Scripture: Hosea 1:1-8; 2:1-5; 2:13-23
Sermon: The Passion of God
Topics: marriage, passion, covenant, love,
Preached: March 14, 2010
Rev. Mike Abma
Hosea 1:1-8; 2:1-5; 2:16-23
The word of the Lord that came to Hosea son of Beeri, in the days of Kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah of Judah, and in the days of King Jeroboam son of Joash of Israel.
2 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.’ 3So he went and took Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.
4 And the Lord said to him, ‘Name him Jezreel;* for in a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. 5On that day I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.’
6 She conceived again and bore a daughter. Then the Lord said to him, ‘Name her Lo-ruhamah,* for I will no longer have pity on the house of Israel or forgive them. 7But I will have pity on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the Lord their God; I will not save them by bow, or by sword, or by war, or by horses, or by horsemen.’
8 When she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she conceived and bore a son. 9Then the Lord said, ‘Name him Lo-ammi,* for you are not my people and I am not your God.’*
Hosea 2:1-5
2Plead with your mother, plead—
for she is not my wife,
and I am not her husband—
that she put away her whoring from her face,
and her adultery from between her breasts,
3or I will strip her naked
and expose her as in the day she was born,
and make her like a wilderness,
and turn her into a parched land,
and kill her with thirst.
4Upon her children also I will have no pity,
because they are children of whoredom.
5For their mother has played the whore;
she who conceived them has acted shamefully.
For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers;
they give me my bread and my water,
my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’ ….
Hosea 2: 13-23
613I will punish her for the festival days of the Baals,
when she offered incense to them
and decked herself with her ring and jewellery,
and went after her lovers,
and forgot me, says the Lord.
14Therefore, I will now persuade her,
and bring her into the wilderness,
and speak tenderly to her.
15From there I will give her her vineyards,
and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
There she shall respond as in the days of her youth,
as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.
16On that day, says the Lord, you will call me, ‘My husband’, and no longer will you call me, ‘My Baal’.* 17For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be mentioned by name no more. 18I will make for you* a covenant on that day with the wild animals, the birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ground; and I will abolish* the bow, the sword, and war from the land; and I will make you lie down in safety. 19And I will take you for my wife for ever; I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy. 20I will take you for my wife in faithfulness; and you shall know the Lord.
21On that day I will answer, says the Lord,
I will answer the heavens
and they shall answer the earth;
22and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil,
and they shall answer Jezreel;*
23 and I will sow (jezreel) him* for myself in the land.
And I will have pity (ruhamah) on Lo-ruhamah,*
and I will say to Lo-ammi,* ‘You are my people’ (Ammi);
and he shall say, ‘You are my God.’ (Eloh’a)
This is the Word of the Lord
Thanks be to God
INTRODUCTION Hosea-Gomer / God-Israel
There are two somewhat confusing things going on at the beginning of Hosea.
There is the personal story of Hosea’s life with his wife Gomer.
And there is Hosea’s prophetic message to Israel about their relationship with God.
The thing is, the lines between these two are blurry.
We aren’t always sure where Hosea and Gomer’ story ends
and where God and Israel’s story begins.
The one seems to smear into the other.
And this is intentional.
There are no clear boundaries between Hosea’s personal life
and his life as a prophet to Israel.
Hosea is asked to live out with Gomer
what God has been living out with Israel for centuries.
So what is Hosea’s story?
Hosea is told by God to go out and find a prostitute to marry.
Hosea dutifully does that.
He visits a local brothel.
He sees a woman with sparkling eyes and a beautiful smile,
and he says to her,
“This is no life for you.
You are better than this.
Marry me.”
And so Hosea marries Gomer, the prostitute.
Before you know it, they have 3 kids – a pretty nice number of kids to have.
They have a boy, a girl, and another boy.
But something isn’t right.
The names of these kids are weird:
the name “Jezreel” is the site of a bloody massacre in Israelite history;
the name Lo-Ruhumah means Not Pitied;
and the name Lo-Ammi means Not Mine, or Not My People.
We already know that the relationship between Hosea and Gomer isn’t exactly a match made in heaven – at least, not from our stand-point.
With these oddly named kids, we get the distinct impression that they may not be Hosea’s biological children.
Who would call their own flesh and blood “Not Mine.”
This is a troubled marriage.
Hosea could take Gomer out of the brothel,
but it was harder to take the brothel out of Gomer.
Gomer wasn’t sure she liked marriage.
She kept thinking her old life wasn’t so bad — more fun at least.
She found herself thinking about what life would be like
if that fling with that art major in college had worked out;
or what life would be like if she had stuck with that boring
but steady engineering major.
Her mind wandered.
And when the milkman came,
or the UPS guy had a delivery,
or she had an errand to run at the brawny blacksmith’s shop
she couldn’t help but flirt a little – she was just having fun.
Well, the days, the weeks, the months and the years of marriage came and went.
More often than not, when Hosea returned home from work
the house was empty,
Gomer was gone,
and she wouldn’t get home til late,
smelling of stale beer and cigarettes.
Then one day Hosea came home and found a note on the kitchen table:
“Dear Hosea,
I’ve tried to make it work but I’m suffocating in this marriage.
I realize I need to follow my dreams, not some sense of duty.
I need to follow my heart, not what other people expect of me.
Don’t call me.
Don’t come after me.
PS The kids will be better off without me.”
Hosea’s heart had been pummeled enough over the years.
He had always waited until she came home.
He had always let her back into the house, even when he didn’t feel like it.
But now, now he was broken.
He falls to his knees,
pounds the ground with his fists
and he yells, and screams, and shouts:
“She is not my wife anymore
And I am not her husband.
This is the last straw!
I should…..make her a wilderness.
I should kill her with thirst!”
This is the language of chapter 2.
It is an emotional outburst….but who exactly is speaking?
Is it Hosea speaking about Gomer?
Or is it God speaking about Israel?
The thing is, it is purposely blurry.
It is both.
The one mirrors the other.
Chapter 2 begins with an emotional torrent of anger and hurt.
But notice what the emotions are by the end of chapter 2.
By the end of the second chapter,
the burning biting bitter anger
has quieted, has softened, has cooled.
The anger has turned to compassion.
The voice says,
“I can’t give her up
I can’t just let her go.
No, I’ll speak tenderly to her,
I will win her back,
I’ll renew my covenant with her
and take her as my wife forever.
And her children
Jezreel – I will plant in the land;
On Lo-ruhumah (no-pity) I will have pity;
And on Lo-ammi (not-mine) I will say you are mine.
That is how chapter 2 ends.
And how does chapter 3 begin?
Chapter 3 begins with Hosea
trudging out of his house
with tears running down his cheeks
his head bowed low
and his feet dragging,
to look for his wife Gomer,
to win her back
to buy her back if necessary,
to do whatever it takes to bring her home.
EMBARRASSING STORY
For centuries, people have not been sure what to do with Hosea.
His story is so….embarrassing.
Medieval Jewish commentators have said that what is in Hosea is all a dream, a vision. This marriage to Gomer never really happened.
The Torah-giving God would never ask a prophet to marry a prostitute,
let alone take her back.[1]
Even during the Reformation, people were not sure what to do with Hosea.
Martin Luther, one of the earthier Reformers, wrote that we should not read this book thinking that Gomer was actually a prostitute.
No, she simply allowed her prophet husband to use herself, and her kids as an elaborate sermon illustration. It was just to get a message across, because, really, a prophet marrying a prostitute…..no way.[2]
Even now, in modern times, Hosea is an embarrassment to many, especially those sensitive to how gender roles are portrayed in the Bible.
O no, they say, here is another Bible story where the women look bad and the men look good.[3]
Everyone seems embarrassed by this story.
In a way, this is an embarrassing story, a scandalous story.
But of all the characters, isn’t God the most embarrassing,
the most scandalous?
There is not a hint of an aloof, distant deity in Hosea.
No, here is God
portrayed
as vulnerable,
as emotional,
as passionate.
Through so much of Hosea,
he is shouting and raging one minute,
and blubbering and bawling the next,
all the while
pacing the floor
wringing his hands
knowing he should simply let his people go,
but knowing he can’t.
He simply cannot do it.
His love
his covenantal love
will not let him do it.
ROMANCE and COVENANT
Tuesday’s Grand Rapids Press had a whole section devoted to the Bridal Shows in town this weekend: one smaller bridal show at St. Cecilia’s Music Hall; and the other bigger one at DeVos Place. It is all in the name of making your wedding day perfect. As one event organizer said, “The most beautiful day of your life deserves the most planning.” According to these organizers, the perfect wedding is a wedding in which everything matches:
the bridal party’s dresses,
The groom’s party’s tuxedos,
The invitations,
The chair covers,
The table linens and chargers (whatever they are),
The lamps shades,
And on, and on the list goes…..
Truthfully, most ministers look at shows like this
and we simply heave a great big sigh.
We wonder why so much attention is lavished on one day – the wedding day,
and so little attention is given to the marriage relationship,
to the day in and day out rhythms of life,
like who makes dinner,
who does the dishes,
who balances the check-book,
who does the taxes,
and who makes the bed in the morning – or do we even make the bed?
I love romance….really, I do.
But romance is easy.
It is self-sustaining.
Endorphins kick in and we live in this “love bubble.”
Then reality comes and pops that bubble.
We get cranky.
We start keeping score.
We realize we’re getting a lot less out of this than we’re putting in.
We wonder why the other person never looks at us in that love-struck way anymore.
Sometimes we hardly talk to each other anymore.
Sometimes we hardly see each other anymore,
And sometimes we’re not even sure where they are,
or when they’ll be home.
And when we’re both home, things are quiet…awkwardly quiet.
Romance isn’t going to get us through that.
But a covenant can –
a for-better-or-worse covenant can.
Remember those embarrassingly deep promises
to love each other forever no matter what.
Remember those almost foolhardy vows
to love each other
in plenty and in want,
in joy and in sorrow,
in sickness and in health
as long as we both shall live?
When things go badly,
terribly badly,
and one person walks out on another,
it is covenant love,
foolish, embarrassing, emotional covenant love
that rants and raves,
that wrings its hands,
that paces the floor,
that prays and pleads,
that begs and bargains.
Covenant love does all this,
in an effort to win back the one we promised to love,
no matter how much it hurts,
no matter how humbling it feels,
no matter how unfair it seems.
CONCLUSION
Hosea trudges out of his house
with tears running down his face,
with his head bowed low,
and his feet heavily dragging,
as he goes to find his beloved,
to win her back
to buy her back
to do whatever it takes.
He trudges knowing that
even if he finds her,
even if she comes home,
it is only a matter of time
before there will be another note on the kitchen table
and he will find himself alone again in an all-too-quiet house.
This Lenten season,
we remember
that Jesus trudged out of Jerusalem
with tears running down his cheeks,
with his head bowed low,
and with his feet heavily dragging,
as he carried the weight of rejection on his back.
Jesus trudged out of that city
bent and broken
in order to win his beloved back,
to call her back.
He trudged on ready to do whatever it took
to show he still loved her.
He trudged on ready to pay whatever price to get her back,
even if that price was his blood;
even if the cost was his life.
We want to look away.
We’re embarrassed.
Is this really …is this really what love looks like?
Amen
-
For example, Maimonides. ↑
-
See Mary Jane Haemigh, “Martin Luther on Hosea” in Word & World, 28:2 (Spring, 2008). ↑
-
See Teresa Hornsby, “Israel Has Become a Worthless Thing” in Journal of the Study of the Old Testament, 82 (1999), in which she portrays Gomer as a prosperous independent business-woman who is doggedly pursued by an obsessive and dangerous prophet. ↑
0 Comments