Sermon delivered by
The Rev. Dr. Augustus E. Succop III
Quail Hollow Presbyterian Church
Charlotte, North Carolina
January 26, 2014
“The Story: Hosea – The Slippery Slope”
(Hosea 4: 1-10)
Back in the late 1980s when Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker had their troubles, I was amazed at how quickly their ministry came apart. But, back in the 1980s, the Bakkers were in good company. If memory serves me, Jimmy Swaggert had his troubles back then, as well. Beth and I were living north of Baltimore at that time, and in our neck-of-the-woods there were a few local pastors who also went off the deep end due to bad decisions and careless choices. It seems reasonable to assume that pastors are immune to such inappropriate behavior, but the truth is that we are not. During my time with you I have resisted building a mega-mansion in CameronWood, but I have made my fair share of mistakes and poor decisions, and I do apologize. It may be reasonable to assume pastors are somehow immune to poor judgment, but such reasonableness is unrealistic.
Not only are pastors and priests and rabbis capable of making huge mistakes, we too often find ourselves in good company with doctors and lawyers and bankers and all sorts of professionals who should have known better. This coming August it will be 40 years since President Nixon resigned his office, and some of us are still shaking our heads. How could Mr. Nixon have done what he did? Was he the crook he said he was not? For that matter, how could Bernie Madoff have done what he did? Why wasn’t he honest with the people who trusted him? Why do people who supposedly know better end up doing things that are so unwise, so unprofessional, and so downright stupid? However you answer that question, what is clear is that it happens, and it will continue to happen until the end of time.
When I read the prophecy of Hosea, I am put on notice. Hosea is pointing his finger at the likes of me. And yet, if you are a true Protestant and believe in the “priesthood of all believers,” then Hosea is pointing his finger at each one of us. By our baptism we are all ministers, and we should know what God expects of us. We should be under no illusion or confusion what it means to live a faithful and honest life according to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. And when there is illusion and confusion, we should ask the question: We knew better, didn’t we?
Hosea was witness to the internal corruption of the northern Kingdom amidst the sporadic battles with Assyria. Israel was challenged both internally and externally, and it proved too much for her. In 722, the northern Kingdom is lost. But, prior to the fall of the northern Kingdom, the priests and prophets had “lost it.” Hosea accuses them, he indicts them not simply of bad behavior but of breaking the Ten Commandments. Those priests and prophets were not common criminals; they were anointed leaders, and they were the ones who were guilty of swearing, lying, murder, stealing and adultery. Any sense of faithfulness and loyalty to God had been swept aside. I am reminded of a friend whose father went off the deep end back in the 1970s. One day my friend’s father told his wife he wanted a divorce. Soon, he began to grow out his hair. He began wearing funky clothes. Rumor had it he was even smoking pot. One day my mother and I saw having lunch with someone, and he was sporting a gold chain around his neck. My mother almost lost her lunch. His profession? He had been a well-respected heart surgeon in Pittsburgh. In short order, after being seen with various girl friends, his career began to suffer. What happens to such people? Why did my friend’s father throw away all that he had worked for? Back then they called it a mid-life crisis. Today, they call it a mid-life crisis.
Whatever you call, the lesson is that it can happen to the very best of us, even to priests and prophets’ and heart surgeons. The word to the wise is to be vigilant. We cannot, we must not let down our guard or lose our faith. Being careless can and will result in a fate worse than death, literally worse than death. For Hosea, the people went off the rails because the priests and prophets went off the rails. Instead of teaching the people how to live as the people of God, they began to sport an alternative lifestyle, a lifestyle that may have seemed exciting and wild and wooly, but really it was a lifestyle that paled in comparison to the life God offers. Hosea points out that priest and prophet and people will eat but not be satisfied; they shall have sex without enjoyment. They shall live a life comparable to a whore’s life, where love (if you call it love) is simply a means to an end.
What is appalling about the events of the northern Kingdom is that so many innocent people were hurt. As one scholar has put it, the waywardness of priest and prophet was like pollution in a water system. It didn’t kill the people all at once; instead, it slowly took from them their life until at last they were dead, dead spiritually, but, of course, spiritual death always precedes physical death.
Let me offer two observations about Hosea’s prophecy and his indictment against the priests and the prophets of the northern Kingdom. First, the LORD through Hosea says that the people are destroyed for lack of knowledge because the priests had rejected knowledge. In other words, the priests had begun to revise and edit and rewrite the Torah. For whatever reason, the priests came up with their own versions of Torah, their own set of commandments, and that is what they began to teach the people. I think I told you about the day my phone rang. Someone who was a member at that time asked me if we were going to hold worship on the Sunday after the death of Michael Jackson. The emotion on the other end of the phone was so intense that the voice I heard broke with each word. Basically, I was being told that the unthinkable had taken place, and such a death simply overrode, superseded the worship of God. When I said that I saw no reason not to hold worship on the Sunday after Michael Jackson died, I was accused of being insensitive.
Now, back in Hosea’s day there just might have been a priest or two would have called off worship, and if that had been done that would have been a rewrite of Torah, of the first commandment. And, once you begin to rewrite Torah or the Ten Commandments, once you begin to insert into scripture things it doesn’t say, where does it end? Once you begin to edit scared scripture here and there, you embark upon a slippery slope, and the questions becomes: What prevents you from accommodating the culture when it comes to other desires and designs? Nothing! Nothing at all. After awhile, everything becomes eligible for revision. Lest we forget, that is what the Nazis did. They rewrote the rule book when it came to whom was acceptable and who was not. They rewrote the rule book on what you could read and study, whom you could marry and whom you could call friend and foe. The word to the wise is that human culture is very subtle in how it shapes and forms our lives. Instead of the church being the transformative presence in the culture, the culture becomes the transformative presence in the life of the church. To that, Hosea pointed his finger at those who were encouraging such transformation among God’s people. The people were being destroyed because the priests and prophets, of all people, had rejected God’s law.
The second observation about Hosea’s prophecy that catches my attention is found in God’s words that God will forget the same way the people had forgotten God’s law. I am moved by that statement, and I am even more moved that God did not forget God’s people, at least not those people. Yes, Israel falls to Assyria and the Judah falls to the Babylonians, but God does not forget them. In time, both northern and southern Kingdoms come back and begin again. Who, then, does God forget? To find out, you need to travel 700, 800 years forward to a place called Calvary, and to a moment in time when Jesus cries out from his cross, My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? No, God does not forget the Israelites, nor does God forget or forsake you and me. God doesn’t need to that because God took it out on Jesus. Jesus took on our penalty, assumed our punishment. Jesus was forsaken and forgotten by God, so that you and I would be spared.
Israel and you and me were spared. Instead, God chose to forget and forsake Jesus in His hour of need, and that prompts me, that inspires me to live my life as one worthy to have been spared a fate worse than death. Can you name the hymn: And when I think that God, His Son not sparing, sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in; that on the cross, my burden gladly bearing, He bled and died to take away my sin. I am moved every time I sing “How Great Thou Art,” because that hymn reminds me that I am among those children God promised to forget, but who were spared. God took it out, God penalized Someone else for my sin. And even when I fail to remember what was done for me, I know I am no less forgiven today than I was when Christ hung on the cross of Calvary. With His back to the cross, Jesus had then as He has now our back.
And you just don’t walk away from Someone Who has stepped-in for you. Knowing what has been done for me, knowing what has been done for you, we have every reason to live the faithful life, the transformed life, the grateful life, the honest life, the life that becomes for others a witness to God’s shameless grace and unrelenting love. I hope you know that you and I can never, never have such grace and love taken from us. Our debt has been paid in full by Jesus Christ, and God will never, ever forget that about Him or about us. And, in light of such a fact of life, what shall be our response if not to live a life of gratitude, a life in which Thank you becomes for us a way of life, not on occasion, but all the time and all to the glory of God.
Let us pray: Lord Jesus, thank You for stepping in for us and taking on our debt of shame and dishonor. Thank You for giving us a new beginning, a new life by which we may witness to Your sacrificial and everlasting love. Amen.
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