Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“The days of punishment have come, the days of recompense have come; Israel cries, ‘The prophet is a fool, the man of the spirit is mad!’ Because of your great iniquity, your hostility is great.”
NL Daily Devotion for Friday, November 17, 2023
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
This line, though: “Because of your great iniquity, your hostility is great.” Human beings have a tendency to be defensive. No one likes being called out on sub-par behavior. We are gifted at justifying and rationalizing. We build communities of like-minded people who agree with us so we can feel okay about doing things that, just maybe, aren’t really okay.
The people of Israel were not pleased with the things Hosea had to tell them about their egregious actions against God. So unwilling were they to even consider the man might actually be right, they just shouted that Hosea was a fool, or mad. They tried to discredit him so they didn’t have to be accountable. Does that sound like anything happening in our modern context?
Hosea isn’t having it. He calls a spade a spade. You’re only screaming because you know I’m right. The things you have done are so horrible—and you know it!—that the only way for you to live with them is to somehow prove to yourself that those same things are, in fact, perfectly acceptable.
But before we smugly say, “Yeah, I’m looking at you [fill-in-the-blank-political-figure-we-don’t-like]!” maybe we ought to look a little more closely at ourselves. Where have we, when confronted by truth, sought to discredit the speaker of said truth in our own minds (or with our friends) in order to allow ourselves to deny it? We have to be careful, of course. There are times when what appears to be truth is spoken by unreliable sources and is not, actually, truth. In those cases, it is often us who are accused of being “a fool” or “mad” by those with whom we don’t agree.
Ultimately, I suppose, it is about discernment. It’s about being scrupulously honest with ourselves about our own behavior and willing to make things right when we have been wrong, so that if and when such things are pointed out by credible witnesses, we can have the humility to accept the truth.
Have I ever been in a position where my reputation was attacked because I spoke the truth?
