Hosea 1:2-10

Being a prophet is no task for the faint of heart. Often the biblical prophets are called to speak on behalf of God to proclaim unpopular truths about the way people’s practices in the past and present are projecting a future that is unappealing. The prophets are not always so much predicting the future based on God’s message as they are sharing God’s message about how the future hardship, calamity, and punishment are the result of the people’s unfaithfulness. Calling people out for their unfaithful practices does not lend itself to winning popularity contests or even making friends. But speaking the message is only part of the challenge for biblical prophets. Often preaching a hard word is just half the story, as the mode of proclamation is as much action as it is speech.

This is where the prophet Hosea finds himself being commanded by God to proclaim with his actions a word about the Northern Kingdom of Israel’s unfaithfulness to God. God tells Hosea to make his life a metaphor that will speak to the people of Israel’s unfaithfulness and to God’s former and future dealings with the people. Like Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and other biblical prophets after him, God calls for an embodied demonstration of the prophetic message that signifies the embodied realities of the people’s unfaithfulness.

Recognizing that the role of the prophet involves more than challenging and forewarning speech should press any would-be prophetic preachers to pause and proceed cautiously in dawning the mantle of a prophet. As a preacher approaching the text of Hosea 1:2-10, one should consider carefully how proclaiming God’s message may have real, even embodied, impact on one’s life. The blessing of this realization for preachers is that prophetic proclamation remains tied to personal and pastoral concerns. Preachers are in this with their people, and recognition of this should shape how preachers preach messages, especially the more challenging ones, to them.

With this in mind, it is worth noting a few aspects of the passage preachers should consider in preparing to proclaim a word to their people from Hosea. First, it is worth reflecting on the question, “With whom do you/your people identify within the story?” As a preacher are you assuming the role of Hosea? Do you imagine your people as Hosea, Gomer, or one of the children? How would standing in these different places shape the way you hear the story or receive the word of the Lord? Especially given the historical context of the book as related to the Northern Kingdom, its destruction, and the shifting relationship of God to God’s people, where someone stands in the story matters.

To this point, and secondly, it may be worth reflecting more specifically on the impact of family systems and histories as it relates to unfaithfulness, wrongdoing, and sin. In considering the implications of being one of the children in the story, questions about how unfaithfulness of past generations casts a shadow over future generations are pertinent. These questions are communal both in the broadest sense—consider the way current environmental practices and destruction of the earth is casting a long shadow over the future generations—and in the narrowest sense—consider how unfaithful use of money by parents sets children up for financial faithlessness in the future. This is not to say that future generations have no culpability related to their own faithfulness. Yet, just as Hosea and Gomer’s children bore within their own lives the marks of communal brokenness, so too do children—whether they are young or grown—within families and communities bear the marks of sin.

A final consideration in proclaiming a word from Hosea is the question of what the leading metaphor for the sermon will be. Of course, the natural move is to discuss marital unfaithfulness and sexual deviation when preaching from this text. While there is merit to this approach, it must be done cautiously and thoughtfully. It is necessary to consider the cultural context in the United States where (thankfully) the conversation around domestic and sexual violence is growing and people are more attuned to how women, in particular, are treated as objects of abuse and then blamed for the abuse they have received. One must cautiously handle any text where God may be seen as taking the role of divine spouse abuser. There is surely a way to preach about the consequences of sinfulness and unfaithfulness and God’s judgment of the practices that destroy life and dishonor God without endorsing, even implicitly, the blaming and shaming of women. Being attuned to the dynamics of domestic abuse and intimate partner violence will at least make a preacher speak carefully and intentionally any time metaphorical sexual infidelity and actual physical punishment are connected.

Preaching prophetically is no task for the faint of heart. But it is a task for a pastor connected to the deep needs and concerns of her people. And remembering that prophets like Hosea are implicated in the messages they proclaim will help you preach this text faithfully and pastorally this week.