learning from a hooker (Hosea - OMEGA)

Hosea (learning from a hooker)


“For my ways are not your ways, nor my thoughts your thoughts,” says the Lord. This verse comes from the book of Isaiah, and I think we’d all agree. God’s ways are not our ways. God is different.


Now, we may not understand God, but we sure do try. If someone asks us what God is like we usually say something like God is ___ (love). Great, but let me ask you this – what’s love? If God is love, then God has to love us – right? But what happens if we reject God’s love? Does God still love us?


Rejection sucks. I know this guy – his name is, uh, Ron Newman – and Ron has an amazing capacity to forget people that reject him. Ron, if he’s motivated enough, can completely write off another human being. He can convince himself that a person he cares for doesn’t even exist. I know Ron pretty well. He fights this tendency. But isn’t that sad?


I’ve got other friends, and they deal with rejection differently. A lot of them pout and start feeling all insecure and whiney. A lot of them are chameleons – always changing, even if they have to compromise their deepest values, wearing a mask they think that others won’t reject. And a lot of my friends get violent. They just slander and gossip and badmouth the person they feel rejected by.


Loving someone that loves us – that’s easy. But what happens when we love someone and they reject us? We forget them. We pout. We compromise. We get violent. In the face of rejection, these are our ways. Thankfully, God’s ways are different, and that is what the Book of Hosea is all about – God’s reckless love for the very people that reject Him.


I’ve chosen three verses that sum up the problem that Hosea responds to. Let’s look at the problem, then we’ll move on to God’s solution.


“I will punish her for the festival days of the Baals, when she offered incense to them and went after other lovers and forgot me, says the Lord.” – Hosea 2:13


“You calf is rejected, O Samaria. An artisan made it. It is not God. The calf of Samaria shall be broken to pieces.” – Hosea 8: 5-6


“Though the Lord loves the people of Israel, they turn to other gods and love raisin cakes.” Hosea 3:1


That last verse is hands down my favorite. Who knew? God apparently hates raisin cakes. But, does anyone know why? Back in the day, people made raisin cakes to honor the fertility gods of the Canaanites. Idolatry – the worship and love of other gods – that is the problem that Hosea is dealing with. God loves Israel. Israel loves raisin cakes. God loves Israel. Israel loves Baal. God loves Israel. Israel loves a golden calf.


Speaking of, what do you remember about golden calves in the Bible? Moses walks up Mount Sinai to receive the Law, he stays on the mountaintop a little bit too long, and the people get anxious. And so what do the Israelites do? They complain so much that Aaron has to make a golden calf to shut the people up. And so when Moses gets back from his trip up the mountain, he is shocked to see that the people, who have just been freed from Egyptian slavery by the way, are having an orgy and worshipping the calf that Aaron made them. Exodus 32 – you can read it for yourself. I’m not clever enough to make this stuff up.


Well, Moses is pissed and so he responds by taking the tablets of stone – the Ten Commandments – and smashing them. The Israelites, meanwhile, are all scrambling to get their clothes back on. Moses, still pretty upset, proceeds to take their calf, grind it to a powder, and then, he makes the people drink the ground up calf as a punishment for their sin. Now, there’s something significant about this punishment. Part of Israelite Law said that if a person committed adultery they had to drink ground up stone and rocks as a punishment. And so by taking the calf, grinding it to a powder, and then making the people drink it, Moses is basically saying –“you people are adulterers. You are cheating on God.”


God loves Israel. Israel loves a calf. Spiritual adultery. Idolatry. Cheating on God. Call it whatever you want, but that’s the problem. And so here’s my question – what does God do?


Well, God calls a prophet by the name of Hosea and says, “Hosea, I want you to get married and I’ve got just the girl in mind. Her name is Gomer.” Now, Hosea’s a bachelor, and so he’s excited about the prospect, but then God throws in a pretty disturbing detail. “There’s something you need to know about this girl, Hosea. She’s going to cheat on you. She’s going to leave you. She’s going to break your heart. But I want you to marry her anyway. And, I want you to have children with her. And when they’re born, I’m going to name them for you.”


Now, I’ve mentioned this before, but God told the prophets to do really strange symbolic things. Symbols were God’s way of getting through to the people. Ezekiel, for example, cooked a meal at God’s command over his own poop to show the people how unclean they were. Jeremiah preached while holding a dirty pair of underwear – a symbol of how disgusting Israel’s behavior was. Isaiah preached naked for three years, though I’m still not sure what that was a symbol of. But my point is this – all of these are dramatic, symbolic acts that God used to get through to His people. And so here’s the question. How does God get through to people that are breaking His heart by committing spiritual adultery over and over and over again? Well, apparently, God tracks down Hosea and forces him to marry a prostitute.


And as the story goes, Hosea and Gomer get hitched and at first, things are wonderful. Hosea falls hard for this girl and it’s not long before they have a son. And God tells Hosea to name him Jezreel, which means “cast away.” Now remember, God loves symbols. This name is God’s way of warning Israel. “If you don’t stop worshiping Baal and the golden calf and eating those damn raisin cakes, you too will be cast away.”


Next, they have a daughter named Loruhamah, which means “not pitied.” Granted, this isn’t the prettiest name for a girl, but once again, it’s a symbol. “Not pitied” is God’s way of warning the people that they’re on the verge of going too far. “Keep walking this path,” God says, “and the time will come when I will no longer pity you.”


And finally, a third boy is born – a young tyke name Loammi. Loammi means “no longer my people.” This symbol’s pretty self-explanatory.


“My ways are not your ways says the Lord.” When we love someone that rejects us, we forget them. We pout. We compromise. We get violent. In the face of rejection, these are our ways. The question we’re asking tonight is, what happens when we reject God’s love? Does God still love us? Because at first, it sounds like God would respond just like we would. And frankly, who could blame Him? We reject God. God casts us away. We reject God. God ceases to pity us. We reject God. God says, “You are no longer my people.” And so this leaves us wondering. Are Gods ways really different than our ways? Does God still love us if we reject that love?


Using some creative reinterpretation, here’s what happens in Hosea chapter 2. Gomer leaves Hosea, just like God predicts. She bounces from man to man, and each guy she clings to treats her worst than the one before. Lover #1 gives her clothes from Neimans and feeds her lobster – he treats her like a queen. But Gomer leaves him for Lover #2, who sends her to K-Mart and feeds her McDonalds. Lover #3 directs her to Goodwill and tells her to get her own food. Eventually, we get to lover #17 – an unshaven ex-con named Bruce that wears beer stained wife beaters and hangs out at the local saloon.


Now Bruce – he could not care less about Gomer, who by this point is starving and dressed in rags. Hosea hears about it and, moved with pity, goes down to the local tavern and to find Bruce. “Are you the man living with Gomer?” he asks. “As a matter of fact I am, what do you care?” “I’m her husband,” he says. Well, I imagine a tense silence followed that Hosea eventually broke. “Look, I know you’re having a hard time providing for Gomer. Here – take this money and buy her some food and some new clothes. I’d give it to her myself but she won’t talk to me. I just love her so much and it kills me to see her go hungry.


Well, we don’t know how long this went on, but by the time we get to chapter 3, things go from bad to worst. Gomer is sold as a slave. Now, if at this point we hear that Hosea tries to forget about Gomer, we wouldn’t be that upset. And if Hosea were my friend, that’s exactly what I’d tell him to do. You would too. “Cut your losses and move on.” Right? That’s the rational thing to do. Or if Hosea began to pout or if he started badmouthing Gomer – we’d all understand. But here’s the miracle – that’s not what happens.


At the beginning of chapter 3, God and Hosea have another conversation, and once again, I’m taking a little creative license, but here’s the gist of what they say. Hosea is heartbroken and comes to God weeping. Tears streaming down his face, Hosea asks God a question – “God, what am I supposed to do about my wife?” God then responds with a question of his own. “Hosea, do you still love this woman, even after everything that she’s put you through?” Hosea thinks for a moment and then starts nodding through his tears. “I do.” And so this is what God says. “Hosea, I know exactly how you feel. After all they’ve put me through, I still love my people Israel. And so here’s what I want you to do – do for Gomer what I do for Israel. Love her. Get her back. Love Gomer the same way that I love Israel. Do whatever it takes to get her back. Do not cast her away. Do not cease to pity her. Do not pretend that she’s not your wife. I want you to go and to get her back.


And that’s exactly what Hosea does. He liquidates everything he owns and he buys her back out of slavery. At enormous cost to himself, Hosea buys his wife back.


Well, as the story goes, Hosea’s love changed Gomer’s life. When Gomer thought about what Hosea did for her and how undeserving she was, it was more love than one person could take. Loved changed Gomer’s life. From that moment on, Gomer became an honest and faithful wife. There was just something about being “bought back” that made her fall in love with her husband again. There was something about being “bought back” that gave her a fresh start.


I love this story so much. You know why? Because it’s true. You and I are Gomer. I’m not trying to make us feel bad, but in the Biblical narrative, that’s just who we are. You see the Bible describes God as a jealous husband. But do you know what that means? We’re the wayward wives that shack up with Bruce.


When Jesus told the story of the Prodigal Son – you know that story about the son that leaves his Father’s house and squanders his inheritance – I’d be willing to bet everything I own that Jesus had Gomer in the back of his mind. And when Jesus talks about the Father – the One whose love is so reckless that he kills the fatted calf when his son finally comes home – I know that Jesus was thinking about Hosea, and about the heart his Father that Hosea revealed.


Now, I seriously doubt that we have a problem with raisin cakes, but I know that we all have idols and that we leave God to chase after them, just like Gomer and the Prodigal Son did. But after all the wandering and running leaves us broken and thirsty and we think that all hope is lost, God finds us, tugs on our sleeve, and whispers “come back home. I AM love. My nature is love and I must act in a manner consistent with who I AM. I’ve bought you back. I’ve slaughter the fatted calf. Just come back home.”


And isn’t this the story of the New Testament? The New Testament talks about how, through Jesus’ death, we have redemption. But do you know what that word means? The word redeem is best translated, “to buy back.” The whole idea of redemption is that when God became human in the person of Jesus, God entered a slave market. The Gospel begins with God entering a world where humans are prostituting themselves and living a cheapened life. Just for a moment, think about what that must have been like for Jesus.


Because no one ever loved people more than Jesus did. I imagine the night before he died, when he was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus was heartbroken and came to God weeping. Tears streaming down his face, Jesus asks God a question – “Abba, what am I supposed to do about these people?” And in response, God asks him a question. “Do you love them?” Jesus doesn’t even have to think and he starts nodding right away through his tears. “I do.” “Then get them back. Do not cast them away. Do not cease to pity them. Do not pretend that they’re not your family. My Son, if you love them, I want you to get them back.”


And that’s exactly what Jesus does. He empties himself, takes the form of a slave, and he buys us back. At enormous cost to himself, Jesus was nailed to a tree and he bought back the people of God.


Remember, there was just something about being “bought back” that made Gomer fall in love with her husband again. She knew she had a fresh start. Hosea’s love changed Gomer’s life. The question I leave us with is this. Has Jesus’ love changed ours?