Before turning to today’s gospel reading, I’d like to say a few words about the reading from Hosea. I’m sure as you as listened and read, questions arose about this difficult and disturbing text. God commands the prophet Hosea to marry a prostitute, or a promiscuous woman; then orders him to give their children awful, offensive names: Jezreel (God sows); Lo-ruhama (not pitied), and Loammi (I am not yours). It doesn’t get any better as the book continues. There’s adultery, separation, and perhaps reconciliation. All of it to symbolize God’s relationship with Israel as that of a husband and an unfaithful wife. Throughout the book, there is very little hope of repentance, although perhaps one gets a sense of it in verse 10: “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’.” Continue reading →