So here we are in late July. I have had a wonderful ten days (nights actually) or so watching Jupiter and the Moon move across the window I can see from my bed. I leave the blinds open so when I awaken during the night I can check out the universe moving on my “screen.” I close them just before sun-up so, like the veteran New Yorker I am, I can sleep as long as I need to.
Jupiter and the moon are incredibly bright. I actually caught on to this one night when they awakened me. (No, there is no such word as “woken.”) I couldn’t figure out who was shining that bright light in my face until I got sufficiently awake and focused to see. My is it beautiful. Since then it has been sort of like watching that old video where OJ was in the SUV and the police were following. They are in different positions to each other, now quite far apart, but still the brightness of the two is amazing. I gather it is a portent of something. Maybe just of beauty. Beauty, you know, is a sign of love, which is why LGBTQ people love beauty (and love) so much.
The Old Testament lesson today is from Hosea (1:2-10). It is awful on the face of it. God says to Hosea go marry a whore, and Hosea does, and then God says do it again (erm, he means have more children …) and on and on.
And we, English speakers in the 21st century, are supposed to take it literally. But, mind you, this is how they have tricked us for a millennium into thinking our god-given love lives are misordered. Because, my friends, first you have to understand that:
-Baal, the fertility god of the Canaanites, was worshiped with sex.
-We worship our God (Yahweh) with thanksgiving, bread and wine; so we have deacons who set the table and priests who bless and distribute the bread and wine.
-Baal’s temple had people who devoted their lives to sex to worshiping Baal by using their bodies to demonstrate fertility.
So this is no average street hooker Hosea is told to marry; he is told to marry one of those women who have been worshiping the other god, and he does it, and they have three children, and in this way they make a show of God’s love. Hosea marries a woman who used to worship Baal, and teaches her to devote her life to Yahweh. And this is the essence of prophecy of “whoredom,” that nothing can stop our God’s love, nothing.
So, who among us has not worried, or been called up short, about our sexuality? We all know how that song goes. Abomination they say, but you know what, “abomination” is the 18th century word for “idolatry” which means worshiping Baal. All the OT scripture says about diverse sexualities is that we should be careful not to worship Baal in Yahweh’s temple.
They never tell you that when they’re wagging fingers at you for being gay.
Well, Hosea did what God asked and the result was a generation of “children of the living God.”
Psalm 85:8 says: “I will listen to what the LORD God is saying, * for he is speaking peace to his faithful people and to those who turn their hearts to him.”
From these bits of scripture today I preached at a real church. My sermon was that faith is not instant, like Hosea we have to just begin where we can and build on it.
For us it is important to understand that all God asks of us is to be who God made us to be, all God wants is for us to be at peace and in unity. And we do that by walking in the love God gave us, especially us, as LGBTQ people, to live.
And Jesus says it all (Luke 11:1-13): Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.
Proper 12 Year C 2022 RCL (Hosea 1:2-10; Psalm 85 Benedixisti, Domine; Colossians 2:6-15, (16-19); Luke 11:1-13)
©2022 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.
Dimensions of Reality: glbt Christian spirituality 