Word to the Wise
Thursday, July 7, 2016 - Thursday in the 14th Week in Ordinary Time
[Hos 11:1-4, 8e-9 and Matt 10:7-15]When Israel was a child I loved him, out of Egypt I called my son. The more I called them, the farther they went from me, sacrificing to the Baals and burning incense to idols....[Hosea]
Every parent who has had to cope with a child gone astray can sympathize with God in this passage from Hosea! My heart is overwhelmed, my pity is stirred. I will not give vent to my blazing anger I will not destroy Ephraim again; for I am God and not man, the Holy One among you; I will not let the flames destroy you. Hosea presents the relationship between God and the Jews of the Northern Kingdom (Ephraim or Israel) as that of a parent trying to deal with a child headed for destruction. Earlier, Hosea used the image of a husband trying to bring back an unfaithful spouse.
The intimacy of husband/wife and parent/child is powerful. How many of us can think of our relationship to God in this way. Perhaps the most common expression is that of Father/child, but there are places in the Old Testament where God is presented as "Mother," also. [Isaiah 49:15] This is not just an individual thing. The Old Testament image concerns an entire people, the Chosen People.
It is not uncommon for us in the U.S.A. to consider ourselves as "exceptional," or "chosen" by God. If this is true, perhaps we should read the Old Testament more often and see what happened to the Chosen People. Intimacy with God means forsaking the surrogate "Gods" that we invent to numb us to the real challenges of our baptismal commitment. Hosea, preaching 700 years before Jesus, still calls out to us. AMEN
config
view
logs
4096.0 KB
98 ms
4
