Proper 12 Year C

Proper 12

Hosea 1.2–10
Colossians 2.6–19
Luke 11.1–13

Part of the prophetic vocation seems to have been to carry the pain of the message in one’s own soul. Thus it was, at least, with Hosea. Married to a prostitute, he felt not only the pain of Israel but also the pain of God, seeing his people cavorting off after other gods. His children were and weren’t his own, just as Israel was and wasn’t God’s child. Self-induced judgement loomed over them, but yearning love followed as well: ‘not my people’ will again be addressed as ‘children of the living God’...