Hos 1:1-2, 11:1-11

5 August 2007

“What Does Love Cost?”

            What does love cost?  That’s a question that the prophet Hosea would likely want to ask.  The book that bears his name is largely the result of a marriage that brings him great pain.  He weds a woman of loose morals.

            Sometimes when we read about these people in the Bible, it’s difficult for us to get a sense for how they feel.  We forget that the writers of the narratives, the poems, the letters, and all the other literary styles are not empty vessels.  They’re real life, flesh-and-blood human beings.  We forget that they often write from deeply personal experiences.

            Last week, during the Sanctuary of Hope service, I briefly said I wanted to play the role of devil’s advocate.  Regarding Hosea’s marriage, I wondered what if there’s a “Samson and Delilah” dynamic going on?  What if Hosea sees Gomer and thinks, “Hey, she’s kind of hot!”  Understand, I’m not saying that Hosea is making up the story, but that would be the perfect excuse:  “God told me to marry her!”

            Of course, there’s another angle to this whole thing.  When she winds up leaving him for another man (or for other men, plural), Hosea would certainly feel a variety of emotions:  hurt, anger, embarrassment.  In that case, again, he might want to say, “The only reason I married that…woman…is because I was under orders from God.  So I don’t want to hear anything about it!”

            Having said that, it’s entirely possible that it’s only in retrospect—in looking back—at his wife’s infidelity that Hosea concludes that God led him to marry her.  Actually, I think that happens more often than we realize.

Of course, that still doesn’t take away the pain!  And the prophet, in his bitterness, uses a strong term:  “whoredom.”  It appears many times in his writing.  It comes from the Hebrew word hn;z; (zanah):  “to commit fornication,” “to commit adultery,” or to use a term that now seems almost quaint—“to be a harlot.”

            We need not think of Gomer as a “prostitute” in the way we use the word today.  She may simply be a loose woman.  Another possibility is a fertility ritual that’s become common during this time.  Once a girl reaches adolescence, someone, often a priest, deflowers her in the hope of an abundant harvest of crops.  It’s basically an act of magic.  So Gomer may be just like any other Israelite girl who participates in the ritual.  The fact that all of this is done in the name of Yahweh, the Lord, only angers Hosea even more.

            So, whatever the case with his wife, the prophet sums up his attitude toward Israel with these words in chapter 4:  “a spirit of whoredom has led them astray, and they have played the whore, forsaking their God” (v. 12).  (I told you, he likes that word!)

            So what is it that’s got Hosea all fired up?  That is, besides the fact that his wife has repeatedly been unfaithful?  And, that is, besides the fact that so many of his countrymen (and women) are engaging in fertility rituals?

            Last month, I spoke on the disease called “affluenza.”  My sermon text came from the prophet Amos.  Those who were here might remember my use of seven verbs in chapter 6 which describe Israel’s affluent society:  “They lie (on beds of ivory)…they lounge…they eat meat (as opposed to the poor, who can’t afford it)…they sing…they improvise…they drink wine (not from goblets, but by the bowl full)…they anoint themselves (with expensive perfume).”

            Well, Hosea and Amos are contemporaries.  They’re active in Israel at the same time, though it’s not certain that they’re aware of each other.  Both Hosea and Amos criticize corruption in the religious, as well as in the social and political arenas.  If you recall, this is during the reign of Jeroboam II.  During his time, Israel enjoys both military and economic power.

            Amos tends to focus on the social and political crime, while Hosea tends to emphasize religious infidelity to God.  Clearly, these areas overlap—but do you see where I’m going with this?  With Israel’s unfaithfulness to Yahweh, we come full circle back to Hosea and Gomer.  So now, maybe we have a better idea about what’s got him all fired up!

            It shouldn’t be a surprise that the prophet conflates his feelings for Gomer with his feelings for Israel.  He feels betrayed by both of them, and he sees how Israel has betrayed God.

            In chapter 11, a shift has been made.  You’ll notice that the image is no longer God and the unfaithful spouse.  Now, it’s God and the wayward child.  The image of betrayal is no longer at the horizontal level, so to speak.  Now it’s at the vertical level.  We move from spouses to parent and child.

            I say “parent” because God acts in both fatherly and motherly ways toward Israel.  Here’s God as father in verse 1:  “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.”  (Though I suppose a mother could do that, as well.)  Verse 4 says, “I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks.  I bent down to them and fed them.”  So there’s the image of the baby nursing from the mother.

            But as the child Israel grows up, “The more I called them, the more they went from me; they kept sacrificing to the Baals, and offering incense to idols” (v. 2).  Israel is a problem child!  Verse 7:  “My people are bent on turning away from me.”  They are determined to go the wrong way.  They will learn, but they’ll learn the hard way.

It’s been noted that “we glimpse the pain of a parent’s heart, torn by the thoughtless straying of a wayward child, yet loving nonetheless.”[1]

            This brings me to something that was in our call to worship.  “God will not punish us, even when we feel we deserve it.”  Here’s my question.  Does God punish us?  This may or may not be controversial, but my belief is:  no, God doesn’t punish us.  We punish ourselves.  The sins we commit—the mistakes we make—they punish us, but not God.  We ourselves set in motion the forces of our own destruction.  And sometimes, no one’s to blame; stuff just happens.

            However, there might be this response:  why then, does the Bible include examples of God punishing people?  Why is there mention of the wrath of the Almighty being visited on the heads of evildoers?

            I want to remind us of something I said earlier.  The authors of the Biblical books are not mindless automatons.  They’re living, breathing human beings who live within various cultural contexts—just like us.  In many ways, they reflect their own understandings and experiences of God and the world.

            One of the topics we’ve looked at in our Sunday school series, “What Do Presbyterians Believe?” is the question of inspiration of scripture.  Our understanding is that “[w]e believe God’s Holy Spirit inspired biblical writers.”[2]  The Spirit inspired the writers.  That’s not the same thing as saying that the text itself presents the very words of God.  That would be an Islamic view of inspiration, which says that Muhammad was an empty channel, through whom God spoke the words of the Qur’an.

            My point is—and maybe this little sidebar was unnecessary—images of punishment in the Bible do reflect the experience of the writer.  We should realize that God’s Word is supremely revealed in Jesus Christ, the living Word of God.  Jesus is the lens through which we look at everything—be it the Bible, the world, each other.

            I don’t think anyone can explain the mechanism by which the divine and human words come together.  Hosea certainly struggles with it.  At one point, he’s pronouncing God’s judgment on a nation of “ho”s.  Then he contradicts himself with the message, “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” (v. 8).

            I’ve heard criticism of those who say that God does not hurl the proverbial lightning bolt.  I’ve heard threatening sermons preached about such people.  “They’re making God out to be a wimp!”

            Well, that’s one possible conclusion.  Still, in order to arrive at it, we would probably have to ignore the question I asked at the beginning:  what does love cost?  Love requires strength and giving of self.  God is love.  God is not a wimp.

            To reject love—to reject God’s love—is punishment in and of itself, though we may not realize it at the time.  We may be blinded by our idols.  We may be so busy prostituting ourselves that we can’t see clearly.  I think that’s the way the prophet Hosea would put it!

            Something of Hosea’s complaint hits home with all of us.  I, too, am an unfaithful spouse (not literally—I’m speaking symbolically!); I, too, am a wayward child.  I believe all of us could make the same statements.

            If ever there was a time to think that God is itching to lower the boom (and I do repeat “if”), that time passed two thousand years ago.  In himself, Jesus demonstrates the cost of love.  That’s something more elegant and powerful than whacking his enemies on the head with a stick.

For us unfaithful, wayward ones—for those of us, wandering around blind—Hosea gives this word of hope:  “They shall go after the Lord, who roars like a lion; when he roars, his children shall come trembling from the west.  They shall come trembling like birds from Egypt, and like doves from the land of Assyria; and I will return them to their homes, says the Lord” (vv. 10-11).

back to home page