Hosea and the One People of One Gd, Making It Real

Sermon. St Michael and All Angels, 9 July 2020 (Feria)

·        Hosea 10.1-3, 7-8, 12

Today’s first reading is from the Prophet Hosea.

We have been thinking a lot about prophets and prophecy recently,

and rightly so.

This is a time that calls for Christian prophecy.

All times are times that call for prophecy,

but this is one of the times when that is right before our eyes.

It might be worth just noting this.

If you knew nothing of the Bible and its own ways of seeing things,

the opening of the reading from Hosea must sound very strange.

Hear it again:

Israel is a luxuriant vine, that yields its fruit.

The more his fruit increased, the more altars he built;

As his country improved, he improved his pillars.

Their heart is false; now they must bear their guilt.

[GD] will break down their altars, and destroy their pillars.

Strange, no?

Things are going well for Israel,

and Israel is building more altars, with impressive pillars.

Israel is offering a full religious response,

in recognition for how good things are.

 Yet Gd condemns Israel for this,

and will destroy their religious paraphernalia.

If we didn’t know the back-story, we’d find that, well,

cruel of Gd.

The back-story is of course that these altars and pillars

are not for the glory of the One, Unique Gd.

They are for false gods,

or, perhaps, for false understandings of Gd.

Worship at these altars is lifeless, and indeed deadening.

It is actually 
rebellion against Gd-as-Gd-has-revealed-Gdself-to-Israel.

Which is what we call “idolatry”.

There is, though, a back-story to the back-story.

That is that Gd who reveals Gdself to Israel

makes it clear that this Gd wants only one place to be the place of altars.

There is to be a place which Gd chooses,

a place where 
Gd’s Name and Gd’s Glory dwells.

One place which Is Gd’s Dwelling.

From a philosophical or historical or indeed generic religious point of view,

it did not have to be this way.

It is quite possible to believe in One Gd,

and also believe that you might have several thousand altars,

set up wherever is convenient for worshippers.

Many do.

Belief in “monotheism” doesn’t require

belief in one single Dwelling Place for Gd.

Anything but.

But the Bible is not (or only rarely) directly concerned with religious philosophy (though it contains much wisdom of course).

Bluntly, the Bible is not concerned with

what religious philosophers call “monotheism”

(as opposed to “polytheism”, “atheism” or any other “ism”).

Rather, the Bible is 
a call for personal, existential loyalty to Gd

who reveals Gdself as One.

And...

in having One Place where the One People gather to worship the One Gd

at peak periods,

this Oneness is reinforced.

It is reinforced in the gathering.

Come together. 
Come together as one, to demonstrate

– and yes, I will use the word: to “embody” -

the Oneness of Gd.

The Oneness of Gd isn’t something the people invent. No.

But it certainly does involve a task, for its full realisation.

Come together as one.

This is how I read the Prophet Hosea, although other readings are possible.

You may say: why rub it in?

We as a parish are not yet in a place where we can gather for worship.

We are moving carefully and deliberately.

But why remind us, yet again,

of the pain of our inability to come together as one?

Now is not the time for a discussion about the practical matters.

But it may be necessary even here to make it clear

that even when we can gather (soon, please Gd),

we won’t be gathering 
as we gathered when we gathered.

When we have gathered, we have sat together.

We have rubbed up against each other, at the altar rail if nowhere else.

We have shared the peace, by touch.

Sisters and brothers, these oh-so-natural parts of our worship

will remain impossible, improper, 
because of the risk of serious harm,

to others, if not ourselves.

But, of course, you know, let’s be realistic.

The idea of

the One People gathering together 
in the One Place to worship the One Gd 

was always an ideal.

It never quite happened.

More than a historical fact,

it was an image of how things spiritually are,

of how Gd longs to gather us together as one.

The Hebrew tradition does not use images as most Christians do.

 But we can say that this idea of all gathering together as one

is an “icon” of and within the Hebrew Bible,

revealing how Gd calls us together.

And that spiritual truth, that Gd gathers us,

that Gd is a gatherer (always and everywhere),

is true for us, right now, in our physical isolation,

is one we can hold on to, is one we can make our own, right now.

Truly we are, here and now (whenever and wherever you are hearing this)

One People in one place of spiritual truth,

worshipping the One Gd.

How to live that out?

Amen.