Wednesday 10th July 2024
Homily
† Let the Words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer †
[Homily based on Hosea 10: 1-3, 7-8, 12 and Matthew 10: 1-7]
If you were to be asked what you dislike most about politicians, I expect many of us would suggest telling lies.
And of course, over the General Election campaign I’m sure we’ve all been sick to the back teeth of hearing lies or at least false promises – but from ALL political parties!
At what point do you believe someone after they have lied to you? When do you start to trust them again? Lies are such dreadful things and they do immense damage to lives, relationships and hopes. This morning in our old testament passage, that is exactly what God accuses the people of Israel of being – liars.
Israel is a luxuriant vine
that yields its fruit.
What a lovely picture is painted at the beginning of verse 1 – this fruitful vine that has spread and brought forth an abundance of fruit. But, and it is an important ‘but,’ the fruit was for its own glory. A vine was never meant to bring forth fruit for itself but for the benefit and blessing of others, most notably the farmer who planted it, watered it, tended it and would ultimately harvest the fruit from it. Not so the vine of Israel. Israel had forgotten their purpose – to bring glory to God.
The more his fruit increased the more altars he built; as his country improved, he improved his pillars.
As the second part of the verse tells us, as the blessing of harvest increased, the people moved further and further away from God. They set up their own altars and adorned them with all sorts of precious stones. The more they harvested the more altars they built and the more lavish they became as they put their wealth into these man made idols. There is only one conclusion for God to arrive at concerning these people.
Their heart is false; now they must bear their guilt.
The Lord will break down their altars, and destroy their pillars.
They are liars and their hearts are full of lies. They spoke of God as their God and as of themselves being in a covenantal relationship with God. The reality however was different. Israel’s love and devotion was directed at idols and false gods, whilst all the time paying lip-service to the true and living God. The result of such selfishness and deceit is inevitable. God warns them that He will destroy their altars and precious stones because He will not share His glory with anyone or anything else.
For now they will say: ‘We have no king, for we do not fear the Lord, and a king - what could he do for us?’
In verse 3 we read of where these people thought power and authority lay – in kingship – like the nations around them. Yet they are forced to admit that the reason they had no king was because they did not ‘revere the Lord.’ These people, the chosen people of God, had ceased to fear, or revere, the Lord God. They had become so self-centred and selfish that reverence for God and the things of God had long departed from their hearts and minds. The latter part of the verse shows the despair they now felt – even if they had a king he would be powerless in such a situation. Here are a people who have lost all hope in human authority and ability and whilst acknowledging the cause is the abandonment of a relationship with God they still fail to seek Him.
Thorn and thistle shall grow up on their altars.
The poisonous result of their lying – lies spring up just like weeds in a field. If you are a gardener you will know that some weeds are very persistent and spread under the soil without you seeing until they appear some day. Weeds have to be dug out at their roots if they are to be destroyed and if you do not keep constant watch over the ground they soon come back. It is the same with lies – the ground of our hearts and minds needs to constantly tended and a watch put on our lips that lies are not spoken and are not tolerated. If we do not check them, rip them out at the very root then they will spread and overrun our lives. How awful to be known as someone not to be believed, especially if you are supposed to be a follower of Christ.
Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground;
for it is time to seek the Lord, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.
Ploughing and breaking up of the ground speaks of their need to repent and to dig out the sinful ways that they had so quickly embraced. Then in the last verse, they must sow the seeds of righteousness into their lives and the result would be a harvest of God’s unfailing love.
You see they had a role to play in all of this – the breaking of the ground, the ploughing of the land and the planting of the seed – but it would be God who watered it, made the seed grow and bear fruit in their lives.
The lies had to STOP.
Moving on to the gospel reading from Matthew – we are now about 750 years later.
Looking at the second section – the Mission of the Twelve……….
Jesus primary aim is to go to the ‘lost sheep of the house of Israel’.
He wants his new apostles to evangelise to the Jewish peoples only. Do not go to the Gentiles – they will come later – in fact the thrust of evangelism to the Gentiles had to wait for Saint Paul’s evangelising with assistance from the likes of Luke, Barnabas and Timothy, amongst others.
Equally, Samaritans are to be ignored – now therein lies a much larger can of worms – not for today's discussion.
Those of you who know Handel’s Messiah will be reminded of Isaiah 53:6 “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way,”
So God’s chosen people have strayed more than once.
Clearly Jesus has to bring his people back on-track from previous straying throughout the old testament.
But what about us? Are we pretending that we are free from sin?
Are we looking after ourselves and our nearest and dearest alone?
What are we doing for the poor? The hungry? The homeless?
The orphans? The widows?
Are we doing enough? Or can we be doing more?
I repeat God’s message:
Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground; for it is time to seek the Lord, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.
Amen