Hosea: Love and Anguish

Ordinary Time XVIII; August 5, 2007

Hosea 11:1-11

Those of you who are moms and dads can comprehend this text better than I can. I have not known the anguish of seeing a son slam the door while he goes out, screaming, “I don’t have to listen to you any more!” or feel the heartbreak when a daughter defiantly says, “I didn’t ask to be born.” A person can sympathize with those moms who say, “I brought you into this world and I can take you out of it!” Even more to the point is the awful helplessness of seeing your adult children make horrible choices, contrary to everything you have taught them, and they will not listen to your advice.

When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.

The more I called them, the more they went from me;

they kept sacrificing to the Baals, and offering incense to idols.

Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms;

but they did not know that I healed them.

I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love.

I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks.

I bent down to them and fed them. (verses 1-4)

What do you think of when I say, “God”? We have been taught to think of an impassive spirit: unchanged, unmoved, almighty, of perfect intellect and emotionless. And that’s a good corrective to a tendency to see God as the infinite version of Grandpa Jones with his scratchy whiskers or Great Aunt Ermintrude with her fragrant, spicy apple pies. We can imagine a God who impassively judges his people’s wrongdoing and sends them to exile in Assyria (v.  5) with no qualms; he turns his back on them. “My people are bent on turning away from me. To the Most High they call, but he does not raise them up at all.” (v. 7)

Hosea’s perception of God was shaped by his own experience. Well, you and I have perceptions of God shaped by our experiences too, but they are not like Hosea’s and we are not prophets. Hosea was married to a woman named Gomer (yes, I know, those of us raised on television think that Gomer is a man’s name, belonging to a particular dim-witted Marine with a gorgeous singing voice; in the Bible, Gomer is a woman’s name) and Gomer had been a prostitute. She tried to reform for Hosea’s sake, but it didn’t last. She bore him children, among them a daughter that Hosea named Lo-ruhamah (“They get no pity from me!”) and a son he named Lo-ammi (“They are not my people”). You can see he was a prophet.

As I say, it didn’t last, and Gomer ran off to return to her former line of work. Then God gave Hosea two commands which made a tremendous impact on the prophet’s comprehension of who God is. First, God told him to change the children’s names: call your daughter Ruhamah (“They are pitied”) and your son Ammi (“They are my people”). Second, go get Gomer and take her home again; forgive everything she has done.

If you have loved – as a husband or wife, as a lover or intimate friend, as a parent – you have probably known anguish. Perhaps you have even known anguish like that of the prophet Hosea. “The more I called them, the more they went from me.” But unless you’re God, you don’t know the half of it.

If God did not love us, God would not care what we do. “Forget them, the universe will get along fine without them.” You don’t have to acknowledge that I created you; you don’t have to keep my sacred occasions; you don’t have to pay attention to what I teach you about how to treat each other; I just don’t care. I brought you out of slavery in Egypt; I led you through the Red Sea; I gave you my covenant; I taught you to sing and dance; I came among you as one of you; I lived, ate, drank and walked with you; I went to a cross at your behest; I gave you the new life of resurrection; I gathered you into sacred communities to share the Word, water, wine and bread. Yet you are more concerned with your work, your toys and your projects than with my commandments. You pick out those portions of my Holy Book that justify your narrow ideas and you use them to oppress others because of where they are from, or their economic status, or their race or sex or sexuality. You turn away from me and give my glory to those things that are not God at all and neglect my clear word to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God. To hell with you.

How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel?
How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim?

My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender.

I will not execute my fierce anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim;

for I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst,

            and I will not come in wrath. (verses 8-9)

This is to me clear evidence that the Church is the Body of Christ: with all the stupid things we have done over the centuries, with all our misplaced priorities, with all our justifications to do what we want rather than the clear Word of God, God has not given up on us but still calls us Ammi, “my people.” That is because we are loved, brothers and sisters. With all the anguish it costs, God loves, “for I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.”

Holy God, we praise your name: your love is holy, awesome and boundless. Thank you. Amen.

Robert A. Keefer

Westminster Presbyterian Church

Clarinda, Iowa