What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes away early. Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets, I have killed them by the words of my mouth, and my judgement goes forth as the light. For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt-offerings. (Hosea 6:4-6)
Instead of occasional ritual and sacrifice, God seeks perpetual love and knowledge.
Love, goodness, kindness, faithfulness - the Hebrew is chesed - is a recognition and honoring of relationship.
Knowledge, perception, discernment, understanding - the Hebrew is da'ath - comes only from an intimate relationship.
The context here emphasizes the relationship between God and Ephraim and Judah. But in other places - especially in the gospel - we are told this is also how we should engage one another.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Hosea 4: 11-19
Harlotry, wine, and new wine take away understanding... A people without understanding shall come to ruin. (Hosea 4:10,14)
In the tenth verse the Hebrew translated as understanding is leb meaning the inner person, the mind, reflection, determination, heart and soul.
A people without biyn - understanding, discernment, consideration - shall come to to labat - be thrown down, thrust away, cast aside.
Our appetites are directed -- or should be directed by - by understanding.
Understanding is more than just observation, it is the result of careful consideration and reflection.
Understanding is more than knowledge, it is a disciplined ability for action or restraint depending on what we discern.
Without both forms of understanding we cannot stand. To achieve such understanding, scripture strongly suggests, requires being in a meaningful relationship with God.
In the tenth verse the Hebrew translated as understanding is leb meaning the inner person, the mind, reflection, determination, heart and soul.
A people without biyn - understanding, discernment, consideration - shall come to to labat - be thrown down, thrust away, cast aside.
Our appetites are directed -- or should be directed by - by understanding.
Understanding is more than just observation, it is the result of careful consideration and reflection.
Understanding is more than knowledge, it is a disciplined ability for action or restraint depending on what we discern.
Without both forms of understanding we cannot stand. To achieve such understanding, scripture strongly suggests, requires being in a meaningful relationship with God.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Hosea 4: 1-10
And they have eaten, and are not satisfied, They have gone a-whoring, and increase not, For they have left off taking heed to Jehovah.(Hosea 4:10_
We eat. We may eat too much. Are we satisfied? Does our consumption fulfill us?
We indulge our senses. We surround ourselves with the sounds and sights of our choosing. We may be sexually adventuresome. We travel to exotic places.
Zanah translated here as a-whoring, literally means highly fed. Consuming too much fast food is not the only way to be highly fed.
What are the outcomes of our over-indulgence or self-indulgence? Is there "increase"? The original Hebrew is parats meaning to break through, burst, breach, overflow, break out, or transcend.
Unless we pay heed (very careful attention) to Jehovah - the existing one, that which exists, ultimate reality - these choices are a dead end, quite literally.
We eat. We may eat too much. Are we satisfied? Does our consumption fulfill us?
We indulge our senses. We surround ourselves with the sounds and sights of our choosing. We may be sexually adventuresome. We travel to exotic places.
Zanah translated here as a-whoring, literally means highly fed. Consuming too much fast food is not the only way to be highly fed.
What are the outcomes of our over-indulgence or self-indulgence? Is there "increase"? The original Hebrew is parats meaning to break through, burst, breach, overflow, break out, or transcend.
Unless we pay heed (very careful attention) to Jehovah - the existing one, that which exists, ultimate reality - these choices are a dead end, quite literally.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Hosea 2: 14-23
"Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her... I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the Lord. "In that day I will respond," declares the Lord — "I will respond to the skies, and they will respond to the earth; and the earth will respond to the grain, the new wine and oil, and they will respond to Jezreel.(Hosea 2:14,19-23)
The judgment of God on the whoring of Gomer and Israel is entirely unlike what we read in Exodus or Jeremiah. Hosea's God will seduce the whore.
God will seduce by responding. The Hebrew is 'anah to hear, answer, speak, or sing. This is usually the way with seduction. To be truly heard is so unusual and so validating that we are entirely enamored of the good listener.
In being truly heard distractions and obsessions are quieted. We recognize our relationships: with sky and earth, grain, wine, and oil, with one another, and with God.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Hosea 2:10-15
So now I will expose her lewdness before the eyes of her lovers; no one will take her out of my hands. I will stop all her celebrations: her yearly festivals, her New Moons, her Sabbath days—all her appointed feasts. I will ruin her vines and her fig trees, which she said were her pay from her lover. I will make them a thicket, and wild animals will devour them. I will punish her for the days she burned incense to the Baals; she decked herself with rings and jewelry, and went after her lovers, but me she forgot," declares the Lord. (Hosea 2:10-15)
Gomer is the personification of Israel: lewd, preoccupied with the superficial, disloyal, self-indulgent, and dismissive of her relationship with God.
She - both the woman and the Northern Kingdom - has worshiped false gods. The Baals were local deities worshiped across the ancient Near East, broadly sharing common characteristics, but each particular to its locality. Most Baals were somehow associated with fertility.
The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the great I AM, Jehovah or literally "that which exists", God as ultimate reality. We are called to be in relationship with what is fundamentally real.
The Baals offer to bend reality, magically shifting local conditions to favor some and disadvantage others. The Baals claim, "give us what we want and we will give you what you want." The Baals ritualize worship of what we want.
But what we want too often excludes what we need and the reality we share with others.
(This is not the lectionary reading assigned for Sunday. This is a passage that falls between the assigned readings for Saturday and Monday.)
Gomer is the personification of Israel: lewd, preoccupied with the superficial, disloyal, self-indulgent, and dismissive of her relationship with God.
She - both the woman and the Northern Kingdom - has worshiped false gods. The Baals were local deities worshiped across the ancient Near East, broadly sharing common characteristics, but each particular to its locality. Most Baals were somehow associated with fertility.
The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the great I AM, Jehovah or literally "that which exists", God as ultimate reality. We are called to be in relationship with what is fundamentally real.
The Baals offer to bend reality, magically shifting local conditions to favor some and disadvantage others. The Baals claim, "give us what we want and we will give you what you want." The Baals ritualize worship of what we want.
But what we want too often excludes what we need and the reality we share with others.
(This is not the lectionary reading assigned for Sunday. This is a passage that falls between the assigned readings for Saturday and Monday.)
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Hosea 1:1 - 2:1
When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, "Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the Lord." So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. (Hosea 1:2-3)
Hosea is a contemporary of Isaiah, living eight centuries before Christ in the generation just before - or the generation of - the conquest of the Northern Kingdom by the Assyrians.
Many commentators on Hosea argue that Gomer as an Israelite, a proto-Samaritan, a resident of the Northern Kingdom, is ipso facto adulterous. The Hebrew is zawnuwn.
In this reading, Gomer is not necessarily a sexual whore. Much worse she is a spiritual whore. The religious practices of the Northern Kingdom tended to be syncretic, combining the Levitical tradition with rituals drawn from non-Jewish sources.
The case is also made that Gomer was a cult prostitute, a priestess of a fertility goddess such as Qedesha. As such she would have been both spiritually and sexually promiscuous.
Gomer is a Hebrew name meaning "to end, come to complete end." The name serves to reinforce the consequences of being unfaithful.
Hosea is a contemporary of Isaiah, living eight centuries before Christ in the generation just before - or the generation of - the conquest of the Northern Kingdom by the Assyrians.
Many commentators on Hosea argue that Gomer as an Israelite, a proto-Samaritan, a resident of the Northern Kingdom, is ipso facto adulterous. The Hebrew is zawnuwn.
In this reading, Gomer is not necessarily a sexual whore. Much worse she is a spiritual whore. The religious practices of the Northern Kingdom tended to be syncretic, combining the Levitical tradition with rituals drawn from non-Jewish sources.
The case is also made that Gomer was a cult prostitute, a priestess of a fertility goddess such as Qedesha. As such she would have been both spiritually and sexually promiscuous.
Gomer is a Hebrew name meaning "to end, come to complete end." The name serves to reinforce the consequences of being unfaithful.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Judith 13:1-20
She went up to the bedpost near Holofernes’ head, and took down his sword that hung there. She came close to his bed, took hold of the hair of his head, and said, ‘Give me strength today, O Lord God of Israel!’ Then she struck his neck twice with all her might, and cut off his head. Next she rolled his body off the bed and pulled down the canopy from the posts. Soon afterwards she went out and gave Holofernes’ head to her maid, who placed it in her food bag.(Judith 13:6-10)
Except as the object of prayer, God does not appear in the book of Judith. There is no angel or other external encouragement.
Rather, Judith conceives, plans and executes the action of her own volition. If God is seen, it is in the courage and conviction of the human hero.
Would God have intervened to stop Judith? Would God have withdrawn her courage? Was her conviction of God, or despite God?
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Judith 12: 1-20
Then Judith came in and lay down. Holofernes’ heart was ravished with her and his passion was aroused, for he had been waiting for an opportunity to seduce her from the day he first saw her. So Holofernes said to her, ‘Have a drink and be merry with us!’ Judith said, ‘I will gladly drink, my lord, because today is the greatest day in my whole life.’ Then she took what her maid had prepared and ate and drank before him. Holofernes was greatly pleased with her, and drank a great quantity of wine, much more than he had ever drunk in any one day since he was born. (Judith 12:16-20)
Judith's plan is to come to the Assyrian commander, posing as a traitor, but finding an opportunity to kill him.
"She removed the sackcloth she had been wearing, took off her widow’s garments, bathed her body with water, and anointed herself with precious ointment. She combed her hair, put on a tiara, and dressed herself in the festive attire that she used to wear while her husband Manasseh was living. She put sandals on her feet, and put on her anklets, bracelets, rings, ear-rings, and all her other jewellery. Thus she made herself very beautiful, to entice the eyes of all the men who might see her." (Judith 10:3-4)
With prayer and the approval of the besieged town, she and a maid convince the Assyrians to take her to their commander, Holofernes.
She had criticized the town's leaders for giving God only five days to act. In response, she undertakes to act for God.
Judith's plan is to come to the Assyrian commander, posing as a traitor, but finding an opportunity to kill him.
"She removed the sackcloth she had been wearing, took off her widow’s garments, bathed her body with water, and anointed herself with precious ointment. She combed her hair, put on a tiara, and dressed herself in the festive attire that she used to wear while her husband Manasseh was living. She put sandals on her feet, and put on her anklets, bracelets, rings, ear-rings, and all her other jewellery. Thus she made herself very beautiful, to entice the eyes of all the men who might see her." (Judith 10:3-4)
With prayer and the approval of the besieged town, she and a maid convince the Assyrians to take her to their commander, Holofernes.
She had criticized the town's leaders for giving God only five days to act. In response, she undertakes to act for God.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Judith 10:1-23
You are putting the Lord Almighty to the test, but you will never learn anything!You cannot plumb the depths of the human heart or understand the workings of the human mind; how do you expect to search out God, who made all these things, and find out his mind or comprehend his thought? (Judith 8:13-14)
The enemy has surrounded the city. The people are in despair. A deadline is offered. To placate the people's complaints the leaders agree: without divine intervention of some sort in five days the town will submit and surrender.
Judith protests that this decision limits what is possible. She argues that in seeking to define our situation we unnecessarily constrain our opportunities. Rather, we must remain perpetually open to the way of emergence, the unfolding of reality and see in this the intention of that which is ultimately real: Jehovah, literally "that which exists."
Given her advocacy of radical openness, Judith offers a paradoxical prayer,"Look at their pride, and send your wrath upon their heads. Give to me, a widow, the strong hand to do what I plan. By the deceit of my lips strike down the slave with the prince and the prince with his servant; crush their arrogance by the hand of a woman." (Judith 9:9-10)
The enemy has surrounded the city. The people are in despair. A deadline is offered. To placate the people's complaints the leaders agree: without divine intervention of some sort in five days the town will submit and surrender.
Judith protests that this decision limits what is possible. She argues that in seeking to define our situation we unnecessarily constrain our opportunities. Rather, we must remain perpetually open to the way of emergence, the unfolding of reality and see in this the intention of that which is ultimately real: Jehovah, literally "that which exists."
Given her advocacy of radical openness, Judith offers a paradoxical prayer,"Look at their pride, and send your wrath upon their heads. Give to me, a widow, the strong hand to do what I plan. By the deceit of my lips strike down the slave with the prince and the prince with his servant; crush their arrogance by the hand of a woman." (Judith 9:9-10)