comfortable place in the Bible to sit.
However, we need to see God here so we know how much our actions, our
sins, affect the God who loves and saves us.
We need to know the depths God goes to forgive us and make us new. And, as we will see, there is a word of
life-changing hope right in the middle of God’s angry outburst.
But,
first the outburst. Hosea 7:12-13: “As
they go, I will cast my net over them; I will bring them down like birds of the
air; I will discipline them. … Woe to
them for they have strayed from me!
Destruction to them, for they have rebelled against me! I would redeem them, but they speak lies
against me.”
Hosea
doesn’t end with God’s anger. God will forgive
his people for their sins. His love
never fails. God will make a new
day. Ultimately, God restores all of
creation in the death and resurrection of Jesus. But there is some hurt along the way.
Anyone
who has gone through addiction recovery knows this. It’s hard to be free from an addiction. Help is needed. Often, there are relapses, where the cravings
seem more powerful than the love of God, and the addict falls back into deadly
patterns. It takes years, painful years,
to break free. The same can be said when
sin comes in relationships. One person
hurts another and trust is broken. Then
comes confession, heartbreaking, genuine tears, and forgiveness. But even after forgiveness, trust is hard to
re-establish. It’s worth going through
the pain because the alternative is to stay in the sin or remain in the
addiction. But, the Bible doesn’t
sugarcoat anything. Reconciliation with
God and with people is difficult, lifelong work.
How do we as a church exist as a
religion in the best sense of the word?
Using Brueggemann’s description of Old Testament religion, how do become
the vehicle that carries people into a right relationship with God, a
relationship of love, grace, and trust? Remember,
he quoted Jeremiah 22: when we care for the needy, we know God. In the New Testament, we read that Jesus says
that when we feed the hungry and house the homeless, we are doing it for him
(Matthew 25). And in the book of James,
“religion that is pure and undefiled before God is this: to care for orphans
and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. Care for orphans and widows is work we do all
week long, throughout our lives.
The justice words that call God’s
church to dedicate itself to helping people are the essence of Hosea 6:6. God says, “I desire steadfast love and not
sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” Sacrifice, burnt offering; this is the
procedure of religion and it’s important.
In our context, it would be like the offering, the hymns, the communion;
all the things we do in our worship service.
Steadfast love is who we are – agents of God’s compassion. Knowledge of God? Brueggemann has already pointed out from his
lifelong study of the Old Testament prophets that knowledge of God comes as we
work for justice and help the poor, and Jeremiah and Jesus and James and 1000
Bible passages underscore this truth.
When we sponsor a child or volunteer
with the dental bus or volunteer our time to tutor students or give
sacrificially in order to supports missions or advocate for racial justice, we
live out the religion God desires. And
we hold the key to our own well-being.
Our happiness comes when our relationship with God is right. Our relationship with God is right when our
religion is true. Our religion is true
when we work for justice.
We need not recoil at the idea of
religion. We simply need to live our
faith, our religion, all the time, not just on Sundays. And when we repent of sin, we go into it
knowing sin is painful and God is angry.
Repentance is hard work and only takes hold when we have a change of
heart. But God’s love is deeper than his
anger. We’ll see that in future weeks as
we continue through Hosea.
For
now, as we come into our time of prayer, fix your gaze on the cross of
Christ. If for you, today is a day of
repentance and confession, come to Him.
He will receive you in love.
If
for you, this is a time to recommit yourself to serving the poor and working for
justice in the name of Jesus as an expression of his Gospel, make the
commitment to do that. And ask the Lord
to show you what that will look like in your life.
AMEN
[i] W.
Brueggemann (1997),
Theology of the Old
Testament, Fortress Press (Minneapolis), p. 613, 644, 677-678.
Brueggemann frequently refers to Israel
religion as the ‘cult.’
This is a loaded
word as people in our church have come out of oppressive, manipulative
cults.
So in place ‘cult,’ I will refer
to Israelite religion.
