Christ Episcopal Church
August 4, 2013
13 Proper C
Around the time my brother was born in 1964, our father started keeping photo albums to chronicle our life together as a family. The photo albums are a look through time, with photos of every Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas, birthday party, graduation, scouting event, father/daughter dance, and all other events of significance, either real or perceived. We loved looking at those albums when we were children, even though the events were quite recent then. We love looking at the photos even more now and telling the stories that go with the photos. In those photos we see our grandparents at family gatherings and remember the way they loved us unconditionally and our grief when they died. We see friends from our teenage years at birthday parties and remember that we were not speaking to them any more three days after the photo was taken. We see the innocence of our youth, including the inevitable chicken pox photos, the joy of true love, knowing that in some cases those relationships did not work out, and the elation of accomplishment. The photos connect us to our past, to our story, sometimes in ways that speak more than words ever could. When the time comes, my brother, sister and I will not argue over who gets the house or the furniture, but we may have words over who gets the photo albums!
Hosea shows us a similar picture story this morning. The prophet gives a slide show of sorts that reminds the people of their story in which God created them, brought them out of Egypt, and led them into the Promised Land. The prophet reminds God’s people of the ways God has loved them unconditionally over and over again through out time, but the people have turned from God and trusted in idols. The people have experienced the consequences of their unfaithfulness, but Hosea reminds them that God has always been faithful. Hosea was a prophet in the 8th century B.C.E. The great kingdom of Israel had split in two following the death of King Solomon and God’s own people were divided against each other.. The Temple in Jerusalem where the Hebrew people worshiped was in the southern kingdom of Judah, so the people in the northen kingdom of Israel could not worship there. So, Jeroboam, the King of Israel in the north, built two temples and put a golden bull at the entrance to each one. The people of Israel began to worship the golden bulls rather than the God who led them out of Egypt, through the wilderness, and into the Promised Land. We hear God’s heartbreak in the words "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt, I called my son... it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with human kindness, with bands of love."
What the people of Israel have done is not just worship a foreign god. They have not simply created a golden calf out of ignorance. When the people are faced with disaster, the people are willing to put their trust in the closest, most convenient god available and that would be Baal and the golden calves. Their sin is that they fail to remember their story- a story in which, by the way, they have already gotten into trouble once for worshiping a golden calf. They fail to remember that God brought them out of Egypt, sustained them in the wilderness, and brought them into the promised land. And they fail to trust that the God who cared for them in the past would surely sustain them through whatever wilderness they face now. And we hear the heartbreak in God’s voice.
The landowner in Jesus’ parable this morning finds himself in the opposite situation. He has such an abundance of crops that he doesn’t know what to do with them all. He has no place to store them. We might think that the sin of the landowner is the sin of greed, as he decides to tear down his old barns and build new larger ones so that he can store up his crops and eat, drink, and be merry. But again, greed is only the symptom. The landowner’s real sin is that he, too, has forgotten his story. The story of the Hebrew people would remind the landowner to use times of abundance to prepare for times of famine so that everyone would have something to eat, like Joseph did in the story from Genesis. The story of the Hebrew people reminds us that everything we have is part of God’s creation, not our own. The story of the Hebrew people would remind the landowner that we are connected to each other and bear responsibility for each other, as well as ourselves. The landowner, however, has forgotten his story. And even though this is a parable, I imagine that, in the parable, God’s heart is broken again.
In our own lives, we all have times when we feel threatened, challenged, overwhelmed or insecure-much the way the Israelites felt when the Assyrians were breathing down their necks. Or we have times when we, like the landowner, are seduced by the idea that our success is our own and that our accomplishments are for our own personal enjoyment. Our great temptation is to forget that we are part of a larger story, a story in which God is always faithful to God’s people. When we forget that story, we forget our connection with God and each other. When we assume that we have to meet whatever challenge we face on our own, we turn from God and go looking for the closest, most convenient god available. When we assume that our success is of our own making and belongs all to ourselves, we cut ourselves off from God and each other. We are called to remember, over and over again, that the God who led the Israelites out of bondage, through the wilderness, and into the Promised Land will also lead us through whatever wilderness challenge we face. We are called to remember, over and over again, that the God who became human to live and die among us, lives among us now so that there is nothing we must face alone. We are called to remember the story that connects us all to each other and to God. When we remember our story, we are reminded that God is always faithful, and we can behave accordingly. When we trust God and live out of that trust, God’s heart is filled with joy and gladness.
Amen.
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