Fierce
Conversations
The Rev. Nancy
E. Gossling
August 4, 2019
I chose to focus on the prophet
Hosea this morning; for prophets are known to turn up the heat in the lives of
God’s people. Speaking truth in love, in faithful obedience to God’s call, a
prophet will describe the realities of what he or she sees and encourage people
to change their behavior. They turn up the heat. As in Texas heat, “packing
heat”, calling for “the heat” when violence erupts in your town.
As the facilitator of the mentors
for the recently ordained clergy in our diocese, I have been reading a book
written by Susan Scott, entitled Fierce
Conversations: Achieving Success at Work and in Life - One Conversation at a
Time. Encouraging radical transparency, this author argues that careful
conversation is a failed conversation. (p20) She believes that “our careers,
our companies, our relationships, and our lives succeed or fail, gradually, then suddenly, one
conversation at a time.” (p12)
I
would also add so do our churches and governments. “Fierce conversations are
about moral courage, clear requests, and taking action,” Scott writes. “Fierce is an attitude. A skill set. A
mind-set. A way of leading. A strategy for getting things done. Fierce does not
mean barbarous, menacing, or cruel. Fierce means powerful, strong, unbridled,
unrestrained, robust. It means coming out from behind ourselves into the
conversation and making it real. There will be no blood on the floor. No
violence." (p 67)
God
is fierce like a lion, said the prophet Hosea; and when God roars, “God’s
children shall come (home) from the west, like birds from Egypt, and like doves
from the land of Assyria.” Prophets are willing to describe the “ground
truth of reality” and listen to the truth of others in fierce conversations.
Like people who stand at various parts of an elephant, prophets see our world,
our problems, and our solutions differently, and yet they still point to the
elephant in the room! Having fierce conversations, one conversation at a time,
is the way to better our future, if we’re willing to “pull the trigger” so to
speak, and engage in these hard conversations. Together, like the heat this
summer, we will fall and rise with our fierce and/or failed conversations.
Hosea was a prophet living in the
Northern Kingdom of Israel around 750 BCE. At that time, the country was
divided into two kingdoms; the northern one was called Israel, and the southern
one was called Judah. Hosea lived in the Northern Kingdom, which was ruled by
king Jeroboam during a relatively peaceful time. He was followed by several kings, many revolutions, and political
instability because the “people anxiously searched for kings and allies who
would save them from the dangers that threatened their national existence.”
(HCSB, 1329-30) Hosea focused his prophecy on two things: the religious pluralism
and flourishing worship of the God Baal, and the royal politics of the Northern
Kingdom.
Hosea reminded the Israelites of who God was
and what God had done for them. “I have been the Lord your God ever since the
land of Egypt; you know no God but me and besides me there is no savior.”
(Hosea 13.4) After liberating them from
slavery, God asked them to live in faithful relationships by obeying the 10
commandments. “Thou shalt not murder” was one of them. Increasingly, the
Israelites had broken their promises to God, and Hosea was now calling them
out.
This past Friday, I legalized and
asked God to bless the marriage of a young couple in Massachusetts. In the six
months leading up to their celebration of love, we had some fierce
conversations. We talked about family, friends, and religion. We talked about
contracts and covenants. We talked about what it means to be faithful to each
other, and what their vows meant to them. We talked about how they both
contribute to keeping their community safe in their jobs, one through
education, the other through data analysis for the police department.
Infidelity
never starts with the physical aspects of love. Rather it starts with someone’s
spirit moving away from God. A God-centered world slowly becomes a self-centered
world. Too much ego means “easing God out” of your life. Regardless of our
religious tradition or lack of one, we become haters not lovers. Our minds
wander; and we begin to think we’ve made a mistake, or that “they” are a
mistake. There must be a better partner, a more powerful king, a wiser
president, a more pure and perfect union or nation, who can save us from
ourselves and be the answer to all our problems.
Emotions
of anger, hurt, and sadness, fueled by our fears and anxieties, erupt unexpectedly.
We hurl invectives; we cast aspersions. We become a house divided and make
plans to defeat the “enemy.” We look for a savior, or launch a silver bullet,
rather than have fierce conversations. With our guns blazing, there is blood on
the house floor, in our streets, and on our hands. In the end, we hurt
ourselves and others.
When we begin to cast blame and
shame on the other person or party, when we become a divided kingdom like the
Israelites, we might ask the question, who moved? It wasn’t God. Hosea claims
that the Israelites began to worship the god named “Baal” who was known as the
“storm god who provided rain and fertility for their crops. It was as if the
Israelites had begun going to the local bar rather than to the Temple in search
of the Spirit. Like the farmer in today’s gospel, they wanted bigger barns for
their salvation; and so “in their anxious search for kings and allies who would
save them” they disavowed their trust in God. They forgot that tomorrow they
might die from the violence in their land.
Apparently, God commanded Hosea to
take some symbolic actions to show them the truth of their broken relationship.
As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words; and so Hosea married a wife
of whoredom. While Gomer spent nights away from her family with multiple
partners, Hosea remained at home, faithfully cooking and cleaning, while caring
for their three children, and waiting for his unfaithful wife to come home. For
his second act, Hosea purchased and kept an adulteress, someone who was clearly
violating her marriage covenant. “Look, this is who you are,” Hosea told the
Israelites. “You are whores and adulterers, infidels who have broken your
covenant with God. And God is angry, roaring like a lion, begging for God’s
people to come home.”
I
remember running away from my home around the age of 10. I was convinced that I
had been mistreated; that my parents had been unfair; and that I was not loved
as much as my siblings. I vowed to myself that I would treat my children well,
always be fair, and love them equally. And, of course, I failed. As an adult, I
looked for a savior and found that material things and well-meaning people
ultimately failed me. Fortunately I didn’t resort to violence; rather I felt
the heat of God’s love. I found amazing grace.
When I read today’s lesson from
Hosea it brought tears to my eyes. I know how fragile life can be, and how
desperate love can feel. I know what it is like to lose someone I love. I know
how often we fail one another as individuals in our personal, religious, and
political systems. I know that we all participate in systems of evil and
oppression; and I know what it’s like to feel hate. Hosea describes God as a
loving parent, bending down from heaven to feed us, holding us tenderly in
God’s arms, and close to God’s cheeks, teaching us to walk with cords of human
kindness, and with bands of love. Begging us to come home.
Hosea
saw beyond the infidelity of the Israelites to the compassion of our God. Hosea
proclaimed that God would restore God’s people through a new covenant. And so,
centuries after Hosea, God commanded Jesus to perform some symbolic actions for
the sake and salvation of God’s people. Jesus had fierce conversations. Jesus
took some actions. He stretched out his arms of love on the hard wood of the
cross so that everyone might come within the reach of God’s saving embrace. In
effect, Jesus took a bullet for us.
Our
salvation is assured. We need not anxiously search for things or people to save
us. We need not create bigger barns or bank accounts as insurance policies for
our future. We just need to make more room in our lives for God. As Peter Marty
once wrote, “Full barns do not equal full souls.” (Christian Century, March 16,
2016) In fact, our inheritance is not stored in a barn, but rather in heaven;
our legacy is one of faith, hope, and love.
In
times of religious infidelity and political instability, we can have fierce
conversations about gun violence, and we can take one small step to do something
about it. “Taking action is key,” writes Susan Scott. “I don’t know about you,
but I develop compassion fatigue with (people) who complain about the same
issue over and over and don’t do what is needed to fix it. The well has run dry
and I’m all outta love.” (Fierce Conversations, p62) Take the next right step. Have the next
fierce conversation. Today and tomorrow, make God’s love visible in your words
and nonviolent actions.
Hosea 11:1-11
Psalm 107:1-9, 43
Colossians 3:1-11
Luke 12:13-21
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