Readings for the Day:
Reflection:
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St. John’s College in Annapolis, MD has a Great Books Program that covers some of the key works of Western Civilization. As students, we begin with studying the Greeks. Many of these works, such as those of Plato and Aristotle, cover how we are supposed to live in this world. We are supposed to be ethical beings, especially those who lead us as Plato shows in The Republic and Aristotle in Politics.
In Plato’s Dialogues especially, Plato writes his teacher Socrates as trying to lead his listeners into a better life. Sometimes these lessons fall on deaf ears, leaving Socrates likely frustrated. At the very least he quickly sums up his point and moves on.
Socrates of course, like our Lord, was later put to death for his teachings.
We are supposed to live an ethical life, both individually as well as a society. What we see in the world right now, from many but not all people and from all different points of view, is a frustration that others are not living a good and ethical life. While not all views on what is ethical are correct, the feelings people have are valid. They are the same feelings we see in God through our reading from Hosea today.
Hosea is called to live his life in a way that helps the people understand God’s anger. He marries a wife who is guaranteed to be unfaithful to him. This mirrors God’s relationship with Israel.
From the time God called the Hebrews from Egypt to the Land of Promise, the Lord has given the people a way to live well in community with one another. The Ancient Israelites failed to live this way time and time again. They utterly failed to be ethical.
God is rightly angry not just because the Israelites have failed to be good, but because they have rejected a relationship with their Lord. That anger is not just present in Hosea. It is present in all the Prophets as well.
God is trying to express this Divine Anger to the People of Israel. God is also trying to express why this anger is present in the Lord. Just as the Prophets of old did, we too are called to express anger to those who are failing to live into the way that God has called us in the Two Great Commandments: to love God with all our hearts and souls and minds, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.
The good news is that while God is understandably and rightly angry at us, the Lord still loves us. We get a hint of that in this Sunday’s reading, and we will hear it much clearer in the reading from Hosea next week. Though God is angry and we would deserve it if the Lord abandoned us, God still loves us. God still makes the effort to bring us back in. So for God’s love in our Lord Jesus Christ, freely given and undeserved, we can truly say, ‘Thanks be to God!’