Hosea
11:1-11
I can’t remember
her exact words. It was something along the lines of, “Really? I have to read
this in church today?” She was talking about last week’s reading from the book
of Hosea and I couldn’t blame her. I mean listen to this, “When the Lord first
spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, "Go, take for yourself a wife
of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom
by forsaking the Lord." Now it probably comes as no surprise to you that I
decided to preach on the gospel lesson that day. Problem solved - or so I
thought - until, that is, I looked at our lectionary readings for this Sunday
and, lo and behold, there Hosea was again! He wasn’t going away. And no matter
how many times I told myself this past week to let it go, to just preach on the
gospel, but that pesky prophet wouldn’t leave me be. It was like a burr in my
saddle. I just couldn’t get the readings, both last week’s and this week’s, out
of my head.
So finally I
surrendered to preaching on Hosea... and here we go. First some background.
It’s the 8th century BCE. Things are not looking good for Israel. It’s a time
of political unrest and intrigue. Most of the leaders who come to power during
this time are either assassinated or suffer a violent death. All the while
Israel's neighbors, Egypt and Assyria, threaten to further destabilize the tiny
country. God’s people are clearly in crisis, but instead of turning to God or
God’s prophets for help they look to foreign gods to save them.
It is into this
mess that the word of the Lord comes to Hosea instructing the prophet to go and
marry Gomer, a “wife of whoredom.” Why, you may wonder? So that Hosea’s
marriage can be a real life show and tell of what faithfulness to the
unfaithful looks like. Just as Hosea is faithful to the deplorably unfaithful
Gomer so is God faithful with faithless Israel. So for three chapters Hosea
calls out all of Gomer’s promiscuous ways. How this woman of ill repute
continually turns away from her faithful partner to voraciously search out her
next sexual encounter. It’s not a pretty picture no matter how you look at it.
But with 21st century eyes and sensibilities, I can’t help but see and recoil
at the way the woman, Gomer, is so easily cast as the villain. It’s
particularly disturbing since we know that many women, both then and now, who
are labeled as “whores” are often victims of abuse. Because they’ve never
experienced true, authentic, life-giving love they cycle through the
destructive patterns that sadly have become oh so familiar. Surely there is
more to Gomer’s story than we will ever know.
In today’s
reading the metaphor shifts from marriage to parenting, but the message of
God’s faithfulness stays the same. Speaking for God the prophet begins, “When
Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.” And then we
get a long list of all God’s loving acts, “I loved...I called...I taught...I
took them up...I healed...I led...I bent down...I fed. Now in today’s world
these are things that any good parent does for their child. But make no mistake
the original hearers of these words would have clearly identified these actions
as belonging to a mother. Verse after verse, line after line it’s the motherly
love of God that is communicated here. Yet despite this good nurturing Israel
still rebels, “The more I called them, the more they went from me; they kept
sacrificing to the Baals, and offering incense to idols.”
Now in ancient
Jewish culture a son rebelling against his parents was in no way the norm.
Parents didn’t find themselves in the role of grinning and bearing outrageous
behavior waiting for a certain stage of development to pass. No sir. They had
other ways of dealing with a disobedient child: stoning being one of them.
According to Jewish law a rebellious son was such an anathema that such a one
was to be stoned to death (Deuteronomy 21:18-21). So when God likens the people
Israel to God’s son, a rebellious son, that means that Israel deserves to be
destroyed.
But then comes
what sounds like a cry of agony, “How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I
hand you over, O Israel? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm
and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger.” God can’t, or rather, won’t do
it. There will be no destruction. Even though Israel has turned away God will
never turn away. Instead of lashing out in retribution - a very human response
- God’s compassion grows warm and tender. Why? Because, says the Lord, “I am
God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.”
This is not to
say that God went soft. That when the going got tough God turned to mush. Just
the opposite, there is great power and redemption in offering forgiveness and
mercy instead of vengeance and punishment. And in doing so, ironically, it is
God who becomes the rebel - breaking the Torah, God’s own law, for the sake of
the life of the child. It is the strength of compassion that moves God to
pursue justice by forgiving and not punishing. Indeed this is what it means to
be “God and no mortal.” And that’s not all. Not only does God is rebel against
the idea of punishment, but this holy, merciful God will not remain distant
from the beloved, instead coming near for “the Holy One in your midst.”
The Holy One is
in our midst - now and always - offering us true, authentic, life-giving love
no matter our state in life. Whether we are faithful or faithless, good or bad,
strong or weak God’s compassion grows warm and tender. I don’t think it’s any
mistake that when Hosea seeks to communicate God’s deepest devotion towards us
that the two metaphors he uses, marriage and parenting, are the most primal and
visceral relationships we humans can have. We are loved completely, perfectly,
passionately by God. It would do us well not to turn away and rebel. And yet so
often we do for various reasons - fear, hurt, ignorance, brokenness, to name a
few - looking for other gods, other loves, other things to save us. Thankfully,
though, God is God and no mortal and will always remain faithful. Even more
than I felt dogged by the prophet Hosea this week the love of God will never
let us be. God will pursue us to the ends of the earth, if need be, and never,
never let us go.
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