06.17.12
"that church north point"
Silverdale, Washington
Rev. Eyde Mabanglo
you. turn.
fanning the flame of faith in Hosea
As alluded to in the Book of Hosea, focusing on our lofty goals and abandoning God's purposes is described as
spiritual infidelity. As Hosea challenges God's people to turn back to God, we are confronted with our own
need to repent, turn, and abandon idols of our own making and make instead our relationship with God the
one and only priority in our lives. The job of the prophet and the preacher is to fan the flame of faith in the one
who has walked away from God; however, he/she needs to turn and face God before attempting to fan the
faith of another. Like a husband to an unfaithful wife, God says to his beloved, "Come back to me!"
INTRODUCTION—Father’s Day…
My Dad=Flawless Firewood Stacker Profile #48
OR=Sandals and Socks Guy Profile #56
HOW ABOUT YOU?=The Utility Kilter Profile #41
OR=White Bearded Bainbridge Architect Profile #33
MY HUSBAND=Blue Tarp Camper Profile #60
TENDING A FIRE
One of the things I look forward to when I camp is sitting by the fire. I am the
fire maker and the fire keeper. I enjoy tending to it while I sit and read and
write and simply enjoy being outside. On Memorial Day Weekend, I spent a
moment one night sitting by the fire at a nearby campground writing out a
chart of my life and its current priorities. I climbed into my tent and
thoughtfully tried to reflect on my priorities and how I would embark on
tending to them immediately after the three day weekend. I had started
something and now it was time to keeping it going...
REMEMBERING HOSEA
I rose early in the morning; I would not be going to church today. I was on
vacation from work, which for pastors means from church. I wanted to just sit
by the fire and reflect on who I was and who I was supposed to be, and how I
was going to be a better preacher. I lit the kindling and fanned the flames into
a small yet brilliant glow. On the first day of our campout, I got a phone
message that I was going to preach on Hosea in a few weeks. I enjoy having a
sermon stew in my mind for several days. As I thought about Hosea, the lyrics
to a song I learned 30 years ago kept running through my mind. The song was
called HOSEA or COME BACK TO ME, and I knew it was about the invitation of a
husband asking his wife to return to him. It was a love song, and I wondered
how it would help me prepare for preaching about the prophet.
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MEMORIAL DAY DEVOTIONS
I put another log on the fire, and read from my devotional book. The readings
for the holiday weekend focused on Peter and the other disciples in the Book
of John as they interacted with Jesus just before his crucifixion. They were
with Jesus, but so often they didn't listen to what he was saying to them. At
some level, they knew he was the Son of God, but they didn't let him teach,
lead, and love them as if he were God.
May 23=We want to follow Jesus, but like Peter we also want to tell Jesus
where to go. Jesus doesn’t need our advice; he needs our faithful obedience.
Discipleship means learning how to listen to Christ, not getting him to listen to
us. (Peterson, “A Year with Jesus”)
Like Peter questioning Jesus' foretelling his death and resurrection, I realized
that in writing out my priorities the night before was like telling Jesus where to
go and what to do. I wanted the Lord to listen to me, my priorities, my
prayers—I presumed he needed my counsel, rather than how I desperately
needed his.
May 24=because he makes himself so accessible to us, we’re in constant
danger of reducing Jesus to the ‘good guy’…a sock and sandals guy. But there
is a terrifying majesty in him that occasionally becomes apparent to us. When it
does it is unthinkable that we should treat him as a cosmic buddy-we can only
fall down in awe and worship. (Peterson, “A Year with Jesus”)
Like his friends who witnessed his magnificent transfiguration, I want to tell
Jesus that I will build him a tent so that he might ‘camp’ out with me where I
am, instead of responding to the earth-shattering, thundering voice of God by
falling on my face to worship him with my whole being. Oh the patience of
Christ with his disciples who seem to question Him at every turn along their
following and their discipling and their learning from the Messiah, God’s ONE
AND ONLY SON!
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SCRIPTURE READINGS
Hosea 6
A Call to Repentance
6 “Come, let us return to the Lord.
He has torn us to pieces;
now he will heal us.
He has injured us;
now he will bandage our wounds.
2 In just a short time he will restore us,
so that we may live in his presence.
3 Oh, that we might know the Lord!
Let us press on to know him.
He will respond to us as surely as the arrival of dawn
or the coming of rains in early spring.”
Hosea 14
Healing for the Repentant
14 [a]Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God,
for your sins have brought you down.
2 Bring your confessions, and return to the Lord.
Say to him,
“Forgive all our sins and graciously receive us,
so that we may offer you our praises.[b]
3 Assyria cannot save us,
nor can our warhorses.
Never again will we say to the idols we have made,
‘You are our gods.’
No, in you alone
do the orphans find mercy.”
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PRAYER OF ILLUMINATION (optional)
Holy God, Word made flesh, let us come to this word open to being surprised.
Silence our agendas;
banish our assumptions;
cast out our casual detachment.
Confound our expectations;
clear the cobwebs from our ears;
penetrate the corners of our hearts with this word.
We know that you can, we pray that you will, and we wait with great
anticipation. Amen.
CONVICTION
So who did I think I was to write out my priorities for my life as if I were
showing God my "to do" list and asking him to bless it. The world tells me that
I must determine those things for myself. I must take the initiative, I must
refocus and I must become ALL that I was meant to be. This is what I was
often taught, but the devil is in the details—when did my accomplishments, my
dreams, and my legacy become more important than God’s ideal for all of his
creation or God’s call on my life. When did my desire and passion to preach
become more important than the person I passionately preach about? As I
stared into the dancing flames of the campfire, I found myself embarrassed
about how I had carefully, thoughtfully wrote out my goals and aspirations just
the night before as if I were obediently practicing some ancient spiritual
discipline.
Then thy lyrics of the song "HOSEA" washed over me again:
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COME BACK TO ME (Gregory Norbet, 1972)
Come back to me with all your heart,
don't let fear keep us apart.
Trees do bend, tho' straight and tall;
so must we to others' call.
Long have I waited for your coming
home to me and living deeply our new life.
The wilderness will lead you
to your heart where I will speak.
Integrity and justice
with tenderness you shall know.
Long have I waited for your coming
home to me and living deeply our new life.
You shall sleep secure with peace;
faithfulness will be your joy.
Long have I waited for your coming
home to me and living deeply our new life.
“COME BACK” IS GOD’S HEART (BUMPER STICKER?)
“Come back to me!” This is the essence of the Lord’s constant dialogue with
the disciples. This is the essence of God’s prophetic words spoken through his
prophetic voice piece—HOSEA—in the ancient world. This is the same
invitation throughout our day, every day by God’s Holy Spirit to those of us
who say we are his disciples. Can we walk with him really in the company of
friends along a path that seems to (more often than not) walk away from God
like an unfaithful lover? Yet God says, “Come back." The lyrics to the song
"HOSEA" stand alone as a beautiful love song. I am grateful for this song
because it allowed me to carry the heart of God in my memory.
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HOSEA’S MARRIAGE IS A METAPHOR
The song helps me to frame all the drama within the 14 chapters of Hosea,
because the backdrop of the Book of Hosea plays out like a common primetime
drama. God asked Hosea to choose a wife who would be unfaithful. According
to Hosea 1:2, God told Hosea to go and find an adulterous woman and to give
birth to adulterous children. They had three children (although we are
uncertain who was the father of the last two); their names meant "God
plants", "not my loved one", "not my people" (and possible are reference in
today’s reading of Hosea 14:3). Hosea's marriage and his family life became a
parable for God to use to communicate with his own beloved, yet unfaithful
people. He needed Hosea to tell his people about the heart of God; he wanted
Hosea to explain that in spite of his people's unfaithfulness, that he would
remain faithful. Hosea's purpose in life was to live and learn the depth of
betrayal and heartache in his own life and to devote everyday in restoring a
relationship with his beloved. As a result, he was better prepared to tell God's
people to the extent that God's loved them and how God longed for nothing
more than for his people to return to him once again.
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I AM HOSEA
As I poked the hot coals of the fire and tried to let the logs ignite once again, I
thought about my own discipleship and my own call to lead God's people. I
decided to start over at recalibrating my priorities. Hosea means “God Saves”
as does Joshua and Jesus. Especially as a preacher, I wanted to devote myself
to the God who saved me from sin and the God who saved me from an eternal
separation from all that is good and divine and true. I can certainly identify
with Hosea’s role as a prophet. I chose or was chosen/called to a vocation to
tell others about this salvation available to ALL by simply believing in the One
who became human and taught us patiently and perfectly about his loving
heart and plan for reconciling the world to that heart. I trained in the field, as
they say, while attending seminary to better articulate that Gospel—Good
News—to a world that seemed to become more and more distracted,
disinterested, and ultimately distanced from that message. It is so easy to
become discouraged by the rejection of the people who so desperately need
to hear the words of Christ, but imagine the disillusionment of the pastor
whose prophetic words of old, in language painstakingly crafted to be relevant
to a new generation, is rejected by the churches for which they serve?
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I AM GOMER
But as much as I might relate to Hosea as a person called to proclaim God's
message of hope and reconciliation, I have to confess to you, to God, and to
myself that it is Hosea's wife that I am more like. The Book of Hosea is about
the unfaithfulness of God's people. They are harlots with their devotion. Just
as Israel brings other idols into their relationships with God, so I have easily
brought conflicting priorities into my own spiritual life. It is tempting to write
that I need to become a better preacher, a better study leader, a better friend,
and a better administrator for Jesus and for His people. But Hosea’s words
“come back to me” are not just the words recorded in the OT to be studied, to
be memorized, to be sung and repeated often and well. They are to be heard,
first and foremost, by the pastor, the disciple, the beloved Child of God. These
are words to be written on our hearts!
I WANT…
I want to be an academic scholar. I want to be a post-modern voice piece of
God. I want to be employed—BUT my only priority, the only item on my 'to do'
list is to Come Back...to Jesus. No academic escalades. No additional time
spent with influential leaders. No more networking on FaceBook, LinkedIn, or
Presbyterian Blogs! Just “come back to me!” I will always struggle with
wanting to be a better preacher, but if I am to be a better preacher it won't be
because I am like Hosea, it will be because I know that I am much more like his
wife.
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OUR IDOLS
God's people have always had issues of spiritual infidelity. Today's Scripture is
speaking to the Christian—to you and me. These words are for those who say
they want to follow after God ‘in a company of friends’. These words are for
those who often forget their first love. What are your priorities? If you don't
know, then ask the person next to you because they probably can tell you.
How do your words and your actions reveal your infidelity to God? What
mistresses have you brought into your relationship with God? What idols have
you made with your own hands and have added to your spiritual life? God
knows this. God knows us. God knows. God knows. He knows and has always
provided a way for us to return to him.
Isaiah 54:6-8
New Living Translation (NLT)
6 For the Lord has called you back from your grief—
as though you were a young wife abandoned by her husband,”
says your God.
7 “For a brief moment I abandoned you,
but with great compassion I will take you back.
8 In a burst of anger I turned my face away for a little while.
But with everlasting love I will have compassion on you,”
says the Lord, your Redeemer.
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A “SPIRITUAL” LIFE
Please examine your priorities, your dreams, and your aspirations...because it is
so easy to confuse these very things as the substance of a spiritual life; after all,
these are the very things that give many us, Christians and Non-Christians alike,
purpose, worth, and direction. And chasing after these things can feel very
faithful, very Christian, very good, and very spiritual; however, the words from
the prophet Hosea challenge us to see our priorities, however spiritualized, as
idols made of our own hands. We let these idols become the purpose of our
life, and give them power to give us our true identity and real worth--but these
are things no idol can ever provide us. As alluded to in the Book of Hosea,
focusing on our lofty goals and abandoning God's purposes is described as
spiritual infidelity. Hosea challenges God's people to turn back to God; we are
confronted with our own need to repent, turn, and make our relationship with
God’s ONE AND ONLY SON the ONE AND ONLY love in our life.
TENDING THE FIRE
The fire burns small and the embers grow bright red when the Easterly wind
whips around the fire pit. When I am camping and there is no wind, I find
newsprint or take a breath of air to fan/to infuse the embers, causing them to
explode into a brilliant flame. Throughout my reflections on my life's calling,
my devotional reading, my studying the Book of Hosea, and my need to return
to God's heart... I have been tending a fire. The fire now becomes the perfect
metaphor for our relationship with God. At times it has grown cold and small,
but with fuel and oxygen it burns hot and bright. If there are embers of faith
within your heart, sometimes “holy wind” can blow a bright glow back into
them. God's love for us is a fire. Our love for him needs to be tended. If we
come back to him, the fire of his love will burn brighter, hotter, and longer so
that others will warm to its glowing.
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THE POWER OF METAPHOR
God make Hosea’s life a metaphor of faithfulness to better share God’s heart
with the unfaithful in the same way. God used my passion for preaching for me
to identify with revealed to me how my own aspirations can easily become a
hand-made idol; [in comparison, leaders take their spiritual gifts—given for the
glory of God to reveal the identity and heart of Christ--AND allow the gifts to
become what they serve in order to make an identity for themselves and forget
who they really are...AND God used this revelation to show me the preacher how
easily she can become unfaithful to her first love]. And God used the very fire
that kept me warm while I reflected on these things confessed my
unfaithfulness of God, and “come back to him” as the metaphor for our
discipleship. The preacher must tend the fire of God’s Holy Spirit for God’s
beloved, AND in so doing urge them to tend to the fire within each of their own
hearts…to ask the holy spirit to whip around the embers of your hearts and fan
them/to infuse them to glow brilliant. So that his church—indeed his bride—
can illuminate this dark world.
LIGHT OF THE WORLD
Israel needed a fire keeper in Hosea—to so know the love of God that he felt
called to fan the flame of faith in their hearts lest the fire go hauntingly cold—
AND that is my job today—we each have a fire of faith burning in our hearts—
God is asking you to TEND to His fire today—the one he lit in your heart when
you asked Jesus to take away your sins—when you invited Him to be the fire
that you gave your life, when you asked him to be the light of your life as
clearly you recognized him as they light of the world. [And what does it mean
to be the Light of the World—a title Jesus took for himself within the temple—
which when lit by a dozen oil lamps became a bright beacon to Jerusalem—night
became day. The temple revealed the light of God to his people in the midst of
darkness.—Jesus didn’t say he was the Light of Jerusalem—he said that he was
the Light of the World. John sys he is Light in our darkness. Paul says he will
illuminate our hearts and expose anything that is not of God].
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FANNING THE FLAME & FAITH
My job as a preacher is to fan those flames this morning—to whatever small
ember of faith may be present in your heart—to fan it with God’s newsprint or
by the power of his breath—his spoken Word—to reveal a visible flame that
might explode into a brilliant and visible faith—a fire that will warm cold
hearts…the fire represents the revival that is at the essence of God's heart.
SUMMARY
The words of Hosea (whose name is like Joshua and Jesus which all mean "God
Saves") are words to help us rekindle our relationship with God; they are words
of restoration and resurrection. They are about the deliverance of Israel, and
they are about your deliverance from all things cumbersome and distracting.
The words "COME BACK TO ME" are about the deliverance of Christ's Church-which throughout scripture is portrayed as God's bride, his betrothed, his
beloved.
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READ HOSEA 2
Hosea 2
16 “In that day,” declares the Lord,
“you will call me ‘my husband’;
you will no longer call me ‘my master.[d]’
17 I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips;
no longer will their names be invoked.
18 In that day I will make a covenant for them
with the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky
and the creatures that move along the ground.
Bow and sword and battle
I will abolish from the land,
so that all may lie down in safety.
19 I will betroth you to me forever;
I will betroth you in[e] righteousness and justice,
in[f] love and compassion.
20 I will betroth you in[g] faithfulness,
and you will acknowledge the Lord.
21 “In that day I will respond,”
declares the Lord—
“I will respond to the skies,
and they will respond to the earth;
22 and the earth will respond to the grain,
the new wine and the olive oil,
and they will respond to Jezreel.[h]
23 I will plant her for myself in the land;
I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one.[i] ’
I will say to those called ‘Not my people,[j]’ ‘You are my people’;
and they will say, ‘You are my God. ’”
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NEW NW PROFILES
Ambivalent “Spiritual-but-not-religious” Guy
In the NW, we pride ourselves on spirituality that is “built on nothing less than
arrogance and ambivalence”. The “I-carry-my-church-in-my-chest” disciple
resents the church for not being a better family than the one they came from…or
the one they have gone into…It isn’t about a-renewing-their-mind kind of faith,
but about the religion of out-of-sight-out-of-mind. If they yell “Hallelujah” it is
more likely because a Mariner was called safe at home, rather than because a
wayward saint found their way back home. Their spiritual journey may have
started with “God cares” and eventually became “I care”, but it is dangerously
close to becoming “who cares?”
The NP Do-lord-o-do-lord Fire Tender
Instead of resenting our neighbor for their lack of faithfulness and not meeting
our shopping list of spiritual expectations, the Do-Lord Fire Tender has a contrite
heart and has COME BACK to Jesus; they understand that the fire of faith is
sometimes quite fragile and so is acutely aware of the need to tend that fire in
themselves AND THEIR NEIGHBOR…AND they celebrate every Sunday @ NP the
fact that never does that flame of faith grow brighter than when two or three
flames are gathered in His Name. The Do-Lord Fire Tender sings Do-Lord because
he DID (Lord) and will DO (Lord). And that fire that burns within each heart will
“OUT SHINE THE SUN.”
Although an Old Testament text, the Book of Hosea represents the dawn of
redeeming grace in the person of Jesus and points to the resurrection of Christ
in whom all things find reconciliation and by whom we ultimately do Come
Back...to God.
PRAYER—Lord Jesus Christ, open my eyes to the reality of your glory, to the
splendor of your loveliness. I worship you. I praise you. I center my life in you,
and only you. Amen.
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www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKw3YUuj6Pg
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