Hosea 4: Open to Newness
Sunday, August 24, 2025
A re-post from August 1, 2011.
We will need to look at notes in order to understand the references in today’s Noontime and the following information is from THE CATHOLIC STUDY BIBLE. Ephraim (note verse 17) was the tribal area that remained in the northern kingdom of Israel after the Assyrian invasion. The wood and wand (note verse 12) refer to any carved idol or utensil used in the practice of divination. Ritual prostitution practiced in Canaanite shrines was introduced into sanctuaries dedicated to Yahweh (note verse 14). Gilgal here (note verse 15) is in reference to a sanctuary in the north in Bethel where there was an association of cult prophets (2 Kings 2 and 4:38); it is not a reference to Gilgal in the south where Joshua sets up memorial standing stones (Joshua 4). Finally, the priests are in for heavy criticism because they are seen as the ones who lead the people away from God as they set up a schism between genuine and cult prophets. All of this information helps to clarify the link between the prophet Hosea’s deep sorrow over his wife Gomer’s prostitution of herself and the descent of the nation of Israel into this same harlotry. Hosea sees the individual and collective return to idolatry as a seal of the fate of the nation and its people. They are all caught up in the coming whirlwind of disaster. (Senior 1112-1113)
The psalmist reminds us that: The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths but speak not; they have ears but see not; they have ears but hear not; no breath is in their mouths. Those who make them will be like them, and so will all those who trust in them. (Psalm 135:15-18) If only we humans might remember that in the end these little gods cannot forgive us, save us, redeem us or love us as God does.
We have reflected during our Noontimes that little gods creep into our lives without notice and it is in this way that we become unwitting collaborators in the creation of an illusion; today we look at how a nation of people who have been blessed by God turn away from God’s goodness. The children’s story of The Emperor’s New Clothes from the Hans Christian Anderson collection is an apt allegory not only for Hosea’s society but for our society today. We have only to determine if we number among the adults who have ceased to think for themselves or if we are the astonished child who announces: The emperor is naked! Like the child, Hosea cries out to the people of Israel. And like the child, our prophets of today cry out against the obtuse among us.
When we become frustrated with a herd mentality that drives idiotically toward the precipice or when we give up all hope that the small voice of truth might be heard above the clamor of a self-deceiving crowd, we must turn away from our little gods of anxiety and desperation and turn to God, for it is God who best understands what is to be disbelieved and dispossessed. And it is God who knows well how to convert the darkness of despair into the beauty of joy, for it is in the darkness that God plants the seeds of new life.
And so we pray . . . Good and forgiving God, remind us that we have only to be open to a newness that you will bring out of the ignorance and despair we witness today. Show us the newness born of the dark that is your compassionate healing and eternal transformation. Amen.
Senior, Donald, ed. THE CATHOLIC STUDY BIBLE. New York, Oxford University Press, 1990.1112-1113. Print.
Images from: https://www.boldcafe.org/transitions-open-us-up-to-newness/ and https://americanliterature.com/author/hans-christian-andersen/short-story/the-emperors-new-clothes and https://www.dreamstime.com/photos-images/red-poppy-flower-blooming-cracked-earth-resilience-hope.html
The Noontimes 