Sermon for the Ninth Sunday of Pentecost by Susan N. Eaves

Lat Wednesday night we concluded our church movie series by viewing a small budget movie called "The Closet." "The Closet" is a hilarious comedy about a small and insignificant figure of a man, divorced by his wife (who considers him boring) rejected by his teenage son (who despises his father) and looked down upon as inept by his colleagues at work. To his horror, he discovers he is to be fired from his job. The plot takes off when he is persuaded by a gay friend to pretend to be gay himself and thus avoids being fired. His reasoning: the company he works for manufactures condoms and they won't want to ruin their sales.

So for all the wrong reasons our hero sets off to live out his choice. It changes his life in more ways than he can imagine. In the end he becomes a true hero despite the confusions, misunderstandings, and twists and turns of events.

We can identify with our hero. Life's a bit of a maze. Trying to find one's way through the multiple paths and choices before us is just plain difficult. We know from experience how deeply and easily, even with the very best of intentions, we say and do things that cause confusion and harm to ourselves and to others - the law of unintended consequences. We feel so grateful when we get life right. Hardly surprising then that our capacity to trust can get seriously damaged over a life time of human disappointments, hurts, and even betrayals

We just heard that seemingly weird, outside the box reading from the book of that small and insignificant prophet Hosea. Small and insignificant not just because his book is short, but also because his whole life seems to have been one of humiliation. As far as we can tell he seems to have married a prostitute (apparently convinced this is what God wanted him to do.) She is promptly unfaithful and bears children as a result of her liaisons with other men. To say she offended the purity code of the day would be the understatement of the century! In our own confusion in encountering such a terrible act of betrayal and spousal cold heartedness we may miss what Hosea is actually doing with this experience.

Somehow, in the midst of his own hurt and pain about his own marriage he is able to grasp both the depth of God's love for Israel and the depth of Israel's offenses. He sees the relationship between God and Israel as intimate and significant as a marriage and he sees just what is happening in that relationship between God and God's people. Israel, worshipping idols, neglecting its faithfulness to God, abusing the poor, ignoring neighbor and the common good, has gone against everything God had called Israel to become when he rescued them from slavery in Egypt. Murder, perjury, theft, and promiscuity were rife. Historically, Hosea was right. Israel was about to be overcome by Assyria and her people taken into exile. But the story of Hosea and Gomer struggling through their marriage is a perfect metaphor of the covenant that exists between God and us even today.

Hosea comes to understand the fathomless depth of the love of God for each and every one of us. He knows that God's love does not save us from the consequences of human faithlessness but he also knows that God can be trusted never to abandon what God has made. This is what gives Hosea strength when, having divorced Gomer, he remarries her to try again. Hosea is leaning on the strength of God's love, not his own.

We began our worship today with the collect which reads, "O God, the protector of all who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: Increase and multiply upon us your mercy; that, with you as our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we lose not the things eternal."  O God, the protector of all who trust in you. There's that word again. Trust. And not only trust but the insight that "without whom (you) nothing is strong, nothing is holy." God is to be trusted because God is strength and holiness. Things accomplished in companionship with God are strong and holy things - things that are eternal. That was what gave Hosea strength.

It makes sense then that one who can be trusted never intends us harm. As Jesus points out, while friendship may not always bring the results we want persistence often will. Persistence is another word for faithfulness. Ask, Jesus says, and it will be given to you. God will no more mistreat you than you would harm your child.

That's what makes prayer possible - trust in the love of God and faithfulness in our lives. Ask, says Jesus. Search. Knock. Receive. Find. The door will be opened. And, as it is love that gives, guides, and opens we have, as the angel always reminds us, nothing to fear. Thus we can say without reservation:

Father, hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come.

Give us each day our daily bread.

And forgive us our sins,

for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.

And do not bring us to the time of trial.

It will be enough.  We recognize it when we see it -even if it is in the neat and fantasy world of a movie. When our hero trusts the kindness of his friend and takes off on his own journey to ask for and find new life we are right there with him. As he replaces weakness with strength, insecurity with confidence, shyness with relationshipand begins to exercise both mercy and justice, he is changed and changes those around him. He is reborn.

When we place our trust in God we can take off to ask for and find new life. We can become strong, confident that God will provide, and that we can be in the relationships we are given in ways that are life giving to us and to others.

Pray. Ask. Seek. Receive. The door will open.

Amen