Hosea - Part I

During Lent, I attended a special series of lectio divina sessions that used the lectionary readings for the following Sundays. The leader of the series told us that a person could actually do a sustained lectio on a complete book of the Bible.  This idea intrigued me and I determined to do it right after Lent.

What made me select the book of Hosea is a mystery and I am reluctant to analyze my choice. Lectio divina is a way of praying with Scripture. The practice brings you into intimate contact with the text in memorable and transforming ways. To select a text that, on the surface of it, would provoke a prayer like "Please, God, make it all go away" suggests an odd mental state, but I supposed Hosea would have something to say to me.

Our series leader suggested Jonah, but I resisted that choice because I knew I would have a lot of preconceptions. I know exactly how I feel about Jonah, and that is definitely not the proper attitude for lectio divina! Suffice to say that on Easter day I began the practice. With Hosea

Normally in lectio, you read (lectio) until you are struck by a word in the passage. This then becomes your “word”. You think (meditatio) on it, meaning you ruminate on it, searching for meaning and relevance to your own life. You will carry the “word” with you until your next time of lectio. 

Then you see how this word causes you to pray (oratio) from its meaning, offering your prayer to God in whatever way seems right at the moment. Finally, you leave off all words and images and simply rest contemplatively (contemplatio) in God’s presence allowing the word to work in you.

I might have followed this process exactly if I hadn't become so caught up in the narrative in the first three chapters of Hosea. In any case, after that beginning surge, I found myself reading a chapter or so each day, finding a “word” though sometimes only after several readings both aloud and silent. 

What surprised me was that the prayer part of the process, the oratio, came most easily. Typically this is the step that gives me trouble. It’s hard for me to find words to express myself to God; I always think I’m too formal or too informal, too practiced or too gushy. My prayers throughout the Hosea readings, however, flowed spontaneously and felt completely right. 

This sustained lectio practice gave me time to think a lot about sin and forgiveness. I also had to think about tribes, politics, nations, history and money. The readings were not isolated sessions; they built on each other. They fed each other and they fed me.

The words I prayed during this series were: answer, whoredom, hewn, babbling, defiled, fortress, child, prophet, wind and stumbling. This list won’t tell you very much, but it may indicate how discursive my prayer was. The story of Hosea is not a happy one, but, like many sad stories, in the end, it made me happy.  I think God intended this, as he does all things.

Over the next three posts I am going to go into detail about the book of Hosea and my prayer with it. I hope you will return for these brief posts. I hope, as well, that you will consider a sustained lectio prayer for yourself some time. If you do, I’d love to hear about it.