not my people
A huge anvil cloud up there is moving slowly east to west. I think if you're a pilot, this is a cloud you don't want to challenge, fly around it instead.
Just so, I'm wondering whether our parish will be challenging Hosea, the book of Hosea, who is one of the four eighth century prophets of doom (Isaiah, Hosea, Amos, Micah). God calls Hosea to a wretched life of dealing with unfaithfulness, the metaphor being Hosea's prostitute wife Gomer, who bears him three children. God names each child, choosing a name that signifies something about both the child and God's intentions that are the subject of Hosea's prophecy. The third child is named Lo-ammi, "not my people," meaning that he's the child of Gomer's vocation as a prostitute.
Israel has sinned by turning away from the Lord, both by mixing with the surrounding foreigners and by its governing class brutalizing the common folk. God is furious, and expresses his anger and his intentions through Hosea's prophecy. Again, Gomer and her offspring are metaphors for Israel's unfaithfulness.
Track One, which HNEC has been using, has only two readings from Hosea, today from chapter 1, which we did not read this morning, perhaps because of the word "whoredom," but whoredom is what Israel is guilty of in the eyes of the Lord YHWH. The Track One reading for next Sunday is from Hosea chapter 11. But today we skipped Hosea 1 and substituted the Track Two Genesis reading but not the Track Two responsive psalm, so I'll be interested to see whether we read from Hosea 11 next Sunday morning.
Hosea is a great book and too bad to skip it. However and whatever, though, God and everybody knows that I'm not into rules like "supposed to".
Here's this morning's Hosea reading:
Hosea 1:2-10
When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, "Go, take for yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord." So he went and took Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.
And the Lord said to him, "Name him Jezreel; for in a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. On that day I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel."
She conceived again and bore a daughter. Then the Lord said to him, "Name her Lo-ruhamah, for I will no longer have pity on the house of Israel or forgive them. But I will have pity on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the Lord their God; I will not save them by bow, or by sword, or by war, or by horses, or by horsemen."
When she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she conceived and bore a son. Then the Lord said, "Name him Lo-ammi, for you are not my people and I am not your God."
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."