Wednesday of the Fourteenth Week of Ordinary Time

Sow for yourselves justice,
reap the fruit of piety;
break up for yourselves a new field,
for it is time to seek the Lord,
till he come and rain down justice upon you."

When Hosea pleads with his fellow Israelites, he is not talking to some of them. He is not trying to salvage a remnant. The later prophet Jeremiah will develop that forlorn doctrine. Hosea wants King Jeroboam and all the people to return to the Lord in Jerusalem.

Jerusalem’s God is merciful and just; he shows pity to the homeless, the enslaved, the lame and sick, the widowed and orphaned. Jeroboam and his people do not. If they still use the same name for God within a copy of Solomon’s temple, imitating the rites of Moses, they do not worship the same God.

Hosea’s words will be preserved and honored in Jerusalem, but not in the northern kingdom of Israel. They and their religion will be lost, just as thousands of other religious traditions have been washed away in the sweep of history. They disappear “like foam upon the waters.”

Hosea’s prophecies sound violent to our ears. Suffering as we have the traumas of total war in the 20^th century, we’d like a God who will make us comfortable, secure, and easy in the conscience. We’ll thank him for neither guilt nor shame. If we feel up to it, if it pleases our egos, we’ll go so far as to donate excess money to worthwhile charities. It makes us feel good about ourselves.

Hosea’s God is a jealous God who knows our frailty and our strength. We must seek the Lord and His ways continually, every day, every hour of the day, in all our activities doing justice and mercy – for it is time to seek the Lord, till he come and rain down justice upon you.