A prophet is a “watchman.” A prophet awakens the people to the possible danger, about to come upon them, and then to demand that they make the necessary changes. Hosea, is a “watchman” for Israel. He lets them know that what they are engaged in, is not going to end well. By telling them what is going to happen to them, he hopes to change their behavior. But as we know, they did not in most cases. In the passage under discussion today, Hosea unfolds a message of consequences resulting from their greedy, idolatrous and disloyal behavior. While they may be starving for a divine connection, they have left the home of God to find it. They have walked up the mountain to the pagan shrines, surrounded by grape vines and wheat. Most likely, the priests own the land and engaged in making wine and bread for the festivals of Israel. But Hosea seems to indicate that they engaged in pagan festivals, as well as their own. This would increase their profits. But it polluted the truth of their religious belief.

Hosea still uses the metaphors of prostitution to describe the actions of Israel. The metaphors most likely refer to idolatry and their propensity to greed, which comes at the expense of the poor and outsiders. In the first two verses Hosea paints a picture of an Israel that chases the pagan religion, and its practice of temple prostitution, for a price. They are willing to set aside their love for God for a few hours of pleasure and temple festivals for Ba’al. But he warns them that their hunger for these things, in the end will leave them starved. Nothing can fill up the spiritual emptiness of a human heart, accept the wisdom of God. Not even the exuberant celebration of the fertility cult can bring a fullness to Israel’s spiritual life. In fact, their mirth is a brash noise to God, as God listens to the empty words of desire, God’s heart turns to sadness and disappointment. Upon their loopy party like behavior, worshiping with drink and prostitution, God’s heart turns to anger. They have forgotten their spiritual purpose. They have exchanged it for the worldly pleasures of hedonistic purposes.

The damage they are doing is not only against God, but to themselves. They are spiraling into consequences that will bring them poverty, emptiness and exile, by the Assyrians. Hosea asks, “What use will all your god-inspired silver be then, as you eke out a living in a field of weeds?” All that they have now will be gone. They have no spiritual or human courage to withstand those that are about to take over their world. And why is this about to happen? They are concerned mainly about filling their desires, instead of filling their hearts and minds with the wisdom of God. The world of distractions has taken away their vision for life, and their vision to maintain the glory of Israel. When everything comes to its fruition, Israel will be exiled in Assyria, and some will have escaped to Egypt, which will be of no help to them.

This is the way it is with all communities and nations. If we ignore the maintaining of the foundations in which we live, we will find ourselves being taken over by forces that have no mercy. We need watchmen who have the credibility and the courage to speak forth to our communities to provide them direction and courage to maintain our foundations. This goes for the church as well as democracy.

One of our watchmen is Timothy Snyder, a professor from Yale, who has been writing about the crumbling of democracy, and the fear of the disappearance of courage. In his book, “On Tyranny,” he says, that Europe’s experiment with democracy failed in the 20’s, 30’s and 40’s. Those that are not watching for the signs of crumbling democracy say, “It can’t happen here, which is the first step to disaster. A patriot says that it could happen here, but that we will stop it.” “If none of us is prepared to die for freedom, then all of us will die under tyranny.” These are important words for nations, as well as Christian Communities. If we stop paying attention, and just feed our desires, we will be in danger of watching things crumble, instead of participating in their future.

This is why we need watchmen. We need those that bring us back to the foundations that we loved. We need to be awakened to the possible danger of standing on the sidelines, nudging ourselves out the door only if feel like it. Watchmen say, “Your actions matter. Be as courageous as you can. These are the motives and actions of someone who believes that goodness matters and God matters.