10th Sunday after Pentecost
July 28, 2013
Hosea 1:2-10; Psalm 85
What’s in a Name?
“What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would
smell as sweet.” Can you name that
play? [Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare] So, what’s in a name? We have learned this week that there’s a lot
in a name. How many of you listened to the
media speculation over the name of the new baby prince? Or the reminder that it typically takes
England’s royal family a little while, like days or weeks, to announce a baby’s
name? Thank goodness it only took
William and Kate two days to decide on George Alexander Louis. What’s in a name? There are six King George’s in that name, the
last one being Queen Elizabeth’s father; Alexander is a variation of Queen Elizabeth’s
middle name, Alexandra; and Louis is for Prince Philip’s father, Louis
Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India and Admiral of the Fleet. This baby boy has a lot to live up to. However, if you followed any of the hoopla,
you may know that while George and James were the top two expected names,
apparently at betting agencies there were “jokesters placing bets on Psy and
North” who would have received a payout of 5,000 to 1 or in Ireland, “unlikely
choices including Rumpelstiltskin, Joffrey, Charming and Kong brought up the
rear with odds of 500 to 1.”[1] Prince Kong of Cambridge; how’s that for a
name? And this certainly isn’t limited
to countries across the pond. American celebrities
are known for giving their babies unusual names, like Apple, or Blue Ivy, or
North.
And this phenomenon isn’t even limited to recent history. Did you hear
what Hosea and Gomer called their
kids in our text this morning? Their
firstborn is a son and God tells Hosea to name him Jezreel, “for in a little
while I will punish the house of Jehu [the king], for the blood of Jezreel,” an
outrageously bloody battlefield.[2] That’s like calling your kid Gettysburg or
Antietam. Then there’s the second kid, a
daughter, and God says, “Name her Lo-ruhamah, for I will no longer have pity on
the house of Israel or forgive them.”[3] Lo-ruhamah means ‘not pitied.’ What a name for a little girl! Hosea and Gomer have a third kid, another
son, and he is named Lo-ammi, which means ‘not my people.’ God says it’s because “you are not my people
and I am not your God.”[4] Wow. A
bloody battlefield, Not Pitied, and Not My People. I think I’d rather be called Moon Unit or
Diva Muffin; those are musician Frank Zappa’s daughters, by the way.
Yet, thank God for verse 10. Let’s read the final verse again. “Yet the number of the people of Israel shall
be like the sand of the sea, which can be neither measured nor numbered; and in
the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ it shall be said
to them, ‘Children of the living God.’” Thank
God that these kids’ names are not the end of the story. There is hope. There will be redemption.
However, before we get there, let’s go back to the beginning of the
story. “When the Lord first spoke
through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, ‘Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have
children with her, for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of
unfaithfulness to the Lord.’”[5] So the metaphor here is that Israel has been
unfaithful to God just like an unfaithful spouse cheating on their partner. Infidelity is one of the top reasons why a
couple gets a divorce. It is a broken
marriage vow and it is way too prevalent today.
I can’t tell you how often I hear it cited as the reason why a couple
got divorced. And while affairs are
romanticized by Hollywood in movies like “An Affair to Remember” or “The
Bridges of Madison County,” or made into catchy pop tunes like Uncle Kracker’s
“Follow Me,” beloved, if you are married, please remember that the covenant you
pledged to your spouse is to be faithful
to them. We, as a people, have
forgotten what faithfulness and integrity look like, at work, at school, in our
family, and even at church.
Do you remember your membership vows
when you joined the church? You promised
to faithfully participate in the life of the church in five ways.[6] The first one is through your prayers. Do you regularly pray for the church and for
the prayer requests we share? Do you
pray regularly, period? Second is by
your presence and this is where our Gather, Grow, and Go vision comes in. Are you regularly gathering here in worship
Sunday morning? Do you also regularly
grow as part of a small group or Sunday school class? And do you regularly go and serve your
neighbor in some capacity or other? The
third vow is gifts. It’s almost the
fall, which means we’re getting ready to do our 2014 budget. Do you regularly give to the church? The amount is between you and God, but
whatever amount you and God have agreed on, do you give it faithfully? Fourth is service, which we touched on with
the Go portion of Gather, Grow, and Go. Service
to the church through one of our committees or working with our children and
youth or fixing what’s broken or just plain doing what needs doing around here,
and service in the community, service that happens off-campus; both are
important and both should be done on a regular basis. Finally, the last vow is witness. Whether you seek out opportunities or not,
when presented with the opportunity, do you witness to your faith in Jesus
Christ and the difference he makes in your life? Do you know your story, that when someone
asks you to do something on a Sunday morning, and you say no, you have church,
you can then explain to them why church is so important to you and the
difference a faith community makes in your life?
Are you keeping your membership vows to the church? For those of you who are married, are you
keeping your marriage vows, to honor one other, to cherish one other? For everyone, do you keep your promises? Are you known as someone of their word? Or do you change your mind when something
better comes along? Faithfulness means
that you keep your word, your promise, your vows, your side of the covenant.
I want to stress that this abandonment of God by Israel is temporary; that this is not Israel’s typical behavior. The purpose of Hosea’s story was to shock
Israel and call them to be their best selves.[7] Israel is not
usually unfaithful. Israel, God’s
people, is usually faithful to God.
That’s why it’s a shock to say “You are not my people and I am not your
God.” Israel has always been God’s
people. God has always been their
God. Israel is usually faithful and God
is always faithful. But there has been a breach of their covenant
and God is calling them back. Maybe it’s
a little extreme, Israel certainly isn’t any more rebellious or stubborn than
any other people, but each generation must experience God’s mercy for
themselves and claim their own desire to continue in relationship with God for
themselves.[8] Everyone at Orange must decide that yes, God
is calling this church to be here, at the corner of MLK and Homestead, and we
will respond to the call. We who are Orange
must answer God’s call for ourselves and claim that we do want to continue in
relationship with God today.
This is part of what’s going on in the psalm we read. The psalmist cries, “Restore us again,” which recognizes that God has
done this before. God has restored us
and renewed us and revived us before.
The psalmist, and I think we, too, are asking God to do it again. God has saved us before. God has gotten us through tough times
before. God will do it again. Our part
to play is to be faithful. Now before
you start to say, “I don’t know if I can do that,” or “that’s not in my
nature,” I have news for you: yes, it is. You were created in the image of God, and God
is faithful. We strive to become more
like Christ in our Christian walk, and Christ is faithful. God created you beautifully and wonderfully
and fearfully and faithfully in his image.
Before you were born, God loved you.
And God still loves you, unconditionally, and cherishes you,
unconditionally. Your nature is to be
like God, which means you can be faithful, which means you can faithfully respond
to his call on your life and we as a church can faithfully respond to God’s
call on Orange. It means that even if
there is a season in which you turn away from God, in which you may deserve to
be called “Not My People” or “Not Pitied,” God will not forsake you. He will not abandon you and he will welcome
you back with open arms, just like the father in the parable of the prodigal
son. It means that once again “in the
place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ it shall be said to
them, ‘Children of the living God.’”
“Child of the Living God” is a name we all share, if we will accept it,
and it’s a far better name even than George Alexander Louis. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit. Amen.
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