June 7, 2026 - Hosea 5:15-6:6 - Proper 5

In my previous congregation there was a family, a husband, a wife, and three kids. Their eldest son was in high school and the younger two were fraternal twins who were just getting ready for confirmation. They were all nice folks. I got to know the kids reasonably well. The dad was a high powered salesman and he had the kind of warm, gregarious personality that fit his chosen profession well. The mom I never got to know all that well. As far as I could tell she was nice enough. It wasn’t unusual at all for the rest of the family to be in church without her, sometimes a couple of weeks in a row.

As time went on there, I learned a little more about each of their lives. The mom grew up on a farm with something like 10 siblings and they were all still very close. The family farm was only a couple of hours away and at least some of the time she wasn’t in church was because she had gone home to spend a day or two with family.

At some point, the dad notified me that her dad had died and they would be taking some time to deal with that. I passed along my condolences and told him to let me know how I could be of service. I don’t think I ever saw her again. Not because she had died or anything like that, but because she was never feeling well or hadn’t gotten up in time. Since she had always been spotty to begin with, I wasn’t overly surprised. But, as time went on, it became clear she wasn’t likely coming back. I never got much more of an explanation in this time as to what was going on, but with all of the excuses I could tell it was me or the church, or something about all of this that she just wasn’t interested in dealing with.

Eventually I found out three years later when the dad came into my office to tell me that the death of her dad just crippled her emotionally. She never was able to come to terms with it and it led to her taking a very quick and very deep dive into alcoholism that made everything around her spiral totally out of control. It wasn’t so much that she was intentionally skipping church. It’s that she was either already drunk or still drunk and unfit for polite society. He had been trying to pull her out of her funk, tried to get her help, eventually tried to get her to marriage counseling, but none of it worked. From his point of view, she saw him as an enemy who couldn’t just let her wallow in her self destruction and she became wild and abusive toward him, trying to turn the children against him. In his mind, she had already severed the marital relationship and the divorce he was filing for was little more than a formality at this point.

Now, we could argue about the biblical validity of a divorce under these circumstances. I certainly had pastoral concerns about how all of this had transpired, but none of that is really germane to the Old Testament reading for today. As we enter now into the Pentecost season, we also enter into the time of the church. We’ve been through the various seasons that came before, all of them telling us something about what it means for Jesus to be in the world. Now we take the time to explore what it means to be in this world, to live in this world, this sin-filled and imperfect world as sinful and imperfect people. We explore what it means to still be waiting for Jesus to return and how we are to remain holy and remain vigilant.

The book of Hosea draws especially on the idea of marriage. God uses the marriage theme repeatedly throughout Scripture. It’s the closest analogy we have to the relationship God has with his people. St. Paul even says as much. In the case of Hosea, the story is about how a broken marriage can be put back together. Hosea marries a woman who already has some fidelity problems and those problems don’t really go away after they’re married. Still, her infidelity doesn’t change his love for her. He loves her simply because he chooses to. Whether the damage is caused by extramarital relationships or an out of control life born of grief and alcohol, the relationship no longer functions as it is supposed to. One spouse may love the other, but if there is no response, then the relationship become little more than a legal status.

There are a few things to reflect on here. The first is again, life in the Pentecost season, life as we await Christ’s return. God binds himself to his people in the same kind of relationship, one with no barriers separating the two. They share everything together. Adultery is the example used as the most obvious breaking of marriage vows, but God makes clear through Hosea that breaking any commandment is ultimately breaking the First Commandment. As in marriage where each spouse vows to hold the other up as the most important part of the relationship, any sin is a breaking of our vow, our covenant with God. It doesn’t matter whether it’s adultery, lies, theft, anger, jealousy, or any other sin that afflicts us, each one sets up something else as more important than God. We are constantly breaking our vows to him. Each of us is the unfaithful spouse who acts like he or she is only in the relationship for what you can get out of it, instead of what you can put into it.

As in adultery, the relationship isn’t really ended when the divorce papers are signed. The relationship is already broken. The faithful spouse is free from obligation because there is binding the two together anymore.

Infidelity in the world today often brings serious consequences, hurt, grief, financial hardship, broken marriage, broken relationship with kids or other family members, depression, even health problems. Perhaps more, depending on the individual state’s divorce laws.

With God, there is no such thing as no fault divorce. He is the provider, the protector, the creator of all things, yet, we are still the unfaithful ones. We have no claim to anything in the divorce. We are cast out, cast out from his presence, cast out from everything, left to an existence entirely on our own. It’s a sad fate, but one we entirely deserve.

The second point is that a broken marriage doesn’t have to be left that way. Imperfect as we are, just because one spouse seeks to reconnect doesn’t mean it will necessarily be possible. However, there is nothing that requires them to stay apart. Reconciling is less like fixing something broken than it is starting the relationship all over again. An earthly spouse who has been abused and treated with contempt may not be able to handle the prospect. God is always willing to receive us back.

But, reconciliation isn’t a matter of just painting over the damaged bits. That doesn’t actually fix anything. It requires taking the damaged bits out and making them new again. God tells his unfaithful people what that looks like. “I will return again to my place,” he says, “until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face, and in their distress earnestly seek me.”

Being with God means acknowledging the hurt we cause him and the trust we’ve broken. It isn’t an ego thing for God, like someone who wants everyone else to declare how he had been right all along. No, it’s the reality that nothing will ever change if we don’t see and own up to what we’ve been doing wrong. The relationship will never work properly if we are always running away from it and seeking fulfillment elsewhere.

In short, you can’t have chapter 6 without chapter 5. You can’t just come back and expect everything to be fine. Everything is not fine. Actions have consequences. Past misdeeds need to be dealt with. They can’t just be ignored.

The joy is that chapter 6 does follow chapter 5. The story doesn’t end in heartbreak, but in restoration. The people who return to God know his character. They confess their sins, acknowledging their guilt. They seek him out in earnest, and they are forgiven. “Come, let us return to the Lord,” the sinners say, a statement made not out of arrogance but of assurance.

In order for us to come back, the relationship had to be rebuilt. God’s people, the church, has to be made new again. Baptized, we put on the righteousness of Christ, pure and clean, with none of the stains of our prior misdeeds. We are made like Christ, his perfect life is ours. All the way back here in the words given through the prophet Hosea, we see what that restoration looks like. Jesus dies the death of an unfaithful sinner, but he is restored in love, raised up on the third day. No longer cast out, no longer alone. Our death is his death and now his life is our life. We live before him, forgiven and made new.

In the Pentecost season, we see the life of the church in action. Sinners, unfaithful, we constantly stray. Yet, our unfaithfulness does not diminish God’s love. Our actions hurt him, grieve him, but still he loves us. In the end, he gives each of us what we want. If we want a life free of constraints and attachments, he gives it to us, cutting us free and letting us live entirely on our own as kings and queens of our own little island, each with a population of exactly one. For those that wish to be restored, he is willing to forgive, to renew the relationship, to start again.

The Pentecost season is a looking back at what Jesus did, making us pure again and making it possible for us to return. It is also a looking forward to his return. We look forward to when the cycle of sin and forgiveness ends because sin is gone forever.

While our sins continue to plague us, we know joy in spite of them because we know God will indeed receive us back. We know God’s love for us has not diminished and never will. He will forgive. This is part of the message we share with the world, the words spoken through Hosea and reflected again in St. Paul, as he says, “And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, 23 if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven.”

No matter how many times you sin, God will forgive. No matter how many times you are unfaithful, God will receive you back. That is the depth of his love for you.