“Hear this, you priests! Pay attention, you Israelites! Listen, royal house! This judgment is against you: You have been a snare at Mizpah, a net spread out on Tabor. – Hosea 5:1

Today’s Scripture Reading (January 13, 2020): Hosea 5

The origin of the phrase is actually from the game of poker. According to tradition, on the frontier, the game was often played with a Buckskin knife that was used as the counter indicating whose turn it was to deal. The blade was passed around the circle of players, and one in possession of the knife had the privilege of dealing the cards. The knife became known as a “buck.” Occasionally, a player might not want to deal. And so, in those cases, the player would simply pass the knife to the next player in the circle. It was said that the player then “passed the buck.” The poker term became a phrase that was used whenever someone denied responsibility for something passing the blame down the line to someone else. But initially, it was just the responsibility of dealing the next poker hand that was passed down the line.

United States President Harry S. Truman made famous another phrase related to passing the buck. Truman’s slogan was that “the buck stops here.” He even had a sign made for his desk that was emblazoned with the phrase. No, he wasn’t playing Poker with an old Buckskin knife. The phrase meant that Truman understood that the ultimate responsibility for what happened in the nation rested in his office. Rather than passing the responsibility off to those who served him and the presidency, he took the blame on himself. Truman seemed to understand the leadership adage that states that when something goes right, it is because of the people gathered around the leader. But when it goes wrong, it is the fault of the one in charge.

Hosea was worried that the leadership of Israel was going to “pass the buck” off on the people; that they would blame the problems of the nation on the farmers and workers of the country. Maybe they would even place the blame for God’s displeasure with them on the backs of the foreigners who inhabited the land, and who brought their strange ways and gods with them when they emigrated to Israel. But the crimes that God was accusing Israel of had nothing to do with the actions of the aliens who lived in their midst. Hosea points directly at the priests who led the land spiritually, the royal house who led the nation politically, and the Israelites, the ones to whom this land had been given.

Hosea also mentions that all of Israel has been a snare at Mizpah. Mizpah was the place where Samuel began the reforms which characterized his time as a Judge over Israel. What had been a holy place in Israel was now just a sign of all that was wrong with the nation. The reforms of Samuel had disappeared entirely, and left in their place were the selfish actions of the leaders of the land and the ones who followed them. Mount Tabor is also significant. Tabor was a fortress mountain not far from the hills of Nazareth. It was a solitary mountain that gave ascent to its top only from one side of the hill. But the actions of the people had cast a net over the fortress and had, ultimately, defeated the mountain.

But Mount Tabor is also the traditional location of the Transfiguration of Christ, which might remind us that God has the power to cleanse even the places that we have defiled with our actions. After all, forgiveness is a necessity for all of us when the buck stops at our desk.  

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Hosea 6

Hear the word of the LORD, you Israelites, because the LORD has a charge to bring against you who live in the land: “There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land. – Hosea 4:1

Today’s Scripture Reading (January 12, 2020): Hosea 4

The courthouse was set. The plaintiff and defendant are standing as the judge enters the room. Then, after the judge and the rest of those who have gathered for the trial have been reseated, the instructions are read, and the trial begins. A trial usually starts as the plaintiff stands and reads the charges being made against the accused. These are the crimes that the defendant has committed, and the reason why punishment is being demanded.

In Hosea’s tale, God is not the judge; his task is not to weigh the evidence that is about to be presented by the plaintiff against the accused defendant. No, in this tale, God is the plaintiff. The defendant is Israel and Judah. And the charge that is being laid is that there is no faithfulness, love, nor acknowledgment of God in the land. And the three charges directed at Israel are not unrelated.

What the New International Version translates as faithfulness could just as easily be translated as truth or reliability. The accusation is that Israel had not been a reliable partner with God. What had existed between the nation and any of the gods that the people had served might be best described as expedience. Israel did whatever felt right at the time. And no relationship can survive if it is built on only expedience.

Because they were not reliable, love was also missing. The practice of expedience meant that every person only did what was beneficial for them. Self-interest was ruling thought of the day. Today we might term it a “looking out for number one” attitude. And when we are dominated by self-interest, love and mercy are squeezed out of the equation of our lives.

Expedience also squeezes out the acknowledgment of God in our daily ritual. God drives us to see how we can make this world in which we live a better place. Expedience declares that we do not need God, because the only god that this world needs is us. We are the gods of our own lives, and the only ones required for this world. In essence, expedience declares that we have outgrown our gods, and we expect to rule our own lives.

God lays out the charges against Israel. Hosea expects that the people, once the charges have been read, will simply enter a plea of guilty. How can they deny the reality of expedience in their lives? Later, Micah would sum up the charges that God lays against the people in Hosea by writing this:

    He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
    And what does the Lord require of you?
    To act justly and to love mercy
    and to walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8).

Micah just restates the charges listed in Hosea. Hosea, speaking to Israel, declares that this is what God desires from you. That you act faithfully in support of truth (act justly), that you live with compassion and mercy (love mercy), and that you acknowledge God’s presence in your world as you walk humbly with him. Do this, and you never need to fear the charges that might be laid against you by God.  

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Hosea 5

For the Israelites will live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred stones, without ephod or household gods. – Hosea 3:4

Today’s Scripture Reading (January 11, 2020): Hosea 2 & 3

“Never take anything for granted...we never seem to realize what we have until it is no longer ours then it becomes the only thing we want.” The quote is unattributed, and yet we all know the truth of it. We don’t know what we have until we have lost it. The phrase, taken for granted, is a strange one. It means that we assume something is true without questioning it. It seems to originate in an era where the sovereign had to grant every right possessed by the masses. There would come a time when people would assume that certain rights had been granted to them without asking for the king’s permission. These rights would be taken for or as granted. But if you were wrong about the rights you had assumed, then there would be a penalty to pay.

During the days of Hosea, Israel assumed much. They took for granted the idea of a king and his power over them, but more than that, they believed that whether the King was good or bad, that he would have the interests of the nation and the people at the forefront of his mind. They assumed that there would be places to worship, and even though they often seemed to ignore him, they understood that the God of Israel would always reign in Jerusalem. And they also assumed that there would always be a spiritual reality to everyday life even if that spiritual reality went against the dictates of their God.

Hosea wanted them to realize a different reality. The truth was that the disobedience of Israel was about to carry them down a path that they could not imagine. It would be a time of significant loss of some of the things that the nation took for granted. First, it would be a time when the King would reign a long way away for their land. And on that day, the king who reigned over them would not care what was best for Israel or her people. He would take from both the land and the people without any thought of giving back. Israel would exist without a king or a prince.

On that day, the gods that the nation followed, even the false ones, would be taken away from them. The country would be left with gods that they did not know, and gods that did not know them. On that day, the people would be unable to sacrifice in either Jerusalem or in the false places that the kings had set up for that use.

And on that day, the people would pray, but God would no longer hear the prayers of the people. They would wander without direction and without heritage. Everything that people assumed was true would be removed, and, as a result, the people would be lost. It didn’t have to be that way, but according to Hosea, that was the path that they had chosen. Now was the time that the nation needed to be concerned about all that it had taken for granted. Because, soon, those very things would be removed.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Hosea 4

When the LORD began to speak through Hosea, the LORD said to him, “Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her, for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the LORD.”– Hosea 1:2

Today’s Scripture Reading (January 10, 2020): Hosea 1

Once upon a time, there was a man who was walking along the side of a cliff. He marveled at the view and all of the wonders that God had created. He could see the river that brought water to the little picturesque town in the distance meander through the valley, hundreds of feet below. The man admired the beauty of the cherry blossoms the filled the orchard just on the other side of the river. He breathed deeply of the crisp, clean air and watched as the sun began its slow climb into the morning sky.

And then it happened. The man stepped a little too close to the edge of the cliff. At first, it was just a few stones that skittered out from under his feet. The man scrambled to regain his balance, and he thought that he had, when the cliff face gave way under his feet, and he began to slide over the edge. Just as the man reached the cliff edge and as he started his freefall into the valley, the man grabbed hold of a bush that was itself growing out of the face of the rock. For the moment, the man had been saved.

But only for the moment. The man quickly recognized that he had a two-fold problem. The first was that while the bush had stopped his decline into the valley, he had no way of changing his position. He was not strong enough to use the bush to pull himself up with one arm and regain a footing on the top of the cliff face. The second problem was that while the bush had stopped his fall, the bush itself did not have a firm hold onto the wall of the cliff. Either he would grow tired and lose his grip and fall, or the bush would lose its grip and fall. Either way, there was a fall in the man’s immediate future.

Then the man heard a voice. “I see you. You are okay. Just let go.”

The man scrambled to see beneath his dangling feet. “What do you mean let go? I will never survive the fall!”

The voice came again. “You will survive. But you have to let go!”

The man swung a little to the left. “I don’t see a ledge beneath my feet. Do you see something that I don’t see?”

Once again, the voice came from somewhere on the top of the cliff. “No. There is no ledge. But I will catch you. And you will be okay.”

“How are you going to catch me?”

“The ‘how’ doesn’t really matter, does it? All that matters is that I will catch you, and you will be okay.”

“Who is this?”

The voice spoke slowly. “And that doesn’t really matter either, does it? All that matters is the knowledge that I will catch you!”

“Is this … God?”

“Yes. Now, let go.”

“I don’t see how I can survive the fall?”

The voice of God came from the top of the cliff one more time. “You are right. You can’t survive the fall. But that doesn’t matter, because I am going to catch you.”

The man hesitated and then came with one more question. “Is there anyone else up there I can talk to?”

It is how I imagine that Hosea felt when he heard the words of God. There is a bit of debate in the biblical community about whether Gomer was a promiscuous woman, or a prostitute, before she became the wife of the prophet, or if this behavior emerged later in the marriage. But that doesn’t change the truth of the passage. Gomer was going to cheat on Hosea. The prophet was going to live a life that would model Israel’s relationship with God.

What hits me is the phrase “when the Lord began to speak through Hosea.” There doesn’t seem to be any kind of a warm-up period. No “go to Nineveh and speak of my judgment over the city” or “go tell the king that I am displeased with him.” Both of those things seem a little more comfortable than the first words that emerge out of the mouth of God. For Hosea, God begins with “go and marry a promiscuous woman.”

I think, if I was Hosea, my response might have mirrored the reaction of the man on the cliff. “Is there anyone else up there I can talk to?”

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Hosea 2 & 3

Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time … - Jonah 3:1

Today’s Scripture Reading (January 9, 2020): Jonah 3 & 4

Spanish novelist Carlos Ruiz Zafón in “The Shadow of the Wind,” argues that “there are no second chances in life, except to feel remorse.” I understand the statement, and sometimes it is true. There are many circumstances in my life that I wish I could go back in time and do differently, or that I had a second chance to correct my error. But as much as I might hope for that chance, it doesn’t seem to come. And all that I am left with is remorse.

But while I recognize that sometimes Zafón is right, I am glad that sometimes he is wrong. While I might mourn the relationships that have been damaged and that I have never received a chance to try to fix, I am thankful for all of the second chances that have become a reality in my life. And I am glad that I serve a God who believes in second (and third, fourth, and fifth) chances.

The opening words of Jonah 3 mirror the opening words of Jonah 1, reflecting that this story is about second chances. Jonah didn’t make the most of his first chance and suffered for that failure. But now, God was giving him another chance to fulfill his purpose. God places the same goal in front of his prophet and charges him with the same task. And Jonah has a choice; react as he did the first time God told him to go to Nineveh, do something different in defiance of God, or go to Nineveh a fulfill the task that God had placed before him.

Jonah decides to go. Given a second chance, the prophet makes the most of the opportunity. But it is not just Jonah that gets a second chance in the story. The whole tale is about the second chance that God is prepared to give to the Assyrian city of Nineveh. But Jonah, while likely thankful that God had rescued him from the belly of the great fish and had given him a second chance, is actually upset that the God of second chances is willing to provide Nineveh with their second chance. After the salvation of Nineveh, the direct result of Jonah’s successful visit to the city, Jonah’s complaint was about God’s willingness to give to the Assyrian city another chance.

Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live (Jonah 4:2-3).

The words are intended to have an impact. I would rather die than to see my enemy be given another opportunity to get it right. They don’t deserve and won’t live up to the chance. And in Jonah’s defense, he was right. Nineveh did not make the most of their second chance, and, in the end, they were destroyed. I guess that is the thing about second chances. We know that we need them. We might even think that we deserve them. But that means that our enemies deserve their second chances too, even if they don’t believe in them or don’t make the most of them.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Hosea 1

Now the LORD provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. – Jonah 1:17

Today’s Scripture Reading (January 8, 2020): Jonah 1 & 2

It is one of my pet peeves, judging yesterday’s words or actions by today’s understanding. We seem to like to do it. Not long ago, there was a movement to remove Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” from school reading lists. The reason for the removal was the use of the “N” word in the dialogue. The problem was that the word, which is extremely offensive to modern ears, was used very appropriately for the time frame in which the story takes place. And it is an excellent opportunity to open a discussion about the way that words and our reaction to them can change.

Our job, as readers of the biblical narrative, is to do our best to understand what the words might have meant to the first generation of readers. It is this task that urges great caution whenever we encounter modern hot topic issues. People who believe in a very literal interpretation of the Bible often point to the meaning of the words in our contemporary understanding. But an actual literal interpretation of the Bible might be impossible because it would have to start with what the first audience to the writing understood from the words. It is that first response that would be the literal understanding of the story. The words that we read in our Bibles are already an interpretation of someone who translated the words into our language. We can’t get a literal understanding from someone else interpretation of the words. It is for this reason that I have made it a practice to read any passage that I am studying in several translations.

All of this brings us to the absurd argument that arises out of the story of Jonah. Could a whale have swallowed Jonah? The contemporary argument goes that a whale could not have swallowed Jonah because the Bible specifies that a “huge fish” swallowed him. Our contemporary understanding is that a whale is not fish; it is a marine mammal that is actually related to the Hippopotamus. But that argument mixes a modern understanding with ancient words. In discovering the solution to our absurd argument, the question that we need to ask is, “did the original audience of the Book of Jonah, who lived seven or eight hundred years before the birth of Jesus, consider a whale a fish?” Herman Melville entertains a similar argument in his epic story “Moby Dick,” and his protagonist Ishmael comes to the conclusion that if a whale lives in the water, swims, and looks fish-like, then a whale must be a huge fish. “Moby Dick” was written more than 2500 years after the life of Jonah. Understanding the passage from the point of view of the original readers of the story means that a whale could have swallowed Jonah.

Or not. The reality is that there is not an aquatic animal known today that would have the capability of swallowing a man and then, three days later, vomit the man, alive, onto the shore. So what does that tell us? For some, it means that the story is allegorical. It didn’t really happen. And that might be true. The Bible does contain allegorical stories intended to convey truth through a fictional narrative. The most common biblical allegories are found in the parables of Jesus. Of course, it also might be a factual story. Surely, the God who created the heavens and the earth, could create a huge fish, or a whale, that was capable of swallowing Jonah, keeping him alive for three days, and then vomit him onto the shore, safe and sound, and ready to follow the will of God. But that argument I will leave with your understanding.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Jonah 3 & 4

Though they hide themselves on the top of Carmel, there I will hunt them down and seize them. Though they hide from my eyes at the bottom of the sea, there I will command the serpent to bite them. – Amos 9:3

Today’s Scripture Reading (January 7, 2020): Amos 9

Let’s play a thought experiment. Last night, the world, at least as we know it, ended. Maybe North Korea finally exploded a Nuclear Electromagnetic Pulse over North America, and everything has failed. Computers and other electronics no longer work, and neither does anything that relies on the microelectronics that dominates our culture. That means that our cars and trucks have stopped. Traffic in North America has come to a standstill. All communication is out. Police have no way of patrolling the area except by foot and maybe the few horses that they have been able to confiscate, and with the few officers who know how to ride them. As a result, our world is in the hands of criminals. No help is coming. In fact, the repair of the system will take billions of dollars and at least six months to begin, let alone the years it will take to get back to year 0, or the time before “the pulse.” Stores will have no food for the foreseeable future. (I bet you are glad for the annoying rabbits running around your neighborhood now.) If this was our new reality, where would you go?

The real problem is that this is a question for which few of us have an answer. My first priority would probably be to try to reconnect with family members in the area, and then it would be a “go from there” proposition. One of the real problems would be the lack of communication and not knowing what my family might be doing.

Mount Carmel

In ancient Israel, the obvious answer might be “Mount Carmel.” Granted, Carmel was already swarming with people, mostly criminals, trying to escape authorities. Its cliff face was pockmarked with anonymous caves that could be used for shelter. The slopes of the mountain were lush with vegetation that would attract game that could be hunted. It was a great hiding place if a hiding place was needed.

Some even thought it would be an excellent place to hide from God. But Amos reminds his readers that God can find you. He is in the deepest parts of the ocean and is not afraid of the heights offered on the plateau of Mount Carmel. Wherever your hiding place might be, God is already there, which is actually a good thing. Because when we find ourselves in need of a hiding place, that is when we are usually in the most need of our God.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Jonah 1 & 2