God's Going to Keep Us - Hosea 11:1-11; Luke 12:13-21
When my brother, John, was born in 1996, my world was rocked. I had been an only child for eight years, and I was completely unprepared for the chaos that a baby can bring into a home. John captured my parents’ attention, which has previously been mine for the taking. I suddenly had responsibilities I hadn’t had just a few weeks before. And truth be told, John wasn’t the easiest baby. He had extreme cases of both jaundice and colic, and my parents were in their forties by this point. It’s safe to say that no one in our immediate sphere was well-rested for the first few months of John’s life.
It’s easy to imagine a scenario in which these quick changes and lack of sleep might take a toll on a family. It would have been understandable if my parents had snapped at each other more often, or if I had begun acting out in school or chosen to ignore my new baby brother. Instead, in moments of exhaustion or frustration, we had a special refrain in our house. If John cried for an unexplainable reason or spit up all over someone’s third outfit of the day or caused someone to miss an important appointment, my parents and I, and even some extended friends and family, would take a deep breath, smile, and say to one another, “we’re not taking him back, we’re going to keep him!”
It was a humorous way to break the tension in a room, to acknowledge the chaos of the situation, and to name the very human desire to escape the constant needs of an infant. But it was also a profound statement about who we were as a family. We were proclaiming, over and over again, from the day John was born, that our love for him and for each other was unconditional. It did not matter how irritated we were, how tired, or how angry, we still loved each other and would continue to show up for those familial relationships. To this day, when one of my brothers does something irritating, I often whisper to myself, I’m going to keep him.
This, in a nutshell, is the book of the prophet Hosea. It’s the 8th century BCE, the nation of Israel has divided into two kingdoms, Exile is on the horizon, and the people continue to behave badly. They show a lack of faith in God, and they consistently reject the lifestyle God invites them into. God laments this state of affairs deeply. But nothing can change God’s passionate love for Israel. Through Hosea, God proclaims, I’m going to keep you.
Hosea uses lots of different metaphors to describe the relationship between God and the people: everything from cows to baking to dew drops to maggots. In today’s passage Hosea uses Egypt as a metaphor. “They shall return to the land of Egypt, and Assyria shall be their king, because they have refused to return to me.” Because God brought the people out of slavery in Egypt, Egypt represents the past, a time when the people were not yet in right relationship with God. The references to Egypt in this passage suggest that the people are looking backwards. They’re prioritizing exploitative labor. They are looking to earthly rulers for divine protection.
Among the many and varied sins of humanity, what Hosea is drawing our attention to in this eleventh chapter is our particular tendency to forget God’s incredible work of deliverance, and the alternative lifestyle God offers in place of enslavement. Essentially, Hosea tells listeners and readers alike, God provides for you in a relationship of covenant, but you seem determined to seek your fulfillment elsewhere. If any of you have ever read Mitch Albom’s classic Tuesdays with Morrie, you might remember Morrie regretfully observing that, “people are so hungry for love that they accept substitutes.” This was true about the Israelites Hosea of Hosea’s day, and it’s true of the man in the crowd that calls out to Jesus in today’s Gospel reading from Luke.
A man is in some sort of dispute with his brother about their inheritance. I imagine two siblings who don’t get along. Upon their father’s death, they were thrilled at the prospect of never having to share a family meal together again. Unfortunately, they soon discovered that their father had not updated his will, and they’d be stuck in arbitration with one another for the next several months.
Then comes Jesus, a man who seems to value fairness, to speak deep truths, attract followers, and perform miracles with some sort of divine power. Surely, the frustrated sibling thinks, this man could solve my financial woes and help me get what’s rightly mine. But Jesus takes a different approach. “Take care!” He says, with an exclamation point. “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed.” You’re missing the point, Jesus tells the man. You’re stressing over money, a mere substitute for the love and new life I’m offering you.
He then tells the Parable of the Rich Fool. There was a man, he says, who had everything he needed. In fact, he had more than he needed. So he put his extra stuff into storage and said to himself, “self, you can relax now because you’ve saved up enough to last a lifetime.” But before he could enjoy even one day of relaxation, God came to him and said, "this is your last day on earth, so what was the point of all that storage?”
This can be an anxiety-producing parable, both in a literal sense: over ten percent of American households rent storage facilities every year, and in a metaphorical sense: it is considered unsafe to not save money for retirement. What is it, exactly, about the rich fool that is so foolish? Are we not meant to experience financial security? Are we not meant to eat, drink, and be merry?
To understand this phrase, “eat, drink, and be merry,” we need a fuller picture of its use in Scripture. The alternate option for an Old Testament reading today is a short passage from Ecclesiastes that ends with these words. “What do mortals get from all the toil and strain with which they toil under the sun? For all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest. This also is vanity. There is nothing better for mortals than to eat and drink and find enjoyment in their toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God.”
It seems that feasting and joy are indeed what God desires for us. But there is a difference between the kind of merriment described in Ecclesiastes and the kind of merriment the rich fool planned to enjoy. That difference is in the source. Feasting and joy that can only be attained financially are just a substitute. True feasting and joy come from our relationships with those we love, from being faithful stewards of our gifts, our bodies, our labor, and from living into the covenantal relationship we have with God.
Hosea tries to explain this to us, too. The best way to live a fulfilling life, he says, is to tend your land, take care of your family and those who live near you, show faithfulness to God, and stop idolizing wealthy bureaucrats as though they are the pinnacle of humanity. In short, we don’t actually need money to eat, drink and be merry. We need God and we need our neighbors. Does this sound familiar? Jesus commands us to do just two things: love the Lord our God and our neighbors as ourselves.
Now, this is not my first time to preach on the Parable of the Rich Fool, and I need its powerful message just as much today, if not more, than the last time I engaged with it. I don’t have enough things to warrant a storage unit…yet. But I do store up savings for retirement, and boy do I store up stress about saving for retirement. In 21st century America, this is one of the most difficult parables to take to heart. There are days - many of them - that we totally ignore God’s offer of feasting and joy and instead seek substitutes in long work hours, shopping sprees, and dream vacation planning, just to name a few of my own. The Good News is that no matter how many times we choose a substitute, God will keep choosing us. We might be exhausting, needy, and determined to ignore our own best interests, but God is going to keep us. Amen.