Hosea--Is He A Loser And Chump? Series

Friday of the Third Week in Lent 2025

The prophet Hosea, if he lived in our modern culture, would be called a total loser, an inveterate chump. He was prophet to the northern kingdom of Israel and ministered during the reign of King Jeroboam II in the middle of the eighth century before Our Lord. Jeroboam was in secular eyes a great king, expanding his kingdom’s territory and improving its economy. But the people engaged in false worship, fraud, and the other vices we associate with apostacy. They didn’t listen to Hosea’s summons to conversion and repentance, and three decades later the kingdom fell and all the people were hauled off to other parts of the Assyrian empire, if they survived the various massacres of the end.

So why did I refer to Hosea as a loser and a chump? He fell in love with a woman who found herself lovers, lots of them. She was frequently unfaithful. Despite her infidelity, Hosea took her back time after time. We are encouraged to see that behavior, willing cuckoldry, to be like that of the true God, the Lord Adonai, who kept the covenant with Israel—both northern and southern kingdoms—despite both peoples’ frequent betrayal.

Today we are invited to imagine this scene: Israel is to take its words, its dabar, to the Lord, as an offering. What words? Words of repentance, of sorrow; words that could, if God so wishes, restore the original covenant of Horeb/Sinai. Words of admission that they have allowed their kings to try to fix their political problems by bowing down to the empire of Assyria. And this promise: “Take away all iniquity; accept that which is good and we will render the fruit of our lips.” There would be a trade, in a sense. God would accept their repentance as good and their praise as the first-fruit of their mouths. Israel would destroy their molten idols, the works of their hands, and no more pretend that they are “gods.” God promises to heal them under this arrangement. He has turned away His anger and will restore their fruitfulness: “I will be as the dew to Israel; he shall blossom as the lily, he shall strike root as the poplar.” But that would be after their return from exile. God would forgive and God would heal, but they would endure temporal punishment for their generations of unfaithfulness.

The psalmist today is celebrating the covenant, probably generations after the restoration from exile. He is remembering the promise of God at Horeb/Sinai, and the vows that Israel made to Him under Moses and Joshua and Ezra/Nehemiah. And He puts words into the divine mouth that help us in a sense feel God’s compassion and love for the people: “O that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways! I would feed you with the finest of the wheat, and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you."

St. Mark’s Gospel records an incident in the life of Christ that resonates with both Hosea and the psalmist. It’s a kind of covenant memorial. The scribe comes upon Jesus and the lawyers having a dispute. (Please remember that the Jews will agree that if there are fifteen rabbis, they will have at least sixteen opinions.) The scribe discovers Jesus answering them “well,” and poses a kind of closing question to Him: “which commandment is the first of all?” Jesus goes right to the root of the problem, the famous shema memorized by every Jew: “The first is, `Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.' The second is this, `You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these.” So He gives the answer that even now Christians learn in grade school. We must love God with all our self, and our neighbor as ourself.

Not only does the scribe agree. He affirms that the behavior Jesus endorsed from Torah, a moral code at least fifteen centuries old, “is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” That would certainly anger the people who were running the Temple, but we must agree. Our lives must be centered around right worship and just behavior, and that is pretty much the essence of our Lenten piety, is it not?