Readings:
Hosea 5:15–6:6
Psalm 50:7-15
Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
Romans 4:13-25
Devotional:
What do you do when you’re facing the impossible? The job that was already hard but got resources cut again. The marriage that was struggling and took another hit of lost trust. The strained family dynamic that got more complex with unexpected health changes. The reputation that tarnished from a few ill-timed outbursts or a mistake from decades past.
Maybe it’s the same habit that you keep trying to kick to no avail. Maybe it’s the messy situation you find yourself trapped in, built on a bad decision that now has you entangled. Maybe it’s the consequences of generations past, now painfully chained to you and your children. Maybe it’s the direct outcome of something you did or could have controlled and now is coming back to bite you.
Impossible strikes a heavy blow. Regardless of the cause, the situation has moved beyond your control. The impacts are real and felt and looming. Anger, sadness, cynicism, hopelessness. Impossible stacks up the negatives.
And to make matters worse, impossible feeds separation. We’re overwhelmed and we lash out against help instead of embracing it. Our frustrations spill out of our tense relationships into our healthy ones, contaminating as they go. Our desperate mindsets start to color everything we see, leading us to perceive judgements and criticisms that aren’t really there. We begin to relabel ourselves as outcasts and “other” where we once had a place.
Our fate, it seems, is sealed. And try as we might, we can’t seem to get back to the place of possibility.
This has to be how our cast of characters feels across this week’s readings, especially with some of the desperate, impossible language used.
Let’s start with Hosea. Hosea lives in the Northern Kingdom of Israel, whose people are facing the imposing and relentless hand of the Assyrian Empire. The Assyrians usher in all sorts of unifying, long-lasting details to the Middle East — shared language, advanced communication methods, well maintained roadways, highly successful resettlement techniques — with a notoriously brutal methodology. With their conquest, they bring all of their culture too, including models of sacrifice and the godly appointed duty of the ruler to civilize and assimilate. With this present and real threat, Hosea continues to warn Israel to not participate in all the Assyrian ways, but to seek God’s face.
To make matters further complicated, in this already impossible political and religious climate, Hosea’s own life is impossible. It’s so bad that it serves as an example of the condition of Israel, who have completely lost their place and way. His wife, either before or during their marriage, is an adulterer, but Hosea has been instructed by God to love her, to pay for her mistakes, to treat her with goodness, and to bring her back home. Hosea (and by extension Israel) faces the baggage of relationships gone awry and somehow needing to fix it, to get things back to the place where they used to be. Talk about impossible feelings.
Next is Asaph, the author of this week’s Psalm and several others. Asaph is appointed by David as a chief musician and worship leader, and he goes on to train Levite singers and direct the music when the Ark of the Covenant is moved to Jerusalem. Throughout his psalms, he writes with depth, wrestling with impossible situations that seem to benefit the wicked and punish those who follow God. For all the time spent in the place of worship with God, he is frustrated with the hypocrites who pretend to meet God there and the injustices they level.
Over in Romans, we’re reminded of Abraham’s impossible story. When God promised a land and a family of many descendants, Abraham considered his body to be “as good as dead since he was a hundred years old” (way to be blunt, Paul), as well as his wife’s barrenness. No physician would have examined them and found the possibility of children. The signs all pointed to emptiness, their bodies lacking in substance, the place for this opportunity long past.
The rest of the passage in Matthew reiterates more of the same devastating impossibilities of illness and death. The official’s daughter has passed away; nothing done in the synagogue can restore her. The woman with the hemorrhage is cast out (according to the law), afflicted by a sickness she has no hope or help to cure, without anywhere to go or anyone to call on. Neither have a way out; neither have a way to restore their lives to where they used to be.
This is the point that the fight in us usually takes over. By sheer force of will, surely there is something that can be done, some action I can do that will move me! We double down on all the things that “worked” before, like wellness is a formula. Or, if we were the Israelites, we run down the list of sacrifices trying to see if we missed something we “should” have done that would have fixed this. Or maybe we get miffed at God and half-blame Him for our situation, but then half-beg Him in our prayers for a resolution. (Like Israel says in Hosea: “He has torn us, but He will heal us.” Did He really? Or are we just upset and accusing?)
The fix is the same as Matthew and the tax collector though. These aren’t actual impossible situations; they’re just sicknesses to be healed. And the healing isn’t a reward for sacrifice; it’s the impact of communion, as we said Sunday. There’s no amount of sacrifice required to “make up for” something. There isn’t a requirement to buy off God. We don’t sacrifice to ensure our security or well-being. Rather, we’re restored to rightness when are in His presence.
Back in Hosea 5, God says, “I’ll return to My place,” where He will wait until they seek Him. The place where they meet with Him, where He doesn’t tear them apart like the Assyrians, but instead comes with the words of His mouth. He talks with them. He covers with light, not wounds. It’s not sacrifices, but His mercy (same word here as loyalty or lovingkindness). It’s not offerings, but knowing Him. It’s a call to return to His presence for healing.
Micah, who is the contemporary to Hosea, sent to the Southern Kingdom under the same Assyrian Empire, says it this way: What does the Lord require? Do justice, love kindness (or, again, mercy), walk humbly with Your God. The Places where God has met with them are cluttered with performance, and Micah invites them to return to simply walking with God. Walk and talk with Him like we first learned in the garden. Experience the righteousness of God by His presence, not by performance, not by fulfilling a contrived set of requirements.
Asaph pointedly notes that if God were hungry and needed a sacrifice, He made everything and could very well help Himself. But no, God isn’t judging any sort of man-made sacrifice. He’s inviting us to call on Him, talk to Him, in our impossible times of trouble, and He will strip away what entangles us.
Paul reinforces this righting within God’s presence. As the Roman church was struggling to figure out what actions were required to have a place at the Father’s feet, Paul reminds that Abraham simply believed God. Walked with Him, talked with Him, in the presence of Him whom he believed. Abraham’s faith didn’t waiver, and he glorifies God. Abraham draws near to God in the impossible, and finds their illness made well. Finds a Place for life to grow. God’s healing presence isn’t constrained to the law, isn’t held to any system; we’ve been able to walk and talk with Him since the beginning.
Finally in Matthew, we see Jesus’s presence blatantly overcome any confine of a law or rule. Death, the finished and final state that the official thinks has happened? No, Jesus says, she has not died (or, she has not gone far away), she is just asleep. Draw near. Find healing and rightness restored in His presence, overcoming any sort of impossible rule we might imagine.
Or the woman afflicted. She touches His hem, reaching for His presence, and He turns to look her in the face. He comes toward that which is other, that which shouldn’t be allowed to have presence, that which has no Place to be, and says she is made well. His presence, as He comes to us and as we come to Him, walking and talking, brings rightness. His presence overcomes what no law structure could. The power of walking and talking with Righteousness means that impossible things become well, sick things become right, outsiders find a place.
The impossible can’t abide in the Places of God. We might try to add clutter with rule systems and contracts, might try to control the outcomes with logical proofs, but He has proven and declared again and again that mercy, compassion, communion, are His ways. We have a standing invitation to walk and talk with God, to be in His presence and find rightness restored.
A Prayer for Each Moment
God of Nearness,
You draw close to us with compassion for our weakness and illness and delight that we would know You. Detangle us from what we deem impossible as we sit in Your presence, that we would find ourselves hoping against hope at the Life in You. For from You and through You and for You are all things.
Amen
A Prayer for Each Other
Our Father,
When we are angry and frustrated, where our impossible shackles seem to hold us from Your presence, draw us close. Remind us that You’re with us, stripping away what would clutter, rescuing us from what would wound, guiding us with Your words.
Amen
Blessing
May we be reminded that God meets us, turns toward us, embraces us, and makes us well.
Photo by Martin Olsen on Unsplash
Hosea 5:15–6:6
Psalm 50:7-15
Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
Romans 4:13-25
Devotional:
What do you do when you’re facing the impossible? The job that was already hard but got resources cut again. The marriage that was struggling and took another hit of lost trust. The strained family dynamic that got more complex with unexpected health changes. The reputation that tarnished from a few ill-timed outbursts or a mistake from decades past.
Maybe it’s the same habit that you keep trying to kick to no avail. Maybe it’s the messy situation you find yourself trapped in, built on a bad decision that now has you entangled. Maybe it’s the consequences of generations past, now painfully chained to you and your children. Maybe it’s the direct outcome of something you did or could have controlled and now is coming back to bite you.
Impossible strikes a heavy blow. Regardless of the cause, the situation has moved beyond your control. The impacts are real and felt and looming. Anger, sadness, cynicism, hopelessness. Impossible stacks up the negatives.
And to make matters worse, impossible feeds separation. We’re overwhelmed and we lash out against help instead of embracing it. Our frustrations spill out of our tense relationships into our healthy ones, contaminating as they go. Our desperate mindsets start to color everything we see, leading us to perceive judgements and criticisms that aren’t really there. We begin to relabel ourselves as outcasts and “other” where we once had a place.
Our fate, it seems, is sealed. And try as we might, we can’t seem to get back to the place of possibility.
This has to be how our cast of characters feels across this week’s readings, especially with some of the desperate, impossible language used.
Let’s start with Hosea. Hosea lives in the Northern Kingdom of Israel, whose people are facing the imposing and relentless hand of the Assyrian Empire. The Assyrians usher in all sorts of unifying, long-lasting details to the Middle East — shared language, advanced communication methods, well maintained roadways, highly successful resettlement techniques — with a notoriously brutal methodology. With their conquest, they bring all of their culture too, including models of sacrifice and the godly appointed duty of the ruler to civilize and assimilate. With this present and real threat, Hosea continues to warn Israel to not participate in all the Assyrian ways, but to seek God’s face.
To make matters further complicated, in this already impossible political and religious climate, Hosea’s own life is impossible. It’s so bad that it serves as an example of the condition of Israel, who have completely lost their place and way. His wife, either before or during their marriage, is an adulterer, but Hosea has been instructed by God to love her, to pay for her mistakes, to treat her with goodness, and to bring her back home. Hosea (and by extension Israel) faces the baggage of relationships gone awry and somehow needing to fix it, to get things back to the place where they used to be. Talk about impossible feelings.
Next is Asaph, the author of this week’s Psalm and several others. Asaph is appointed by David as a chief musician and worship leader, and he goes on to train Levite singers and direct the music when the Ark of the Covenant is moved to Jerusalem. Throughout his psalms, he writes with depth, wrestling with impossible situations that seem to benefit the wicked and punish those who follow God. For all the time spent in the place of worship with God, he is frustrated with the hypocrites who pretend to meet God there and the injustices they level.
Over in Romans, we’re reminded of Abraham’s impossible story. When God promised a land and a family of many descendants, Abraham considered his body to be “as good as dead since he was a hundred years old” (way to be blunt, Paul), as well as his wife’s barrenness. No physician would have examined them and found the possibility of children. The signs all pointed to emptiness, their bodies lacking in substance, the place for this opportunity long past.
The rest of the passage in Matthew reiterates more of the same devastating impossibilities of illness and death. The official’s daughter has passed away; nothing done in the synagogue can restore her. The woman with the hemorrhage is cast out (according to the law), afflicted by a sickness she has no hope or help to cure, without anywhere to go or anyone to call on. Neither have a way out; neither have a way to restore their lives to where they used to be.
This is the point that the fight in us usually takes over. By sheer force of will, surely there is something that can be done, some action I can do that will move me! We double down on all the things that “worked” before, like wellness is a formula. Or, if we were the Israelites, we run down the list of sacrifices trying to see if we missed something we “should” have done that would have fixed this. Or maybe we get miffed at God and half-blame Him for our situation, but then half-beg Him in our prayers for a resolution. (Like Israel says in Hosea: “He has torn us, but He will heal us.” Did He really? Or are we just upset and accusing?)
The fix is the same as Matthew and the tax collector though. These aren’t actual impossible situations; they’re just sicknesses to be healed. And the healing isn’t a reward for sacrifice; it’s the impact of communion, as we said Sunday. There’s no amount of sacrifice required to “make up for” something. There isn’t a requirement to buy off God. We don’t sacrifice to ensure our security or well-being. Rather, we’re restored to rightness when are in His presence.
Back in Hosea 5, God says, “I’ll return to My place,” where He will wait until they seek Him. The place where they meet with Him, where He doesn’t tear them apart like the Assyrians, but instead comes with the words of His mouth. He talks with them. He covers with light, not wounds. It’s not sacrifices, but His mercy (same word here as loyalty or lovingkindness). It’s not offerings, but knowing Him. It’s a call to return to His presence for healing.
Micah, who is the contemporary to Hosea, sent to the Southern Kingdom under the same Assyrian Empire, says it this way: What does the Lord require? Do justice, love kindness (or, again, mercy), walk humbly with Your God. The Places where God has met with them are cluttered with performance, and Micah invites them to return to simply walking with God. Walk and talk with Him like we first learned in the garden. Experience the righteousness of God by His presence, not by performance, not by fulfilling a contrived set of requirements.
Asaph pointedly notes that if God were hungry and needed a sacrifice, He made everything and could very well help Himself. But no, God isn’t judging any sort of man-made sacrifice. He’s inviting us to call on Him, talk to Him, in our impossible times of trouble, and He will strip away what entangles us.
Paul reinforces this righting within God’s presence. As the Roman church was struggling to figure out what actions were required to have a place at the Father’s feet, Paul reminds that Abraham simply believed God. Walked with Him, talked with Him, in the presence of Him whom he believed. Abraham’s faith didn’t waiver, and he glorifies God. Abraham draws near to God in the impossible, and finds their illness made well. Finds a Place for life to grow. God’s healing presence isn’t constrained to the law, isn’t held to any system; we’ve been able to walk and talk with Him since the beginning.
Finally in Matthew, we see Jesus’s presence blatantly overcome any confine of a law or rule. Death, the finished and final state that the official thinks has happened? No, Jesus says, she has not died (or, she has not gone far away), she is just asleep. Draw near. Find healing and rightness restored in His presence, overcoming any sort of impossible rule we might imagine.
Or the woman afflicted. She touches His hem, reaching for His presence, and He turns to look her in the face. He comes toward that which is other, that which shouldn’t be allowed to have presence, that which has no Place to be, and says she is made well. His presence, as He comes to us and as we come to Him, walking and talking, brings rightness. His presence overcomes what no law structure could. The power of walking and talking with Righteousness means that impossible things become well, sick things become right, outsiders find a place.
The impossible can’t abide in the Places of God. We might try to add clutter with rule systems and contracts, might try to control the outcomes with logical proofs, but He has proven and declared again and again that mercy, compassion, communion, are His ways. We have a standing invitation to walk and talk with God, to be in His presence and find rightness restored.
A Prayer for Each Moment
God of Nearness,
You draw close to us with compassion for our weakness and illness and delight that we would know You. Detangle us from what we deem impossible as we sit in Your presence, that we would find ourselves hoping against hope at the Life in You. For from You and through You and for You are all things.
Amen
A Prayer for Each Other
Our Father,
When we are angry and frustrated, where our impossible shackles seem to hold us from Your presence, draw us close. Remind us that You’re with us, stripping away what would clutter, rescuing us from what would wound, guiding us with Your words.
Amen
Blessing
May we be reminded that God meets us, turns toward us, embraces us, and makes us well.
Photo by Martin Olsen on Unsplash