This passage from Hosea, although it may be news to us, is one of the best-known chapters in the Old Testament. Hosea 11. We all remember that chapter, right?? Hosea…a Hebrew word meaning: “God has saved.” Hosea…the original word from which the name Joshua is derived. Joshua…the Hebrew word from which the name Jesus is derived. All of those words telling us that God has acted, that this is not a prediction, but a given. What is not a given is our response to the presence and action of a loving God and even our response is more than hinted at in this famous Chapter 11 of Hosea. But even with the helpful hints there is still the element of surprise. Let’s see what happens…

A long time ago – when I was in high school – I took a driver education class. I learned to drive using a 1960 beige Chevy Nova, with stick shift, on the freeways of southern California! And the motto of the sweating, very nervous, very courageous driving instructor was: “EXPECT THE UNEXPTECTED!” which was translated by many of us at first as our need to look to each side, look in the rearview mirror, look all around us while ignoring whatever was straight ahead of us. That understanding was quickly clarified for the well-being of everyone – all of God’s children!!! I knew the instructor was a very by the words he used anytime there was a close call on the religious person freeway – even the slightest mistake was followed by any number of words invoking the name of God or Jesus or where we all might be destined to end up!!

“Expect the unexpected” can also serve as the summary of our scripture lesson from the prophet, Hosea. The eleven verses we heard a few moments ago are a kind of monologue in which Hosea overhears God meditating and deliberating on the relationship between God and God’s people. The mood frequently shifts dramatically through metaphors and images that we get to hear as well. The progress of God’s thought goes from the regretful or even sorrowful words of a parent disappointed in a child…look how I cared for you and this is how you treat me?? We hear God say through Hosea: “I taught you how to walk, I embraced you with love, I touched my cheek to yours, I fed you.” “Yet you have rejected me, you have gone in other directions, away from me, away from my teachings and love.” That all sounds very familiar, almost expected. Whether you are a parent or not, your affections, your hard work with someone in your life has at one time or another been betrayed and other directions – wrong in your eyes – have been taken. Then in Hosea we hear God thinking it over and deciding on punishment in the form of military defeat – “Assyria will be their king” – and a return to captivity – “They shall return to the land of Egypt…because they have refused to turn to me.” That, too, sounds familiar to most of us. Since I have opened my heart to you, fed you, loved you, touched my cheek to yours and get only rejection, I will punish you. I will find some way to put you in captivity and I will find a way to make you pay for hurting me.

But then “expect the unexpected….” As we continue to overhear this monologue from God we catch ourselves hearing God questioning the whole process and, then, we actually witness God’s change of heart. “How can I give you up or give up on you? How can I hand you over to destruction? My heart trembles to think about…I will not execute my fierce anger…for I am God and you are my children, my people, the ones whose cheeks I have touched lightly with my hand, I have felt your soft flesh, I repent or pull back my anger, because I bring grace and goodness to you. That is who I am!!”

Meditating on the destruction that is at first pronounced, tears at the heart of God, bringing forth compassion – a word that means in the ancient languages of the Bible – “to ache in ones’ bowels for someone else.” So the unexpected takes place and compassion wins out and will not let the all-powerful God act out anger that would bring about destruction. That is the high point of this famous passage from the famous book of the prophet, Hosea. God’s compassion overthrows God anger, and the will to love overcomes the will to punish. This drama is not acted out on the plane of history but in the very heart of God. It is a revolutionary action that tells us that the radical difference between God and human beings lies not in power, but in the capacity to withhold power, to withhold judgment, to withhold destruction, in favor of the much more powerful pronouncement of love and compassion wherein lies the truth of justice and the peace of a changed heart.

So what is next? That is the question the prophet, Hosea, a word meaning, “God has saved,” leaves with all of us who have read or heard these words. How do we respond to the divine compassion that turns away from destruction, how do we react to God’s radical change of heart that overthrows anger with love? What does God require? Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote the following words in his book: Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? “We are called to play the good Samaritan on life’s roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day the Jericho road itself must be transformed so that men and women will not be beaten and robbed as they make their journey through life. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; true compassion understands that a society that produces beggars (and poverty, and domestic violence, and fear, and 47 million people without health insurance, and the death penalty, and war) needs restructuring.” In short, Hosea, and God’s change of heart, says to us: “Expect the unexpected….your life is being demanded.” We all can do something helpful with those bungee cords to bring the community of life – and overwhelm the chaos with courage.

Amen.