Sowing Wind
Ordinary Time
Today's reading · Hosea 8:4-7, 11-13
They made kings, but not through me; they set up princes, but without my knowledge. With their silver and gold they made idols for their own destruction. Your calf is rejected, O Samaria. My anger burns against them. How long will they be incapable of innocence?
They made kings, but not through me. Hosea opens with a people busy doing religious and political work entirely on their own steam. They set up princes without my knowledge. They took their silver and gold, the good stuff, and bent it into idols. And here is the line that cuts: idols for their own destruction. The thing they built to save them is the thing that ruins them.
God is not threatened by the calf. His response, as Hosea names it, is rejection and anger:
Today's intention
Today I'll notice one thing I've built to save myself, and bring it honestly back to God.