It's gray and windy out today, this Monday morning. For some reason I've had to make twice the normal amount of coffee this morning to feel adequately awake.
I hope this post finds you well. It's been a full past few weeks here in Pelican Rapids. I returned home to Cannon Falls for a few days, had a life-giving candidacy retreat at Good Earth Village, and had a second bread ministry gathering at Zion - with 15 bakers, 10 loaves made, and all given away to the Pelican Rapids Area Food Shelf. The Pelican Press is planning a piece on our work, and we're in the midst of planning a December gathering - probably ordering a pizza and baking some holiday quick breads! If you're in the Pelican Rapids area, please consider joining us - Monday, December 7th, at 4pm. Shameless plug! :)
Our community also held Zion Lutheran's 3rd Annual Christmas Closet event on Saturday morning - something that we prepare for, it seems like, all year. Throughout the year we take donations of leftover or unused Christmas decorations - lights, stuffed bears, knick-knacks, etc. and then people bake caramel rolls and make coffee and bring baked goods and we host a morning with a bake sale and silent auction and invite people to come for rolls and coffee. This year we raised over $2,300 dollars to be sent to organizations worldwide.
This Sunday I preached on Hosea 11:1-9. As Hosea speaks of God as a parent to a child, God to Israel, and how God loves us even in the midst of our turning away, ingratitude, and missteps, I was able to tie in Paris, Beirut, and other things we do as humans that makes God angry.
Here's the text!
Sisters and brothers, grace to you and peace from God our Creator and God’s Son Jesus the Christ. Amen.
I bet I can get the kids in the room to answer this in unanimous agreement – are you excited when school’s closed for the day? I remember those days well – the elation of waking up, looking out the window from my second floor bedroom, and seeing piles of snow that I hoped just had to be feet deep. The excitement of running downstairs and hearing those words from mom – school’s closed – and then either running back to bed or getting up and having breakfast. The world seemed slower those days, life a little more still.
I recall one of those such snow days when I was in fifth grade. I was young, and my dad and I wanted to go out sledding. This wasn’t going to be just racing down the hill sledding, though. Oh, no. This was the type of sledding where my dad told me to get on the four wheeler and tie the sled behind and then race around the yard and down the front hill. You know, so you can go faster. And maybe potentially hurt yourself. I was young, and I wasn’t thinking about those things. Anyway – we took off, my dad and I, with my young fifth grade self behind the wheel, my dad tied on behind.
You probably know where this is going. We went around the yard just fine, until we came to the hill. An icy patch was at the bottom, and it was too late. I slammed on the breaks and came to a fast stop. My dad crashed into the back of the four wheeler. Scared more than anything, he jumped up, grabbed me, yelled a few choice words, and walked away. I remember plainly that we avoided each other for almost the rest of the day, and how I was so afraid of his anger. However, at the end of the day, as it begin to get dark out, I apologized, and everything was made well.
This illustration of love – then anger – then love – that a mother or father feels for a child, even when they do something wrong, is exactly what Hosea in our text today is talking about. God uses the illustration of Israel, God’s chosen people, as God's child, saying, “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.” Continuing on, we see God’s steadfast care towards his people – even though they don’t understand God’s healing ways, when the people continue to sacrifice to Baal, when they offer incense to idols and not to God – God leads them out of their ways with cords of human kindness, with bands of love, as the text says. God here acts as a parent to a child, and it resounds even today – for what deeper love is there than that of a parent to their children?
Quite suddenly, though, God’s anger appears – just like my dad when we were sledding that snowy day. God’s love, so it seems in this text, can only be drawn out so far. Instead of continuing to nurture the people in the midst of their turning away, God hands them over to the very things they desire – kings, cities, power, and war – but this time, it appears to bring destruction. This is the beauty of God’s orientation towards God’s creation, however – that divine anger only lasts so long. Sooner rather than later, the people are brought back, and God’s own heart recoils – we hear that compassion grows and wrath ceases.
This text just goes to show that love, anger, mercy, divine suffering, and grace are ultimately themes of God’s behavior repeated towards God’s people, and it shows the very humanity, the very realness of God towards those who are claimed on his behalf. We see these themes fulfilled later in Jesus Christ as the ultimate sacrifice, who is 100% human and 100% God – who weeps with people and sits with sinners around the table but also heals and teaches us the ways of God. It is clear that throughout the Bible these are things that are called to be embodied, and that extends to us today – we don’t get to escape it, because God has already called us, and God already loves us without condition, like a parent to a child. Like my father to me.
It’s the truth to say that we as sinners and saints do things that make God weep, without a doubt. I’m not attempting to gloss over that. In Beirut, Lebanon on Thursday 43 people were killed in twin bombings in a Shia-majority area of the capital. In Paris, France, on Friday over 120 were killed and over 300 injured in a string of bombings and shootings on stadiums, restaurants, and concert halls. We do things against other humans that makes God angry – we murder, we show ingratitude for each other’s lives and each other’s bodies, and sometimes don’t think twice about displaying violence because in our anger it seems like the only proper course of action. We do things and say things that go against God’s design and intentions for the world. I’m sure this has happened even here at Zion Lutheran – we are a community living out God’s mission yet we know that at times we don’t get things right. But know this – when we screw up, when we do something wrong, when we wonder if God might be angry or wrathful or quick to execute justice – know that God has already welcomed us into God's kingdom, both those who have joined the saints above and us ourselves. We are welcomed as God’s people, and we are God’s church, flaws and sins and brokenness and all of it. God’s mercy, grace, and love are more than enough to cover the sins of humanity and more as well. As we wonder about the violence of this world, as we wonder about when did the state of things in God’s creation become seemingly so dire, we hear these words: “I will not execute my fierce anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.” – we hear those words for Israel and also those words for us – God is indeed the Holy One in our midst – God is dwelling among us here and now, as a parent to a child, and God’s wrath will never be quickened.
My friends, I am thankful for our journey together. I am thankful for the ways in which we live out our mission as called by God – to be lovers of this world in the ways that Christ loved. Our journey in common mission is something that we all hold space for, and it gives us everything to be united by. We can indeed go and peace and love the Lord because we are free – we are free in that we know that the Holy One is in our midst; we know that God’s compassion is warm and tender; we know that God’s wrath has ceased and that despite our sin God still loves us, parent to child. We go knowing we are forgiven and we are made new thanks to our baptism in the Spirit and Christ’s sacrifice upon the cross. We go knowing that we live our lives for the sake of the other and our neighbors. For the love of the Holy One in our lives and for the love of God for the whole world I say, “Thanks be to God”. Amen.
God's Peace, friends!
Dean
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