I once met a man who claimed to be a prophet. This man said that he regularly conversed directly with God, and that, from these conversations he could tell me, with absolute certainty, exactly what God wanted. He told me what God wanted him to do, and then he proceeded to tell me what God wanted me to do. When I expressed some doubt about his convictions, he got a bit bent out of shape. Who did I think I was?
God?
I replied that no, I did not think I was God.
This man made me feel deeply uncomfortable. I did not know precisely why, but I had a very strong feeling that he was delusional.
I did not want to say “You are crazy,” but I felt that this explanation of his convictions was more plausible than his.
But why?
Was this man all that different from the Hebrew prophets of old? When they were challenged, they too could really do nothing more than make the audacious claim that they communed directly with God.
If I could not judge the Hebrew Prophets of old, how could I judge this man?
I didn’t believe him for a second,
but…
I had to quietly admit (to myself, not to him) that Ultimately, he, like me and everyone else, was blessed with sacred human soul, and that he, like he, like everyone else, could, if he so chose, say the audacious words:
“Thus saith the Lord”
Brenda just read us a passage from the Book of Hosea.
Unless I am mistaken, in my ten years among you, I don’t think I’ve ever preached about the prophet Hosea from this pulpit.
Why?
Well, frankly, it’s because I’m allergic to misogyny. When I encounter passages in the Bible that put down women, I tend to put down the Bible.
I have zero tolerance for texts that malign women because they are women.
And Hosea is pretty awful.
In order to illustrate the relationship between God and Israel, the prophet Hosea sets up a kind of back-and-forth dialogue between the people and God – you can actually see this demonstrated quite clearly in the passage that Brenda just read for us – the first stanza (which begins: “Come on, let’s go back to God”) is spoken by the people of Israel, and the second stanza (which begins “What am I to do with you, Ephraim?”) is in the voice of God.
This literary technique, while effective in its own way, has its problems. The most troubling concern arises when the prophet uses the infidelity of his own wife, Gomer, to illustrate the people of Israel’s lack of faith in God. The result is a prophetic book that unapologetically portrays God as an abusive husband, treating the people of Israel in the way that the prophet fantasizes about violating Gomer. I won’t poison this sermon by quoting examples. If you want to see for yourselves, you know where to go.
Thankfully the passage from Hosea that Brenda just read for us does not brim over with hatefulness toward women, and is, in fact, pretty interesting – well worth a closer look.
**
The second stanza of this reading reveals something crucially important that concerns the nature of prophecy. It begins with the words:
“What am I to do with you, Ephraim?”
This sentence – indeed the entire second stanza of this reading – it is all written in the first person:
“What am I to do with you, Ephraim?
What do I make of you, Judah?
So what?
Well.
The way the text reads – in the first person – these words appear to be the words of God – but they are not, are they? It is up to us to remember that the speaker is not actually God.
The actual speaker is the prophet.
Hosea.
The prophet is talking, but we are not hearing Hosea speaking.
We are hearing God speaking.
It is as if the prophet himself is just a mouthpiece through which God’s words are transmitted to us.
This peculiarity is not unique to Hosea – the other Hebrew prophets also do it.
Jeremiah and Isaiah for example make liberal use of the phrase “Thus says the LORD,” to cue the reader, (or listener) that everything that is said thereafter is not from their mouth, but from God’s.
The first chapter of the book of Hosea begins with the phrase: “When the LORD first spoke through Hosea…”
This phrase is like the opening credits of a movie. When the name “Meryl Streep” appears on the screen, we are being given an instruction: even though we see Meryl Streep’s face and hear Meryl Streep’s voice, we are not to see her and we are not to hear her. For the next couple hours, while the movie is playing, Meryl Streep is being someone else entirely, and we are to believe it without question.
So when Hosea asks
“What shall I do with you, O Ephraim?
We’re supposed to hear God.
But in order for this “I” to be God, and not Hosea, we, the readers (or listeners) must give our consent. We must allow the prophetic voice to be God’s voice.
Do we?
This is a very important question. Indeed, it is crucially important, because while it is important that we carefully attend to true prophets who channel divine truth, it is equally important that we not only suspect, but actively unmask false prophets – who use God’s name to represent their own interests… Prophets true and false, unfortunately, are equally capable (and likely) to utter the words “Thus saith the Lord…”
It is up to us to distinguish the difference.
**
With this question in mind, I did some digging about the prophet Hosea himself.
We know that Hosea had a tendency to mouth off in a very ugly way about women. We also know that his words ended up immortalized in the Hebrew Bible. Tradition apparently overlooked his boorish lack of respect and gave him a place among the pantheon of Hebrew Prophets. But should we go along with that assessment, and just agree that, since he is in the Bible, he must be a true prophet?
It’s a good question.
Hosea’s active prophetic life took place during a historical moment that was marked by profound political and religious instability.
During the eighth century BCE – (that is, between 8 hundred and 7 hundred years before the birth of Christ), the area that we would recognize on modern maps as Israel/Palestine was divided into two kingdoms: Israel, in the north, and Judah in the south. But this split, as contentious as it may have been, was hardly the most pressing danger. Lurking on the edges of both Israel and Judah, were the much more frightening threats posed by the Assyrian and Babylonian empires.
Hosea, who lived in the Northern Kingdom – was the first of the Hebrew prophets to warn his people of the perilous Assyrian force that was biding its time at their borders, waiting to strike.
He went a step further.
He not only warned people of the Assyrians, he also claimed, in a series of dire prophecies, that God actually intended to use Assyrian swords to punish the Northern Kingdom.
Why did Hosea think the Northern Kingdom deserved this terrible fate?
Hosea claimed – using the voice of God no less – that the people of Israel deserved to fall prey to Assyrian aggression because they had begun the unforgivable practice of worshiping other Gods.
Is God really that petty and vindictive?
This doesn’t sound like a God that I want to worship – but for Hosea this kind of divine justice goes almost goes without saying:
God hurt us, but he’ll heal us.
the text says:
He hit us hard,
but he’ll put us right again
.
Hosea’s prophecy about the Assyrian invasion was, unfortunately, all too accurate. In 732 BCE, the forces of Assyrian King Tiglath-Pilesar the third led a brutal invasion that left vast numbers of people in the Northern Kingdom either slaughtered or deported to Assyria to be enslaved. A decade later Samaria – also in the Northern Kingdom, suffered the same fate.
So when we read Hosea within his historical context, we learn that the prophet did in fact predict an invasion that actually did take place.
Is this sufficient proof of Hosea’s prophetic credibility? Is the measure of a true prophet the individual’s ability to accurately predict what will happen next?
Or is there more to it than that?
**
As I wrote this sermon, I found it very revealing to compare different translations of this passage. I usually ask the lay reader to read from the the New Revised Standard Version, but this morning I chose to present you with the translation that was made by the great scholar and pastor, Rev. Eugene Peterson. This version of the Bible, which is called The Message, is translated into contemporary American English.
I found this version to be revealing because it makes clear to us the way that this dialogue, between the people of Israel, and God, moves back and forth just like a conversation between people who know each other well.
This is the dialogue that happens between people who love each other, but can be frustrated with each other.
As we all know, love and frustration are intimately connected!
The people say: its true that God hurt us, but God will also heal us.
God responds: Your love is so fickle! Its here one moment and gone the next. You can be so frustrating!
There is nothing definitive about this interaction. It is in the midst of a relationship that is ongoing.
The one impression that this snippet of prophecy leaves with me is that it is very familiar.
I recognize it.
It doesn’t sound very God-like.
It sounds quite human.
I suppose the thing that made me the most nervous about the man, who I met, who claimed to be a prophet, is that it felt to me that he believed that his prophetic gift made him, a human, more like God.
This morning’s passage reveals, through Hosea, the opposite dynamic.
It makes God more like a human.
This seems meaningful to me.
I hope that the prophetic gift is not so much about being able to predict the future… it is not so much about being more like God.
I hope that the prophetic gift is more about inviting God into our frame of human consciousness.
If we agree…
If we consent to the opening credits of the Book of Hosea, and agree that “the LORD first spoke through Hosea,” then we begin to hear God’s words and intentions springing out of human experience – they become embedded with our cares.
God acquires a body that has a heart that swells with compassion or recoils in fear. God, in this way, is aware of us in an intimate way – a way that can be indulgent, like the spring rain, or frustrated like an angry spouse.
Afraid of our enemies.
The temptation is to think that channeling God gives a person great power.
Perhaps, rather, it gives God less power – making God, briefly, intelligible to our confused hearts.
We must take care to always be aware…
that there is no circumstance in which any of us becomes God.
It is God who, through the prophet, moves into time, becoming vulnerable…
becoming us.
Amen.