Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Speaker A: You're listening to by the well, a lectionary based podcast for preachers recorded on the land of the Wurundjeri people.
[00:00:16] Speaker B: Hi, I'm Adrian Jackson. I'm joined today by Howard Wallace, and We're in Pentecost 7 this week. Our readings come from Hosea 1, 2:10, Psalm 85, Colossians 2, 6, 15 and Luke 1:11, 1:13.
So we'll jump straight into the text. Let's look at Hosea.
[00:00:39] Speaker C: Howard yes, we're continuing our discussion of the minor prophets, minor not being inconsequential, but rather terms of length of the books fitting onto one long scroll with 12 of them.
Hosea is the second of the minor prophets we're looking at. He worked about the same time as Amos, who we've been looking at over the last couple of weeks, and he was charged with speaking to the northern kingdom, that is the kingdom of Israel, the southern kingdom. Judah was where Amos came from. But Hosea is a native of the northern kingdom.
He's spoke about the same time as amos, about the mid 8th century and as far down as the fall of the northern kingdom, which happened in 721 BCE.
It was a time of fair prosperity, although that prosperity under King Jeroboam II sort of went along with a certain level of injustice and corruption and a propensity to worship Canaanite fertility gods as partly the givers of that prosperity in the land.
Now, Hosea is a remarkable prophet in a way, or at least he's a notable prophet in one way that his own life and his relationships, particularly what was likely his marriage, serves as a metaphor for the message that he has to proclaim.
He's either told in chapter 1 1, which is what we're looking at this week, by God, or he takes a wife who has been a prostitute at one stage, or who becomes an adulteress. It's a little confusing as to what's happening there. It's not totally clear, although it says quite clearly in the book that he is to take a prostitute, a woman of whoredom, and marry her, and they have at least one, if not three children together.
Now, their relationship is symbolic of the relationship between God and the people of Israel, which is the whole point of the prophets experience here, or at least the way that it's told.
The children are named in a way that sort of outlines this judgment that God is bringing against Israel. The first of the children born is a son, Jezreel, the name meaning God sows, which probably had agricultural sort of sense behind it in the beginning, but becomes rather ironic in the fact that Jezreel is going to become a sign of punishment, differently and unsowing, if you like.
And the events that it's referring to in terms of the place Jezreel is what happened when King Ahab killed Naboth, the man who owned the vineyard, because Ahab wanted to just simply take over.
That happened back in. In 1 Kings 21.
So there is some judgment, at least at that sort of level, coming through the prophet's experience.
And that judgment is going to come in terms of violence against, well, Ahab's house, which has already happened, but against the whole of the northern kingdom, the second and third children, a girl and a boy. It's not clear in the text whether it's actually they are the children of Hosea and Gomer, his wife, or whether she has gone off and had these children elsewhere. It doesn't specifically say Hosea is the father of them, but their names are what's important.
The girl's name, lo Rukhama, meaning not pitied. So it's an end of forgiveness. And the boy, the youngest boy's name, lo Ami, not my people. And what there's an allusion here quite directly in verse 9 to the old covenant formula where God would say to the people, I am your God and you are my people. That's being totally denied in this sort of context. So it's the end of that relationship.
So that takes us through. But when we get into verse 10, the last verse designated by the lectionary, we find a different sort of tone coming through, one of hope for the. For the future. And this is consistent with the whole of Hosea's sort of message. Next week we're going to be jumping to chapter 11, which is the very last chapter in the book itself, which again is a word of hope, and that God debating with himself between judgment and deliverance of his people. And we get a touch of that here as well at the end of the reading in verse 10, a couple of references to Judah in chapter one in verse 11 and back in an earlier verse, probably added much later in terms of the reference, after the exilic period when Judah itself went into exile and judged by God.
So there is this sort of sense of overarching love that comes through from God over against judgment. Now, just to put that in a little bit larger context, there's almost a. What seems as though it could be a duplicate account of this story in chapter three, a short prose account where Hosea is told to go and love a woman who has a lover and is an adulteress. So whether it's a reference back to the same issue, same woman, same marriage or relationship, or whether it's a subsequent relationship because it's written in a way that could be a subsequent relationship, we're not quite sure.
But in between those two is another chapter worth having a look at. Long chapter two, mostly poetry, which gives us a theological interpretation of what's happening here. And again, the theme of God's deliverance of his people, hope for the future comes through over against judgment.
[00:07:26] Speaker B: Couple of questions here, Howard.
Modern readers would find this gendered stereotypes particularly problematic. How do we, how do we deal with that?
[00:07:38] Speaker C: How do we deal with it? And I think you've just got to recognize that we. Well, the text is living in a different sort of world and I think we need to take it at it at face value.
That doesn't mean that our values and, and view on the world should be determined by that text. But we, I think we, we open ourselves up to, to what the text is saying on its own sort of merit and in its own sort of world and understand that, then ask the questions about, well, how, how do we relate to that?
[00:08:14] Speaker B: Yeah, and I think I would put the. You could almost reverse agendas in this narrative. You could have a female prophet marrying a man who is infidel. It probably doesn't completely work for the story, but the analogy or the metaphor that is being extracted in the prophetic message here is that of someone in a covenantal relationship being unsafe for.
[00:08:39] Speaker C: Yes. And I think the other thing is we're talking about a relationship between God and Israel too, which I think while we might sort of play with agendas and the roles in that context, I think in their world that drives home the sort of the issues that they're really talking about. You couldn't have it reversed in that way because Israel's always seen as either a child or a bride in some ways of God.
God seen as masculine in their world, mostly.
[00:09:10] Speaker B: Yeah. Second question is, you mentioned this kind of reversal of kind of the Exodus covenants of God of abundant mercy. And all of a sudden we get here, God has no mercy. How do we reconcile this kind of sudden kind of change of the nature of God here?
[00:09:29] Speaker C: Well, I think especially if we jumped ahead to next week, we're going to see that really debated out in God's own mind, if you like the picture for text for next week is one of. It was changing the metaphor again from marriage to a parent. Child relationship. And God comes up like a typical parent in love with their child, loving them deeply, yet trying to put up with the behavior of the child, the negative behavior, and throwing backwards and forwards within his own mind. If we can use that metaphor of how do I react? Do I judge what they're doing? Or does love take over? And that debate goes on within God itself. I think that's a debate. The Scripture puts before us that sort of issue of justice and the requirements of justice over against love and compassion.
[00:10:34] Speaker B: And we see in the final verse here an actual much stronger statement of children of the living God, which kind of takes all of those messages and actually kind of condenses in an even more powerful way than the covenant claim, which I think is a really powerful message of restoration.
[00:10:50] Speaker C: Yes, it's quite good.
[00:10:57] Speaker B: So let's have a look at the psalm, which is Psalm 85.
[00:11:00] Speaker C: I just need to get it here. This. This is really a.
Well, I think a very beautiful psalm. It's a prayer for deliverance from some sort of trouble or problem.
We're not quite sure why, what that is.
There are some hints in verses later on that it might be some agricultural issue, a drought or whatever, or it could be political or social sort of issues.
It's a prayer for deliverance. And I think it actually brings to us a structure of prayer that operates quite positively that we also see in. In Hosea to some extent.
It's divided into three parts. Verses 1 to 3 We have something that is from the past. How God has looked favorably upon his people in the past and delivered them. Then from verses four through to seven, we have the present problem, or at least a plea that God might address the present problem, whatever that might be.
And then finally we come to verses 8 to 13, which actually speaks about the future in the most beautiful sort of language.
Let me hear what God the Lord will speak, for he will speak peace to his people, to his faithful, to those who turn to him in their hearts, etc.
So we have this past, present, future.
And within these three sections, they're linked by a number of words that sort of keep repeating themselves. A word meaning turning, which is also translated as repentance, or some sort of change in both God and the people in that context. And also a repetition of the word for salvation, especially God's salvation.
Seemingly unusual phrase, God's salvation and the salvation of the people. And the second can't come about until the first happens. God brings his salvation to the people.
But the thing that I think I like most about the Psalm is the way that what we would see as an eschatological sort of view, especially built up in those last verses, verses 8 to 13, where you almost get a sort of sense of Eden coming again, the original sort of context for human beings, and that being the hope that is held out within the prayer of this people. But a prayer that is based on past experience of God, not denying the present difficulties, but still maintaining a hope for a world that is one of peace, etc. And as a beautiful verse 10 says that steadfast love and faithfulness will meet, and righteousness and peace will kiss each other, faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down from the sky, and the Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase.
[00:14:20] Speaker B: Yeah. And this is going to sit really well alongside our Gospel reading.
[00:14:24] Speaker C: Yes, I think it will be. The other thing just to note is it's got some lovely words in there for use within the liturgy too.
[00:14:30] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:14:30] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:14:38] Speaker B: We'll just quickly look at the epistle here from Colossians.
This passage begins with a declaration from Paul to his audience about, you received Christ Jesus as Lord, and this kind of language of living in the tradition.
And we have this common thing in Pauline of faith in Christ. It's in a different formula here to what we see elsewhere, but it is this kind of thing of. It's about our belief in the work of Christ. Paul's big on the work of Christ. We don't see a lot in these Pauline formulas about the life of Christ. It's all about what happens in the death and resurrection. But in this passage here, we see it almost like Paul's trying on a few different metaphors of what has happened in the death and resurrection of Jesus.
We see a.
Like some agrarian metaphors, we see some marketplace metaphors, we see some religious metaphors in here. So we've got.
We've got a metaphor of circumcision as what happened on cross is Christ is our circumcision.
There's metaphor of burial and resurrection. So this idea of death and giving life, then we also have this kind of legal bond definition, like, so the guarantee of goods taking place and then public triumph, which is this weird kind of mix of metaphors. And I think the key thing to note here is it's easy to kind of see references to baptism or sacraments in some of this stuff. This is not building a sacramental theology here.
[00:16:36] Speaker C: No, far from what I think.
[00:16:38] Speaker B: In fact, it almost seems like a prototypical point in the kind of development of sacramental theology. It's kind of like, yeah, we have this thing called baptism, but at this point, the resurrection isn't in the baptism metaphor per se, which is an interesting kind of insight into the biblical author's thinking.
But yeah, I think what we do see in this is this openness of face to divine grace.
And we see belief in Christ calls us to action in walking out in life.
So it's what we believe in gives us a shape for how we walk in our day to day lives.
[00:17:26] Speaker C: I think the other thing that he's just picking up on images that have to do with the life of Christ, the, the crucifixion and the baptism especially. But he seems to be arguing also against any sort of dependence on things that are otherworldly somehow between ourselves and God or Christ.
So he wants to ground our faith very much in the life that Christ lived. And of course, death and baptism were actually parts of that.
So he's pushing for an immediate sort of sense of an awareness of Christ living as important.
[00:18:12] Speaker B: Yeah. And this is definitely a text that doesn't give us any room for a spiritualization of the body, like a forsakeness of the material world. This is very much no, no. So like, yeah, there's the cosmos playing a part here, but there is absolutely also, no, no, go out and live your life.
[00:18:33] Speaker C: Yes, yes. And that's where your Christian faith sort of is to be lived. I mean, he speaks later on about the worship of angels and dwelling on visions, et cetera, and elemental spirits earlier on.
[00:18:47] Speaker B: Let's have a look at the Gospel.
[00:18:48] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:18:53] Speaker B: So this is a passage that is probably really familiar to a lot of people because it's the Lord's Prayer. However, this form of the Lord's Prayer is possibly actually less familiar to people because it's possibly less like what we see in our liturgies.
There's a little bit of debate amongst the commentators about, like biblical scholars love to go, where did these. Where what, what? Where did these words come from? Was there something that adapted? Did Jesus say or did the church start writing? There's actually a really strong disagreement about whether or not Matthew's version and Luke's version even come from the same origin, because there's a few key variations, but there's also some really common similarities.
[00:19:44] Speaker C: Yes, yes. Even at the very beginning when we just got Father instead of our Father in heaven.
[00:19:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
And the first petition here, hallowed be your name, can be read in two very different ways. One, is God hallowing God's name or the Other option is God, God's people or the people of the earth hallowing God's name.
Um, however, I think the simplest reading of that is actually just a statement of reverence in prayer.
[00:20:20] Speaker C: The holiness, the otherness of God.
[00:20:22] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:23] Speaker C: In that context.
[00:20:24] Speaker B: So it may not be an eschatological call here. It may just be a kind of appropriate holiness in the act of prayer.
We then get this language of kingdom and then we've got this, give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins, which is. And then forgive others who are in debt. And I think theologically there's a really important kind of just coupling here. There is both.
God is interested in our material needs, but that comes alongside the forgiveness of sin. So that spiritual engagement of God in our lives, but that also has to lead to right relationship with others.
[00:21:06] Speaker C: Yes. And I think it's also based on this hope for. For God's kingdom, God's rule to come into being, which. Which is the same in Hosea and the Psalm, I think.
[00:21:17] Speaker B: Yes.
We also, narratively, what we see is the disciples seeing Jesus acting in a particular way. They go, hey, teach us how we live. Which I think is a really good important message about discipleship here.
It doesn't always work. Just starting from the teaching side, you actually have to model the Christian life.
[00:21:41] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:21:44] Speaker B: I think just exactly. Or translation wise, the. Each day in an nrsv daily. And other translations.
We're not entirely sure what that word means. It doesn't actually even appear in other Greek witnesses.
So it's. It's actually really like this. You can get sometimes translated as spiritual daily bread, which is very much stretching the translation possibly a bit too far.
It's. It's very much easiest to read. It is substitute bread for daily subsistence like it's material.
And then we. We get down into the parable.
[00:22:32] Speaker C: Yes. Which creates a few problems, I think.
[00:22:35] Speaker B: Oh, really?
[00:22:36] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:22:39] Speaker B: Yeah. Look, I think at its core this is a message of if human hospitality would meet the provision of needs, how much more would God's hospitality meet? That.
But you're right, there's some problems here.
[00:22:55] Speaker C: Yes. And the problem is the question we move on, you know, about.
Yeah. So I say to you, ask, and it will be given. Verse 9, search and you will find, knock and the door be open to you. All that. It's not always the experience of prayer.
[00:23:09] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:10] Speaker C: And then begins to ask the question of. Well, for me, any rate of what is prayer in that context? Is it just a shopping list or something deeper? I think involved in it all Here I think the parables itself just give the sort of sense of God answering prayer in a. Almost a mechanical sort of way.
[00:23:33] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And that's definitely the plainest reading of this text.
Once again, another translation note. The word that sometimes gets translated because of his persistence is also really hard to actually reliably translate. Yeah. In verse eight, so the householder responds to his friend's persistence.
Sometimes that gets kind of extrapolated out to something that we can't with confidence because it possibly is more because if he doesn't respond in this way, shame will come upon his house. Because there's a cultural expectation of hospitality is possibly a better rendering of what's being said there.
But I have seen churches take this kind of language of persistence of, well, if we keep on praying, eventually God will fulfill our prayers.
[00:24:25] Speaker C: It's a bit like Colossians and what Paul's doing or picking up some of the. The elements, the crucifixion and baptism, and using them metaphorically, but in a different way than.
You can't read a literal theology or understanding of the baptism or the resurrection or the crucifixion in that context. Same here. I mean, it's like the other parables that talk about the judge being pushed into giving a fair judgment within a law case by the woman who comes to him.
It's almost like human sort of, you know, long suffering and getting out of a problem in a. In a way that's not always the best for humans. Any rate, comparing God to that.
[00:25:13] Speaker B: And I think in this text, like plainest reading of the text is ask of God something, God will give it to you.
Which, as you've noted, has extreme problems when we start to talk about people get sick, wars happen, people die.
[00:25:33] Speaker C: Faithful people.
[00:25:35] Speaker B: Yeah, faithful people who do pray and who don't see their prayers for healing realized.
But I think we can definitely say that this text says where the church or the people of God ask for the Holy Spirit to be poured out, the Holy Spirit will be poured out. I don't think there's a kind of pastoral or theological problem with making that a definitive claim.
[00:26:00] Speaker C: Yes. But, you know, again, still with the issue is, you know, the Holy Spirit's presence, what does that mean? Yes, it's not simply just the answer to our. Our wishes and desires in prayer, but then it pushes us into the question, well, what then is prayer for? Especially what we might call intercessory prayer or prayers where we might plead for something to happen.
And I think we've then got to sort of look at the whole way in which God acts with us and interacts with us.
And for me, at any rate, I mean, one of the things that sort of wrestle with is God has already done, in a way, enacted his whole desire and will for the world in Jesus Christ. So we can't just sort of simply look as a prayer or something, I need something tomorrow, or somebody needs something tomorrow, and it will be answered within time. I mean, God's there in eternity, acting through Christ with us and through the Spirit which is given through Christ.
[00:27:10] Speaker B: And we also do right before all these parables have a model of what we can ask for and so asking for the kingdom God to come, our daily needs to be met, forgiveness of the sins, forgiveness of our community, and avoidance of tribulation.
Granted, we don't always see that prayer realized either, but I think there is an invitation to lean into that prayer as a kind of spiritual practice of the Christian walk, which we do in the liturgy.
[00:27:44] Speaker C: I think one of if we can sort of throw it in a slightly different direction.
I was reminded back there at the beginning of the Lord's Prayer, the word Father too. I mean, we were talking before about changing a metaphor within a constant world. In Hosea, fathers are not always good images.
And I think we just need to be sensitive to that issue. For people who are in congregations, it's not always a good image in that context.
[00:28:15] Speaker B: But also the claim there is that God is not far off. It's a relational God, and our prayers are talking to a conversation partner.
[00:28:28] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:28:30] Speaker B: So finally, we've got a few minutes left.
What if you're preaching on Pentecost 7, where would you be going?
[00:28:39] Speaker C: Where would I be going? Well, I think to my mind, I think I would be starting with the Gospel and the whole issue of prayer. I mean, maybe taking up some of the things we've talked about in not in huge way, but not ignoring them either, but then linking it with Hosea and what's driving Hosea in that context. And to me, the Lord's Prayer is an eschatological thing, your kingdom come.
And I mean, while we're asking for daily bread and forgiveness of sins and other worldly activities, I think there is a sense of the coming of God's kingdom being the thing that's in part driving our prayer. And I think we all like the Psalm. We look to prayer. We pray with that hope always before us and that drawing us on. So I think that's where I'd be going. I'd be drawing Hosea's sort of message of hope in the end plus the psalms sort of Edenic hope that he looks forward to plus the Lord's Prayer in this coalescing in that we live our life in this world as faithful people. But what draws us on always is what lies before us, the peace and the righteousness of God's kingdom which is coming which is here.
[00:30:12] Speaker B: Excellent. Well thanks for joining us in the studio today, Howard.
If I can just be slightly indulgent for our listeners. If you're based in Melbourne or you want to join online we have a North Electric coming up on a very relevant topic of how do we imagine God in the world of AI and so if you just Google images of God naughty lecture or come to the Pilgrim website you'll find all the details on that.
But thanks for listening.
[00:30:44] Speaker A: By the well is brought to you by Pilgrim Theological College and the Uniting Church in Australia. It's produced by Adrian Jackson. Thanks for listening.
